This Town Is Not All Right

by M. K. Krys

  “What?” Beacon and Arthur cried at the same time.

  “This is a bad idea,” she said.

  “Are you nuts?” Beacon said.

  “We need to get out of here before . . .” Arthur’s voice trailed off. “I forget what I was going to say.”

  Beacon opened his mouth to tell Everleigh that they needed to go, but he suddenly couldn’t remember why they needed to leave.

  20

  The answer floated just out of reach in Beacon’s mind. The harder he tried to grasp it, the more impossible it seemed. It was as if there were a layer of dust covering everything in his head.

  He frowned.

  “I’m turning around,” Everleigh said. The car shuddered as she pulled over onto the gravelly embankment on the side of the road.

  Beacon’s heart jackknifed in his chest. They couldn’t stop. He didn’t know how he knew. All he knew was that this was wrong. They had to drive. It was a matter of life and death.

  “We need to keep going,” Beacon said.

  “Why?” Everleigh asked.

  He wasn’t sure. But he was sure that Everleigh would never accept that answer.

  “Just trust me, okay?”

  “I want to go home,” Arthur said.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not happening,” Beacon told him.

  Arthur leaned forward against his seat belt. “No, I mean it. I really, really need to go home. My grandma will be worried. It’s been days since she’s seen me.”

  “We have to go back, Beaks,” Everleigh agreed.

  “No,” Beacon said firmly.

  “We’ll just drop him off, then.” Everleigh started to turn the car around.

  Beacon jerked the wheel to the right, and the car skidded back onto the road.

  “What the heck!” Everleigh screeched, pushing his hand away.

  “Stop the car,” Arthur said, his voice getting louder, more frantic. “I want to get out.”

  “Don’t stop the car,” Beacon ordered.

  “I said stop the car!” Arthur’s booming voice made Beacon’s shoulders hunch up around his ears.

  Everleigh tapped on the brake. Beacon panicked.

  He jumped into the driver’s seat, landing right on his sister’s lap. He slammed on the gas pedal. The car jolted forward, blasting them back against their seats. Everleigh screamed, shoving Beacon. He shoved back. The car wove dangerously across the road, a blur of green and gray outside the windows.

  “You’re going to kill us!” Everleigh screamed.

  Beacon heard a click. He stopped. Looked into the back seat. Arthur was hanging out of the door, preparing to leap. Wind whipped at his jumpsuit, the pavement flying underneath the tires.

  “Arthur!” Beacon cried. He scrambled after Arthur. His jeans got caught in the gearshift and he tripped, landing facedown on the back seat. He shot up and reached for the back of Arthur’s jumpsuit at the exact same moment as Arthur let go. For a horrifying moment, Arthur was suspended in the air. But then Beacon’s fingers closed around the fabric of the jumpsuit and he jerked hard. The boy folded backward like a camping chair, landing on top of Beacon and knocking the air out of him.

  Suddenly Everleigh screamed. The car swerved left. The boys rolled, nearly toppling out of the open car door as it whipped around on its hinges. And then Everleigh slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed, and they went flying forward.

  Beacon slammed into the back of the driver’s seat.

  And then: silence.

  White spots danced in Beacon’s vision. He tasted copper in his mouth. His brain felt like it had done a few rounds with an eggbeater.

  Sound came slowly funneling back. Rain pattered gently on the roof, over the sound of their coarse breathing and the quiet ding reminding them to wear their seat belts.

  Beacon groaned, rubbing his head. Next to him, Arthur patted the floor until he found his glasses. In the front seat, Everleigh stared out the windshield, a streak of blood running down her temple.

  “Everleigh, you’re bleeding!” Beacon said.

  Everleigh touched her head, then examined her fingers with mild, fleeting interest.

  “I’m fine. Just a little cut. Are you okay? Does your head hurt? Is anyone injured?” She peered into the back seat.

  “Just emotionally scarred,” Arthur said, sliding on his glasses.

  Beacon blew out a slow breath, trying to calm the frantic pace of his heart. What had just happened?

  Soon, he had his answer. He felt the fog over his brain slowly lift, like a strong wind had cleared it away. It was like waking up from a very vivid dream, where you’re not sure what’s real for the first few moments. But then reality shifts into place, and you can hardly remember the dream at all.

  That’s when he saw it. The thing they had almost hit. A sign, jutting up from the side of the road.

  Wishart County.

  The invisible force field. They’d just crossed it.

  For a long moment, they all sat there, watching steam hiss out of the engine into the gray sky. Beacon didn’t want to think about how close they’d come to just driving back into the arms of their enemies. The fact that the Sov had that kind of power over the town, over them, was such a monumentally frightening thought that Beacon could barely wrap his mind around it.

  “Well, what do we do now?” Everleigh asked.

  They were three kids, alone in the world, with an alien race and quite possibly their own government after them.

  “Now, we go home,” Beacon said.

  21

  Beacon, Everleigh, and Arthur watched the Home Sweet Home diner through the fogged-up windshield of the Mercury Cougar. Washed-out against the overcast sky, the tiny diner hunched in on itself like a delicate bird weathering a storm. A neon sign flashed the word OPEN from the glass of a rain-splattered door. There was a handful of cars parked outside. Beacon didn’t recognize any of them, but that didn’t mean anything. Any one of them could have been borrowed or rented or stolen by their dad so he could get here.

  That’s what Beacon told himself as he stepped out of the car and walked toward the diner.

  A bell jangled as they entered. The smell of bacon and eggs wafted out at them. Beacon scanned the dimly lit diner.

  An elderly couple sat side by side in a booth, studiously cutting their food. At the counter, a man watched a tiny mounted TV as he sipped amber liquid from a sweating tumbler. Otherwise, the place was empty.

  “It’s okay,” Beacon said. “It’s still early. Dad said five, and it’s only ten after.”

  He didn’t know who he was trying to convince, Everleigh or himself.

  The kids sank into a booth by the window.

  The waitress’s ponytail swished from side to side like a happy dog’s tail as she approached their booth.

  The bacon-and-eggs smell hit him again, and Beacon’s belly rumbled like a diesel truck. It felt wrong to be hungry right now, in the face of everything, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper meal.

  “Welcome to Home Sweet Home,” the waitress said, plopping down three plastic-wrapped menus onto the table. “Can I get you kids something to drink?”

  “Water, please. Three of them. And we don’t need these,” Everleigh said, sliding the menus back. “Just bring us whatever is quickest, and a side of crinkle-cut fries.”

  The waitress frowned. “Anything in particular?”

  “Just not seafood,” Beacon said. “I never want to see lobster again in my life.”

  “Okay . . .” The waitress grabbed the menus and walked away, sneaking a glance back over at them.

  The sound of dishes clanking and clattering came into focus. From the kitchen they heard the hiss of a deep fryer.

  “So, hypothetically, if Dad doesn’t show up,” Everleigh said, “what then? Where do we go?”

>   “It’s like we said before,” Beacon said, “somehow we get ourselves to LA. Aunt Deb and Uncle Stanley will be able to help us out.”

  “What about Grams?” Arthur said. “I can’t just leave her.”

  Beacon thought for a moment. “I’m sure she can come, too. We can pick her up on the way out.”

  Somehow.

  But Arthur was already shaking his head. “Grams will never leave that house. It’s where she grew up. It’s where I grew up. It’s where my parents lived—where they’re buried.”

  “You can’t seriously want to go back,” Everleigh said. “What if the Sov come for you?”

  “Driftwood Harbor is home,” Arthur said. “I want to fight for it. I won’t let them take it from me—from us.”

  Beacon understood how a place could feel like family. Like a living, breathing person. Leaving LA behind had felt like a funeral all over again. But he couldn’t understand how his friend could want to go back to Driftwood Harbor after everything he’d suffered there. Knowing what—who—was waiting for him.

  He wanted to say all of this, but he knew it wouldn’t be fair. And a part of him also knew that he was just being selfish. He didn’t want to lose Arthur after they’d just become friends.

  There was a loaded silence.

  “So I guess this is the end of YAT,” Beacon said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Arthur answered. “It’s just starting to get interesting. And by the way—we should really call it YSAT.” He grinned.

  Beacon tried to smile, but he couldn’t quite make his cheek muscles work.

  “I vote for PSAT. You know—People Searching for Alien Truth. What if someone a little older wants to join?”

  Beacon’s heart lurched hard. He turned toward the familiar voice. His dad stood by the bathrooms, wearing his usual suit and tie. His hair was a bit mussed, and there was a clump of seaweed on his shoe, but otherwise, he looked completely fine. Perfect.

  The twins jumped up from the table, screaming and laughing and crying as they embraced their dad. Even Arthur got into it.

  After they were done, they sank around the table. Everleigh’s face was flushed pink, and she wouldn’t stop looking at their dad, as if he might disappear if she looked away for even a moment.

  “How did you do it?” Everleigh asked.

  “Yeah, how did you get away?” Beacon said.

  “Beacon says you’re like a ninja secret agent or something,” Arthur said.

  Their dad laughed. “Nothing so exciting as that. It’s not much of a story. Basically, after you kids took off, Victor dispatched so many people after you that it left the place weak. I was able to slip away when the guards changed shifts.”

  “But I thought you were given the antidote?” Arthur said. “How can you be here, helping us?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain that.”

  Arthur leaned forward across the table. “By any chance were you electrocuted recently?”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  The kids exchanged knowing looks.

  “What happened?” Beacon asked.

  “It was back on the ship, after I’d told you all about what was going on. I was chasing after you—trying to get you to come back. I ran around a corner and slipped in some water. I felt this hot jolt go through me, like lightning. Then I passed out. When I woke up, I was vibrating all over, and suddenly I didn’t want to chase you anymore. I couldn’t even remember why I’d wanted to. It was so weird.”

  “You were Jumpstarted,” Arthur said, using the term he’d coined on the drive to the diner.

  The twins’ dad frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  They explained how electrocution seemed to jolt people out of their brainwashed state. As they spoke, they could see their dad’s wheels turning, going over the possibilities and implications of this at warp speed in his head.

  “What about Donna?” Everleigh asked suddenly.

  A grim expression came over their dad’s face.

  “Is she alive?” Everleigh asked.

  “Was she captured?” Arthur added.

  “Was she on our side?” Beacon joined in.

  “I don’t know,” their dad said. “I haven’t been able to contact her.”

  The kids grew somber. Beacon didn’t know whether to hope that Donna had backstabbed them, or that she’d been on their side all along and had been captured, or worse. He could see the others making the same mental calculations.

  Beacon opened his mouth to say something, when he caught a glimpse of the TV over the counter. Whatever he was going to say withered away.

  He wouldn’t have paid attention, except for the newscaster’s wild-eyed look and the words FLASH FLOODS written on a banner at the bottom of the screen.

  His heart sank like a stone dropped into the ocean. He could hear Everleigh calling him as he got up, but he didn’t stop until he was standing at the counter, staring up at the TV. The newscaster’s clear voice rang out over the sound of dishes clanking.

  “Flash floods are expected in coastal states all across the United States, from California and Washington to Maine, New Hampshire, and New York. Scientists are baffled by this quickly moving weather system . . .”

  Sound funneled away and a distant roaring filled Beacon’s ears. He could feel Everleigh, Arthur, and his dad run up next to him. Dimly, he felt a hand clasp his shoulder. Another linked fingers with him.

  “The aliens were right,” Arthur said, hysteria in his voice. “We’re in so much trouble!”

  Everleigh looked at the screen for a long moment, her brows drawn, before turning to her dad. “Is it possible the Sov are faking this?”

  “What do you mean?” her dad asked.

  “I mean, could these broadcasts be fake? Could they do that, if they wanted to?”

  “I guess if they wanted to get something on TV, it wouldn’t be all that difficult for them, what with their technology and ability to mutate into other forms. They could gain access by posing as an executive or a meteorologist, but . . . why?”

  “To get us to come back!” Everleigh said. “To get us to think Nixon was lying. If we think the floods are real and we’re in imminent danger, we would come running back to them for their protection—for the antidote to breathe underwater!”

  “But how would they know what Nixon told us?” Beacon asked. “How would they know he’s been spying on them and knows the truth about the floods?”

  “Maybe these broadcasts are to trick other towns into getting the antidote?” Arthur suggested.

  Their dad looked uncertainly at the TV as they slowly made their way back to the booth.

  The waitress appeared at that moment. “Can I get you something, sir?”

  She placed a menu on the table.

  “Oh, no, I’m okay, thanks. I’ll just have some of whatever they ordered.” He returned his attention to the broadcast.

  “Pretty scary stuff, huh?” the waitress said.

  “Is it like that on every channel?” Arthur asked.

  “What do the other weather reports say?” Beacon joined in.

  The waitress frowned. “Same thing, I’m sure.”

  She reached for the menu. And that’s when Beacon saw it. The bloody pinprick on her right bicep. The telltale mark of a recent shot.

  Or vitamin injection, more accurately.

  Beacon subtly nodded toward the waitress’s arm, drawing the group’s attention to the mark.

  “Don’t you kids concern yourselves with any of that,” the waitress said. “Everything will be fine. All you have to do is behave and let the adults take care of things.”

  “How can you say that?” Beacon said. “Look at what they’re saying!” He gestured at the TV.

  “Everything will be fine,” the waitress repeated. She gave them a wooden smile. Her
eyes, Beacon realized—they were as vacant and glassy as a pair of marbles.

  A pit formed in Beacon’s stomach. They all shared a meaningful look.

  It wasn’t just Driftwood Harbor. The Sov had spread out, taken control of other areas, other townships, other people. Who knew how far they’d reached?

  The moment the waitress was out of earshot, Beacon lowered his voice.

  “We need to run,” he said.

  “No,” their dad said. “It will look too suspicious. We don’t know who’s watching. We don’t want to set off any alarms.” He nodded toward a corridor. “There’s a back door down that hall. Pretend to go to the bathroom, then slip outside. You have a car, right?”

  “How’d you know about that?” Arthur asked.

  “I heard the guards talking about it. Pull it around to the back. I’ll meet you in a minute. She’s coming back—quick, look natural.”

  Their dad plastered on a big, fake smile. Just then, the waitress arrived with a steaming platter of food.

  “That smells great!” their dad said.

  “Three Lumberjack Breakfasts, the fastest thing on the menu,” she said, depositing their plates on the table. “And a side of crinkle-cut fries, of course.”

  “Thank you. This looks wonderful. Kids, go wash up before you eat,” their dad said, giving them a meaningful look. The kids slipped out of the booth.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” the waitress said.

  Their dad nodded and grabbed a slice of toast, bringing it to his lips. But when the waitress was out of sight, he got up and ducked quickly into the empty corridor. The kids were already gone, and the hallway was empty. Outside, he heard the rumble of an engine starting. Any minute now, Everleigh would be pulling up the car. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then he popped open a button on his shirt. Through the gap, a wet, pink organ pushed out of his chest, wrapping around the toast. It dissolved it in a hiss of steam. Then the organ withdrew into his body with a wet slurp. He did up his button, wiped the crumbs from his shirt, and walked outside to join the kids.

  22

  (Fourteen Hours Earlier)