Aliens on Vacation

by Clete Barrett Smith

  “Scrub! You startled me!”

  “Sorry,” I whispered, and took a few steps into the clearing. “How’s it going? Have the Scouts come over to freak you out or anything like that?” I tried to see beyond the clearing, but the fire had ruined my night vision. Everything was pitch-black.

  “Nah, they’re under strict orders from Dad to leave me alone. I won’t see them until breakfast.”

  I nodded. And stood there. Then nodded and stood there some more. I guess I should have made more of a plan about what I would do when I actually made it over here. Thankfully, Amy broke the silence.

  “So how’s your solo camping night going?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah…it’s good. Fine.” Amy continued to look at me. Finally the fog cleared and I came up with the brilliant idea to give her a compliment. “You’re a really good guitar player.”

  Amy’s cheeks turned a bit more red in the glow of the campfire, and she looked at her guitar. “Not really. But it’s fun.” She strummed a few times. “Do you play?”

  “Me? No way. I’m not musical at all.” Which is true. In fifth-grade band I was so bad at playing the bass drum that I messed up everyone’s timing and Mr. Perry made me his teacher’s assistant instead.

  “Come here, I’ll show you.” I started to protest, but Amy patted the log, inviting me to sit down beside her, and I realized maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  I sat on the fallen tree, a patch of moss providing a cushion, and Amy set the guitar on my lap. It seemed way bigger up close like this. “Here, I’ll teach you how to play a ‘G.’ It’s my favorite chord.” She wrapped her warm fingers around my left wrist and positioned it high on the neck of the guitar. Then she gently stretched my fingers apart and placed them all on different strings. “Okay, now press down.”

  “This feels really weird.”

  She nodded. “Doesn’t it? The first time you learn how to finger a chord it seems impossible. But after a while it becomes second nature.”

  “Am I doing it right?”

  “The sound test will decide.” She slipped a pick between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. “Give it a strum.”

  I let the pick fall across all six strings. There was a buzzing noise, but that was drowned out by a harsh twang that made me wince.

  Amy laughed, and I instantly felt my face flashing hot. But when I looked from the guitar to her face, Amy’s eyes were full of her smile, and it was easy to tell she wasn’t laughing at me in a mean way.

  “So, ‘G’ is your favorite chord, huh?” I said. “I don’t know why. It sounds pretty hideous to me.” She laughed again, louder, and this time it felt great.

  “I think I messed up the fingering. It’s backwards with me facing the guitar,” she said. “Here, I think this will help.” She stood and moved behind me, then leaned over my shoulder and rearranged my fingers. “The buzzing sound is because your fingers need to be between the frets—these little lines here—not on top of them,” she said. Her hair brushed against my neck, and I wondered if she could actually hear my heartbeat. “And the hideous part is because these two fingers are out of position. So you’re way out of tune.” She leaned over farther to correct the problem. She was sort of pressed against my back, and now I wondered if she could feel my racing heartbeat. “Try it again.”

  I strummed. It was perfect, a deep note with a light finish.

  Amy sat on the log and applauded. “A very nice ‘G.’ Especially for a beginner.”

  I strummed a few more times, bobbing my head with my eyes closed like I really knew what I was doing, a blues musician lost in a musical trance. More laughter and applause from Amy.

  “Thanks,” I said. Then I put the guitar on the ground, and it was just us. No aliens, no sheriff, no Grandma. Just us and the log and the campfire.

  We did some talking then, but I have to be honest, I don’t remember one word. Because all I could think about was how if there was ever an opportunity for me to kiss a girl, this was it.

  It’s weird to talk to someone that you might try to kiss. Really weird. Because all I could do was stare at her lips. It was very hard to comprehend the words coming out of her mouth, because all I could think about was what it would feel like for that mouth to be sort of smooshed up against mine.

  And after a while I got even more flustered, because I thought that maybe, just maybe, she was looking at my lips, too…and then it seemed like my lips didn’t work right anymore. It’s hard to explain, but when I thought she might be looking at my lips, I started to worry about what they looked like, which I had never done before, and then they felt kind of numb.

  Even though I hadn’t followed our conversation too closely, I realized that it had definitely stopped. And then our faces were moving closer to each other, even though it didn’t feel like I was consciously moving my head at all.

  I had a moment to realize that I had no idea how to kiss someone, and then another moment to realize that I didn’t care too much, and then I remembered that you’re supposed to close your eyes.

  And then we were kissing. Her lips were soft and warm, and they tasted a little bit like huckleberries.

  I half opened my eyes in mid-kiss. Not sure why. Everything felt so perfect, maybe I wanted to make sure it was real.

  You always hear that people see fireworks during a great first kiss, big explosions of color and light and all of that. But for me it was a soft, greenish glow, dancing just on the outside of my field of vision. I closed my eyes again and kissed a little more.

  My eyes flew wide open. Greenish glow?

  There! A Jungle Boy, running through the dark forest!

  And behind him, two more, disappearing behind a wall of trees.

  My heart redlined. I didn’t want to leave Amy, but I had to go. No time to stay and explain. How would I explain, anyway?

  I must have stopped kissing, because Amy pulled back, eyes open. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look kind of…scared.”

  My body wanted to race into the forest, but I forced myself back into the moment. I didn’t want to screw this up now. “I’m fine,” I said. “Really. That was amazing.”

  She blushed, and lowered her eyes. “Yeah.”

  “And now I have to go.”

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Yes. And I’m sorry. But I’ll talk to you again soon, okay?”

  She looked like she was about to say something, but instead she just nodded. I reached out, found her hand, and squeezed. She squeezed back.

  And then I was off, crashing through the ferns and into the black forest. Panic quickly crowded all other emotions out of my adrenaline-soaked brain.

  I ran through the woods with both hands in front of my face to ward off the branches that threatened to clothesline me or poke an eye out. I tripped and fell into a patch of stinging nettles that set my arms on fire. Thorny bushes ripped at my clothes, and I was bleeding from at least a few different places.

  What a frustrating chase. Again and again I closed in on a bobbing green glow, only to have it disappear behind a tree or around a bend in the river. The aliens were really moving fast, but at least they seemed to be sticking pretty close to the water. If they turned and went up into the foothills and mountains and hundreds of miles of uninterrupted forest, there’s no telling what might happen to them. Or to me.

  But when I fought my way through a thicket of undergrowth and saw the three aliens standing on top of a rocky ridge, I realized things could get much worse than being hopelessly lost in the untamed wilderness. Because at the bottom of the ridge was a circle of Scouts sitting around a campfire. And there was troop leader Tate, standing by a group of pup tents. And all of them were staring up at the glowing visitors from outer space.

  For a stomach-churning moment the aliens and the humans just stood there, staring at each other.

  So eerily still were the Jungle Boys that it was hard to tell which group was more surprised to find the other out here in the middle of the
forest. The aliens stood and stared, their glowing blotches pulsating now in the rhythm of a blinking traffic light. It was impossible to make out their bodies or faces against the black backdrop of night; they just looked like eerie splotches of glowing color. And since the ridge was probably fifteen feet high, it looked like the colors were floating in midair.

  The young Scouts stared back, each mouth forming a surprised circle, their marshmallows dropping from the end of forgotten skewers right into the middle of the fire.

  I was as still as everyone else. It probably only lasted four or five seconds at most, but it was like watching my worst nightmare come true on a giant movie screen, and I could only stare, unable to do anything about it.

  Then the aliens switched off their glow and disappeared from sight. The Scouts found their voices.

  “Did you see that?”

  “What was it?”

  “There was more than one.”

  “I bet it was Eddie and the older kids playing a joke.”

  “Yeah, with flashlights or something. Had to be.”

  “No way! We’re right here!”

  “Then what was—”

  “Silence!” Tate roared. “All of you! Still and quiet. Now!”

  A hush fell over the campsite, the Scouts straining their eyes and ears into the night. Tate took a couple of slow, backward steps toward one of the tents, his eyes still fixed in the direction of the ridge.

  I crept closer to the campsite, trying not to step on a twig or rustle any bushes. I was only worried about noise, as the Scouts wouldn’t be able to see past the light cast by the campfire. I knew from being over at Amy’s that it was like looking into a house at night—the person on the outside could see into the house perfectly, but whoever was inside the house couldn’t see past the window.

  At the bottom of the ridge I craned my head to look up and could just make out the outlines of the aliens’ dark bodies, and I waved my hands over my head to get their attention.

  They didn’t see me. One of them bent over and picked something off the rock. He straightened up, then hurled it toward the group of Scouts. He used the exact motion that I had taught him while skipping rocks at the river earlier that day.

  Thunk! A pinecone bounced off the head of one of the Scouts. I squinted and could just make out that it was Eddie, staring vacantly up at the ridge. The aliens pointed their tendrils at him, chittering away in high-pitched laughter.

  That stirred up the action at the campsite, like poking a stick into a quiet wasps’ nest, and the whole place burst into activity. The circle of Scouts broke, some of them sprinting for the safety of the tents, others running aimlessly around the campsite, yelling, and the rest picking up pinecones to fire back up at the ridge.

  The Jungle Boys found this a great game. They leaped down from the top of the ridge and ran circles around the campsite, periodically switching on their body lights to create a vague greenish-yellow blur around the perimeter. Then they took to the surrounding trees, scrambling up trunks and sliding along branches, dodging the Scouts’ wildly inaccurate pinecone tosses and laughing the whole time.

  Sheriff Tate barked out a series of orders that no one followed, or even seemed to hear. “Stay near the fire! Stop running around and get into one big group! Beware of those lights, they might be dangerous!” He punctuated each unheeded order by pointing to various places around the campsite and clapping his hands to try and get someone’s—anyone’s—attention.

  I got dizzy watching the blur of activity before me. There was so much to see, and it all happened so fast that I didn’t even know how I was feeling yet. I was totally numb; not just my body, but my brain, too.

  Then I saw two things that broke the paralysis. The first was a pudgy boy with a blond crew cut sitting by the fire. He clutched a cell phone in both hands, snapping pictures of the scene before him, the little flash lighting up the night. The second thing was Sheriff Tate, ducking into one of the tents and coming out holding that hunting rifle.

  Only one thing would be worse than alien photos making it back to civilization: dead-alien photos doing the same thing. Time to act.

  I ran around the perimeter of the campsite, careful to stay out of the ring of light projected by the campfire. I tried to head off one of the aliens, who was racing around from the other direction on all fours. I reached out for him, but he spun away from my outstretched arms and dashed right by me, chittering away the whole time.

  I turned and ran back the way I had come. The shouts from the camp were getting closer. I had to do something fast. Another alien came barreling toward me. When he got close, I went into point-guard mode, faking a step left and then moving quickly to the right. The alien fell for it. We smashed together and rolled into a clump of fern bushes.

  He tried to wriggle away, but I caught him in a bear hug and didn’t let go, even though the collision had knocked the wind out of me. The alien tried to break free of my grip, his tubular torso slithering between my arms. I finally managed to climb up on all fours and pin him down with my knees, desperately trying to suck in some air.

  “What are you doing?” I croaked.

  “Playing with the earthlings. They are a lot more fun than the forest beasts.”

  “You have to stop! We’re going to get in big trouble!”

  “Trouble?” The alien stopped trying to snake his way out from under me. His body went still and his eyes grew round with fright, just like an earthling’s. “You won’t tell our parents, will you?”

  “Not if you help me get out of here. Now!” I looked over at the campsite. It was still chaos, but I could see some of the Scouts inching their way over to us. I knew they couldn’t see us, but I’m sure they could track the thrashing sound from the bushes.

  “What do you want me to do?” the alien whispered.

  “Get your brothers over here. Quick!” I rolled off the alien, and he sprang to his feet. He leaned forward and made a screeching sound by rubbing his antennae together rapidly. His brothers stopped circling the campsite and ran straight to us.

  “Turn off your lights! All of you!” I whispered. The aliens instantly went dark. The Scouts stood staring, blinking, into the dark forest.

  Then I heard Sheriff Tate shout, “Get on the ground, boys. Now!” The Scouts flopped onto the forest floor.

  Tate hefted the rifle up to his shoulder and pointed it into the blackness. I swung my arm around the aliens’ shoulders and pulled them to their knees into a tight huddle.

  Blam! The air split near my cheek as a bullet whistled by. A patch of bark on the tree behind us exploded.

  I grabbed as many arms as I could and pulled the aliens into the dark forest. “Run!” I yelled, although I didn’t need to. The Jungle Boys had gotten the idea.

  We blundered through the underbrush, branches clawing at my face and body. The gun exploded two more times.

  The four of us stumbled onto the riverside trail. I wondered if we had enough time to find a hiding place or maybe climb a tree. But the aliens didn’t slow down; instead of following the trail they headed straight, across the stones and over the river, flapping their tendrils on top of the white water and out of sight.

  I hesitated for a second and then followed, charging into the river. The cold took my breath away. The water was only mid-thigh deep, but as soon as I tried to wade across, my foot hit a slimy rock and I fell face-first, my entire body plunging below the surface. The current caught me and spun me around, and I did two sideways somersaults as the water dragged me downriver, before I regained my footing. I stood up, choking and retching, and blindly took a few steps. I had gotten twisted around and was now wading back toward the original bank.

  And there was Sheriff Tate, running along the edge of the river, coming right for me. I stopped, the current pulling at my freezing legs, and stared back. He pointed right at me. “You!” he yelled, the moonlight catching his face and making him look ghoulish.

  I turned and waded away, but my feet slid across the slick s
tones underneath the water, and the current sucked me in again. It was a struggle just to stay upright, let alone make it to the other shore. I squinted through the darkness and could just make out the other side. It seemed an impossible distance.

  I heard Tate splash into the river behind me. “You!” he yelled again, and he sounded much closer.

  I fell to my knees and tried to crawl away, but the water splashed up into my face, blinding me. The current pulled me underneath yet again. My knee banged into a submerged boulder, and the pain exploded all up and down my leg. I tried to grab the huge rock to steady myself, but it was slimy, too, and I slid right off.

  I stopped fighting and surrendered myself to the will of the river. It dragged and tossed me like a fallen leaf. I didn’t even care about getting to the other side anymore; I just needed to get my head above water for a breath of air.

  Suddenly I was jerked out of the water. I thought it was the sheriff, but then I realized there were too many hands.

  The Jungle Boys hoisted me in the air and ran along the surface of the river to the other side. Then everything went black.

  I woke up in my bed at Grandma’s place, still wearing muddy jeans and a ripped-up flannel shirt. Daylight filled the room. How late was it?

  I rolled out of bed, wincing at the soreness in my knee and dozens of cuts and bruises all over. Ignoring the pain, I trudged toward the door. I had to find out how bad things were.

  It didn’t take long. Just outside my door a crowd of customers rushed about, getting in each other’s way and spilling clothes from half-open suitcases. Grandma was in the middle of it all, directing traffic. Her face was emotionless, all business.

  “The transporter in that room has stopped working. It’s seen some heavy use this morning,” she said to a group of furry Tourists. She ushered them into the room next to mine. “This one should work for you, but there’s a bit of a line. You’ll have to wait a few moments.” She untangled three aliens who had run straight into each other and now sat in the middle of the hall in a heap.