This Town Is Not All Right

by M. K. Krys

  “I do, and you’re not,” she said. “But—”

  “But what?”

  She sighed and rubbed her forehead, smearing around the grease on her face. “Beaks, I know you’re embarrassed about what happened, but it’s okay . . .”

  Beacon ground his jaw. He’d had enough.

  “Come back, Beaks! Where are you going?” Everleigh called.

  Beacon stormed down the street with his skateboard tucked up under his arm. He was sick of everyone treating him like he was crazy. Sick of everyone babying him. And okay, maybe he was a little embarrassed, too.

  He trudged past the pier, the cool, salty air blowing off the water and bringing with it the distinct smell of fish.

  He hated fish. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t really like lobster, either.

  The water lapped against the wooden support beams as fishermen called orders to one another in thick, guttural accents. He walked past tiny clapboard-sided houses separated by larger and larger fields of tall yellow grass hemmed in by barbed wire fencing. He’d never seen so many wide-open spaces before, without any people in sight. It seemed like a giant waste of land, if you asked him.

  Beacon walked for so long that eventually, he realized he’d left the ocean path behind. He was in the middle of a forest of tightly packed trees.

  Beacon’s eyes darted around him, his heart beating in his ears.

  How did he get here? Wherever here even was. He remembered walking along the path . . . but not to here.

  Yesterday’s storm had stripped some of the trees, and leaves and bark and twigs were scattered across the forest floor. The ground was damp and squishy, like walking on a wet sponge. A mist wove through the trees, dampness and decay heavy in the air.

  How come he didn’t remember walking into the forest?

  He’d just been lost in thought, he decided. He’d been doing that lately—daydreaming for hours. Although daydreaming seemed too pretty a word for it. Mulling things over was more like it. Agonizing over the past. How things were. How it could have been now if just one small thing had been done differently. If he’d chosen path A instead of path B.

  His mind was a super fun place this year.

  That had to have been what happened. He’d just been too wrapped up in his own head to notice how long and how far he’d walked.

  Beacon spun in a slow circle, leaves crunching under his shoes. The sound ricocheted through the trees.

  He realized it was quiet. Too quiet. No birdsong. No crickets. No rustling branches as squirrels jumped from tree to tree.

  His insides knotted up tight.

  Suddenly there was a flash of movement in the woods.

  Beacon gasped and scanned the forest. Darkness wove through the tangle of trees, as if the forest devoured light.

  It was nothing, he told himself. Probably just a squirrel or a deer. His dad had said they had lots of them out here.

  Or a bear, Beacon thought darkly, remembering what Everleigh had said the other day—paws the size of dinner plates and claws like Wolverine.

  A twig snapped, and adrenaline shot through his body. He whirled in a circle, trying to find the source of the sound.

  Nothing. No one.

  He held out his skateboard like a weapon, taking slow, careful steps back, away from the trees. Or at least he thought he did. He didn’t know which way was out. Everywhere he looked was forest and more forest. Shadows and darkness.

  “Wh-who’s there?” Beacon asked. His voice sounded high and strange to his own ears, setting his pulse on edge.

  No answer. Just the sound of weak, dead trees groaning in the wind.

  Beacon swallowed.

  “Whoever’s out there, come out now, or—or else!”

  Another flicker of movement. Beacon yelped and swung with the figure, trying to keep it in his sights. But it was gone again. Lost in the shadows.

  Beacon took a shaky step back. Then another.

  He turned around to run.

  And slammed right into a person.

  5

  Beacon stumbled back into the dirt. As soon as he hit the ground, he shot back up, taking a defensive stance with his skateboard. The other kid pushed himself to his feet and picked up some sort of electronic device that looked like a radio from the fallen leaves.

  “Watch where you’re going!” the boy said indignantly, wiping dirt off his device.

  Beacon’s fear slipped a fraction as anger took its place.

  “Me? You’re the one following me through the woods like a creep!”

  “I wasn’t following you! I was just . . . seeing what you were up to. I don’t usually come across anyone else out here.”

  Beacon’s tense shoulders melted. He lowered his skateboard/weapon.

  “Well, you could have said something before I practically had an aneurysm.”

  He took a better look at the boy. He wore a pair of huge leather goggles like the ones pilots used to wear, and his red hair was parted in the middle and flattened against his head with more hair gel than he’d seen on even the smarmiest of TV weather personalities. His white lab coat, worn over a suit at least two sizes too big, rippled in the stagnant breeze.

  The boy pushed his goggles onto his forehead, revealing deep impressions across his freckled cheeks from where the plastic had dug in. The goggles, Beacon realized—was this the “creature” with the gigantic eyes he’d seen in the woods last night when the car broke down?

  The boy slid on a pair of wire-framed glasses and eyed Beacon from head to toe, finally settling his gaze on the skateboard tucked under his arm.

  “So who are you?” the boy asked.

  “Beacon McCullough,” Beacon said warily. “I’m new to town. Who are you?”

  “Arthur Newell,” the other boy said after a lengthy pause. “So what are you doing out here?”

  Beacon’s hackles rose at the boy’s tone. He had just as much of a right to be in these woods as him. He didn’t own them.

  “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to take a walk in the woods.”

  “A walk in the woods with a skateboard?” Arthur said.

  “I skateboarded to get to the woods. And you’re one to talk, with those weird goggles and . . . whatever that thing is,” he said, gesturing at the device in the boy’s hands.

  “These weird goggles have night-vision capability,” Arthur said.

  “Really?” Beacon had to admit, that was cool.

  The boy puffed out his chest. “Made them myself.”

  “And what’s that?” Beacon nodded at the radio thingy.

  “It’s an ARD,” Arthur said, as if that explained everything.

  “Oh, an ARD. Say no more,” Beacon said.

  “An alien radiofrequency detector,” the boy said.

  “Alien?” Beacon raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “So, you, like, believe in them or something?” Beacon asked.

  “Yeah, I do. Go ahead and laugh,” Arthur said.

  “I wasn’t going to laugh.”

  Okay, he was. In fact, his lips twitched at the effort to rein it in. Arthur scowled, then turned around and began stalking away through the woods, tramping over twigs and leaves and thwacking aside branches. Beacon panicked. He’d finally found someone to hang out with, and even if the boy was weird, he didn’t really want to be alone out here.

  “Wait!” Beacon called, tripping after him. “I wasn’t making fun of you. It was just surprising is all.”

  Arthur didn’t even slow down.

  “So aliens, huh?” Beacon said, trying to coax him into speaking.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m the president of YAT—Youth Searching for Alien Truth,” Arthur said boldly.

  “Wouldn’t that be YSAT?” Beacon said. “You know, Youth Searching for Alien
Truth?”

  The boy glared at him over his shoulder. “It’s YAT.”

  “Okay, okay.” Beacon raised his hands in defense.

  Satisfied, the boy kept walking. Beacon watched him disappear into the trees, then sighed, gripped his board, and chased after him.

  “Wait up!” Beacon was out of breath by the time he caught up to Arthur. “So you think they’re out here, in the woods?”

  “I’m not ruling it out,” Arthur said. “There’s strange electromagnetic activity in the area. I’ve been trying to study it.”

  “Like what kind of activity?”

  “Like cars breaking down for no reason,” Arthur said. “Stuff like that.” He gave Beacon a knowing look.

  “That was you? Watching us from the woods?”

  He didn’t deny it. Beacon repressed a shudder.

  “So you think our car broke down . . . because of aliens?” Beacon asked.

  “No, definitely not,” Arthur said. “Was probably just a coincidence. Same as the last dozen cars.”

  The hairs on Beacon’s neck stood on end. “The radiator was broken,” he said weakly.

  “Okay.”

  “It just needed sealant.”

  “Awesome.” Arthur tramped ahead.

  Beacon chased after him. “Wait up, where are you going?”

  “Home,” Arthur said.

  “You . . . live in the forest?” Beacon said uneasily.

  “Yep, inside a tree. I like to be close to my squirrel friends.”

  Beacon stuttered a step.

  “This is a shortcut, idiot,” Arthur said.

  (Well, he hadn’t actually said “idiot,” but it was implied from his tone.)

  Soon, they came up to a house in the woods. The white siding was stained yellow, and the cedar shingles stuck up in places like wonky teeth. The roof had collapsed on itself so that the whole place looked a bit like a rotten smile.

  Arthur climbed up the wobbly wooden front steps and whipped open the screen door.

  “That you, Arthur?” a croaky voice called from inside the house. A woman with a puff of white hair and glassy, unfocused eyes came to the door.

  “Hi, Grams,” Arthur said.

  “I heard you talking,” she said. “Is there someone here?”

  “Hi,” Beacon said, stepping forward. “My name’s Beacon. I’m new to town.”

  “Beacon—oh, how delightful!” the woman crowed. Her lined face lit up. Arthur’s ears turned pink, and he rubbed the back of his neck. Beacon got the distinct impression he didn’t get company very often.

  “Well, are you going to invite your guest inside or just make him stand in the yard?” the woman said.

  Beacon looked at Arthur.

  “You wanna come in?” Arthur asked grudgingly.

  Beacon knew he shouldn’t go inside strangers’ houses. He also knew what a pity invite was. But he said thank you and ambled up to the house.

  “How about I make you two some sandwiches?” the woman said as Beacon entered.

  Beacon’s stomach rumbled at the thought of food. He realized it had been forever since his last good meal.

  “We’re not hungry, Grams, but thanks,” Arthur said. “We’ll be in my room.”

  “Okay, honey. Did you remember to take your Keppra?”

  Arthur’s cheeks tinged pink. “Yes, Grams.”

  “On time? Because you know what happens if you’re late.”

  “I took it on time,” Arthur said, and now there was no hiding how red his face was.

  Oblivious, his grandma smiled widely. “Okay, well you have fun with your friend.”

  Arthur practically bolted. Beacon followed him down a short, narrow corridor. He had the urge to ask Arthur what would happen if he didn’t take that medication on time, but he thought it was better to let Arthur tell him himself, if he wanted to.

  Arthur’s room was impossibly small, with a neatly made twin bed pushed up against one wall, and a pine desk against the other, which was brimming with circuit boards and wires and test tubes and beakers and a microscope that looked like it was straight out of the 1940s, not to mention the piles of books and journals arranged in neat, color-coded stacks. There wasn’t a single poster on the clean white walls. The place looked more like a science lab than a kid’s bedroom.

  “This is my headquarters,” Arthur said.

  Beacon wandered over to the desk and peered through the microscope. Tiny bugs skittered across the surface of the slide. He reeled back, cringing.

  “Got this from the school,” Arthur said proudly, resting his hand on the microscope. “Can you believe they were just going to throw it away?”

  Beacon reached out to touch a vial of brightly colored yellow liquid.

  “I wouldn’t touch that, unless you want to get your finger melted off,” Arthur said. Beacon quickly snapped his fingers away.

  “I’m kidding,” Arthur said. “But . . . maybe don’t touch it, just in case.” He quickly screwed a cap onto the vial.

  “What’s this?” Beacon pointed to a big metal drum with a bare lightbulb sticking out of its top.

  “That’s the prototype for the ARD.”

  “The alien radiofrequency detector?” Beacon said.

  “Yep. It’s come a long way since then. I modeled the recent design off an old electromagnetic field meter my dad had in the garage from when he worked for the power company. They used it to diagnose problems with electrical wiring and power lines on the highway. Stuff like that. I figured it made sense to apply that technology to the ARD, and I was right. The signals are off the charts in the forest. I was obviously way off base with the old model.”

  “Obviously.” Beacon was done touring the room and plopped down on the end of Arthur’s bed. “So you really think aliens exist, then?”

  “I know they do,” Arthur replied confidently.

  “Have you ever . . .”

  “Had a close encounter?” he finished for him. “I wish.”

  “Then how do you know for sure?” Beacon asked. “If you’ve never even seen one.”

  “The universe is so huge,” Arthur said. “Scientists think it could host up to 130 million galaxies. What are the odds that out of all those millions, we’re the only planet that supports life? We’ve already discovered planets with the right conditions in our own galaxy. The rest is too far away for us to travel to or contact, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

  Beacon had to admit, it made a certain amount of sense.

  “What made you so interested in all this?” Beacon asked.

  “What do you mean—don’t tell me you don’t know about the incident,” Arthur said.

  “That thing from the 1970s or whatever?” Beacon said. “I read something about that.”

  “That thing or whatever just happens to be one of the most important UFO discoveries since Roswell.”

  “Neat,” Beacon said. “I think I’ve heard of that one, too.”

  Arthur rubbed his forehead.

  “All right, if you’re going to be living here, you better have more information than that.” He sat across from Beacon on the bed. “So in 1967, a large object crashed into the water by the pier. The entire town saw it. They mounted this big rescue attempt, but they couldn’t find a single trace of the ship.”

  Arthur was staring at Beacon as if he was expecting a huge reaction.

  “Wow, that’s wild,” Beacon said unconvincingly.

  “Dozens of people saw this craft crash into the water right there on the harbor,” he said, pointing toward the wall, or, Beacon presumed, the ocean beyond it. “And yet they couldn’t find anything? Not even a tiny piece of the craft? Not a single nut, bolt, or screw? No floating debris?”

  Okay, so that did seem a little weird.

  “They closed the case, but a
few years later an official government report was leaked where they called the craft a UFO.”

  A chill crept over Beacon like a fog on the harbor.

  “Doesn’t UFO just mean unidentified flying object?” Beacon said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “Technically,” Arthur admitted. “But they’d never called any other supposed sightings a UFO before. But that’s not even the best part.” He was leaning toward Beacon, his blue eyes sparkling behind his glasses. “So there was a naval search after the crash, right? And they said they couldn’t find anything? But satellites followed something moving through the water, all the way from Driftwood Harbor, through the Atlantic Ocean, until it disappeared off their radar entirely near Russia!”

  “What does that mean?” Beacon asked.

  “I think—a lot of people think,” he corrected himself, “that whatever crashed into the water that night drove far enough away that it wouldn’t be spotted and then resurfaced and flew back to wherever it came from.”

  “That sounds a little out-there,” Beacon said.

  “Then you tell me what other explanation there could be.”

  He didn’t have a good answer for that.

  “Well, if aliens are real,” Beacon said, “why don’t more people know about it?”

  “They don’t want us to know. Think about it—there would be mass hysteria. Everyone would be panicking about a full-scale alien takeover.”

  “Is that what you think is going to happen?” Beacon asked.

  “Almost certainly.”

  There was a prickly silence as Beacon digested all this information.

  “So, do you want to join?” Arthur asked after a while.

  “Join what?” Beacon said.

  “YAT,” Arthur replied, as if it were obvious.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” Beacon said. “Aliens aren’t really my thing.”

  “Right, of course.” Arthur turned around quickly and pretended to be busy fiddling with something on his desk. “Just thought I’d ask.”

  Beacon thought he might have blown things with Arthur, when the boy turned around and said, “So what is your kind of thing, then?”

  “Skateboarding, mostly,” Beacon said, lifting up his board awkwardly. “Listening to music. Hanging out with friends. That kind of stuff.”