Whitmore leaned against the doorway and rubbed his eyes. He thought about it for a few moments. “I don’t think so,” he finally announced. “You don’t punch the biggest kid in school till you’re damn sure he’s the class bully.”
Nimziki was about to press his argument further, but a sharp look from Grey shut him down. The president has spoken, the look said, and that ends the discussion.
“What about our attempts to communicate with them?” Whitmore asked.
Grey filled him in. “Attempts on all frequencies have led nowhere. Atlantic Command is trying to rig up a kind of visual communication we can put right in their backyard. They’ll have to answer us.”
“Let’s just hope we like what they have to say.”
*
No one noticed what a gorgeous night it was, a million evening stars washed by a comfortably warm breeze. The nervous souls in the trailer park were completely absorbed with questions of safety and survival. That afternoon, neighbor after neighbor, people who had lived there for years, had packed up their belongings and driven away, many without any specific destination. At the same time, new arrivals, mostly dilapidated RVs on the verge of engine failure, were pulling up to the gates, where the manager had erected a flimsy road block. An obese woman in a floral muumuu collected what she considered a fair price before allowing the refugees, their pitiful faces cowering behind the windows, to roll past and claim one of the narrow dirt lots. Field workers stood around their battered Fords listening to Spanish-language radio stations, deciding which way they should run. Anxious women peered through their screen doors every few minutes for signs of danger before locking themselves inside once more. Everybody was on edge, keyed up like high-stakes gamblers hanging around a casino waiting for the rules of a strange new game to be announced.
Barefoot and cross-legged, Miguel surveyed the whole scene from above. He’d climbed onto the roof of his family’s trailer bringing their small television with him, hoping to get some decent reception. After several experiments with wire coat hangers and wads of tin foil, he achieved the best picture quality he was going to get. He leaned back on his hands and watched the news, the warm wind playing through his shoulder-length hair.
There had been no word from Russell since their confrontation alongside the tomato field that morning. Typical, he thought, whenever there’s any kind of a crisis, he evaporates. Like he’d done a thousand times that day, Miguel glanced in the direction of Los Angeles. The dark hump of the mysterious ship was visible above the foothills separating the city from the desert. The rising sliver of moon cast a shadowy gloss along the eastern edge of the craft. Just below the ship, miles of headlights snaked through the canyon as thousands of motorists continued to escape from the city. Watching the lights come toward him down the highway then change into glowing red tail lamps speeding away to the safety of Bakersfield, Fresno, Bishop, and points beyond, Miguel thought again about his plan. All afternoon, he’d been turning it over in his mind. He had to get Troy and Alicia out of the area, away from the danger of the ship. The only place he knew to run was a relative’s house in Arizona. The Casse family had burned all their other bridges over the last couple of years.
Flipping channels, he thought about how he would propose the idea to Russell, if and when he ever returned. Then he saw something on the screen that stunned him almost as much as his first glimpse of the spaceship. One of the local channels was running a story supposedly showing the lighter side of the invasion. With a smirking, ironic tone, the anchorman read from the TelePrompTer.
“…a local man who works as a crop duster was arrested today after he flew over parts of the San Fernando Valley in an antique airplane tossing thousands of leaflets over the side.” Miguel moaned out loud when he saw the videotape of his stepfather, feral and handcuffed, being escorted into the Lancaster police station.
“You people better do something,” Russell snarled at the news crews. “I was abducted by these aliens ten years ago, and nobody believed me. They did all kinds of tests on me—they’ve been studying us for years! We’ve got to do something. They’re here to kill us all!” One of the deputies dragged Russell away and pushed him through the front doors of the stationhouse.
Back in the news room, the anchorman’s eyebrows lifted. “A rather unique reaction. The man, a drifter identified as Russell Casse, is being held at Lancaster police station for further questioning. The handwritten, photocopied leaflets claimed—”
“Whatcha watching?” A voice from behind startled Miguel, who instantly switched the channel. It was Troy, climbing up the ladder to see what his brother was doing.
“Nothing.” Miguel’s voice was strangled with emotion. He cleared his throat and spoke again. “Hey, Troy, you remember Uncle Hector, from Tucson?”
“Of course. He’s got that SEGA Saturn CD, sixty-four bits. Remember?”
“Yeah. What would you think if we went there to stay with him for a while?”
The younger boy nodded his approval. “That’d be pretty cool.”
Miguel looked at the highway for a minute, thinking. Then he made a decision. “Start packing up. We’re going.” On the television, First Lady Marilyn Whitmore was making a speech, another plea to remain calm. Miguel unplugged the set and brought it carefully to the edge of the roof.
“We’re leaving now?” Troy asked from the ladder, confused.
“Right now.”
“What about Dad?”
Miguel jumped off the side of the trailer, landing softly on his feet in the dirt. He stepped up onto the tire to retrieve the television. Noticing his little brother hadn’t moved, he snapped angrily, “You heard me, Troy, get your stuff ready to go.” Then he stomped off into the darkness of the trailer park to find his half sister. He had a pretty good idea where he would find her.
“But we can’t leave without Dad,” the boy complained. Miguel didn’t look back.
*
He slipped his hand under her shirt. “This could be our last night on earth,” he whispered. “You don’t want to die a virgin, do you?” He tried to make it sound half joking and half serious, rolling the dice to see how far he could get. The question made Alicia nervous. She bought some time. Her mouth opened onto his for yet another long, hot, grinding, twisting kiss that pushed him backward against the driver’s door. On top of him now, she came up for air and stared down at him. The yellow glow of a porch light seeped through the windows of the truck.
“What makes you think I’m still a virgin?”
The question embarrassed and encouraged him at the same time, made him think that tonight, after weeks of making out, he would finally have her. Alicia was no mind reader, and she didn’t have to be one to know exactly what he was thinking. She could feel his excitement in the arch of his back, the way his fingers dug into her hips.
Living in a twenty-two-foot-long travel trailer with three other people was like spending an endless weekend in hell. Alicia, almost fifteen, wanted out. And the only way she could see that happening was for a man to take her away. The guy she was kissing wasn’t exactly a man, but he was as close as Alicia had come to finding one. Andy was eighteen, and around the trailer park, he felt like a pretty big wheel. He and his mom, the manager, shared the largest permanent trailer in the park. He had a steady job, a new Toyota truck with a killer sound system, and plans for getting his own apartment. Alicia liked him, but at the same time, she wasn’t ready for sex. She knew she’d allowed the conversation to go too far and found herself trying to figure a way out of the situation without looking like a big tease.
Andy was still thinking about the virginity question when the door he was leaning on suddenly opened. The young lovers nearly toppled out onto the ground. Alicia’s brother stood looking down at them.
“What the hell are you doing, Miguel?” Untangling herself from Andy, she sounded angry and embarrassed, but was secretly relieved.
“Come on, we’re going to Tucson.”
“Right!” She rolled her
eyes. “Like I would go anywhere with you.”
Without further discussion, Miguel reached past Andy and put a vise grip around Alicia’s wrist. He pulled her out of the truck, bringing Andy with her. She landed outside with a thump and a growling scream.
“Hey, dude, take it easy,” Andy demanded.
Miguel prepared to take him out with one skull-crushing punch. The savage look in his eyes paralyzed Andy, making him sit back down muttering, “Whatever, it’s cool.”
Alicia, fuming, shouted as she stomped across the dusty yard, “Miguel Casse, you are such an ass. You’re a psycho who needs help. I’m telling Dad what you just did, and I hope he whips the hell out of you.” Then she took off running, disappearing into the shadows.
*
While Alicia pouted inside, the two boys grabbed flashlights and went to work. Twenty minutes later, they’d disconnected the water, electrical and sump lines, strapped the bicycle and the motorcycle to the back frame, brought in the folding chairs and the hibachi. The Casse trailer was ready to roll. Miguel buckled himself into the driver’s seat, fired up the engine, and muscled the column shift into Drive. But he did not move.
Standing in the glare of the headlights, wobbling slightly, like an overweight, retarded elk, was his stepfather. Russell was out of jail, just in time to make their lives even more miserable. Miguel’s first impulse was to hit the gas and run him over, slam into him and run over his flabby drunken ass. Instead, he shifted into neutral and waited, eyes straight ahead.
As carefree and cheerful as ever, Russell shuffled over to the driver’s side window. “All right, kids! You read my mind. Let’s get as far away from that thing as we can.” He looked toward the dark shape over Los Angeles and shook his head. “Nobody understands, Miguel. Nobody believes me, but that thing is going to turn LA into a slaughterhouse, mark my words.”
Miguel only looked back at him, a blank and hostile stare. Ignoring it, or not noticing, Russell told the boy to open up and let him get behind the wheel. Instead, Miguel slipped out the door and closed it behind him.
“They let you out?”
It never occurred to Russell that he ought to feel guilty or embarrassed. “You’re damn right they let me out! Since when is it a crime for a man to exercise his right to free speech? Whatever happened to first goddamn amendment? Anyway, they’ve got bigger fish to fry right now, believe me. Come on, let’s go.” When Russell started toward the trailer, Miguel stepped in front of him, trembling.
“We’re leaving without you, don’t try and stop us.”
Finally, he had his stepfather’s full attention. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re sick of it,” Miguel said as calmly as he could. “We’re sick and tired of picking up after you, of carrying your dead weight around.” The boy took a breath, keeping his eyes on Russell’s hands. “We’ve got enough money to make it to Tucson and stay with Uncle Hector for a while.”
Russell stared at him as if it was the craziest thing anyone had ever said. “The hell you are,” he thundered loud enough for the entire park to hear. “I’m still your father, boy, and don’t you forget it!”
That was the last straw. Miguel’s fuse had burned all the way down and now he exploded, going off like a rocket.
“You are not! You are not my father. You’re just some drunken fool that married my mother. And she took care of you like you were a stinkin’ baby and when she got sick you did nothing! You’re a lunatic, Russell, and you are nothing to me. Now please,” he said more calmly, “move out of the way. I’ll take care of us and you take care of you.”
Russell took a long, deep breath, thinking it over. He was always half expecting something like this to happen, but now that the moment was here, it felt like being stabbed in the heart. “What about Troy?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You’re so damned selfish. Try, for once in your life, to think about what’s best for him. Who’s the one who actually takes care of him? Who has to go around begging for money and jobs and medicine? Huh? Who? Every time you screw up, I’m the one. I’m the one who has to do all the dirty work. I’m the one who has to get out there and scrape together enough to buy that damned medicine.” Miguel could have gone on and on, but the sound of shattering glass stopped him.
“Stop it! I’m not a baby!” Troy screamed. He had come outside and was breaking vials of his medicine on the pavement. “I don’t need this stupid medicine!” he yelled, hurling another one against the ground. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
As soon as he realized what was happening, Miguel darted through the headlights and grabbed his brother before he could throw the last vial, but as they struggled, Troy managed to drop the bottle and crush it under his sneaker. Furious, his brother grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair and shook him.
“You know how much that stuff costs? Now what happens when you get sick again? Answer me!”
He waited for an answer, but his anger changed suddenly to sadness, and then to crushing despair. He’d tried. He’d taken a stand against his stepfather and tried to engineer an escape. All at once, he realized that he had failed. And failed miserably. Speechless, thoughtless, Miguel turned and disappeared into the trailer.
“Sorry,” Troy said softly.
“C’mon, let’s get going, Troy-boy.” Russell led the way to the idling vehicle.
*
David kept reminding himself that the gentleman seated behind the wheel was his father, a man to whom he owed love, patience, and filial gratitude. On the other hand, Julius was driving him absolutely berserk. The Levinson men hadn’t spent so much time in a small space together since the summer David turned thirteen and the family had taken that hellish road trip down to Florida to visit Aunt Sophie who was ill and couldn’t make it to David’s bar mitzvah. As they drove, Julius, always a kibitzer, seemed less interested in traffic than in his nonstop conversation. He’d been talking since they left New York, jumping from one subject to the next, analyzing, criticizing, posing questions then answering them. Twice a week over a game of chess in the park, it was fine. But confined to the cabin of the antediluvian Plymouth, bobbing along on bad shocks like an ocean liner at fifty-five miles per hour, his constant chatter was pushing David to the brink of insanity. For the last twenty miles Julius had been pouring over the plotlines of some of the most recent movies he had seen, such as 1959’s The Blob and the earlier War of the Worlds. There were too many similarities for Julius, amateur conspiracy theorist, to believe somebody somewhere hadn’t known all this would come to pass. The only time he was quiet was when he was listening to some strange new noise coming from the engine compartment.
David bit his tongue and stayed quiet. This was, after all, the only way he had of getting himself to D.C. Every couple of minutes he would glance over at the speedometer, then check his watch.
“Fifty-five!” Julius would boom when he noticed his son checking the speed. “I’m going fifty-five miles per hour. Any faster and the engine will blow up. Trust me.”
There was nothing for David to do but sink back in the seat and try to remain patient. Every mile or so they shot past another vehicle pushed to the side of the road, out of gas or radiator hissing hot jets of steam into the night air. Traffic was backed up all the way to Washington, forty miles away. David thought it was only a matter of time before the frustrated motorists knocked down the meridian barriers and took over the southbound lanes as well. That was exactly what was happening, under police supervision, further up the highway. But for now, the boxy chrome-and-steel Valiant had the highway all to itself. David turned and looked out the rear window. There were no headlights behind them, only open empty road. He looked ahead. No taillights either, except for a seemingly abandoned police car parked sideways in the fast lane. The lights were flashing and both doors stood wide open, but as they sped past, there was no sign of the Maryland State trooper who had stopped the car there.
“We must be getting close,” David said. “
We’re the only ones on this road.”
“The whole world is fighting each other to get out of Washington, and we’re the only schmucks trying to get in!” The highway led up a hill and around a long bend. As they came to the crest of the hill, they had their first direct line of sight toward the District of Columbia. Both men stared wide-eyed at the sky ahead. The lights of the nation’s capital, rising into the night sky, reflected off the underbelly of a giant dark shape hovering over it: a spacecraft identical to the one they’d seen in New York. The city lights were just bright enough to show the massive gray outlines of the ship’s dark flower design. Neither man uttered a word as they coasted down the hill. When a stand of pine trees blocked the view, Julius cleared his throat.
“David, I suddenly have a strong desire to visit Philadelphia, where there aren’t any flying saucers. What about we turn around and just—”
“Check your speed, please.” Without realizing it, the old man had slowed to thirty-five miles per hour.
Now that they were approaching the city, David’s manner became more urgent. Quickly, he reached into the backseat, retrieved his laptop computer, and booted it up. From a plastic file sleeve, he extracted a CD-ROM and popped it into the computer’s external drive slot.
Julius knew what a CD was, but he’d never seen one in person before. “What the hell is that thing?” he wanted to know.
David held up the companion disk, volume two, waving it around with a fair amount of showmanship. “On these two little disks, Pops, is every single phone book in America.”
“On two little records?”
“Incredible, isn’t it?” David’s fingers darted around the keyboard, punching in commands.
Julius wasn’t going to admit it, but he was impressed. He leaned over and watched the names scroll by on the screen. “Let me guess. You’re looking up her phone number.”
“Precisely, Sherlock.”
“One problem. What makes you think an important person like Constance is going to be listed in the phone book for every crackpot to call her?”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 10