Copperback

by Hamilton, Tarah R.

  Copperback

  By Tarah R. Hamilton

  Text copyright © 2013 Tarah R. Hamilton

  Cover art copyright © 2013 Aaron Wood

  All Rights Reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  To Kenny – You inspire me every day to keep going.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Some moments in life have such an impact, they’re hard to forget. It’s like you’re back in that place all over again and can remember every detail in perfect clarity; the moment almost plays in slow motion, never allowing you to let go of it.

  One of those moments happened to me when I was fifteen. It was April 16th. I was in high school, and like any girl my age, I was still a child learning about hormones, talking about boys, and trying to figure out what I was going to wear to the school dance on Friday. The last thing I had on my mind was how that day would begin to change my life – everyone’s lives – forever.

  The day started like any other ordinary school day: morning announcements followed by English. After first period was over, our class broke up, and students cascaded through the door to various hallways leading to bright futures and utter failures. Science was my second class, and I never looked forward to it.

  Even if nothing had ever happened that day or any other, I would still remember Mr. Hen, the science teacher. His last name was actually Henshaw, but all of us referred to him as Mr. Hen when out of earshot. The nickname was just so fitting to his appearance: He looked like a chicken with glasses and was a short, pudgy man – pudgy only referring to his over-hanging middle. His short, skinny legs could barely hold his weight, and he wore dirty red suspenders overworn from years of use. He even had a crown like a chicken. He was mostly bald, but had a crescent of hair around the back of his head, and a little tuft on top that had a tendency of standing up straight whenever he was flustered.

  The last few weeks he had been rambling on about a meteor shower we should be able to see in the next few days. Because of this “event,” he had us study meteors: where they come from; what they are made of; what the difference is between meteoroids and asteroids. It was a real shocker. Two months before, he had us study earthquakes, since there had been one that had devastated China, killing hundreds. Before that, it was being able to see Mars in whatever sky, and so on. I could never wrap my brain around it. The only thing interesting in class was waiting to see if Mr. Hen would get so excited that he would tuck his arms under his pits and start pecking the floor.

  That day was different. A sense of something amiss hung heavy in the air when I walked into the classroom. What sound was coming from the hallway, full of chit-chat and locker doors slamming, was sucked out of the air with the eerie silence of the room. The students from the previous class hadn’t yet left the room to go to their next subject. In fact, they were still seated at their desks. Everyone’s eyes seemed glued to whatever was going on at the front of the room. Mr. Hen had a TV from the audio/visual department set up with the news on. At the bottom of the screen, the ticker read “Breaking News – Meteorite hits Wisconsin.” There were a bunch of out-of-focus images of people standing around a field.

  I never meant for my comment to be heard aloud, but the deafening silence prevented that from happening.

  “Who would think that a meteorite could be more interesting then cow tipping in Wisconsin?”

  “Miss O’Neil. Sit down and shut up!” said Mr. Hen without even taking his wide eyes from the screen.

  I searched for an empty seat in the class, since a boy from the previous class wasn’t showing any sign of getting up from my usual desk. Of course there were none, since no one had left yet. The room was filling fast, so I tried to find Jessica in the cramped space in the back of the room to see why my teacher had thought it appropriate to tell me to “shut up!”

  Jessica had been my best friend since first grade. Every year we were in the same class together. We always started off sitting next to each other, passing notes and talking, but usually before school would even let out for Christmas break, we would wind up on opposite sides of the room so we would stop disrupting everyone. For high school, I believed that the teaching staff had a private meeting and made sure to separate us before we started our trend.

  It didn’t make sense why there was such an interest in watching a news reel of blurry people standing around where a meteorite fell. I was no expert at using a camera of any sort and getting a clear image, but I also wasn’t doing it to make a living.

  I started to whisper a question to Jessica. “How are we supposed to see anything if–”

  “They’re naked! They’re all completely naked!” she shrieked, still staring at the screen in shock.

  “Jessica and Emily, if you insist on talking, then take it outside of this class. We are all trying to hear what they are saying,” said a flustered Mr. Hen. He looked even more like a chicken when his face was red with anger.

  Jessica was right. Hundreds of naked men, women, and children were gathered where this rock had hit, and the media was having an awful time trying to cover them up with blurs. The camera was panning out to show the hundreds – no, thousands – standing there. The further out they tried to show everyone, the harder it was to cover them up with the fuzz. I still hadn’t even tried to hear what the reporter was saying. I could only imagine that this rock had landed in the center of some nudist colony in Wisconsin, and everyone had evacuated. Standing outside, in April, with tans?

  “It’s a hoax. It has to be a hoax. Th-this can’t be ha-happening,” said a voice from the doorway.

  Miss Pella from Math was now in the room, too. She apparently had heard about the bizarre naked folks in Wisconsin and just had to see for herself. Her voice was as shaky as the rest of her.

  “I don’t think so, Helen,” said our frazzled science teacher. There was a slight note of panic in his voice, too. “There are too many of them to just show up in one place like that. This is really happening.”

  I think Miss Pella ran from the room right about then, but I’m not quite sure. By that time, I was too intent on the screen to notice much of anything else. The image had finally zoomed in close enough on these nudists to be able to remove the blurs from the bodies and the haze from my misunderstanding.

  The one they focused on looked like a human in almost every way. His face appeared flawless in comparison to most. His eyes were distant and deep brown with a hint of green sparkle to them. The nose and mouth were precisely proportioned for his strong jaw line and slender face. Even his upper body, from what we could see, looked like the muscular tone that could rival some male models I’d seen in magazines. It was as if he had dropped out of a Hollywood film and ended up on the news, but without the sex scandal.

  Tawny hair that seemed to ripple past his shoulders glimmered in the morning sun, reflecting its radiance. It wasn’t a mullet, like what was fashionable with most men in the area. As he turned away from the camera, I could see that, where the hairline stopped for most men, his short hair continued down to the middle of his shoulder blades, drawing to a point. The view from behind also showed that he had dark brown spots or frec
kles that almost formed a pattern along either side of his hair, tapering off where the smudged concealer began. These spots were matched by the ones on the backs of his arms, which extended from the top of his perfect triceps, flowing down along his arms, and fading away at the elbow. He was definitely not from Wisconsin, or any other state.

  The woman next to him had the same impeccable features: long, slender frame covered in tan, satin skin. The shimmer of green bounced off her hazel eyes when she turned her head to look in the same direction the man had; her mane of thick brunette hair ending further down than his, coming to a bristled point at the small of her back.

  When they turned away from us, the news team must have lost interest in them and moved on to another they could give face time to, this time to a young girl. She had a paler shade of caramel-colored skin as the man, but her features were just as stunning. Her hair was a sandy blonde covering the entire length of her back, and her eyes two emeralds that reflected the same green glow. She looked like she was about four years old. She didn’t appear frightened or to be searching for a parent, and it was obvious that the others around her were not paying her any attention. She was so calm. They all were.

  No one spoke, from what we could see. Not a single sound came from any of these creatures. There were no looks of confusion, no shivers from the cool spring breeze blowing at their hair, not a single hint of worry or fear to even suggest that they were aware they were somewhere they didn’t belong. They all seemed collected in thoughts and looked as if they were waiting for something.

  Quickly, the camera moved on to another and another. All of them, young and old, had the same graceful features. Just like us, some skin shades were lighter or darker than others. The variation of hair and eye colors couldn’t have been any more human-like. The only things that were exactly the same from being to being were the tranquility that surrounded them and the hint of jade glinting from their eyes.

  Except for the constant drone of the reporter, the silence both in our room and on that field was complete. I must have been holding my breath for a long time, as I could hear it escape from my lungs in a rush, bringing my focus back to what had been learned about them.

  The commentary from the young reporter wasn’t very helpful. You could feel his shattered nerves in every word he spoke. As soon as he had managed to collect one thought and share it with the world, he would start to ramble to himself, pause, and attempt to start again. In light of current events, I was surprised he kept any sense of composure. I was able to pull very little from the train wreck of a report; the few words that stuck were: Vesper, Wisconsin, and extraterrestrials. ET had just landed in a small cow town and brought a few thousand friends with him. The thought entered my mind that this might really negatively impact what I was going to be doing Friday night, or any night from here on out.

  Within an hour, most students and faculty alike had either panicked or had made the effort to keep what sanity was left intact until they knew more. Classes were on mandatory lock down, although that didn’t stop some teachers from fleeing the building, searching for whatever solace they could find outside our institution. Nervous breakdowns and emergency prayer groups erupted in almost every class, as people feared that our final days were upon us. Every TV in the school was tuned to any channel that possessed information about our new visitors. It wasn’t long before parents started showing up to have kids pulled from teacher-less classes and taken back to the safety of their own homes. I had no problem staying inside and waiting it out. Eventually my mom would call the school and demand they let me walk home on my own two feet, or she would convince my brother to come pick me up. As it turned out, the latter happened, and Chase showed up just in time to hear the creatures speak for the first time.

  Chase was three years older than me, but I always felt those roles were reversed. Living with him, I spent most of my time acting on behalf of our mom: making sure he stayed out of trouble, and sometimes keeping her from knowing what kind of trouble he was in. His low grades and lack of ambition made it impossible for him to move on to even the most basic of community colleges after graduation, and he fell into the same rut most guys without a scholarship do: work for one of the many steel mills, or work on a farm. Chase chose the farm life, since his cook and housekeeper could still take care of him at home, in exchange for a few maintenance jobs here and there.

  Two hours since the meteor struck Earth, and the military had finally arrived, fully armed and ready to protect our great country if necessary. Chase seemed even more confused than I was, since he hadn’t had the liberty of watching the television the entire time as events unfolded. By his reaction, he must have been listening to a CD on his way over and still had no idea what had happened. Mom must have forgotten to mention the exact nature of the early class departure.

  “Holy…” Chase began to say. His sentence drifted off before he could get the final word out. His jaw just hung there as he gazed in awe at the images on the screen, above the words that now read, “Extraterrestrials Land in Vesper, WI.”

  One of the creatures – an older one, probably late fifties by Earth standards –slowly moved forward, separating himself from the crowd. His face had all the grace of any of them, but his age showed through his wrinkling brow and probably once-jet-black hair, now distinguished by a spackling of grey and white. His eyes were darker than most, but still hinted at a beryl glimmer like the rest. A smile appeared on his face, displaying dazzling white teeth. It wasn’t menacing or ill willed, but an honest smile, full of compassion. He barely took a few steps forward before stopping and raising his hands, palms out, to show everyone he meant no harm.

  One of the generals advanced to meet him partway, still surrounded by other troops prepared to open fire if necessary. His stature, compared to the alien’s, was much shorter. Even as cool as the morning air had to have been in Wisconsin, beads of perspiration clung to the general’s forehead from the mounting fear and anxiety of being the first one to make contact.

  “Please, don’t be scared. We are not here to hurt you.” The alien’s voice was unwavering and gentle. His English was unbroken and showed no signs of an accent. As if he had spoken it his whole life.

  The audience of armed forces made no attempt to back down, even though his words felt genuine. Guns remained pointed at the target, as the soldiers waited for the next move.

  “Why are you here?” demanded the general, sounding gruffer than possibly intended.

  “We were blindly attacked by a primitive race that destroyed our planet as well as their own. We had no choice but to leave.” His smile faded, replaced by a look of despair. He sounded genuinely upset by the loss they had suffered.

  Shaken by all new fears, the general asked, “Did they follow you here? Do we need to be concerned that they will attack us?”

  “Yes. They are coming. They will try to do the same to all your people, but you can stop them.”

  His words were of no comfort to anyone, especially the media. Instantly, they were in a frenzy again, warning the public to remain indoors and report anything suspicious. Chase and I took that as our cue to leave. It would be easier dealing with our own panic at home, rather than trying to comfort others that couldn’t hold it together. At least I could quell my hysterics with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

  Except for the few beat-up pickups filled with gun-toting rednecks ready to kick some alien butt, the streets were barren. Most people had heeded the recent warnings and were hunkered down, waiting for the next wave. The radio on the way back to the house held nothing new about our visitors. By the time we had pulled around to the back of our house, the anchor had stopped talking and the radio was silent. We could hear she was talking to someone else quietly, trying not to broadcast the latest news, not until she was sure she had actually gotten it right. My heart felt as though it was going to beat out of my chest, waiting for the voice to tell us it was a hoax. When she came back on, it was clear that she wasn’t going to ease our fears. Sooner than e
xpected, another group had landed in Sayner, Wisconsin.

  Once inside, we quickly made our way to the living room, so we could view the latest developments on our TV. Watching everything unfold, it was easy to see the coverage from one site to another had changed. The first group still had media clamoring for up-close shots of the conversations taking place between the military and the apparent ambassador of the strange group. With this new group, however, more precautions were being taken, since they were being considered a threat. Aerial cameras were mounted and video footage of these newcomers was being shown from a distance.

  They had the same distinct features of the first ones: well-sculptured bodies with similar attributes. However, as alike as they were in appearance, their attitude told a different story. They were far from calm, like their counterparts. Bodies were huddled together in masses, keeping close to each other, fearful of what was happening. They were aware of their lack of clothing and tried to shelter women and children, keeping watchful eyes for anyone who would harm them. The few brave individuals that dared to get a closer view showed that they were also different in another way. As sunlight caught their faces, there was a gold reflection that bounced back in some tear-streaked eyes.

  The armed forces came just as quickly as the media, surrounding them with guns pointed, keeping them en masse. Even a few groups of civilians that had come to see the spectacle had brought guns of their own, hoping to cash in on saving our planet from its destruction. It was nearly the same scene as before, but the mood had changed drastically.

  Before even one word could be spoken to them, a shot rang out in the crowd. It was unclear if this had come from a young officer who had not followed orders or one of the happy-go-lucky drunks looking for a new trophy to hang on the wall. Whoever was to blame, within moments, more shots were fired at the new aliens in an all-out barrage. As bullets flew in every direction, the unbelievable was happening. Most of the creatures were not falling. We were.