The alien dipped even further and emitted and a low, rumbling blast, the sound too loud for such a small craft. It carried across the neighborhood and Heather was positive it could be heard several streets over. As suddenly as the noise started, it finished. The entire craft shuddered once, and fell to the ground, landing on top of Liz.
Around them, the other aliens dipped and wavered, one spinning in place.
“She killed it somehow and broke the node.” Matt’s voice raised in wonder. “They’re blind. She broke the network. Do you see?” He turned Heather by the shoulders. “She interrupted the connection. They can’t see us. We can move!”
Heather stopped thinking at that point. Four days in the tree house with Matt had reset her expectations for normal, replaced by new truths.
1. The aliens are deadly
2. Don’t go outside
3. If Matt said something, it was right.
Matt said the aliens were blind and they could move. She could save her friend.
Without any further thought, she took a single step and jumped down the hole with the climbing rope and landed on the squishy, urine-soaked grass underneath. Behind her, she heard Matt yell, but it was too late. Her legs pumped, and she was running.
Abby
Everything happened too fast.
There was a lot that Abby didn’t understand. For instance, she didn’t get why the aliens were so mad at them and why she couldn’t just try being friends with them, but Matt said no, and he used his very serious voice when he told her not to try, so what’s a girl to do?
One thing she understood was that they were to never, ever go outside. Matt made that clear after she went to get the drone. So, when she heard Matt say, “We can move,” and saw Heather jump out of the hole, she couldn’t get why Matt was so angry. He was the one who said it was okay, but now he seemed scared and was yelling at Heather through the window to stop. Abby rushed to his side and saw Heather’s golden hair flowing in the wind. Her long, perfect legs that made Abby feel frumpy, pumped against the pavement.
Until now, her favorite super hero was Wonder Woman, but also sometimes Shadowcat from the X-men, although no one knew who that one was except her and Matt. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d alternate between one of those two answers.
But watching Heather run across the street, she changed her mind. When she grew up, she wanted to be Heather Keene.
“Run!” Matt had switched his yells from, “Stop,” to “Go,” and that gave Abby an idea. She ran to the other side of the treehouse where she could see the box.
“Hey, you in the box!” she yelled as loud as she could. “Run! The aliens aren’t looking! Run! RUN!”
Liz
Liz suffocated under the weight of the disabled monster, she couldn’t get her breath, she couldn’t move. It pressed her, far heavier than her mother, more oppressive, and every time she exhaled, her chest compressed a little more and it was harder to get the next gulp of air in. Her lower body warmed as the alien leaked its life out onto her. The edges of her vision dimmed and frayed. What would happen if she lost consciousness?
She tried to struggle but had nothing left.
At least I killed you. Not the best final thought, but she’d take it. She closed her eyes and hoped death would be gentle.
When all her hope compressed to nothing along with her breathing, she heard a crunching noise. A body tumbled over her, pushing off the alien, and she could breathe again.
Pete
Pete heard the low, deep thrumming noise and forgot to be scared. These stupid fucking aliens. It wasn’t enough with the alarms, now they needed additional auditory torture?
He tried to ignore the sound, to not let it distract him from his count. He thought he could pull off eighteen minutes between steps now.
“Hey, you in the box!” He heard the voice somewhere in front of him. Was that… Abby? Why was that Abby? She sounded like she was somewhere distant.
“Run! The aliens aren’t looking! Run! RUN!”
Pete had no idea why Abby was yelling at him, and he could hardly make out the words. He assumed Abby was another figment, like Box Matt, but he had gotten this far by trusting them and now didn’t seem like a good time to stop doing so.
Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.
He picked up the top of his box and ran, surprised by how much energy he could muster, given he hadn’t eaten in half a week. He shut his eyes and waited to die, but no lasers came.
He ran.
Heather
Heather tried very hard not to think about what hot lasers would feel like when they penetrated her chest. Instead she focused on Liz, on the alien that sat on top of her, and running as hard as she could.
Five seconds to cross the street, that’s how fast she believed she could do it, and she came close to hitting that time. Her long legs carried her across the hot asphalt, and she didn’t look at the sky while she sprinted. She sailed across the front lawn and when she was close, she threw herself shoulder-first at the alien on top of Liz.
It was like tackling a wall, and bone cracked when she hit. She screamed in pain. The momentum carried her through, pushing both her and the alien into the house, freeing Liz from underneath. She didn’t stop to rest. She rolled to her feet and tried to pull Liz inside, except one of her arms had stopped working and hung pathetically by her waist. So much adrenaline coursed through her she hardly felt it. With her working arm, she grabbed Liz by the hair and pulled her back in. Liz kicked and scrambled backwards with her feet. Together they tumbled to the ground, safe inside the house. Liz kicked the door shut with her foot and collapsed into Heather’s lap.
For moments, the only sound was their heavy breathing. Heather’s working hand stroked Liz’s hair, trying to clear away the blood and guts that covered her head. Dimly, she realized she was whispering, “It’s okay,” repeatedly, but she wasn’t sure who she was saying it to.
When Liz looked at her, there was nothing to see in her eyes, they were millions of miles away.
“I killed my mom.” Liz blinked and then burst into tears, hugging Heather’s lap.
“Shh. Shh. It’s okay.”
Matt
“What the fucking fuck?” Heather ran across the street and tackled the alien off Liz and the last thing Matt saw before the door slammed shut was all three of them tumbling inside the house.
Matt understood several things in rapid succession.
1. They could kill the aliens.
2. If one died, it took a couple seconds for the movement sensors to recalibrate.
3. If it took the rest of his life, he would become a person who someone as balls-out awesome as Heather would want to be with.
The aliens stopped their listless dipping and returned to purpose. A low hum filled the air for seconds before stopping, and then they were back to normal.
“They’re back online!” he yelled, although he wasn’t sure who he was yelling at.
“You in the box! Stop running! Stop!” Abby yelled from behind him.
He went to see what she was doing and saw the junction box outside, but now it was at the foot of the tree, just outside the front door by the stairs. It had covered the distance in the seconds the aliens were offline. It came to a crashing halt and the hatch on the side of the box slammed open and someone scrambled out, crawling up the stairs on their hands and knees
“Faster!” Abby screamed.
Matt could see the aliens swarm, but they missed their window. The person on the stairs made a final leap forward, skidding into the tree house, knocking Matt over, causing them to all tumble to the floor in a pile.
The person looked familiar. Matt tried to extricate his arms and legs and attempted to make sense of what he was seeing. Abby beat him to it.
“Pete?”
Pete trembled so hard that the sound of his chattering teeth echoed off the walls of the tree house. Matt hugged him close, trying to process what was happening. Abby grabbed a
blanket and put it over Pete’s shoulders and tried to force a bottle of water into his hands. Pete was having none of it. Matt didn’t know what else to do, so he made shushing noises while continuing his hug. He was becoming an expert in consoling his friends.
Outside, the aliens righted themselves and went back to hovering near the houses, although there seemed to be more of them now. Enough had happened that hours must have passed, but the sun was still bright outside, the sky completely clear after yesterday’s intense rain storm. Shouldn’t it be hours later? But no, the whole sequence of events had taken maybe five minutes. And now Heather was gone. She made it into the house, safe, but gone. The lack of her had weight, a soreness. It ground into his bones.
He continued to stroke Pete’s hair, waiting for the violent shaking to subside. Eventually, Pete’s shoulders stopped their rattling and his breathing returned to normal, although interrupted with the occasional hiccuppy sob.
“Where’s Deidre?” Abby took Pete’s hand in hers and gave a little tug. “Is she with you? Or still in the box?”
Pete shook his head but didn’t say anything. He looked at Matt, miserable. Dark circles of exhaustion surrounded his eyes and the skin on his cheeks hung like curtains. He looked close to passing out.
“I left them.” Pete looked down at his hands and whimpered, a soft and fractured noise that was somehow worse than the crying from earlier. “When they came, Dad pushed me and told me to run and I did. I didn’t even look back. It was so hard to think, I could hear him yelling and I thought they’d be right behind me.” He looked up at Matt and gripped his forearm. “You have to believe me. I thought they’d follow.”
“Sure.” Matt tried to make his voice low and calm. “Of course you thought that, why wouldn’t you?”
“I left them.” Pete shuddered and stalled, and Matt’s heart followed. “I should have looked back. Or grabbed Dede. Or something. But I didn’t do anything.”
“You left Deidre?” Abby stood up and took a step back. “You’re her older brother though, you’re not supposed to do that.”
“Abby, shush.” Matt glared at her and made chopping motions across his neck.
“I won’t shush. Pete should have done something. You or Heather would have done something. Deidre was my friend and you left her.”
Pete took the lashing without a word but looked at Abby with a stare so broken that Matt needed to look away.
“Enough.” Matt waved at Abby, but she kept going.
“No, it’s not.” She was crying now, and Matt could recognize the signs of exhaustion showing through her reaction. “It’s not okay. That’s not what big brothers do. And now Heather is gone and it’s just us and -”
“Enough.” This time, he said it loud enough that Abby jumped back. Her lower lip trembled, and she folded her arms high up on her chest. Without a word, she turned her back and stomped loudly to the opposite corner of the tree house and sat down with her legs crossed. After a moment, she buried her face in her hands, shuddering.
“She’s right.” Pete wiped his hands on his cheeks. “I should have done something.”
“You didn’t know. How could you? None of us did. Everything happened in seconds.”
“You have to cover up the window.” Pete looked over, above Matt’s shoulder.
“Sure, Pete. But you don’t have to worry, the aliens won’t come in here. We figured it out, as long as you stay inside, they’ll leave you alone.”
“It’s not that. I don’t…” Pete stopped, his mouth opening a few times, unable to get the words out. He took a long drink from the bottle Abby had given him. “I don’t want to see the bodies, okay?”
Holy shit. Pete didn’t know what the aliens did afterwards. How could he? He’d been in the box this whole time. Matt had no idea how to tell him that his parents had been… consumed. He rubbed his forehead.
“Let’s get you some food. I’ll shut the window.”
There wasn’t much left in their stores. Plain pasta with salt, a couple of fruit cups, and a can of tuna that his dad had mixed with mayo to make a little salad. He knew Pete hated fish, so he grabbed the fruit cups and pasta. He handed it to Pete, who didn’t even wait for utensils before slurping down the contents of the can. Matt left him to it and closed the heavy blanket that acted as a curtain for the window that faced down the street.
Beside him on the floor, Abby shook and hugged herself. She wouldn’t look at him. Her breathing came in deep, ragged gasps, and Matt realized the strain of the situation had triggered her asthma.
“Hey.” He sat down beside her and wrapped her tight in his arms. She tried to pull away at first, but soon gave up and leaned into him. He spoke right into her ear. “Deep breaths, okay? You need to calm down.”
She nodded, and for the next few moments, he listened to her attempt to get her breathing under control. In normal circumstances, her asthma was completely manageable, but she hadn’t had a hit from her puffer in days now. After a few minutes, she seemed to recover, although her breathing had a rattle to it that he didn’t like.
“You have to apologize to Pete, okay?” He hugged her closer.
“No.”
“None of this is his fault. You can’t blame him for what happened. He’s scared, just like we all are.”
“Heather would have done something.” Abby had rested her head against his chest and the crying stopped.
“That’s not fair, Abby. Heather might literally be a super hero. For the rest of us regular people, it’s a bit harder.”
Abby giggled a bit into his chest and sighed.
“I hoped Deidre was okay, when I saw Pete. I thought maybe we’d find out this was all some kind of trick or game and everyone would be fine, and I could go back to my room and see my friends.” She cried into his shoulder.
“I’d like that too. I’m going to get you back to your room though. I promise.”
“How are you going to do that?” She looked at him without any guile and he felt the full pressure of responsibility bear down on him. Pete’s final scramble had knocked the box over, and it was now several feet away from the foot of the tree house, so that wasn’t an option. He had no ideas.
“I’m working on it.”
Heather
Small details stood out to Heather. The way the light slipped across the floor, creating breaks and patterns on the carpet. A cobweb by the ceiling above the front door, in that area no one ever bothered dusting. Liz, sticky with blood, sobbing in her lap, attached by handcuffs to her mother's severed limb. Plates and magazines stacked on the living room table. The corpse of a dead alien robot, cold and remote beside her.
She absorbed it at a distance, none of it touching her. A rushing noise filled her ears, washing out the sounds of Liz’s crying. Mechanically, she whispered – shhh – but who was she saying it to? It was as if she had a third-person view of her own actions. Someone else was stroking Liz’s head, a dry and repetitive movement that provided meager comfort. Someone else was suffering leg cramps from the weight and wanted to shift to a more comfortable position. Time seemed to have stopped.
Her arm bothered her. It hung at her side and no matter how much she tried, it wouldn't move. Even the attempts hurt. Broken, or at the very least, dislocated. The pain was there, but inaccessible. Like a barking dog behind a fence. She yawned and closed her eyes. The exhaustion that settled onto her thoughts had weight. The distance from the tree house wasn’t that far, she had run further thousands of times. Where was this coming from? The best thing to do would be to lie down and sleep even though it was only late afternoon. That made the most sense. It’s what her body screamed at her to do. Sleep. Let go. Give up.
Heather’s autopilot kicked in, the same push that made her run that last mile when her lungs hurt so much it was like breathing sandpaper. The same force of will that kept her from crying. Heather had herself too trained. If her body wanted to stop that meant it was time to keep going.
Being careful not to disrupt Liz, she sl
ipped herself out from underneath and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” When she stood, darkness crept into the edges of her vision and she needed to steady herself against the wall with her good arm. She stayed that way for several heartbeats, only breathing, willing herself not to black out. Moment or hours, she wasn’t sure how long she waited. Time had stopped working.
When the dizziness passed, she padded to the kitchen, with her arm dragging uselessly behind her. She poked at the shoulder and a fresh hell of pain lanced up her neck. Definitely dislocated.
Liz’s kitchen was opulently functional, and the island contained a deep, chrome sink with a single faucet. Heather turned on the water with her good hand and stuck her head under the stream. It washed the blood off, turning light pink before running down the drain.
She didn’t bother to dry herself, and the soaking brought everything back into sharper focus, taking off the bubble wrap that seemed to blanket her thoughts. Time returned to normal and she could think again. The crushing lethargy dissipated, making it easier to move.
On the kitchen counter, the sunlight through the open window flashed against something and she leaned in to see what it was. A key, presumably for the handcuffs. Heather stuffed it in her pocket.
Liz still huddled on the floor and Heather crouched beside her, more in control. She took Liz’s free arm, the one with the handcuff, and used the key to open it. It unlocked with a click, and Heather swallowed back vomit. Drops of blood dripped from the end of Alexandra's still-attached hand. There was no lethargy in her movements now, Heather ran to the kitchen and threw it in the sink.
She went back to Liz and got her standing, although Heather needed to take most of her weight. Blood covered her friend from top to bottom, not only from her mom, but from the alien. She smelled foreign and wrong. Pungent sweetness combined with a chemical odor and Heather wondered if the alien blood was caustic. Too late now.
Aliens and Ice Cream Page 19