by Geoff North
Two creatures came for Hank last. Their arms slithered around his waist and he felt his feet leave the ground. He yelled at the thing in its craft. “You knew we would come here! You knew all along. This wasn’t about a bunch of goddamn kids—it was about us, my agency.”
The goddamn kids… their mission will continue. We saw an opportunity to draw your entire organization here. There is an expression your species uses—killing two birds with one stone.
“You can’t do this!” Hank was screaming now. “I have a wife!”
It was if someone turned off a light switch and snapped it back on. Becky was sitting on the ground next to Abe and Sheila. The alien stood before them. The soccer ball was gone, and its little cube craft hovered behind, free of the earth and poplar tree branches. The ship in the sky was gone, and the clouds had cleared way for the stars.
The mission has failed. Your species populates the planet. Our kind will leave this place and try again. Perhaps history can be altered at another point in time. The three of you are free to go.
“Then send us back,” Becky begged. “Let us be with our son.”
The thing started for its craft. Abe yelled. “I won’t let you get away this! You gave us these powers and we crossed half a world to find you. We’ll find you again… I swear.”
“You won’t have to.” Allan staggered out from the trees, clutching his side. He was covered in blood from the waist down. He pulled a revolver out from his back pocket—the same gun his father had killed himself with—and jammed it into the black slit of the creature’s face. “Any last words?”
Don’t.
Allan tapped the crumpled tinfoil around his head with one finger. “You’ll have to do better than that.” He pulled the trigger and the thing’s brains splattered all over its little cube in a shower of yellow chunks. Some of it sprayed across Allan’s legs and feet. His pants and shoes started to smolder. It worked beneath and began to melt skin and bone.
Sheila tried crawling forward but Allan waved her back. He collapsed on top of the alien’s corpse. “Stay back… this shit will kill you.” His legs were already gone. The yellow stuff continued to crawl, burning into his buttocks and leaving a trail of white ash. “It’s okay, Sheila… can’t feel a thing no more.”
“Allan.” She had spent years growing to despise him. A lifetime of wasted torment. And in those final few seconds, she realized she still loved him. There wasn’t time left to say the words. Abe dragged her back as Allan’s body was consumed. It enveloped the alien and its craft. A minute later there was nothing left but a patch of white earth and a half-scorched poplar tree. The air stunk like cat piss and black pepper.
***
They watched as Abe, Becky, and Sheila left the woods, supporting themselves out into the field, back towards the old farmhouse. The alien had entered their minds one final time and planted the entire, grisly scene.
You would have killed us if we hadn’t entered your mind first.
“Yes, I would’ve,” Allan answered.
You expected that thin wrap of metal around your head to keep us out?
Allan nodded. “I was wrong. I’ve always been wrong, about everything.”
No matter. Your friends believe we are dead. Our species can continue work without interference. We would have preferred terminating them.
“Give me this at least, okay?”
Yes, we will let them live. Now are you prepared to travel back and finish what they began?
Allan looked down at his fully transformed body. His skin glistened grey and the muscles corded up in his arm when he made a fist. He was stronger than Abe and Becky combined. And he could still make anyone do whatever he wanted. All he had to do was say the words.
“Yeah, I’m ready. Send me back.”
Chapter 29
Illee sat on the cliff and watched her husband play with Adam by the ocean. Dar wasn’t actually her husband. There was no one to perform the marriage service or bestow titles upon them, but she thought of him as such all the same. It would have made her father happy, she liked to think.
Becky and Abe never returned from the dead forest. Within days the weather had taken a drastic turn. Becky once said she thought the alien might have had a hand in that. It may have stalled the Ice Age from advancing into the prehistoric plains to further its terrible agenda. It didn’t much matter. Adam’s parents had vanished. There had been no trace of the thing and its craft. Illee and Adam headed south. The Ice Age followed, blanketing the greater part of the northern hemisphere under sheets of ice. Time had corrected itself.
They found Dar in what would one day be called South Dakota. He was the last of a tribe that had left the mile-wide circle of stones up north years before. As they continued south, Illee taught him the basics of her language, and Dar taught Illee his. He shared his history of a people that worshipped the strange grey being and built monuments in its name. Dar couldn’t explain where his people had come from. Illee didn’t think he would have been able to grasp the idea the creature they worshipped may have been responsible for that as well, so she never shared the information.
Dar was gentle, and he was good with Adam. He had red hair like Illee, and his beard tickled her chin when they kissed. Illee came to love Dar but never really fell in love with him. They were together, and they shared a mutual interest protecting Adam.
It had taken three years to reach the Yucatan Peninsula, and another four months wandering south from its tip along the white sand beaches and cliffs overlooking the ocean.
This would be their home.
Tulum. Someday, somewhere in the far future, a civilization will prosper here and call this place Tulum. They will build a city out of stone and they will worship different Gods. And they will be ancient history before my parents are even born… if my parents are born.
Illee spotted Maria running along the sand, her little feet leaving a trail for the gentle waves to wash clean. Dar scooped the four-year old up and spun her around until she squealed. He’s a good husband, Illee thought, and an even better father.
Around and round they twirled. Adam splashed the two with water and Maria squealed louder.
Illee had no idea what would happen in the future—whether the history she knew could be rewritten or not. She only cared about now, and the wellbeing of her family.
The human race was in good hands.
The End
Thank you for reading Last Contact. Your honest review would be greatly appreciated!
Books by Geoff North
Live Again (Out of Time Book 1)
Ambition (The Long Haul Book 1)
Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2)
Twisted Tales
www.geoffnorth.com