CHAPTER TWELVE
On the roof of the Town
Hall, fourteen people were lined up at the entrance to the big black
Spaceship. Jake and Marie were at the back of the line... And an
Alien with a Gizmo was standing watch at the entrance to the Ship.
Now that Jake had a closer
look at it, it seemed bigger than it did from the ground. It wasn't
as flat as it seemed, and clearly had more than one level to it on
the inside. The door to the Ship served as a ramp, and the interior
was filled with what looked like large rows of shelves, arranged like
Supermarket aisles.
The Alien took a position at
the head of the line. It had another Gizmo. It was the fourth one
that Jake had seen, and it was the first one wielded by an Alien. It
was larger, and colored black instead of Red, like theirs. It looked
more like a weapon than a tool.
"Ah, the heavy duty
version." Marie commented under her breath.
The Alien looked
thoroughly... bored. It was hard to read the posture of something
from another planet, but the Alien seemed more interested in looking
over the scenery than the people it was taking prisoner. The big
black eyes gazed coldly over the town as the Saucers moved in a
pattern, knocking down buildings as they went. They weren't shooting
at everything, several buildings were being left alone...
In fact, the creature barely
looked at the humans as it waved them through. The sleepwalkers lined
up at the ramp, and the Alien waved his Gizmo at them, sending them
up, two at a time. The two at the front of the line would step up the
ramp, and wait. A line of green light projected from above somewhere,
and scanned over them. Jake saw it and was reminded of the X-Ray
Machine.
The two people that stepped
up both stayed still as the scan rolled over them. A moment later,
the two of them started walking again, heading in different
directions. The Alien at the entrance was still watching the Saucers
attacking things for a long moment, before it noticed that the
entrance was empty. It waved the Black Gizmo again, and the next two
stepped up to the top of the ramp. As before, the Ship scanned them
at the entrance, and they walked into the Ship, apparently heading to
different places.
It took a few minutes each
time. Jake wasn't sure what the Alien was waiting for, but he could
hear things in the Ship moving about each time someone entered. His
visibility was limited, but each person that entered seemed to be
pointed to a different location.
"This is why there's a
delay between groups of Sleepwalkers." Marie whispered. "They're
not just herding us into cattle cars, they're processing us, and that
takes time."
Jake and Marie were at the
back of the line. It took ten minutes to get to the front of it. Jake
didn't dare change his posture or expression, though his eyes kept
flicking to the Alien every few seconds. The more he looked at it,
the more something started to dawn on him. He wasn't afraid of it any
more. He was still scared, but he wasn't panicked. The suffocating
fear was gone.
It's because you've
gotten a clear look at them now. He
told himself.
It's because you have a decent idea of what's happening now. Well,
not exactly, but more than you did when it was just scary lights
going off in your head. It's true: You fear most what you don't
understand.
There were only two people
left in front of them, and Jake could feel Marie tense. The Alien was
close enough to reach out and touch.
Jake was suddenly struck by
something. The Aliens weren't invading anything. The Aliens that he
had seen were armed, but they had been lousy shots. They were
outfitted with Drones that could hunt, but they'd been following
around the Sheriff to find people they had missed... and they had
trusted most of their busy work to the same people they were
abducting... And now at the very front door to their Spaceship, the
one Alien guard was barely looking at his own prisoners.
These guys aren't
invading soldiers. This isn't some lethal alien conquest, this is...
what?
Jake and Marie were the last
ones to enter the Ship. Jake tried to peek out the corner of his eye
at their guard, tried to time his motion to the swing of the Gizmo.
He caught the barest glimpse
of Marie moving, and quickly stepped forward with her. At the
entrance to the Ship, he got a decent look inside it for the first
time. The area beyond the door was split up into rows as he'd
thought. Rows of large shelves.
Jake peered without moving
his head, trying to get a clearer look, but at that moment the light
from above scanned over him. A moment later, it scanned again. There
was no alarm, no buzzer. The light scanned a third time...
The Alien trilled a little
to itself and turned around, suddenly noticing the two of them for
the first time. Jake felt his heart speed up so fast it hurt his
chest.
The Grey looked closer at
the two of them, and chirruped something in curiosity. A moment
later, the light scanned over them once again...
Whatever the scan came back
with, the Grey trilled a little in surprise, and came forward to take
a close look at the two teenagers. Jake could feel the weight of
those malevolent black eyes pressing against him again, stripping him
bare with one glance.
Marie struck, lashing out
suddenly. She kicked at the Grey, who darted back with more agility
than Jake would have expected from the thing. Jake lashed out too,
managing to grab the things' wrist before it could bring its weapon
around to aim at Marie. The skin felt cool and clammy and unnatural
in his grip, and Jake almost let go of it instinctively.
Marie brought up the can of
Mace and nailed the Grey right in the big black eyeballs.
The Alien shrieked in a
pitch that made Jake's ears hurt. It forgot all about both of them
very quickly, thrashing around at the sudden agony of its oversized
eyes on fire.
Jake was terrified, but
struck out, backing Marie. The Grey was blinded, swinging around its
weapon. Jake grabbed the weapon arm, and pulled, yanking the small
body off its feet. The Grey was lighter than Jake expected, and he
actually tossed the creature off the edge of the roof.
Jake and Marie were suddenly
alone on the rooftop, breathing hard. They ran to the edge and looked
down. The Alien wasn't moving, its large round head twisted at an
unnatural angle by the drop.
"I wonder if that's
fatal for them too." Marie said in an unnaturally thin voice.
Jake pulled her away from
the edge, and they both sat awkwardly on the roof, short of breath,
suddenly exhausted. The two of them had been going from adrenaline to
exhaustion over and over.
"Are you out of your
head?" Jake hissed. "I mean are you just completely insane
and I never noticed until now? The rest of them will be on us any
second and we don't have any idea how long this will take, what we're
looking for..."
"It'll only take us
thirteen minutes." Marie said quickly, hurrying to the Ship
door, looking for more Aliens within.
Jake spun to look at her in
shock. "How do you know that?"
Marie checked her watch
again. "Because in fourteen
minutes, the clock will strike the hour. Pierce's dad had a
double-cross of his own planned. He's rigged the clocktower to blow
up when the minute hand hits twelve."
Jake looked at her, eyes
bugged out.
Marie sighed and explained
quickly. "I lost track of you after the blast, and I figured...
that you must have died, taking the Saucer down. I didn't know what
else to do, so I figured I'd try and find Pierce. We found each other
just as he caught up to his dad, and... Turns out the Sheriff isn't
quite so willing a collaborator as we thought."
Jake felt his heart speed up
again. "So, stuff happened while I was out cold, huh?"
"Oh yeah." Marie
nodded.
Jake hesitated. "We put
Jess in the clocktower."
"So we should hurry."
Marie said simply.
The two of them hurried into
the Spaceship. The feeling of walking up and down shelves grew
stronger once they were inside. Each shelf was ten feet wide, with
five feet between them. Jake craned his head back to try and see how
tall they were, but up above, there were no lights, so he couldn't
tell for sure. He tried to compare the inside of the Ship to what
he'd seen of the outside, and was surprised at what he came up with.
The majority of the spacecraft was nothing but storage space.
"It's a cargo ship."
Jake said suddenly.
"That's what I think
too." Marie nodded. "It... whoa." Her voice dropped in
sudden horror. Jake looked. The shelves were made up of
compartments... And every compartment was full of people. They all
stared blankly ahead, eyes open. They were all breathing slowly, not
moving, not speaking. Some of the compartments only had one or two
people, some had five or six. Each compartment was sealed with a
thick transparent material. Jake dared to run a finger over the clear
wall and it felt like smooth glass.
Marie shivered as she looked
into the nearest compartment, and the woman with silver hair within.
"It's Renata." She said softly. "Remember, she used to
give piano lessons?" She rubbed the back of her neck. "I
never really did practice."
"Me neither." Jake
shivered. "Their eyes are open. They're just... standing there,
looking at us."
Marie slipped her hand into
his. "Let's get moving. We gotta find our families."
The two of them moved up and
down the shelves quickly. Three levels on each shelf, which made the
shelves reach up into the high arches of the interior. Jake had
trouble counting the compartments, since they were oddly shaped, but
he recognized every face.
Rosalie Persaud. Keith Lafond. Yvonne Pridemore.
Robert Flannery. Emma Corum. Steve Slade. Phillip Vest. Amanda
Hennessy. Ruby Canning. Lawrence Jewell. Jesse Suh. Florence Gipson.
Fred Travers. Jacob Navarro... Jake knew them all by name, knew them
all like family.
The kid who had the locker next to his. The guy
who stocked shelves in the market. The woman who worked the register
at the video store. His science partner. His first grade teacher. His
next door neighbor. His first workmate...
Jake felt his breath catch at every step, every
compartment held another part of his town, another slice of his
life...
He looked to Marie, and saw the same thought on
her face.
"We can't just leave them." He
whispered.
"We can't save them."
Marie said back, looking ill at the fact. He knew she wanted to save
them all as badly as he did. These people weren't strangers, they
were his whole world.
They searched up and down
the shelves for several minutes. Jake checked his watch every three
seconds, looked over his shoulder just as often. They would have
moved faster if they'd split up, but neither of them dared it. For
all their fear, there was no sign of other guards.
"Jake." Marie
called neutrally. Jake looked, and felt a grim cruel smirk rise on
his face.
Mayor Grady was in one of
the cages. It seemed only fitting.
There was no sign of the
rest of the crew. It almost felt like the two of them had the run of
the place. The only suggestions of what an Alien Spaceship would look
like on the inside came from movies and television, and this ship
held none of the trappings. There were no artistic arches, though the
ceilings were high. There was no slime on the walls, no vents hissing
with steam. Nor was it polished clean, with glowing lights. The Ship
could have been a human cargo plane if not for the cargo it was
hauling.
And still there was no sign
of anyone moving, human or otherwise.
"I can't get over how
easy this is." Jake whispered.
"Easy? You call tonight
easy?" Marie hissed back.
"Yeah, I do. These guys
flew a billion light years, can snatch planes out of the sky, can
Implant people right in their brains without them even knowing about
it... and we're able to get in just by knocking out the guard at the
door and pretending to sleepwalk?" Jake retorted. "They got
Drones that can be fooled by spot fires because they only see in
infra-red, and they trust their manifest to humans? Does this seem
like an Evil Alien Overlord style operation to you?"
Marie looked around. "I
get the impression that this is... low-tech. At least for them. We've
only seen the one Grey since we came in. I don't think these guys are
the hard-core Alien Invaders. I think they're... what? Truck
Drivers?"
Jake looked up at the cages
again. "Cattle Trucks to be precise. They come, they collect the
herd, they check their inventory..."
Marie shivered. "You
don't think... I mean, they wouldn't really
use us for food, right?"
"I don't know... but I
think humans are low on their list of priorities." Jake said.
"At least, based on what I've seen so far. They barely seem to
notice us. Or care. I heard that a bunch of them are out hunting
whoever didn't get Implanted, and they're doing it for sport. So...
Rorke said there were only eight Aliens as crew. Maybe a few less by
now? There's a lot we don't know."
"Well... fine. Because
we happen to be very high
on our
priority lists. The rabbit escapes the tiger because the rabbit wants
to live, and the tiger just wants a snack." Marie finished the
metaphor grimly, before she rounded the next shelf and her face
changed. "Jake!"
Jake hurried to join her and
froze. Her family was in one of the cages, clearly visible. It was on
the second level, at least five feet over their heads. Too high for
them to reach. Jake cast around again, looking for a way up. Marie
gripped the Red Gizmo they had taken from Jess, chewing on her lip.
Jake held a hand out. "Wait.
The Black Gizmo that the Alien was using at the door... The one you
called the Heavy Duty Version?"
"What about it?"
"Well... If it is
the Heavy Duty Version, then what are the odds it could get the
entire Town outta these cages and off this thing?" Jake
suggested carefully.
Marie's eyes lit with a
sudden inner fire. It was the ultimate prize. The chance to get
everyone out safe. Their town was burning, but the people in it were
largely intact. A little luck could save them all. The two of them
almost sprinted through the ship to the entrance, and found the Big
Black Gizmo right where the guard had left it. Marie snatched it up.
They both made a quick study
of it as they headed back inside. "Shouldn't we be seeing more
people?" Marie asked suddenly. "It has to be... I don't
know, but shouldn't the next load of people be sleepwalking in right
now?"
"Maybe Rorke is
stopping them now..." Jake bit his lip. "Or maybe there's
nobody else coming."
That little statement
stopped them both cold.
"If there's nobody else
coming... then there's nobody else left." Marie said softly.