CHAPTER NINE
Jake and Jess were running
down the street, holding hands. After going three streets, Jess
pulled back out of the next intersection and hissed. "People!"
Jake's eyes had recovered,
and his lungs were improving. He pulled her behind him and peeked
around the street corner. At the other end of the street, there were
half a dozen people... and two more on the way. They were at the end
of the street, standing still in the middle of the road, lined up
according to height, male and female, in two rows.
"That's what Tracy was
talking about." Jake whispered to her. "If they're
sleepwalking, then... They probably won't notice us."
"I don't wanna take the
chance." Jess hissed.
"Me neither."
KRACKABOOM!
None of the people in the
next street reacted at all, but the two of them spun around in shock,
as every window in the street shattered from the force of the
explosion. Jess let out a sob. "That was Tracy's place."
She gasped out. "That was the Jeep full of explosives."
"...yeah it was."
Jake admitted, trying to get his ears to work again. "Man, that
was a big bang."
Jess looked back down the
street. "And they don't even blink."
Jake coughed again, his
lungs healing, but in pain. "Jess... Did you see? My eyes were
half useless. Did you see what happened to the others?"
Jess looked at him sickly.
"No. Last thing I saw, they were taking cover behind the edge of
the pool, and Pierce was shooting. Where'd he get the gun?"
"From Maggie. She...
didn't need it any more."
Jess' face twisted slightly,
and she was about to speak when her shoulders suddenly hunched a
little, and her head tilted like a wild thing that had heard an
approaching predator. Jake reacted the same way. Neither of them
could be exactly sure what they had heard, but they both knew
something was coming. Without a word spoken between them, they ran
down the first driveway, taking cover. Sure enough, a Saucer slid
through the sky above them without making a sound, heading for the
explosion. It passed over them without pausing.
"Where are we going?"
Jess asked.
Jake checked his pockets and
discovered he still had the Gizmo, stolen from Sheriff Tanner. "We
finish the job." He said finally. "Neither of us wanted to
go through with Maggie's plan. We've got the Gizmo, we can still go
through with our own."
Jess shivered hard... and
nodded. "The Town Hall?"
Jake bit his lip. "The
Diner."
~oo00oo~
Curtis Creek was being
taken, street by street. Those who were Marked put up no struggle,
and those that saw what was happening either burrowed deep into their
houses, or tried to run. Those that ran were quickly dispatched by
the watchful Saucers, moving overhead with endless geometric
precision.
It was a pattern that was
predictable, but Jake knew it was designed to keep people from
getting out.
He and his friends were trying to get in.
It took several minutes,
dashing from cover to cover. Every street they passed was still, but
now it felt more like a bombed out warzone than anything else. There
were houses burning, but not many of them. Jake wondered what those
families had done to rate destruction. He wondered how many of these
streets had been cleared out already.
As they crept through their
neighborhood, Jess and Jake compared notes on which houses had doors
left open, or muddy footprints here and there, and got a rough idea
of how the town was being cleared out. It was enough to keep them
distracted from their fear until they reached the Main Street. The
Supermarket was burning, but the rest of the street was still. Jake
knew where the spare key to the Diner was, and he let them in the
back door.
"Stay in the kitchen
for now." Jess said to him quietly. "You can see the Town
Hall from the windows here... which means they can see us."
"The windows are
tinted, just keep the lights off." Jake said. "But yeah,
let's stay away from the windows for now."
The two of them found chairs
stacked up in the storeroom and sat in the kitchen for a while, not
saying anything.
"I was hoping they'd be
here." Jess confessed after a moment. "I didn't see if they
got away... Zack would come here. Pierce might use it to recon the
target, and Marie would go with either of them."
"Recon the target?"
Jake repeated, a small grin playing at the corner of his lips. "When
did you go GI Jane?"
"Somewhere between:
'Jess, are you having trouble sleeping?' and 'Look at these photos'."
She retorted.
Jake nodded. "Could be
we just beat them here?"
"I hope so." She
nodded. "Listen... Zack came running out of the fire. He said
that he and Maggie got pinned. He said that you and Pierce got him
out. He said that Maggie was dead the second it fell on her."
"With all the smoke and
the heat, it took us a few seconds to figure that out." Jake
agreed, peeking around the edge of the kitchen door, just checking
the back entrance.
"Zack was about to go
running back in when you came out." Jess offered. "I
honestly don't think he knew that he'd left you behind in there."
She was commenting on Zack
running away, without actually using the words 'run away', and he
sent her a light glare. "If you're looking for the heroic type,
you should get back together with Pierce. Because he didn't even
blink. He ran straight into the fire. I mean, while we were all
coughing on the smoke, he just sprinted into a burning building."
"Yeah." Jess
conceded. "But if you're asking... I don't regret any of my
choices with who I date." She made sure he got her meaning. "Not
any
of my choices."
"And I don't regret any
of my choices in who my friends are." Jake nodded. "After
all this, I might even add Pierce to the list. Heroic bastard."
She chuckled a bit at that,
and pulled him in for a kiss on the lips that set off sparks in his
head. He wasted no time in deepening the embrace, and they clung to
each other for several moments.
"Oh. Sorry, we'll come
back later."
"Mmph!" Jake broke
the kiss quickly, and spun to see Zack, Marie, and Pierce in the
doorway to the kitchen. They were all trying not to laugh, even
after the night they'd had.
"About time you showed up."
"I don't know, you
probably could have handled it if we arrived a few minutes later."
Pierce teased, and Jess flipped him off. Even with the teasing, none
of them could hide their open relief at seeing each other safe.
Pierce looked around.
"Tracy?"
Jake shook his head a
little. "She didn't suffer." Not
for long, anyway.
The five of them took a few
moments to take stock of themselves. They were scratched up, bruised,
eyes a little wild, hair and clothes a bit trashed... But they were
all alive. And not everyone that had joined their little party had
been so lucky.
"The Greys had us
pinned big time. I only had two shots left in the gun..." Pierce
explained. "So I blew up the Jeep."
"That was you?"
"Yeah. Really got the
Little Grey Man's attention too." Pierce said with a disturbing
glee.
Jess sent Jake a look. "I
knew he was a pyro at heart."
Zack put his head in. "The
storeroom's been trashed. There's a smashed window in the back."
He said. "Looks like someone was looking for food. They wouldn't
have found any."
His reminder of the
situation got them all working again, and the five of them made a
quick search of the building, checking entrances, barricading doors.
There was a First Aid Kit in Marie's bag, and another in the Diner,
and what injuries they had were cleaned and treated.
Zack refused to meet Jake's
eyes. Jake was wrapping his best friend's ankle, and they didn't say
a word to each other for almost five minutes.
"I thought you were
behind me." Zack said finally. "I thought... If I'd known
you were staying in the building, I would have..." He trailed
off, not really buying it himself. "No. I guess I wouldn't
have."
Jake said nothing for a
while, trying to think what words he could say that would not make it
worse. "It cost us nothing." He said. "We didn't
realize that Maggie was already dead, and... well, then we did and we
left. It made no difference to anything."
It was true, but it wasn't
what Zack really wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear would have
been a lie. They were best friends, practically family... And Zack
had run away.
"We've never been in a
scrape like this." Jake admitted. "But pretty much our
entire lives, we've been getting in over our heads, and getting each
other out of it."
Zack shivered. "I was
scared."
Jake nodded. "So was
I."
"Hey guys?" Marie
called from the Diner. "I think you might want to take a look at
this."
~oo00oo~
The normality of the Diner
was somehow even more jarring. Jake had spent a good portion of his
life in this room, sitting in his favorite booth, eating with his
friends...
And now with the lights off,
and two cars burning outside, it seemed like a joke from another
lifetime.
Marie was hiding, pressed
against the window frame, looking out over the town. The others crept
over to join her, staying back a little from the windows, but they
all saw at once what she was talking about.
The Town Hall was clearly
visible at the far side of the Festival Square... and parked on the
roof was an alien craft.
"The Mothership?"
Pierce guessed.
"Oh there's gotta be a
less cliché name for it than that!"
"Call it whatever you
want, but I'll bet all the money in my pockets that the Saucer Drones
came from that thing." Pierce retorted. "And I'll be
willing to bet that the Sleepwalkers are all being taken into it."
It was big, and its wings
reached over the sides of the Town Hall. It was big and black, and
triangular in shape. It was shiny and seamless, and it was parked on
the roof of the Town Hall, the triangular shape pointed down Main
Street, the Clocktower at its back.
"It looks a little like
a stealth bomber." Zack commented. "No lights."
"The Saucers had
lights." Jess whispered. "It was how they scanned..."
"If you think we can
just walk up there... I don't know, Jess; that's a long shot."
Zack hissed. "Hey... who's that?"
Everyone ducked and peeked
out the window. Almost a dozen people walked two-by-two, male and
female, down the middle of the main street, until they reached the
front door of the Town Hall. The door opened, and a familiar face
arrived at the entrance.
"Father Rorke?"
Jess hissed. "The Town Priest
is in the middle of this?"
"I'm not even
surprised." Jake snorted. "The entire Town Council. The
Mayor, the Sheriff, the Padre, and the Editor of the paper."
Marie nodded. "The ones
we all come to with our problems, or if we want more information. The
ones we ask if we think there's something bad going on in this town.
The Greys chose their allies well."
Father Rorke was at the door
to the Town Hall with a large clipboard. He looked over the townsfolk
that were assembled in front of the steps and checked his clipboard
several times. He was flipping back and forth between pages and Jess
snapped her fingers. "It's the Town Census!"
Now that she'd said it, it
seemed so obvious. "Of course!" Jake hissed. "He's...
checking the Grey's manifest! They know who got Implanted, and
they're comparing to the list."
Pierce reached into his
waistband and pulled out Maggie's Gizmo. It was tarnished in a few
places, and the handle was shorter. It seemed older than the one they
had found on their own.
"It doesn't work."
Pierce said. "Or at least it won't get rid of the Implants.
Maggie proved that. They couldn't shut her down, but they could still
track her. Our plan is still the same." He started counting on
his fingers. "Our original plan: Jess and Jake go in with our
Gizmo. The rest of us go after my dad and try to get another one,
come in independently and do the same."
Jess looked out the window.
"I'm looking at it, and I think we might actually have a shot at
pulling that off." She turned to Jake. "You, me, and Marie
are on that list too. The Padre knows that we know, but he might not
know we got the Implants out."
"So... what? We stroll
up to the front door and pretend to be sleepwalking?" Jake said
in jaded awe. "Well... I salute your moxie. But I don't know,
Jess. That's a long shot."
"Worse than hoping to
sneak in a window?" Zack asked logically. "The building is
guarded. The only place they let people in is the entrance. You walk
in the front door with a crowd, you at least have a shot of going
unnoticed."
"So what do we do?"
Jake bit his lip. "What
we planned to do." He said finally. "When we were at the
cabin, we decided we had to come back for our families. Maggie told
us they'd all be at the Town Hall..." He waved at the Spaceship.
"And now we know why. We go in there, and we get our families
out... and anything else we can do to help, we do that too."
Without a word, everyone
glanced at Zack. He stared right back at them without a word.
"It's a pretty vague
plan, Jake." Marie pointed out. "We don't know anything
about the inside of that thing."
"We know where it is.
That's more than we knew when we first decided to come back to town."
Zack told his girlfriend.
"Maybe we can pull it
off, but not if we go for any more than the minimum." Pierce
said suddenly. "Maybe
we can get your parents out, but we can't get the whole town."
"How do you figure
that?" Jess asked him.
"They have a quota."
Pierce said. "Grady said so a dozen times. We've got plenty of
cattle farmers around town, ask any of them what you do when you have
a quota to meet. You always have a few extra head of cattle than the
numbers you need, in case something happens. We take a few out of
that ship, like just your families, maybe it's too much trouble to
come back for them. We try and be heroes..."
"And they get in our
faces real fast to stop us." Jake nodded.
Marie raised a hand
awkwardly. "We get our families out, and they've still got
quotas to meet... doesn't that just shift the problem? They don't
keep my folks, but they take someone else?"
Long silence.
"I want my family
back." Jess said finally. "I want my family back, and if
that means someone has a bad day... Well, the sun's vanished. We're
all having a bad day!"
Jake was a little surprised
at her vehemence, but none of them spoke a word against it.
Pierce nodded. "We
don't have a better plan. You still got The Gizmo?"
Jake reached into his
jacket, and his face froze. He slapped at his pockets quickly.
"Oh my God!" Jess
hissed in horrified disbelief. "Where is it?"
Jake's face split into a
grin and pulled The Gizmo out of his back pocket. "Right here, I was
just messing with you guys for my own amusement."
Jess slugged his arm hard,
the blood returning to her face. "Jake, I swear, you ever do
something like that to me again, and you'll never
get any further than first base."
Jake grinned at Pierce
despite himself. "Well, that was a short honeymoon. So to
speak."
Pierce grinned back. "I'm
going after my dad."
"You still armed?"
"Lost my guns in the
scrap at Tracy's place."
"The Sheriff will still
have a Grey with him. Maybe more than one." Jake pointed out.
"You've seen their weapons now." He paused. "I
wouldn't risk it."
Pierce nodded. "Yeah,
just like I wouldn't risk going into the freakin' Spaceship! But he's
my dad, and I gotta... I don't know, but I have to be the one who
does it... whatever 'it' turns out to be."
Nobody could bring
themselves to argue with that.
"You're right though."
Pierce agreed. "Going after my dad is risky, going after the
Greys that are no doubt watching him is suicide." He bit his
lip. "Zack, what are the odds your dad has a gun somewhere in
here?"
"No chance." Zack
said simply.
Pierce frowned at the
Spaceship. "If I asked you guys to wait a bit so I could reload,
how would that affect the plan?"
"Well, I'm not sure
this qualifies
as a plan, but... The Diner is a good spot. Too good to lose."
Zack said quietly. "We wait here too long, they'll notice us. We
go now, and you're running around in circles across the town, we
might be out by the time you try anything."
Pierce said nothing, he just
looked at them.
"So... I guess we'll
have to go with you." Jess said finally.
"What?"
Jess pointed at the steps as
the two rows of people went inside. "They're not taking the
whole town at once, so whatever they're doing, it works on a
timetable. We either wait here for the next group and hope we don't
get noticed, or we sneak out like we snuck in." She looked to
Jake. "No offense, Jake; but if I'm going in there, I'd like to
be armed too."
Jake winced. "I've
never, ever, carried a gun in my life. Nothing more than an air
rifle. I don't approve of them. Don't believe in them."
Pierce couldn't help the
bitter smirk. "A week ago, none of us believed in Aliens."
"Touche."
The five of them slipped
away from the windows and made their way through the back.
"If they're walking
people in the front door in groups, then it means they can't just
'beam us up'." Jake said. "They have to make more than one
trip. However they're getting people from the Town Hall into the
Ship, they have to organize it to avoid the logjam."
"That'll give us time."
Pierce agreed. "Okay. Where in town do we go to arm up? Anyone
who's awake will be holding onto their guns right now. Anyone asleep
won't care. Who was on that list and has a weapon?"
Jess grinned. "Pierce,
as it happens, there's one place in town that has stuff to spare."
~oo00oo~
The five of them kept the
buildings of the town between themselves and the Spacecraft as much
as possible. It likely wasn't going to do a whole lot of good, but
they felt better having something in the way.
Mrs
Blanchard's house was dark but intact. The kids crept up to the back
door.
Almost
before Jake could knock, the door opened, and the barrel of a shotgun
pointed out at him. Jake grabbed it on reflex and aimed it upward a
little with a shout.
Mrs
Blanchard pumped the shotgun and glared at him. "What are you
kids doing out this late?"
"Late?"
Pierce retorted. "It's nine o'clock in the morning. The fact
that the sun didn't get the memo has nothing to do with it."
"Haven't
you heard, Mrs Blanchard?" Marie said with a wry smirk. "The
world is ending."
"I'm
flattered you thought of me." Mrs Blanchard drawled. "Well,
you better get inside before one of those UFO's see you."
"Just
so you know?" Jake said as they all came in. "UFO means
Unidentified Flying Object. We know what those Saucers are, they're
Drones built by extraterrestrials. So you can't really consider
them... to be... unidentified..." He trailed off as everyone
just looked at him. "Which... is not really important right
now."
It
was the first time Jake had been in Mrs Blanchard's house, and he
knew it didn't normally look like this. The furniture had all been
pushed against the windows and doors, except for the front door,
which had new braces and locks bolted into it. The living room was
filled with everything from canned goods to jewelry, after a week of
bartering. Blanchard herself was packing a hunting knife around her
leg, the shotgun, and a bolt-action hunting rifle, the kind every
family in farming country had to bullseye rabbits and foxes. The
stairs to the second level had been lined with planks of wood with
nails stuck through on every third step. The windows on the ground
floor had similar spiked boards across the inside of the windows.
The
whole house was set up to repel an invasion, and Jake knew it would
last about three seconds if the Drones found them.
"So,
what are you all here for?" Mrs Blanchard asked coolly.
"Everyone comes to trade this week, what are you lot after?"
"Guns."
Pierce said shortly.
"Ha!"
Mrs Blanchard found that to be amusing. "Of all the weapons in
town, four of them are here, and I don't dare let go of them. What?
You think those Things come in my back door and I can offer them
a trade?"
Something
banged upstairs. Everyone jumped, except for their host, who didn't
seem surprised.
"Mrs
Blanchard." Jake tried. "You obviously know what's going on
out there."
"Tracy
came to me a few hours ago." She explained. "She asked me
for food and shoes, and in exchange she told me what was happening
outside. You want help, you should talk to her."
"We
did." Pierce said shortly. "She didn't make it."
Something
banged hard again upstairs, and everyone tensed.
"What
is
that?" Marie demanded.
Mrs
Blanchard glared at them. "None of your business."
Pierce
and Jake traded a look, and both of them headed for the stairs. Mrs
Blanchard had the shotgun pointed at them immediately. "Freeze!"
"Shoot
us!" Pierce dared her without breaking stride. Mrs Blanchard
chased after them, and everyone rushed upstairs. The banging was
coming from the first door on the right, and Pierce kicked the door
in without hesitation. "Oh, hell."
Everyone
came running and framed themselves around the doorframe to see what
was inside.
It
was a girl.
She
was about nine years old, wearing nightclothes and socks... And she
was sleepwalking. She had been tied to the bedframe with her own
sheets, and was trying to walk to the door.
Mrs
Blanchard reached out pointedly and pulled the bedroom door shut. "My
daughter. Melony." She said shortly. "She's staying with me
this week... I have no idea if her father is like this, but I'd like
to think if he was awake, he'd be here."
Jake
reached into his jacket and drew out the Gizmo. He looked to Zack,
who nodded. So did Marie, so did Jess. Pierce put a hand up. "We
got something to bargain."
"What's
that?" Mrs Blanchard asked with interest.
"No!"
Jake scorned. "What are we going to do? Hold the kid hostage?"
Pierce
shrugged. "We've gotta look out for ourselves. That's all anyone
is doing here."
Mrs
Blanchard leaned forward sharply. "If you brats have something
that can help my girl, you tell me now. Remember, I'm still holding
the gun."
Jake
was about to speak when Pierce sent him a deadly look. He glanced at
Zack, who shook his head slightly. Marie's nodded her approval, and
Jess glared hard, as if daring him to tell the truth over her
objections.
Mrs
Blanchard saw the significant looks being traded back and forth, and
lowered the gun, a little embarrassed by it. "I'm sorry. We...
We're all just trying to keep our own safe tonight."
Jake
approved of that answer, because it was exactly what he felt. "We're
planning on doing something stupid and brave tonight. We were hoping
to improve the odds." He pulled out the Gizmo. "This is
what we used to turn the Implants off."
Mrs
Blanchard gripped the shotgun. "I'll trade you the guns you
need, for that Thinga-majig you got there."
"Gizmo."
Jess corrected promptly.
"Oh
yes, that's much more official." Marie snorted under her breath.
Jake
held the Gizmo close. "I need this one."
She
aimed the shotgun at him. "You don't seem to understand your
bargaining position. Maybe you haven't heard? It's the end of the
world."
Standoff.
"You
can have this one." Pierce said suddenly. He held out the older
device, the one he'd taken from Maggie Gunn.
"You've
got two? What the hell were you worried about?" Mrs Blanchard
turned that over in her head for a moment. "I want proof they
work as advertized." She said finally.
"Of
course." Pierce said smoothly and put the older one back in his
pocket. "Jake, show the woman how it works, would you?"
Jake
suddenly realized what he was planning, and felt sick about it. But
Jess gave him a look that told him not to push the issue now. Jake
pushed past everyone and went into the girls bedroom. He swept his
own Gizmo up to her head and hit the button combination. A moment
later, the child stopped dragging herself against her ropes and went
still.
"What's
he doing?!" Mrs Blanchard demanded. Jake glanced over his
shoulder and noticed Jess and Marie were holding her back. "What's
he doing to her?!"
Melony
was still, on her feet, just staring into space for a second, as a
trickle of something metallic came from her ear. Then suddenly her
eyes focused, becoming aware. She had a stunned, disconnected look on
her face, as if surprised to find herself standing up, let alone tied
to her bed and surrounded by strangers. "Mommy?"
Mrs
Blanchard let out a sob of relief and pushed her way past the others
to wrap her daughter up in a hug.
Pierce
was unmoved, holding out Maggie's older alien toy. "Do we have a
deal?"
Mrs
Blanchard looked back to them and nodded. She was unwilling to take
her arms away from her daughter any longer than absolutely necessary,
and she snatched it off him quickly, hugging it to her daughter's
body. "Take anything you like."
~oo00oo~
They took a handheld radio,
two handguns, some ammo, and a holster. Jake had a foul taste in his
mouth as they left her house. They walked down the street quickly,
and turned the first corner they came to. None of them said a word
until they were out of sight. "We sold her a lemon." He
said darkly. "We gave her Maggie's Gizmo. The older one. The one
that ran out of juice ten years ago."
"She had you at the end
of a shotgun, Jake."
"Melony didn't."
"You want to go back?"
Jess challenged practically.
"I go back and confess,
she'll probably blow my head off on principal." Jake shook his
head. "I could have told her the truth. She'd just got her kid
back. She owed us."
"Yes, she did."
Pierce said agreeably. "But we decided to play it safe with that
Gizmo, because we don't know how much juice it has left. We know they
can run out of power, because Maggie told us so. We decided to use it
sparingly, until we could get another one... which was the whole
reason for coming here and getting some weapons." He adjusted
the straps of his shoulder holster and tested how fast he could reach
the handgun he carried. "And by the way? That's not your Gizmo.
It came from my father, remember? I'm letting you carry it, because
if I die doing this, then you still got a chance."
Jake shivered as Jess
checked the safety on her own gun. Jake hadn't wanted to go near the
thing, let alone be the one to carry it. The girl he was fast falling
in love with slid the weapon into her waistband, with fire in her
eyes. "Let's go, Jake." She looked back to Pierce. "Good
luck with your dad."
Pierce nodded evenly, and
for a brief moment, Jake felt a chill, realizing how alike the two of
them were now. They were both focused, hard, almost eager to face
what came next.
"Okay." Marie
said, mindful of the growing tension. "We've got two guns, one
extra clip each, one flare gun from the fishing shack, the Gizmo,
duct-tape, a baseball bat, a map of the town, a radio, tuned to the
police band..."
Pierce took the radio and
gave Zack the baseball bat. "I don't know what'll happen if you
get into that Spaceship, but on the off chance everything goes well,
leave a note for us at the Diner." He said to Jake and Jess. "If
I can get another Gizmo off my dad, I'll come in after you, but I'll
go there first. If I see a message, I'll assume you made it out and
come looking for you instead."
"What about us?"
Zack asked.
"You can come with me,
or you can stay out of my way." Pierce said. His eyes were
stone.
Jake sent Marie a look, and
the girl nodded discreetly. She and Zack would go with Pierce, and
make sure they could stop him before he did something he couldn't
come back from and started killing people.
There was a moment as
everyone realized this was it. This was the moment their little group
would split up and go off into the dark. Very possibly the last they
would all see of each other.
"Well..." Jake
said finally. "Good luck."
Pierce returned the look.
"To you as well."
And then, before they could
say anything... The handheld radio suddenly crackled to life. They
could hear the echoes of the loudspeakers in Town Square, even the
faint sound of radios in people's houses too. Across the silent ghost
town, there was suddenly a familiar voice. "Jess?"
The girl turned to stone.
"Dad!" Everyone was frozen in place, staring at her in
disbelief. Across the town, from every speaker, her father was making
an announcement.
"Jess, they're not
angry." Her father said. "They understand that what you and
your friends are doing is only because of your mother and I. Your
mother is here with me, Jess; and we're both safe. I know how worried
you must be."
Jess spun, looking for some
way that she could run to his side, and Jake grabbed her again.
"Don't fall for that! They've mimicked your father's voice
before."
"You don't know that!
Neither of us saw if he was there or not!" Jess pulled away
roughly. "He could have been looking for me all night!"
Pierce grabbed Jess by the
shoulders and shook her hard. "If your dad has been looking,
it's because the Greys want him to."
"Kids, what are you
going to do?" The voice called over the radio with authority.
"You can't win, you can't escape... and I think you're starting
to realize you can't hide. They have the run of the town. You have
nowhere to go. There's nobody who can help you. There's nobody left
in town you can run to."
The five of them looked
around, expecting an attack any second. The street hadn't changed,
but suddenly felt a lot more menacing. They knew it was an illusion,
because the loudspeakers had to be working all over town. Jake
wondered idly how many people were left free and safe in Curtis
Creek. Homes had been left burning without anyone even trying to put
the fires out. Somewhere out there, there had to have been a
survivor...
Unless he's telling the
truth. Jake
thought bleakly. We
left Mrs Blanchard almost five minutes ago. We hear explosions every
few minutes...
"Jess..." The
speakers proclaimed. "Nobody has to get hurt. Now you know what
you're up against, and you have to know you can't succeed. I know
that you're with your friends because you trust them... even love
them. But if I had been there, I would have told you not to put
yourself in danger; even if your friends insisted. Jess, come in from
the cold. Your mother and I are worried about you."
Jess chewed on her lip, eyes
getting big as dinner plates.
"You want to find us?
You don't have to be in danger for that. They can't Implant you
again. There's nothing to be afraid of. If things continue as they
are... you could get hurt. Please, Jess? Listen to your father? I'm
right here, and I miss you. If you want to find us, you can do so...
right now."
Jake shook his head hard, as
if to clear it. "We should get moving."
"What if he's telling
the truth?" Marie said suddenly. "What if they're not
worried about broadcasting to the entire town because... there's
nobody else hearing this?"
Pierce and Jake traded a
serious glance. Dangerous
thoughts. Get everyone moving!
And then the radio crackled
again. "Jake?"
Jake froze. "Ben!"
Ben's voice called over the
radio to his brother. "It's okay, Big Brother. Don't be scared
of them. This is so cool, Jake! I'm in a spaceship! An actual
spaceship!"
Marie grabbed Jake's wrist.
"Don't you fall for it either!"
"Jake, I'm sorry about
what happened at the cornfield." Ben said. "Jake, you'll
love this place. Come and see it!"
"He knows about the
cornfield." Jess was clearly ready to believe it. "This
isn't a recording of anything!"
Pierce lunged, and snatched
the radio off Jess, smashing it on the pavement. The loudspeakers
kept going, but too far away to be clear what was said.
"What the hell!?"
Jess demanded furiously. "What if it was your dad next?! Or
Marie's? Or Zack's?"
"That's exactly what
I'm afraid of. Guys, we can't trust anything the Greys tell us, and
make no mistake, they're
the ones that were talking." Pierce said firmly. "We took
that radio in the hopes we might overhear something useful. What they
were saying? That wasn't useful, it was poison. We may not have much
of a plan, but it's gotta be a better idea than surrender."
"He's right."
Marie and Zack said together. Jake let out a shuddering breath,
conceding the point with a nod.
"What if it was
them?" Jess asked softly.
"Then they're alive and
we better get to the Town Hall to see if we can get them out of
there." Jake said seriously. They all started moving... Almost
all of them.
Jess said nothing. She
didn't speak, didn't move... and after a moment, everyone realized
she wasn't following them.
"Jess?" Jake said
in surprise. "What is it?"
Jess looked at him sadly,
and pulled the flare gun out of her backpack. "I'm sorry, Jake.
I'm so sorry." She aimed it straight up.
Marie let out a low moan.
Zack swore under his breath and Pierce lunged for her...
Too late.
The flare arced brightly
into the sky, lighting up the whole street. Jake stared at her in
disbelief. "Jess!" He shouted hoarsely, horror and
disbelief making the sound of her name sound like a curse. Jake
suddenly looked a million years older as the girl he'd fallen in love
with turned to face
him with deep
sadness.
Her long blonde tresses
gleamed blood-red under the light of the signal flare, but her eyes
were cool steel. "You guys better run while you still can."
She told them softly.
Jake sagged, looking at her
like he didn't recognize what he was looking at, dimly aware of the
others pulling at him, trying to drag him back, away from her. He
heard chittering in the distance and fear gave his legs permission to
move again.
The last thing Jake saw was
Jess turning to face a pair of Aliens, her hands raised in willing
surrender as they closed in on her, lit up by the hellish red sun
that fell slowly from the sky.