Invasion

by Jon S. Lewis

  “What about the rash on your neck?”

  “There was a patch of seaweed.”

  “Seaweed?”

  “I was kind of groggy after I hit my head, but yeah. I think so anyway.” A pack of his nieces and nephews chased each other down the hallway outside his room. “Look, I don’t really feel like going back out there right now. How would you feel about killing some zombies?”

  “Wait, did you get Zombie Extermination Squad?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought it just came out last night.”

  “Since I couldn’t sleep, I sort of went to the store and picked up a copy.”

  “At midnight?”

  “The line wasn’t very long.” Colt turned on the television that hung over his desk. Then he handed Danielle a video game controller.

  “Have you played it yet?”

  “Only four or five hours.”

  “And you went to breakfast with your grandpa? Did you even sleep?”

  “Sleep is overrated. Besides, if I don’t save the world from the zombie infestation, who will?”

  : : CHAPTER 1 0 : :

  Danielle was a quick study, and before long they were both able to log into the online world where they joined the tens of thousands of other zombie exterminators. The two of them lost track of time as they hunted zombies through the streets of a city ravaged by nuclear war.

  Three hours later Danielle’s mom came looking for her. “We have to head out now,” Mrs. Salazar said.

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute,” Danielle said. She logged her character out of the game before turning to Colt. “Were you serious about going to the beach tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  “Want to try and teach me to surf again?”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  “I’m stubborn like that,” Danielle said. Then she stood on her tiptoes to kiss Colt on the cheek before hugging him tightly. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

  Colt changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt before wandering back to the reception. Nearly everyone had left by the time he found the dessert, but there were still a few stragglers. He scooped a bit of cherry cobbler onto a paper plate and popped it into the microwave. A couple of his sisters-in-law were wandering through the house with trash bags, picking up after their guests, while his nieces and nephews were gathered around the television watching Finding Nemo.

  Colt decided to eat his cobbler on the patio next to the pool. It was a warm August day, but there was a breeze that rushed through the palm fronds and hibiscus. The pool was littered with rafts and beach balls from all the kids, and wet towels hung from most of the lawn chairs. Colt found a quiet corner next to the fire pit. He picked at the cobbler’s crust, skipped the cherries, and watched a hummingbird flutter from flower to flower before flying off.

  “You read the police report, right?” Colt heard someone say. He craned his neck to see his brother Clive standing with Grandpa McAlister and a man Colt didn’t recognize. “The guy who hit them had red eyes. He wasn’t drunk, he was an operative.”

  “We can’t prove it,” the stranger said. He was an older man, though not as old as Grandpa, wearing a dark suit with an American flag pinned to the lapel. His white hair was neatly trimmed, his cuff links shiny, and from the look of his tan, he probably spent a lot of time on the golf course. “Besides, why would Trident go after your father now? He’s been retired for ten years.”

  Colt perked up at the mention of Trident. That didn’t make any sense. His parents were accidentally killed by a drunk driver, not murdered by a bunch of old guys in expensive suits. Sure, there were fringe rumors that Trident wanted to take over the world, but even if they were true, why bother with his parents? It’s not like Roger and Mary McAlister were corporate spies or anything.

  “The agency still gave him a lot of business,” Clive said before turning to his grandfather. “Tell me I’m not the only one who sees it. They were murdered.”

  There it was, plain as could be. Clive actually thinks they were murdered. Colt’s chest constricted and his palms began to sweat.

  “You might be right,” Grandpa said. Though he was eighty-five years old, Murdoch McAlister still looked like an Olympic athlete. His chest filled out his shirt, his waist was trim, and he hardly had a wrinkle. If Colt didn’t know better, he would have sworn that his grandfather had found the fountain of youth.

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Clive said. His jaw was clenched and his eyes intense as he stood with tightened fists.

  Grandpa McAlister shrugged. “Don’t look at me.”

  Clive turned to the man in the suit. “With all due respect, Senator Bishop, I can’t ignore the facts.”

  “I was at the hospital the day your father was born,” the senator said. He placed his hand on Clive’s shoulder. “When he was old enough, he worked at my ranch in Prescott during the summers. In fact, he stayed in our home. What I’m trying to say is that you have my full support, but we have to go through the proper channels. The agency isn’t in vogue right now. The president continues to press for budget cuts, and programs like ours are first on the chopping block.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Clive said. “Something is happening. Trident must have found another gateway.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Senator Bishop said, “but we have to be careful how we approach this. Do you know how much money Trident executives gave to the president’s campaign? The fundraiser dinner that their CEO held raised over a million dollars alone.”

  “They’re smart,” Grandpa McAlister said. “We stopped them on the battlefield, so they turned to politics and industry.”

  “But their biotech division is in your backyard,” Clive said to the senator.

  “What do you want us to do, raid their offices?” the senator asked. “It’s not the Wild West anymore.”

  Colt had finished with his cobbler. He stood up, but his chair scraped the pavement. The senator turned to look at him. So did his grandfather and his brother.

  “I didn’t see you there,” Grandpa McAlister said. His smile looked forced.

  “Hey, Grandpa.”

  “Have you met Senator Bishop?”

  “No, sir.” Colt set his plate back down before walking over to shake the senator’s hand.

  “You have your mother’s eyes,” the senator said. “How old are you, son?”

  “Sixteen.”

  The senator frowned and turned to McAlister. “Did he take part in the training program?”

  McAlister shook his head. “Not yet; he just had a birthday. He should be there in a couple of years, though.”

  “This is the one, right?”

  “That’s what they say. Now, is there any more of that cobbler left?”

  : : CHAPTER 11 : :

  It had been two weeks since Colt moved from San Diego to live with his grandfather in Arizona, but he hadn’t unpacked much of anything. Settling in would make this new life feel permanent.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate what his grandfather had done. After all, at his age, it was no small sacrifice to invite a teenager to live under his roof. Grandpa McAlister had always been a private man, and after a career of service in the United States Army, he had an eye for particulars. Everything in his house had a place, and he didn’t appreciate it when things weren’t put back where they belonged.

  Grandma Dottie had lost her battle with cancer nearly a decade ago, and since then Grandpa spent most of his time puttering around his yard or working in the garage. When he wasn’t doing that, he liked to play cards with his war buddies from the VFW.

  It was early in the morning and Colt was about to hit the snooze button for a third time, but at the last minute he decided to snatch the alarm clock from his nightstand and throw it across the room. If it had been one of those cheap plastic models with a digital display, the clock would have exploded. Unfortunately it had a metal casing. Instead of shattering, it sank into the
drywall, where it left a large hole before it fell to the ground. The alarm was still clanging.

  Colt sat up, squinting as rays of sunlight squeezed through the slats in the blinds. After three restless hours of sleep, he wasn’t ready to face the day. His hair looked like tangled stalks of wheat after a windstorm, and he wasn’t sure any amount of mouthwash would get the stale taste out of his mouth.

  He kicked free from his sheets and then slid out of bed before navigating through the cardboard boxes that were stacked haphazardly around his room. When he finally reached the clock, he considered hitting it with the baseball bat that was leaning against the wall. Instead, he reached down to shut it off, then set the clock on the top of his dresser.

  His phone rang.

  “It’s too early,” Colt said after checking the caller ID.

  “Good morning to you too,” Danielle said.

  Colt didn’t respond.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Seriously?”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I still have to shower.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “I haven’t been in a joking mood lately.”

  “Hurry, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Colt’s Land Cruiser was still in San Diego, so Danielle offered to take him to school. He took a quick shower, but finding clean clothes wasn’t going to be easy. He surveyed the massive pile of clothes spread across his bedroom floor. Every shirt he picked up smelled like it had been sitting in a garbage Dumpster, but he finally settled on a pair of board shorts, a faded T-shirt, and a pair of leather flip-flops. He hoped a quick spray of cologne would be enough to cover the musty smell.

  His mom had always taken care of his laundry in the past, and though Colt wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, she had made his bed every morning as well. Colt just figured it was one of the benefits of being the baby in the family, and he didn’t mind milking it. It hadn’t taken long to realize that Grandpa McAlister wasn’t going to be coddling him the same way.

  Colt grabbed his backpack, along with an energy bar and a bottle of water, before heading out to the front porch. As he opened the door, he recoiled. It wasn’t even eight in the morning, but the September sun was insanely intense. Dry heat or not, Arizona was going to take some getting used to.

  It wasn’t long before he felt beads of sweat sliding down his backbone. After five minutes of hovering under the shade of an awning, he was about to head back inside. Finally Danielle pulled up to the curb in an old Ford Thunderbird with whitewall tires and fins on the back.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked through the open window.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You look like a beach bum. Did you even take a shower, or is the whole homeless thing popular in San Diego right now?”

  “Of course I took a shower. I even wore deodorant and brushed my teeth.”

  Danielle rolled her brown eyes. “That’s a relief. Get in. We’re running late.”

  “When’s it supposed to cool off?”

  “It doesn’t,” Danielle said as Colt sat down and strapped into his seat belt. “You might as well get used it.”

  “What about air-conditioning?” Colt asked as he reached over to try and crank it up.

  “Sorry, it’s not working.”

  “Great.”

  “You could always walk.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “So are you ready for this?”

  Colt shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Look, I know this has been a nightmare for you, but I’m going to be with you every step of the way. You know, kind of like a guardian angel.”

  Colt broke into what almost looked like a smile. “Thanks.”

  “I got you something,” Danielle said and reached beneath her seat to grab a small package.

  Colt hesitated, but then he opened the paper until he could see some kind of book bound in a suede cover. There was no title, and as he thumbed through it, he couldn’t find any words. “Wait a minute, is this a diary?”

  “It’s a journal,” Danielle said as she pulled up to a stop sign. “If you aren’t going to talk about what’s going on inside that head of yours with anybody, then you need to find another outlet. Either that or you’re going to end up in an institution.”

  “It’s just that . . . I don’t know. What I want is a distraction so I don’t have to think about it all the time. I don’t see how a diary is going to help. Besides, the only people who write in diaries are girls with secret crushes.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Danielle said. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She was the only person in Colt’s life who refused to treat him like a victim.

  “Like what?”

  “All wrapped up in stupid preconceptions. You’re better than that,” she said. “Besides, did you know that Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Winston Churchill kept journals?”

  “Thomas Jefferson had a wig, and Benjamin Franklin wore knickers,” Colt said. “That should tell you something.”

  “I’m sure they’d say the same thing about bleached blond hair and board shorts.”

  “I don’t bleach my hair.”

  “You’re impossible, do you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  Colt felt the beginnings of a smile curl at the edge of his lips. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but what if somebody finds it?”

  “So what?”

  Colt sighed. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Danielle said. “Why don’t you turn it into a music journal? That way you can write down all of the songs you write. You still play the guitar, right?”

  Colt ran his hand over the soft cover. Then he unzipped his backpack and slid the journal inside.

  “So does that mean you’re going to give it a try?” she asked.

  “Only if you don’t rub it in.”

  With a satisfied smile, Danielle eased into the intersection.

  “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.”

  : : CHAPTER 12 : :

  They listened to the radio as Danielle drove through streets lined with stucco homes painted various shades of white, beige, and brown. Each was covered in a red tile roof, and instead of grass, most of the lawns were filled with gravel and cacti.

  “Did you hear about this?” Danielle asked as she reached down to turn the volume up.

  “Just when you thought that the world couldn’t get any crazier . . .” the disc jockey said through the speakers. “And no, this isn’t another UFO sighting. Apparently a rancher in Argyle, Texas, claims that he’s caught Bigfoot.

  “According to Earl Thomas, he had set out traps to catch what he thought was a bear, but what he found the next morning was something right out of a horror movie. If you haven’t seen the video yet, you can find it on our website.”

  “Can you believe that?” Danielle asked, as the station went to commercial.

  “It’s probably some viral marketing campaign for a movie.”

  “I don’t know, there’s a lot of weird stuff going on lately. My dad is even freaking out. He started talking about buying a gun after those lights showed up over South Mountain again.”

  “I bet it’s just a weather balloon.”

  “Maybe,” Danielle said. “Do you remember that time I thought there were monsters living in my closet?”

  Colt nodded. “I think so. Wasn’t that over a spring break?”

  “We were ten years old, and you were visiting your grandparents. After I told you about it, you filled a wagon with scrap lumber and pulled it to my house so you could board up my closet door.”

  “Didn’t you get in trouble for that?”

  “I didn’t care,” she said. “That was the first good night’s sleep I had in weeks.”

  Colt smiled. “And that�
�s why you got me the journal. You think it’s going to help me sleep, is that it?”

  “I hope so.”

  Danielle pulled her car into the parking lot at Chandler High. The campus looked more like an Ivy League university than a high school in the middle of a desert. A perfectly manicured lawn led to a series of stone buildings that were lined with pillars.

  “The office is just up those steps,” she said, pointing to the main building. “Ms. Skoglund told me that she’d be waiting for you.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Trust me, you’ll know when you see her.”

  Colt felt vulnerable as he opened the car door. For some reason, he was reminded of his first day at kindergarten. His mother had walked him to his room, but before she left, she turned one last time to blow him a kiss.

  “Are you okay?” Danielle asked. She placed her hand gently on Colt’s forearm.

  He stirred, blinking as the daydream faded. “Yeah, sorry.” He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there.

  “I hope we have at least one class together,” she said as Colt slammed the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. “If not, I’ll see you at lunch.”

  Ms. Skoglund was a plump woman with stylish red glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her blonde hair was pulled back and twisted into something akin to peacock feathers, with bangs that were cropped and streaked with pink.

  As Colt walked up to the counter, she was typing something into the computer, so he cleared his throat to get her attention.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ms. Skoglund said, looking up. “You must be our transfer student from San Diego. I was so sorry to hear about what happened to your parents.”

  “Thanks,” Colt said.

  “It was such a tragedy.” She paused to stare at him for what Colt thought was an uncomfortably long moment. “Now I know the schools in San Diego haven’t started up yet,” she finally said. “But we’ve been in session for nearly a month, so you’re going to be a little behind. If you need anything, I want you to come and see me.”