It Came from the Sky

by Chelsea Sedoti

  “What else am I supposed to eat? Dad still refuses to cook.”

  It had been nearly a week, and Father’s strike was in full swing. Aside from his involvement in Maggie’s softball games, he’d pulled back from all his responsibilities. As far as I could tell, he spent most of his time at the gym.

  “Did you get everything?” I asked Ishmael. My own backpack was packed, double- and triple-checked, and ready to go.

  “Yeah, hold up,” he said.

  He put down his bowl and stood. He wore black jeans and a plain gray T-shirt, but as I watched, he shrugged into a black trench coat.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “I definitely look like a spy, right?”

  He looked like someone who was trying to look like a spy. “Where’d that come from?”

  “I borrowed it from Xavier.”

  “I sincerely hope you didn’t tell him why you need it.”

  “Dude, give me some credit.”

  “What about masks?”

  “Got ’em,” Ishmael said, holding up his own backpack.

  “I guess we’re ready, then.” But I hesitated. “Well. Maybe I should check my supplies one more time.”

  “Don’t be nervous,” Ishmael said.

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “You’re totally nervous. But don’t worry, this is gonna be great.”

  Right. It would be great. It would go off without a hitch. The radio jammer would work flawlessly.

  I straightened my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go scramble some radio signals.”

  Legalities

  According to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) website:

  Federal law generally prohibits radio broadcasts without a license issued by the FCC. Anyone found operating a radio station without FCC authorization can be subject to a variety of enforcement actions, including seizure of equipment, fines, and other criminal penalties.

  And that, of course, was just the tip of the iceberg.

  There were possible legal ramifications from the initial explosion. The hoax itself fell under reckless endangerment. When Ishmael and I made crop circles in Mr. O’Grady’s field, we’d committed criminal trespassing and destruction of property.

  I was racking up misdemeanors left and right—all of which came with potential long-term consequences.

  So you see, at that juncture, I couldn’t quit even if I’d wanted to. The hoax had come too far. I had to control it, remain on top of the situation. Otherwise, instead of leading me to MIT, the hoax might land me in a jail cell.

  Event: Radio Jamming (Cont.)

  I hated the woods. If we could have gotten away with driving to our desired location, I would’ve done it in a second, but we couldn’t risk anyone spotting our Jeep. So we drove as near as we dared, parked in the empty Shop-n-Save lot, and cut through the forest.

  I’d chosen the spot for three reasons:

  1. It was isolated.

  2. There were no streetlights.

  3. It was the only road leading from St. Francis, where the monthly Bingo Extravaganza was taking place.

  But as we trekked through dense thickets of trees, I began to wish I’d chosen a spot that was easier to get to.

  “Wait,” I called to Ishmael.

  He stopped and glanced back, a bizarre figure in his trench coat.

  “I want to check something.”

  I unfolded my map and compared it to the satellite view on my phone.

  “Dude,” Ishmael said. “It’s just up ahead.”

  “I want to be one hundred percent sure.”

  “How can someone so smart be so bad with directions?”

  I bristled. “As I’ve told you before, intelligence comes in many forms. Spatial awareness has never been my forte. That doesn’t mean—”

  “But I’m great at directions,” Ishmael said. “Can’t you just trust me for once?”

  Of course I couldn’t trust him. But it was cold, my nose was running, branches kept scratching my face, and I was getting bitten by bugs.

  I despised the outdoors so, so much.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Lead the way. But if we’re close, we should put the masks on first.”

  “Good call.”

  Ishmael unzipped his bag and fumbled inside for a moment before pulling out two items.

  “Which do you want?” he asked.

  “Aren’t they the same?” I used my cell phone to shine light on them.

  And froze.

  My brother held two plastic Halloween masks.

  “Ishmael. What is this?”

  “Masks, dude. Do you wanna be Elvis, or this guy?”

  He shook the second mask.

  “That guy is John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States. But I don’t want to be either of them.”

  Ishmael looked truly baffled.

  “Ski masks, Ishmael,” I hissed. “I wanted you to get ski masks.”

  Understanding dawned. “Oh! That actually makes a lot of sense.”

  I rubbed my eyes. It hadn’t even occurred to me to be more specific with him.

  “With Halloween so soon, there’re masks everywhere,” Ishmael said. “And you said cheap ones, so I thought—”

  “It’s fine. What’s done is done.”

  “We could do this a different night. I can get ski masks like you wanted.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “We’re already here. Give me JFK.”

  He tossed the mask to me and I pulled it over my head, breathing in plasticky fumes.

  I despised Halloween masks. They were itchy, uncomfortable, and belonged to a holiday I abhorred. I hadn’t celebrated Halloween since I was nine and voiced my distress over dressing up foolishly and knocking on the doors of strangers just to be gawked at and handed candy I wouldn’t even eat.

  The mask made it hard to see, and was it my imagination, or was it getting harder to breathe? (In enclosed spaces, it’s possible to die from asphyxiation due to the buildup of carbon dioxide from one’s own respiration.) I tried keeping pace with my brother, but in the darkness, with the trees closing in, it became increasingly difficult.

  Finally, Ishmael halted. We were just inside the tree line. Ahead of us, moonlight lit the twisting path of Turtleback Road. For a moment I lamented that we didn’t time this to coincide with the new moon. But that would’ve made our trek through the woods more perilous, so perhaps it was for the best.

  Quickly, I pulled out the jammer, attached it to the car battery that would power it, and pulled out the antenna.

  We waited for the first car to approach. The only noise came from the woods—the rustling of some creature creeping through the underbrush, the chirp of insects. I tried not to think about the nature surrounding us.

  After ten minutes, when I could feel Ishmael shifting around and getting antsy next to me, the hum of a car engine came from the direction of the church. A moment later, headlights swept across the road.

  I fumbled with the radio jammer, held it up, and pressed the “on” switch just as the car passed.

  Nothing happened.

  “We’ll get the next one,” I said.

  But the next car also passed us without so much as a flash of brake lights.

  “Are you sure it’s working?” Ishmael asked.

  “Am I inside the cars?”

  “No, dude, you’re standing right next to me.”

  “Then no, I’m obviously not sure it’s working. But it worked when I tested it on the Jeep earlier.”

  “Maybe no one’s listening to the radio?” Ishmael said.

  “Maybe.”

  In the distance, I heard the approach of another car. I waited patiently, and when a nondescript, white sedan rolled into view, I pressed the switch.

  The car swerved. Not
much, not fully into the opposite lane. But enough to tell me something had happened in the vehicle.

  As I watched, the car slowed, and I could almost feel the way the driver’s mind was working, how they must be trying to puzzle out what just occurred. I pictured them frantically flipping through radio stations, trying to figure out if it was a broadcast error or a problem with their vehicle. Or aliens.

  “Yes!” Ishmael said.

  “Keep your voice down.”

  After a moment, the driver hit the gas and sped into the night.

  Another car rumbled through the fall evening. I raised my arm to turn the jammer on, but dropped my hand when I saw the lime-green Cadillac.

  “It’s Gram.”

  Ishmael bounced up and down, his Elvis mask wobbling. “That makes it even better. Zap Gram!”

  “I’m not going to zap Gram.”

  Ishmael grabbed the jammer from my hand. “I’ll do it.”

  “No,” I snapped.

  I tried to grab it back, and for a moment we tussled. Elvis and John F. Kennedy, standing on the side of the road late at night, fighting to get control of a radio jammer.

  I won by default. Gram’s car passed before Ishmael could zap her.

  “You’re such a killjoy,” he mumbled.

  I shushed Ishmael when I heard another car approaching. It was a minivan, and though it didn’t swerve, for a brief moment the brake lights came on.

  We zapped two more cars that didn’t have a discernible change. The next one stopped entirely in the middle of the road for approximately ten seconds. The one after that also swerved.

  “This is so working,” Ishmael said excitedly.

  Then I heard the sound of an engine that wasn’t like the others. A louder, more aggressive rumble, a vehicle that had something to prove.

  When the gold Range Rover appeared, taking up most of the road, I wasn’t surprised.

  “It’s Oz,” Ishmael said. “I’m gonna zap him.”

  “Don’t.”

  But Ishmael shrugged me off and zapped Oswald’s car anyway. I figured it was my punishment for winning the battle over Gram.

  The Range Rover faltered and the brake lights sprang to life. Then the SUV stopped.

  I was surprised it worked. J. Quincy Oswald struck me as the type of person who only listened to self-help podcasts—or maybe audio recordings of his own voice.

  I kept my eyes trained on the gold SUV. Despite being an off-road vehicle, it looked more out of place in the middle of the woods than the lava lamp did in downtown Lansburg.

  Unlike the other vehicles that stopped, Oswald didn’t quickly drive away.

  I waited.

  “What’s he doing?” Ishmael asked.

  I didn’t know, and didn’t like it, whatever it was.

  A moment later, my dislike of the situation grew by 73 percent. The driver’s door swung open and J. Quincy Oswald stepped into the night.

  He’d traded his cowboy boots for simple slip-on shoes, and he’d lost the sports jacket. The sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled to the elbow. It was the most human I’d seen him look.

  “Hello?” he shouted into the night.

  “Shit,” Ishmael muttered.

  Oswald circled to the front of the Range Rover, lit by the glow of the headlights. He tilted his face to the sky. “Hello?” he called again, louder.

  I glanced at my brother to see if his expression was as confused as mine must’ve been, forgetting he still wore the Elvis mask.

  “I know you can hear me,” Oswald screamed at the stars. “I know you’re there, and I’m listenin’. I’m ready for whatever you give me.”

  Oh, boy.

  Was he putting on a show because he knew someone was in the woods, watching him? Was he treating the empty road as if it were a stage?

  Or.

  Or.

  Was this real?

  For the first time, I considered that maybe J. Quincy Oswald wasn’t performing, wasn’t trying to con people. He might actually, truly believe aliens spoke to him. That scared me far more than his lies ever could.

  Oswald fell to his knees in the road, directly in the path of his SUV, which he’d put in Park but hadn’t turned off. Still beseeching the sky he shouted, “I’ve done everything you asked. The elixir is almost ready. Please, give me more instructions.”

  He was serious.

  No. He wasn’t serious. It was an act. It had to be.

  “This dude is out of his mind,” Ishmael whispered.

  Before I could shush Ishmael, before Oswald could continue his attempted communication with extraterrestrials, a new element entered the equation.

  A pickup truck pulled up behind Oswald’s Range Rover.

  “Do not zap it,” I whispered through gritted teeth.

  Oswald was so engrossed in the cosmos that he didn’t notice a man get out of the truck behind him. It was David O’Grady, the farmer whose field we’d made the crop circle in. I’d heard he was not happy about that. I’d also heard that several Seekers tried to sneak on his farm to see the crop circle, and he’d chased them off with a gun. According to rumor, David O’Grady was always armed.

  “What’s going on here?” O’Grady rasped.

  “Communication from the far reaches of the universe,” Oswald replied reverently, still looking up.

  O’Grady sighed and hitched up his pants by a belt loop. “I’m gonna have to ask you to pull to the side of the road. You’re blocking traffic.”

  Oswald held up his hand to O’Grady, halting him. “I’m receivin’ a message.”

  Ishmael snorted. I elbowed him. And, quite unfortunately, I caught him off balance. He stumbled and fell to the ground, creating a loud crash in the quiet night.

  O’Grady’s head snapped in our direction. “Who’s there?”

  I quickly pulled Ishmael to his feet. “Run!”

  We tore through the woods, O’Grady on our heels.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Ishmael said as we ran.

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t have spoken even if I wanted to, because my chest was about to explode. When had I last run so much? When I was eight and forced to by some sadistic PE teacher?

  Despite his age, O’Grady kept pace with us. I risked a glance behind me, but the JFK mask hindered my view.

  Ishmael pulled farther and farther ahead of me. He never glanced back and didn’t realize how dire my situation was. I tried to push myself harder, but my legs ached and lungs burned.

  O’Grady was going to catch me. He was going to catch me and everything, the entire hoax, would be revealed.

  The thought made my heart pound even faster.

  I glanced back again and saw with horror that O’Grady was only ten feet behind. It was dark under the canopy of trees, but I could make out his features. He looked at me, right into my eyes. He’d seen me, and in just a few seconds he’d be close enough to reach out and grab me.

  Then something miraculous happened.

  David O’Grady tripped.

  He fell to his knees and cried out in pain.

  I looked in the direction Ishmael had gone, my legs still pumping. While my body tried to flee, my brain wondered if I should stop and help the farmer. Who leaves an old, injured man alone in the forest?

  Of course, this old, injured man had a gun and a bad temper.

  Even as I was trying to decide what to do, O’Grady began getting to his feet. That settled it. I kept running.

  I ran and ran and eventually caught up with Ishmael, not because I became faster or gained lung capacity, but because Ishmael stopped to wait for me.

  We’d reached the edge of the forest by that point, nearly back to the Shop-n-Save parking lot, and I stopped. I couldn’t push myself any farther. I gasped for breath. My face felt hot and flushed and strange.
/>
  Then I remembered I was wearing the ridiculous mask. I ripped it off and immediately felt better. I sucked in deep breaths of cool night air and wiped away the sweat dripping into my eyes.

  “See,” Ishmael said. He jogged in place, pumped up and ready for more excitement. “I knew running track would pay off.”

  Interviews

  Subject #9, Chief Lisa Kaufman: Yes, interfering with radio signals is illegal. No, I’m sorry, at this time I can’t say whether or not anyone will be pressing charges.

  Subject #10, Mary Howard: I’m one of those people, I don’t believe something unless I see it myself. Except for God, of course, who I haven’t seen with mine own eyes, but I’ve sure felt. I didn’t pay heed to those alien stories, though. Thought it was a buncha oddballs looking for attention. Until the night of the Bingo Extravaganza. I was driving home when all of a sudden, the radio started to…flicker. I don’t have a better word, but it came in and out real fast, until it was just static. And in the static, I heard something. Now, I guess it was a voice, but I won’t say for sure it was talking to me. I’ll just say the voice was there, and I surely heard it. I was so startled I slammed on my brakes! And then I saw the light in the sky. Right ahead of me, bright as anything. I’ll speak the honest truth: it’s the most scared I ever was in my life. I didn’t wait around to be taken to no spacecraft. I got out of there right quick. Little ways down the road, the radio started working again, and that’s how I knew I was safe. After that night, I didn’t doubt the aliens anymore.

  Subject #11, Miriam Warren (Gram): Yes, I was driving down Turtleback Road that night. And yes, sure, I saw the UFO… Or had radio static… Or any other thing you’re saying happened. Whatever it was, it happened to me too.

  Subject #12, David O’Grady: There wasn’t a problem with my radio. I stopped my truck because I saw that health nut bozo in the middle of the road, shouting at the sky like he was talking to God. I thought maybe he snapped, maybe I should call an ambulance or something. Don’t know what I was thinking exactly. Just that I’d seen that Oz around town and I’d heard what he’d been running his mouth about, and the sooner he left Lansburg the better. I got out of my truck, with a mind to wrangle that man. That’s when I heard a person by the side of the road. When I ran that way, they moved into the forest. I chased. Don’t know what I thought I was gonna do. Sometimes I forget I’m not so young anymore. Ended up that I tripped, landed on my bum hip. Never got close enough to nab the person, but I got a glimpse of him, and I’ll tell you, I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like John Kennedy. Worst part is, while I was getting to my feet, Oz came up, insisting he call an ambulance for me. Lemme tell you something: in all my years, I never once needed an ambulance, and some little stumble in the woods ain’t gonna change that.