A thick layer of smoke hung over Ditchburn as fires lit the night sky. From The Overhang, Greg saw everything in fine detail, from the bodies strewn about like burning chaff, to entire rows of houses reduced to kindling. He thought it would make him sadder than it did - to see his home crumble like a sand castle - but instead, he felt triumphant.
"I'm sorry, Brandon. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
It still wasn't enough.
He leaned against a tree and let his emotions take over. There were moments of extreme happiness and relief, followed by others of dismal pain and loss. The war would rage in his mind long after the fires went out.
But he thought maybe it was something he could live with. Maybe.
Chapter 13
Greg wasn't asleep, but his mind had shut down like an overheated computer. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, but the roar of the circling jets had hypnotized him. The air had grown chilly, signaling the approaching dawn. He looked at his watch but it had stopped shortly after four.
He stood and stretched as he looked over the mountain into the smoldering valley below. He expected military vehicles and soldiers, but the streets were still empty.
How long does it take for a military response? Shouldn't they be there by now?
It didn't bother him. The jets were all the proof he needed to signify the government was paying attention.
He jumped when he heard another explosion and saw the telltale fireball rise from a row of houses along Bridge Street. It looked different, somehow. Another explosion followed seconds later, but there was something else... something that appeared to reach into the clouds and pluck one of the circling jets from the sky.
"What the..."
The explosions happened in rapid-fire succession as each of the F-15s was yanked from the air and pulled to the ground. Greg watched helplessly as the drone of the fighter jets ended in balls of screaming light. The gigantic mass of quivering, alien slime had returned to the streets, grabbing planes out of the sky like a hungry bullfrog. Its massive arms, or tentacles, reached hundreds of feet into the air and did so with such speed that the pilots had no warning.
Now, the sky was empty, and P-21 reclaimed its patch of ground.
Greg whined and held his hand over his mouth, watching with tears in his eyes and a burning pain in his gut.
The giant blob began breaking apart, raining brown sludge over Ditchburn's remains. Each separate chunk of alien gel rose and grew plump, sprouting arms and legs, growing hair, forming faces out of swirling jelly. A minute later, the streets teemed with naked men, women, and children... a stadium crowd of replicas all intent on finding the last survivors.
"My God..." Greg said.
He looked around frantically for the quickest escape route, trying to remember the paths and trails that ran to Parkland, but his mind drew a blank.
A branch snapped on his left near the path leading back to Ditchburn. He squinted into the forest, remembering more than one occasion when a foraging deer scared him and Brandon half to death.
It wasn't a deer.
It was Brandon.
"Don't be frightened," he said. "It's just me."
"No... it can't be! I watched you fucking die!"
"Death isn't real, Greg. Death is only a transition. Join us," Brandon said with open arms. "What's the use of fighting when you have nothing left to fight for?"
"Get away from me," Greg cried. "Why... why are you doing this? You're not Brandon, goddamn you!"
"But I can be. We can all be who we were... just better."
Eve walked up next to Brandon and put her arm around his shoulders. Her smile looked authentic, charming. She and Brandon climbed another three feet up the path.
"Don't. Stop moving. I don't want to be like you. I'm not like you."
"You want your parents back, don't you?" Brandon asked.
"My parents are dead," Greg shouted.
"Not true," Eve said as Greg's mother and father stepped closer. The moonlight was bright enough to see that his parents had come for his intervention.
They looked like them... just like them.
"Come home," his mother said. "It can be like it was before."
"We can build that tree house in the back yard," his father added.
Greg sobbed and shook his head. "We don't have a tree in the back yard."
"We're still working out some of the kinks," Eve said with a grin.
"Do you know what it's like out there?" Brandon said, pointing into the sky. "Cold. Endless. Why should that be all there is? Why can't we have baseball games and grow horses in the yard?"
"Flowers in the yard," Eve corrected.
"Right! Flowers. Is it so much to ask to escape and live a better life? Isn't that what humans want? Happiness? A legacy?"
"You're not human!" Greg shrieked. "You're space junk! You have no real emotion, you don't know how we live!"
"We do now," Eve said. "We're going to be everything you once were."
Bile rose in Greg's throat and he swallowed hard as Brandon and Eve inched forward, followed closely by the beings parading as his parents. He stepped back. He wished they still looked like brainless mannequins. The uncanny resemblance between his real parents and their replacements was impossible to ignore.
"Stop... please," Greg pleaded.
His resolve was crumbling. His need to feel normal and have what he'd lost was impairing his ability to think clearly.
Would it be that bad? he thought. Would it be any different than before?
"Would it hurt?" he asked. It exited his mouth before he had a chance to realize what he was saying. Was he willing to give up his life that easily?
"Only for a minute, honey," his mother said. "I'd be right there with you."
"We'll all help you," Brandon added. "What's a few minutes of pain for a lifetime of guilt-free pleasure?"
"Be here with us," Eve said. "Right from the beginning of it all."
"Your friends, your family... those long dead and those still here. You can have it all back," Brandon said.
Greg looked out over the valley as fire spread from block to block. There was no one left. He knew that now. He was the last person left alive in Ditchburn, the last person born on Earth that walked its broken streets. He could have never imagined how lonely it felt to be the only one left of his kind... but here he stood on high, watching the last vestiges of his race burn and drift away.
"And nothing will change?" Greg said.
Shut up! What are you saying?
"It will be different at first," his mother said, "but once you make the transition, everything will fall into place."
"My thoughts... my memories..."
"...can all be rebuilt," Brandon said. "Everything from the ground up. An emotional facelift, a biological do-over."
"Will I still... be me?"
"New and improved," Eve said. "Stronger, faster, smarter. You'll know things that few races have known in millions of years. The secrets of the universe will be yours."
Lizzie Gennetti, wearing the same skirt and blue angora sweater Greg had last seen her in, stepped between Brandon and Eve with a perfect smile stretched across her lips.
"You can have whatever you want," she said, beaming.
"I just want everything to go back to normal," Greg said.
"It will," Lizzie cooed. "It'll be perfect. We'll be together just like before. We'll argue about the coolest superheroes, we'll read poetry, we'll walk on the beach in the grass... the sand... and we'll tell our kids about New Orleans and the Grand Canyon..."
"What?" Greg asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Love, Greg. Our love. All the things we've done together... drinking wine under the stars... playing our old records with the lights out... being together like we were always meat to be."
"No," Greg said. "No. This is all wrong... you're all wrong."
"Don't you love me anymore, Greg?" Lizzie asked.
"Love you? I never loved you! We
had one date... if that's what you want to call it. How could I possibly love you?"
"You'll learn, Greg. We'll start over. We'll build a new life together."
"No! You were a monster even before you were a monster. Back up, stay away from me."
"You're beginning to test my patience," Eve said. "We're giving you a choice. Soon, that will end and we'll take what we want anyway."
Greg realized they'd learned more about human behavior than he'd thought. Bullying, power, the need to be in control. All they'd done was replace one race of self-centered narcissists with another.
"Come here, Greg," Brandon said. "You have nowhere to run."
Another explosion rocked Ditchburn as the gas station on Gerard Avenue disintegrated. An orange ball of fire shot into the sky like a mushroom cloud and lit the surroundings like lights at a football game. The forest brightened, allowing Greg to see every tree and every rock in stark contrast.
He saw them.
Eve and Brandon, his parents, Lizzie... they were only the tip of the iceberg. The new residents of Ditchburn formed a long line, from where Greg had wrecked the car, to where Brandon stood only ten feet away. Hundreds of them, watching Greg with soulless eyes, their teeth shining in the light, fake smiles painted across their pale faces. It was a horror movie reveal... the second you find out who has been wielding the murder weapon. In this case, they were all killers.
Greg watched Eve and Brandon tense as their faces changed. The conversation was over.
"GET HIM!" Eve bellowed.
The line surged forward as Greg turned and ran screaming into the forest.
The last survivor of a dead town versus an entire alien race.
Greg brayed laughter as he tore his skin to shreds on reaching branches.
Laughter was all he had left.
***
Greg had stopped laughing, but he never stopped running.
His skin was slick with sweat and blood from dozens of superficial scratches. His ankles and knees ached from having them bent and twisted on the uneven ground. His left eye was swollen shut from a particularly nasty scrape he'd gotten from a low-hanging branch. The replica horde was still following, but he'd made some ground. In the darkness, he had no idea if he was running in the right direction, but he promised himself he wouldn't stop until he reached Parkland.
His throat was dry and sore from screaming and his lips had cracked open like old shoe leather. He'd gone way past pushing his body to the limit, but his mind was still sharp. If he allowed himself a single second to rest or second guess his actions, he was damned. Dozens of voices called out behind him, taunting him, shouting his name, offering promises of a better life and then taking them away with mocking laughter and threats of violent death.
Greg knew if P-21 had found its Earth-legs, there'd be no use running. Apparently becoming wasn't as easy as they made it sound.
He reached a part of the forest that was swampy and thick with mountain laurel. Every step through the quagmire, the thick mud threatened to yank his shoes from his feet. He pulled himself forward, slowly but steadily, using the overgrown brush for balance. More than anything, he wished he knew where he was. What if he'd gotten turned around and was running into the open arms of the enemy? He stopped for just a second to catch his breath, listening carefully. He wasn't alone, but the sounds of pursuit had gotten more distant. Voices called out for him, but they had gotten further away and less insistent.
They were losing him.
Every breath burned in his chest. He'd grown dizzy and had to hug the trunk of a pine tree to stay on his feet. Several low, thudding explosions echoed over the mountain as Ditchburn continued to die. The sky lit up like an approaching lightning storm. Greg ducked behind the tree and peeked into the forest, sure he'd see his followers doing the same, but there was nothing. Either they'd given up or began searching in a different direction. For an intelligent alien race, they couldn't track worth a damn.
It gave Greg the brief respite he needed.
After several minutes of standing in place, his legs began to stiffen. He stretched them out, trying to keep the blood flowing. If he got a cramp now, he'd be a sitting duck, a rabbit caught in a snare.
A stiff wind kicked up, making the forest groan and whistle around him. The smell of smoke found him even here, miles from town... miles from the life he'd had only twelve hours earlier.
"You have to keep moving, Greg," he said to himself. "You can't stay here."
He was groggy and exhausted. It felt like waking up early on a Saturday morning when all he wanted to do was pull up the covers and get a few more hours of sleep.
It is early Saturday morning, he thought. What should have been the beginning of an amazing weekend had turned into a nightmare where everyone dies. Everyone but him.
When he got moving again, it took some time to work the kinks out of his legs. He was pretty sure he'd twisted his right ankle, and his knee was swollen and tight. His left eye had gotten worse, making his depth perception questionable at best. He walked more carefully so as not to further injure his beaten legs.
The light from the moon had grown dimmer and finally disappeared as storm clouds thickened overhead. Just when Greg thought he was beginning to dry, or at least getting used to the feel of his wet clothes against his skin, it began raining again. Even the thick canopy couldn't keep most of it from pelting the forest floor.
"Greg? Is that you?"
He held his breath and tried to figure out where the voice had come from. Brandon's voice.
"I know you're there," he said. "You and I used to walk all over these woods. You can't hide from me here."
A quick flash of lightning lit the area, and Greg saw Brandon standing thirty feet away, worse for wear, covered in mud.
"It's only you and me, friend," Brandon said. "We can talk now like we always did."
Another flash of lightning. Brandon had moved closer.
"Remember when we were younger and Rachel Standish came out here with us? I dared you to kiss her and you turned so red, I thought you were having a heart attack."
It's not him, Greg thought. Brandon is dead.
"Or how about the time we stole a few of my Dad's beers and got our first buzz at The Overhang? Man, we have so many great memories together. Why would you just throw that away?"
When the lightning flickered through the trees, Greg saw that Brandon had moved in a different direction. He didn't know where Greg was, and that gave Greg the impetus he needed to slowly creep away. He was confident the rain would disguise the sound of his movement.
"We hid Playboys out here somewhere," Brandon said, laughing.
It was Brandon's laugh. Brandon's voice. Brandon's memories.
But it wasn't Brandon.
Greg stayed low to the ground and tried to remain hidden behind low brush. His back ached. Rain ran into his pants.
"Come on, Greg. Give up the cat-and-mouse game. Where do you think you're going to run to?"
Greg felt solid earth beneath his feet and looked up to see the trees open above him. A wide path stretched ahead, cut cleanly through the thick woods.
The railroad bed, he thought. He'd forgotten about it until now. The tracks had been removed long ago, but the railroad ties still formed a noticeable trail leading to the old Parkland tunnel. It cut right through the mountain and led directly to an abandoned stretch of ground where the Parkland train station used to stand. From there, it was only a block to the town's main street. If he'd remembered it sooner, he could have been in Parkland hours ago and Brandon would have still been alive.
"You really don't give up, do you?" Brandon said. "I always liked that about you, but now it's just getting on my nerves."
Once Greg was clear of the forest and had a well-defined path to follow, he quickened his pace. The rain had made the wooden ties slick, and several times he almost fell before clumsily recovering. Brandon was still talking somewhere behind him, but Greg could no longer hear what he was saying, and for t
hat, he was grateful.
His mind was so set on putting distance between them, he didn't notice that the rain had become distant. His footfalls echoed around him and over his head. It had grown pitch black and noticeably colder.
He was in the Parkland tunnel.
Even in broad daylight, it was hard to see your hand in front of your face. Now, it was like going blind. A half-mile ahead, he saw a single streetlight on the other side - a literal light at the end of the tunnel. He stifled a laugh and tried controlling his excitement, but the idea that his never-ending night was nearly over made him giddy.
That all stopped when he heard Brandon's booming voice at the tunnel's entrance.
"You sneaky son of a bitch," Brandon shouted.
Greg turned and saw Brandon's silhouette standing just outside the mouth of the tunnel. He wasn't following. Several others joined him, forming a barrier from one side of the tunnel to the other. Soon, others crept from the woods, forming a blockade seven rows deep. A train hadn't come through the Parkland tunnel since the 1970s, but Greg would have given his right arm for one right now - a heavy iron steam engine to plow through them and scatter them to the four winds. Return them to the faceless, mindless globs of shit they'd been when they arrived.
"It's not over, Greg," Eve shouted. Her voice echoed through the tunnel, growing more sinister with each loop. "Ditchburn is just the beginning."
Why aren't they following me?
"Soon, we'll be everywhere. Every town, every city, every street corner. You can't stop progress."
Greg wanted to say something witty, something amazing that ended a movie right before the credits began to roll, but not a single thing came to mind. He wasn't a fictional character. Not a hero. He wasn't walking into the sunset with a girl under one arm and a gun in his holster. He was a normal kid who'd survived something unimaginable. The lightning continued to strobe outside the tunnel entrance, showing the group disperse one by one until only Brandon and Eve remained. They stood and watched him, hand in hand, the Alpha and Omega.
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