Untaken Read online

  The wind threw my hair into my face, so I pushed it back and squinted at the sky, expecting to see a bank of summer thunderheads rolling in, but.…

  I swallowed. My knees became weak.

  Above me, the Silver Ships were moving. Four of them gathered far above us, like sharks circling their prey. Their vast silver bellies flashed in the sunlight. They hung there for a minute, and then, all at once, they plummeted. My breath caught in my throat like my lungs had shrunk to nothing. I wanted to scream out a warning, but my mouth flapped helplessly.

  I’m dreaming. I fell asleep on the porch after all, and now I’m going to wake up. At first, the ships made no noise at all, then a terrible high-pitched screaming, that made all the hair on my arms stand up—something I’d always thought only happened in stories.

  I was screaming, too, but my voice was lost in the roar of the ships. My hair whipped into my mouth and I spat it out, choking. A car alarm began bleating to my left, and then that too was swallowed by the noise of otherworldly engines shifting up to killing speed. The storm had begun a hurricane and the thunderous din made my brain rattle in my skull. I wanted to run, but my legs felt like two strips of rubber. All I could do was stand frozen to the spot as the wind shoved me back and forth, my eyes streaming from the downdraft.

  The silvery hull of the nearest ship grew and grew until the blue summer sky vanished behind the monstrous hulk, and still it kept coming. The summer day had grown dark as twilight, and the pavement beneath my scuffed sneakers shivered.

  Someone hit my shoulder, almost knocking me off my feet. People poured out of the store, their eyes wide, their mouths shaping screams I couldn’t hear. One of the shop girls ran smack into the old guy, sending him flying to the ground. She didn’t stop to help him up, just trampled over him like he wasn’t there.

  Across the street, the window of the Italian Place shattered into glittering shards, the noise lost in the maelstrom.

  The wind shoved me again, stronger than before, a hot wind, with a weird smell like burnt sugar that made me gag. I stumbled, and just like that, whatever spell had frozen my feet in place seemed to be broken. I ran, half-blinded by my tangled hair, and half-mad from the crushing wall of sound and terror. I skirted a dogwood tree that had been ripped from the earth, black roots clawing at the sky like frantic hands. A pair of cop cars flew by me through the junction, the flashing lights sending me momentarily blind. Don’t look up, don’t look up, I told myself frantically. My sneakers crunched and slid on broken glass, my chest felt like it was stuffed with cotton. The world appeared in snatches of color and sound through the silvery scrim of pure panic that had muffled my senses.

  I hit our front door at a full run, almost knocking myself flat on my back. I pounded on the door.

  “Let me in! Please, open the door!”

  Gilda yanked the door open, fighting the wind. Her hands shook and tears ran down her face.

  “Gilda, where’s Mom?” I screamed above the hideous roar outside. I ran past her, through the empty kitchen, into the living room, the hall… “Mom?”

  Gilda shoved past me like she couldn’t see me. She grabbed her purse and her keys out of the cupboard where mom let her keep her cleaning stuff, then put them back again.

  “Please, Gilda. Did they come back yet? Oh god, what’s happening?” I was shaking worse than ever. My head felt light, like it was filled with fizzy water. I stumbled and fell against the sofa. Was this what it felt like to faint?

  Gilda’s hands closed around my shoulders. She hauled me to my feet and gave me a shake. I reached out for her and my fingers snagged her necklace, snapping it and sending beads flying.

  The noise grew and grew until my ears needled with pain. A picture fell off the wall, and Dad’s books started to dance off their shelves, fluttering to the floor one by one like birds with broken wings. Gilda stared at me with wide eyes, then twisted out of my grasp and grabbed up her purse again.

  “Gilda, please!”

  As crazy as I was, I knew what she was thinking.

  She had a baby of her own that her sister took care of back at her house in Waltham. She was thinking of her own baby, and of me, and I guess of her job, and she couldn’t decide whether to stay with me or to try to get home. It was kind of funny, in a sick way; that Gilda was still so scared of getting yelled at by Mom while this insane thing was happening all around us.

  Another crash rocked the earth and my teeth closed with a snap on my tongue; the whole house shuddering.

  Wringing her hands, Gilda continued staring at me, eyes wide. She couldn’t speak either.

  Boom!

  I felt as though my bones were vibrating with the noise. My ears buzzed and sang, temporarily deafened by the wall of sound. The windows shattered, and an ugly crack raced across the wall.

  Gilda grabbed me by the hand and pulled me down the corridor toward the kitchen. She shoved me into a closet beneath the stairs in amongst the hibernating snow boots and dust bunnies.

  “Stay there,” she mouthed as she shut the door, leaving me crouched among the swaying coats in total darkness.

  I sat in the closet for a long time listening to things boom and thud around me. I wondered if Gilda would make it home to her baby, and if I’d ever see her again. I thought about my parents, my brothers—were they safe?

  Stickiness coated my hand, finally registering in my dazed mind. Was I bleeding? I couldn’t see in the black closet.

  When I brought my trembling arm up to my face I smelled a sickly sweetness that turned my stomach and I understood.

  My fist was still closed around the wreckage of my ice-cream cone.

  Brandon

  ake up!” Someone had me by the shoulder, shaking my arm, fit to tear it clean off.

  “Wha?” I managed. I’d lain awake fretting until three a.m., and I could feel sleep starting to suck me down again even as someone whisked the covers off me.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, yourself! Get up.”

  My eyes opened blearily and I found myself staring up at Dad. At least, it looked kind of like Dad, only I couldn’t remember the last time the old man had woken up before me. Had he stayed up the whole night again? He sure didn’t look that way. His eyes were clear and shining. He didn’t stink of beer—actually, he didn’t stink at all. He’d put on a fresh shirt, and his hair was combed back out of his face.

  Truth be told, he looked like he’d grown ten years younger overnight.

  That realization pulled me right out from the grip of slumber.

  “What time is it?” I managed to say.

  “Past two, lazy-ass, but who gives a shit about that?” He grinned at me, actually grinned.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Them ships! Them goddamn ships. Listen!”

  I groaned. If he was fixated on the Space Men again, I was in for a hellish day. “Hey dad, I thought you said you weren’t going to watch the TV news no more,” I started.

  “Shut your pie-hole Brandon, and listen for a change.”

  I listened. Far off, there was a weird rumbling noise, like a train going by. “What is it?”

  Instead of answering, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the corridor after him.

  “You ain’t never seen anything like it! Holy shit!”

  He flung open the door and shoved me outside. The harsh sunlight made my eyes smart. The train noise was louder out here, but I still couldn’t see what was making it. Or what the big deal was. “Dad, seriously, at least let me put on some pants.”

  “No one cares about seeing your skinny ass! It’s all over the goddamn news, not that those fuckers know shit about anything. Started about an hour ago. Didn’t I tell you they were coming for us? Should’ve nuked them well they had the chance. Look up! Look at the damn sky and tell me I was wrong!”

  I squinted at the sky, at first not seeing anything different. When it finally hit me, a sick feeling cramped my guts. The sky was empty. Our little town was a good ten miles fro
m the nearest ship, but I’d still been aware of the hovering silver shapes all summer long, in spite of doing my best not to think about it. Not seeing the ships was worse than seeing them in some weird way.

  “Jeez, where’d they go?”

  Dad shoved a pair of battered binoculars into my hands. “Go on and look!”

  I raised the binoculars and peered through them. Far in the distance, a trio of silver ships fell from the sky like hawks sighting a squirrel in the grass. I felt my mouth drop open. I gave the viewfinders on the binoculars a twist, as if tinkering with the lenses would change what I was seeing. It couldn’t be real. It seemed even less real watching it happen in miniature, but my thudding heart told me that, on some level, I accepted this was real. There’d be people right where those ships were attacking. Watertown or Cambridge, somewhere in that direction. The world seemed to tremble before my eyes, and it took me a second to realize it was because my hands were shaking. A police siren wailed, making me jump, and someone shouted a few blocks away.

  I turned to Dad. “What’s going on?” I could hardly get the words out, but Dad stood straight and tall, his face calm. “What is this?” I stammered. “Are they coming for us? Jeez, Dad, we got to get out of here.”

  “Relax, Brandon. They ain’t coming for the likes of us yet. Take out the cities first, then mop up the rest. Did you learn nothing jerking off over those army books? This is just the start of the war. A war you and me are going to win.”

  He put his arm around me and pulled me into a rough hug.

  “Do you reckon there’s anyone inside them ships? Like, real aliens?” I asked Dad as the two of us stared East, where a lazy plume of black smoke was beginning to rise.

  “Sure there are,” he said. “Better believe it. But don’t you worry. I got it sorted.” He winked. His eyes were grey and clear, and reminded me of the sky after one of them big summer storms rolled through. While I was scared shitless I was going to be blown to bits by some little green man with a laser gun, I was also relieved. Maybe the world wouldn’t be okay, but perhaps now my Dad would be. Pretty strange way of thinking, but in many ways, Dad was my world.

  “Ready for some hard work?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “What we gonna do?”

  “Well, for a start, we’re gonna make this place into a fortress. I feel sorry for the goddamn E.T. who thinks he’s abducting us.”

  “You think they’re gonna be abducting people?” I willed my voice not to wobble.

  “Ain’t no other thing they’re here for. You think them scientists, and them White House pussies are right? That these guys are comin’ in peace?”

  “I reckon not.”

  “Damn right,” Dad growled, but he smiled as he said it. There was another shout, closer this time, followed by a barrage of car horns honking and the squeal of tires.

  “Folks out there going nuts,” remarked Dad.

  I nodded, uneasily. Typical of him that when the rest of the world had turned nuts, he’d finally shaken off the mean reds and gone sane.

  Gracie

  emerged from the closet after nightfall. The fug of rain boots and ice cream hung around me, turning my stomach. I stumbled down the dark corridor with one hand on the wall until my groping fingers hit a light switch. My warm feeling of relief was replaced by another swarm of panicky butterflies when the house stayed pitch black. The power was out.

  Normally, there’d be a little patch of streetlight spilling in from outside, but tonight there wasn’t even that, just the creepy blue glow of the moon. I groped along the corridor, making my way into the kitchen by memory. My stumbling feet and my quick gulps of breath sounded far too loud. Just like there was no electric light to banish the dark, there was no roar from the nearby Pike to hide my footsteps from whatever might be crouched in the blackness, listening.

  Even the crickets had given up shrilling.

  I made myself walk over to the kitchen window, not wanting to look out through the miraculously unbroken pane.

  The silver ships were back in the sky, as if they’d never descended at all.

  There were more stars up there than I’d ever remembered seeing in my entire life. Could the whole city of Boston be dark? I slid into a chair and leaned my throbbing head on the cool kitchen table. It was covered with a thin film of grit, which stuck to my sweaty forehead. It was obvious my parents weren’t home yet. If the power had gone out downtown, there’d be no T service.

  Maybe the four of them were camped out in the Aquarium? It’d be Mikey’s dream come true. Mom would have phoned Dad, and he’d have come to find them, thinking I was home safe with Gilda. Tomorrow, they’d come for me.

  My stomach growled loudly, seemingly echoing more than usual in the heavy silence, and I jumped at the sound. I hadn’t realized I was starving. I was kind of mad with my body, like it should realize something major had gone down and shouldn’t be pestering me with everyday things like dinner, but my stupid stomach kept right on growling, and I decided there was no sense in being hungry on top of everything else.

  Sometimes, in the winter, the snow would bring tree branches down on the power lines and we’d lose electricity for an hour or two, so I knew the drill. I opened the fridge door just long enough to grab some bread, bologna and a can of soda, then shut it quickly to keep the cold in. I found a box of smooth, yellow candles at the back of the cabinet, and used matches to melt the bottom of one of them a little so it would stand up in a saucer.

  It was tempting to hide out in the closet some more, but the last thing I needed was to brush the candle flame against one of the winter coats and burn the house down.

  After I fixed myself a sandwich, I carried it out to the porch to eat. I didn’t want to be out here, but if the ships fell again, I wanted to know as soon as possible. I held my candle on its saucer like Wee Willie Winkie in the nursery rhyme book my mom used to read to me when I was a baby. Liam preferred stories about trains and trucks, and of course, Mikey only liked things about turtles and whales and penguins, so last year I had taken the old nursery rhyme book from Liam’s room and put it back on my own shelf. It was kind of a baby book for a fourteen-year-old girl to have, but I liked to look at the pictures. The characters in those stories were so familiar to me, it was more like looking at old family photographs than illustrations in a story book.

  Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The walls of our house had some pretty big cracks running through them and the whole thing looked lopsided, as though the house had given itself a good stretch, then settled back down to sleep again in a slightly different position. Some of the other houses on the street had holes blown out of the roofs, or entire sides fallen away, a normal bedroom or living room, the furniture still arranged just so, open and displayed to the street. It was like accidentally catching an eye full of someone with no clothes on.

  I sat on my rocker and ate my sandwich. Then I remembered my tablet. Obviously there was no power right now, but the battery was usually good for a couple of hours before it needed charging.

  I figured I may as well try to get myself a little information while I waited for Mom and Dad and the boys to come back.

  At first, it was the same old “unable to connect to wireless network” crap, but after a while, the familiar homepage filled the screen. Facebook kept timing out, and Google was a bust, but the forum I liked best, Shriver’s Outpost, was running.

  Shriver’s Outpost had started out as a fan forum dedicated to the main character of the Galactopia series, Shawn Shriver—a renegade starship Captain. They always described him as “Renegade starship Captain, Shawn Shriver” on the back covers of the books. It was a kind of in-joke for us Outposters.

  The “off-topic” sub forums were where the Outpost really became interesting. Only n00bs still posted stuff about the Galactopia books themselves after the TV series finished and the movie got put on indefinite hold.

  The off-topic threads were where the cool kids hung out, and there were some really cool kids on
that forum. Some cool grown-ups, too.

  I figured there was nothing like a group of Sci-Fi nerds if you wanted some truly informed opinions on an alien invasion. There was one poster in particular, “6_star” who was rumored to work for NASA. She always brought the facts when some troll criticized the tech in the Galactopia books. The Outposters required technical accuracy in their Sci-fi and considered the Galactopia books to be the best around. It was just that sort of a fandom.

  6_star had all the best gossip about the Space Men. Except, on Shriver’s Outpost, we had to call it “speculation.”

  The good thing and the bad thing about a site like the Outpost is that you’re never sure if you’re really talking to who you think you are, but I tended to believe what those guys said. Even if 6_star was really some chick who worked for Happy Burger and lived in her mom’s basement, after what had happened today, she’d been right about a lot of things.

  More things than the TV news guys, anyway.

  The Outposters weren’t too crazy about “the mass media.” They thought the TV news and even the big online sites just told everyone what they needed to hear to make them keep on trusting the government. The Outposters were more concerned with facts. So, I didn’t even look at any of the big news sites, even the BBC, who the Outposters loved like they loved anything British.

  I just went right to Shriver’s Outpost to see who was online.

  As it turned out, no one but me.

  There were a couple of unread posts in the off-topic forum, though, and I was excited to see that they were both by 6_star. The first post was some link to a Wikipedia article about “parasitoid wasps” which although awesomely gross—and still online, figures Wikipedia would be the last thing standing—didn’t seem that useful to me. The second post was a list of emergency evacuation centers. 6_star had added a line of her own text under the copy and paste job. “Be safe & see you on Io 12.”

  Io 12 was Shawn Shriver’s home planet. He spent the whole series trying to get back there. I figured if there was anywhere safe, then the places on the list 6_star had posted had to be them. The nearest center to us was in Needham.