Aliens and Ice Cream

by Michael James

  “It’s an invasion,” Matt said. “This isn’t from Earth. These things are from somewhere else.”

  “Why isn’t the Army doing anything?” Heather asked. “Why don’t we scramble the jets or tanks or something?”

  “I don’t even know how you’d fight these. There’s so many of them.”

  Matt watched Heather type ‘Army response aliens’ into a search and a link to a video with millions of hits showed. She clicked it, and footage from a military installation in the middle of a dessert appeared. Soldiers ran back and forth, screaming, shooting at the black drones that retaliated with laser blasts. As near as Matt could tell, the bullets from the soldiers did nothing. He heard the high-pitched whiz as they ricocheted off their exterior of the drones.

  Two single tanks rolled out. One shot into the air and a booming, explosive round hit a drone flush. When the smoke cleared, the drone still hovered, not a mark on its glossy finish. Through this, he heard sounds of men screaming and swearing, and the person holding the phone provided a running narrative.

  “Nothing is working.” The voice sounded young and Matt realized the soldier might only be a few years older than him. A kid. “We’re hitting them with everything we have, but we’re not even denting them. I swear we’ve put two thousand rounds in them and not a scratch. They’re too fast. That tank shell can bring down a concrete reinforced bunker. What’s that?”

  The livestream panned to the right where two black drones raced toward the camera. The boy screamed and then the screen filled with red lasers. Then nothing.

  “Holy shit,” Matt whispered. Heather wiped her mouth with her hand as if she had swallowed something bitter.

  “Are we going to die?” Abby pulled her face from Heather’s shoulder.

  “No, sweetie.” Heather stroked Abby’s curly, dark hair and Matt gave her a grateful smile. “We’ll be okay. If we stay in here, they can’t get us. Once they leave, we’ll be able to go back to our houses and see our parents.”

  Even though he knew the words were meant to comfort a ten-year-old child, Matt felt reassured.

  “She’s right, Abs,” he said, picking up the idea. “These things can’t stay around forever, and if they were going to attack us in here, they would have done it already. If we stay inside, we’ll be safe, and then we can figure out what to do next.”

  “How long will we need to stay in here for?” Abby asked. “I don’t like it.”

  Matt agreed. The tree house had seen better days. Dirt and mold covered the splintery wooden floor, and the wind blew through all the cracks and crevices in the walls. The front door was little more than a cut hole in the wall with a piece of plywood over it, and at the back, a rope swing hung from a branch that dropped through a hole to the ground below. Aside from the stale beanbag chairs, a small table in the middle, and a dilapidated old dresser someone had shoved to the side decades ago, there was nothing inside. The whole of the interior reached ten feet across with the roof a hair under six feet, giving the whole thing a cramped feeling.

  He exchanged a glance with Heather. Her face was grim, the corners of her mouth hanging low, but he saw fierceness in her eyes. There was an agreement in that look, to be strong for his sister.

  “We’ll be here a little while, Abby,” she said.

  “Maybe even overnight,” he added. “At least until these things leave.”

  “I don’t want to stay overnight, Matty.” Abby’s lower lip stuck out so far it would be comical in any other circumstance. Now, it broke his heart. She was trying so hard not to cry.

  “It might not be that bad,” he hugged her with one arm, wondering if that were even true.

  Heather forced cheer into her voice. “My biggest worry is snoring. Abby, Matt tells me you snore, so we'll need a paper clip to put on your nose.”

  “I do not.” Abby lifted her red-rimmed eyes and looked at Heather with a half-smile.

  “Oh, she sounds like a tugboat coming into harbor. Wakes up the whole family. We make her sleep in the basement.” Matt’s fingers found the perfect tickle spot under Abby’s armpits and gave a little poke. Abby let out a cross between a hiccup and a giggle.

  “I don’t snore, Matty, you snore. You sound like a big truck that got in an accident. And you fart. All the time.”

  Matt’s face caught fire. He couldn’t believe Abby said that in front of Heather and he considered running outside and letting the aliens kill him. First the puke, now this. Heather must think he had zero control of his bodily functions.

  “If both you don’t get your snoring and farting under control, I’ll make you sleep on the other side of the floor,” Heather said.

  “It's quiet,” he said, trying to change the topic from his apparently unbearable farting. Outside, the neighborhood was still, although the occasional chainsaw-rip of a laser fired off in the distance. “Maybe they left. I'll check.”

  “Be careful,” Heather said, and he nodded.

  Crouching low, he went to the window where they had pulled the curtains shut. He pushed one to the side, to look out, and screamed.

  Outside the window, a craft hovered, only half a foot away. It hung in the air, no visible markings on it of any kind. It was smooth, the size of a small refrigerator. The only thing separating them was decades-old plywood. He balled up his fist and shoved it in his mouth to quieten himself. Behind him, Abby also screamed, a loud, piercing wail that could be heard miles away.

  Heather shushed her, trying to get her to quiet down. Matt turned his head with measured slowness, not wanting to make any sudden movements. Heather had gripped Abby close to her chest and was whispering something in her ear. Her face was bone-white, but she looked at Matt with a steady gaze. None of them moved.

  He couldn’t breathe or think. He could only stare at the black object, hypnotized by its existence. This close, he could see all of it. Black. It was so black, it seemed to absorb the light. He couldn’t figure how it stayed airborne, there was no obvious mechanism of propulsion. No seams or screws marred the exterior. Where did the lasers come from? There was no way to tell.

  “Why isn’t it doing anything?” Heather whispered.

  He couldn’t make his voice work, so he shook his head. One agonizing step at a time, he walked back to the beanbag chair and sat down beside Heather. He reached out for her hand and found it. She squeezed.

  “Maybe it can’t shoot us while we’re inside?” he whispered.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was no way to tell if the object was even facing them. Nothing showed a front or a back. Heather released Abby from her grip and let go of Matt’s hand. She army-crawled forward toward the window.

  “Heather,” he whispered.

  She ignored him and crawled closer. She reached out a trembling hand and pinched the curtain by the lower corner, keeping herself as flat to the ground as possible. Ever so carefully, she pulled it shut. The thing didn’t move or react. It was impossible to tell what it was doing or what it thought about Heather breaking the line of sight.

  None of them moved or said anything until Abby began to cry.

  “I want Mommy,” she said.

  “I know, Abs.” He hugged her close. “So do I.”

  Above Abby’s head, he exchanged a look with Heather. Neither of them needed to say anything. They were trapped.

  Krista

  Night fell over the neighborhood, bringing an unnatural silence. It had been hours since the last attack, but Krista couldn’t stop watching the tree house. Periodically, an outline passed in front of the window, but Krista’s angle didn’t let her see who it was. She thought Abby walked by a few times, and with each appearance her heart would take a new tumble in her chest.

  She spent the day online, devouring information, trying to gather facts, but no one knew anything. The news was all wild theories and countries throwing accusations. ISIS claimed responsibility for the global attack, to mocking dismissal. Scientists fell over themselves to expl
ain the split in the sky, the violent rip that started everything. It was a collapsing star; no, it was an event horizon from a drifting black hole; no, it was a gateway.

  She hadn’t seen much of Martin through this whole thing. He didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. He paced the house, unable to sit for even a moment, talking on the phone with his daughter.

  At least she knew where her family was. Trapped and inaccessible, but safe. It didn’t seem possible, but her kids would sleep outside in the tree house. Paul tried to reassure her, saying they’d slept outside dozens of times, but she couldn’t believe it. They didn’t know anything about these ships. What if this was a pause in their attack? Everyone seemed to believe they'd be safe indoors, but what did they know?

  Maybe the ships couldn't see people in the dark? It was possible. She could go be with her kids right now. Abby would be glad. Matty was a wonderful older brother, but a little girl needed her mommy. What did an eighteen-year-old boy know of comfort?

  She went to the front door and placed her hand on the knob, giving serious consideration to running across the street. It was dark out, the only light coming from the street lamps that provided minimal visibility. She could no longer see the shapes above, their exteriors blended too well with the night sky. There was no chance they could see her.

  “What are you doing?” She jumped and spun around, bringing her hand to her mouth to muffle a yelp. Martin stood behind her.

  “Thinking,” she said, aware of how silly that response sounded.

  “You can’t go outside,” he said. “I’ve been watching the news all day. It’s the only thing people agree on. You’ll be killed.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know enough to listen to what thousands of people are saying.”

  “Really? Thousands of people think the world is flat.”

  He flushed and stepped toward the door, and for a moment she thought he was going to grab her. Instead, he reached around her and opened the door. A crack.

  “Fine. Out you go then.”

  The challenge hung between them. He crossed his arms, and she put her hand on the doorknob. In a few steps she could be on the lawn. Closer to her kids.

  Outside.

  Her heart beat so rapidly it pulsed in her skull. She pulled the door shut with a curse, hating herself for her cowardice. Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t want to turn around to look at Martin.

  “Why don’t we try to sleep?” he said. His voice filled with syrupy condescension. “Maybe we can take our minds off everything. Together."

  “Together?” She turned and put her back against the door. “Are you hitting on me? Now?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” He waved his hands and shook his head, but he was lying. She could tell. “You’re twisting everything up. Come away from the door, you’ll be killed if you go outside. The kids will be safe for the night, I spoke with Heather. You can use the spare bedroom, but I’m not sure where Sharon keeps the fresh linens. Maybe the closet upstairs.”

  He rambled on, and she allowed herself to be guided upstairs, although she trailed at a safe distance. She wasn’t thinking, that was the problem. This whole situation had her out of her comfort zone. Since when did Krista Cutler vacillate?

  The spare room appeared sparse and functional, with a small single bed and a nightstand. Based on the layer of dust that covered everything, they didn’t get many visitors.

  “You make yourself comfortable,” said Martin.

  “How can you even think about sleeping right now?”

  “There’s nothing else we can do.” It seemed as if he would continue, but instead, he turned and left the room.

  Krista sighed and sat down on the corner of the bed and concentrated on not crying. She didn’t want to be here, she wanted to be with her husband and kids. They would be afraid by themselves. But Martin was right. There was nothing she could do.

  She took out her phone, checking it for the 500th time today. Matty had set up a group chat for all the survivors. Liz and Alexandra Stocking had also survived, which, combined with Paul and everyone next door, meant ten. Ten people out of the whole street. She didn’t have an exact count but figured there were fifty people from their neighborhood missing or dead. Matty’s last message said he was turning off the phone for the night, try to conserve power. Smart kid.

  For some reason, she was hardly getting any service, the phone only showing a single bar. In fact, her whole connection had been spotty all day. What if these things where screwing with the phones, too?

  She heard the heavy sounds of Martin’s footsteps coming up the stairs, and he came back into the room with a bottle of scotch and a single glass.

  “For sleep,” he said. He placed both items on the nightstand and stared at her a moment. He opened his mouth to say something when a loud siren pierced the air. The sound blotted out any thought. It came from everywhere, and she screamed while covering her ears. She curled up in pain. The siren continued for seconds before stopping with an audible pop.

  “What the fuck was that?” she whispered. “Did those black shapes do that? It was so loud.”

  Martin wiped his mouth. “Don’t know.”

  She reached over and poured herself a large glass of scotch, her hands shaking enough that some sloshed over the side. She put the whole glass back and coughed.

  “Sleep will help,” Martin said. His voice had no inflection. He left the room and shut the door behind him. Krista eyed the bottle of scotch and wondered how much she could get through.

  Night one.

  Day 2: The Waiting

  Paul

  Paul spent a sleepless night on the phone trying to contact his sister. His parents had passed away some years ago, and she was the only family he had left. He couldn’t reach her though. No answer from so many people. Stories poured in from all over the globe and they all said the same thing. Death. Destruction. Murder. Stay inside. The worst came from New York. There had been an afternoon game in Yankee stadium when the sky tore in two. People turned on their cameras, providing multiple views of the carnage. 80,000 people, destroyed in under five minutes by black drones, firing their deadly lasers.

  The websites flooded with too much information to process. Millions dead, they said, with one site estimating the death toll in the billions. These things were unstoppable. Bullets bounced off their exteriors. Bombs did nothing. They destroyed anyone out in the open, and their lasers struck with perfect precision. Even now, livestreams flooded the internet from people trapped in apartment buildings, office buildings, everywhere. The things hovered outside the windows and if anyone stepped foot outside, they’d be killed.

  Sharon concerned him the most. After the initial attack, he and John worked to stop the bleeding on that terrible wound on her leg. Thank God for Sharon's nursing background so she could tell them what to do. Apply pressure. Stuff as much cloth into the wound as possible. Keep the leg elevated. With a quiet heroism he’d never match, she stepped them through the process. By the end, blood covered both him and John before Sharon succumbed to exhaustion, falling into a light doze. They moved her to the spare room upstairs where she could at least be comfortable. She asked several times about Heather and he told her all he knew. The kids were safe, at least in the short term. He put her phone beside her bed, so she’d be able to communicate with her family.

  The blistering noise of the alarm jerked him upright in bed and he clapped his hands over his ears. God. Every few hours they went off. They seemed to serve no purpose other than keeping him awake. Between stress and the noise, he had managed perhaps an hour of sleep. The clock read 5:30 a.m. He padded to the bathroom and washed the raw exhaustion from his eyes. The bed he shared with Krista showed in the reflection of the silver-plated mirror that hung over the faucets. One side was untouched. Untouched because Krista was trapped next door with his neighbor, surrounded by robots that would kill them if they left the house.

  A barking sob escaped his mouth, and he
jammed his fist into it to stop the sound from carrying. He slumped to the cool tile of the bathroom floor and hunched his knees against his chest, trying to keep himself under control.

  He needed Krista. The pressure drummed like a thudding in his brain. How could he do what he was supposed to do without her here? It was her job to figure things out, to keep them on the straight and steady, to come up with ideas. This was too big for him to solve by himself. What was he supposed to focus on? Sharon and her bloody leg? The kids? It was too much.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and took deep breaths until the panic passed. He needed to be better. He needed to do better. He couldn’t spend the day in his head, crying every ten seconds. It wouldn’t help anyone. Maybe he could make a deal with himself. In this bathroom, he’d let himself crumple. It could be his one safe spot in the house, the place he could collapse and not worry about the consequences. But the moment he left, he’d need to step up and figure shit out. People were counting on him. No crying outside the bathroom.

  Weirdly, the rule made him feel better, and it was enough to get him into the shower, where he let the hot water run all over him, washing away the exhaustion. Here, he could float a little and let his mind run free. This whole thing was surreal. These crafts had them pinned down and even though the kids were fifty feet away, they might as well be on Mars. There had to be a way to get to them.

  If the police or army were coming, they would have done it by now. He watched the videos on the web last night and it wasn’t hard to see what was happening. The things dominated every square inch of the skies, and no one was coming to help. Although it scared him to admit it, they were on their own. And that meant he needed to figure stuff out. But for the moment, it felt good to stand here in the shower, letting the water run over him and wash away the fear from the previous day.

  Wait. Water.

  “Holy shit.”

  He turned off the shower, his brain humming in overdrive. In moments he dried off enough to throw on clothes, a plain gray button down that Krista said made his thin shoulders look broad, and a pair of jeans.