Untaken Read online

  The gun went off so loud in that narrow corridor that my ears sang.

  Dad.

  “Get out of here, Brandon! Go on, run!”

  But I couldn’t.

  He had the gun in between him and the creature. One tentacle had snaked around the barrel, as if exploring the texture of the metal. Dad yanked on the gun, trying to get it high enough to take a second shot that would count for something, but the thing was stronger than him. It plucked the gun out of his hands and let it drop to the floor, then lunged for Dad.

  “Don’t—” I began, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  Tentacles wound around Dad, pulling him in, almost lovingly. Cradling him. In a few seconds, only Dad’s hand was visible. One lone hand poking out of that mass of black tentacles.

  I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, but I had to get him away from that thing.

  Touching that oily blackness, hard and slimy like greasy, living metal, made me gag. I swallowed down the bile and dug my fingers in. Trying to move the tentacles was like trying to bend steel. Impossible. I thought maybe I could distract it or something, but now that it had Dad, it paid no more attention to me no matter how much I hollered.

  I hobbled to the kitchen on shaking legs, searching for a knife.

  I jammed the blade into what I thought might be the alien’s head, but the blade glanced off, cutting a thin line down my own thigh instead.

  The chainsaw, maybe? My pants were soaking through with blood and the black spots danced before my eyes again. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’d never used a chainsaw before and what if I cut Dad? Or the monster killed him while I ran out to the shed?

  All of a sudden, the tentacles went limp.

  “Dad?” I whispered.

  Nothing. No movement, no response.

  Shutting my eyes, I kicked out as hard as I could, then kicked again, harder this time. The creepy, round body rolled to the side, half off Dad. I grabbed hold of his legs and hauled.

  “Dad, come on! Wake up!”

  The skin of his face was white and he didn’t move. Tears ran down my cheeks. What the fuck would I do if he was dead?

  I swallowed. If he was dead, I’d killed him. It was my fault.

  I put my bloody fingers to his neck. His pulse beat faintly against my fingertips. His chest hitched, and he gave a great whooping cough.

  “You made it,” I whispered.

  “We made it.”

  The alien lay still on the floor.

  Gracie

  our days after what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Novak, the ships came back. There were no screaming engines or explosions this time.

  A warm wind blew in under the closet door, smelling like burning sugar. There was light, too, soft but strong, in a fiery line all around the door frame. As I sat there trying to figure out what the hell was happening, music filled my ears. Not really music I guessed, more like every orchestra in the world had gotten together and attempted to speak to one another with just the sounds of their instruments.

  The otherworldly symphony was beautiful, even as my skin prickled up into goose bumps. I crawled to the closet door. I’d been out of that closet as little as possible since the Novaks had been attacked; I’d grab some food and use the bathroom, then scuttle right back in. I guess I intended to stay in that closet for good. Logically, I was no safer in there than anywhere else, but hiding had worked out for me so far.

  When I opened the closet door, the light spilled in, blinding me until my eyes adjusted. The house was filled with the strange, warm, sickly-sweet scented breeze. The curtains danced, and air blew my hair up around my face. When I opened the back door, the wind pulled it clean out of my hands, and it banged loudly against the side of the house. I walked down the steps into the yard with my mouth hanging open.

  A silver ship hung close to the ground, only a few blocks away from my house. It was smaller than the ones that dropped from the sky on the first day, but still huge, bigger than I could take in all at once. Its sides were sleekly silver and pulsed with strange patterns of light. As I stood in the yard, bathed in the weird glow of the ship, something moved over on the Novaks’ lawn.

  My pulse hammered. I’d been so dumb coming out here, and now I was surely going to pay for my mistake. I ran as fast as I could across the shaggy lawn, but the glare of the ship’s light did weird things to the distances, and it felt like I ran in place. I risked a glance back over my shoulder, and—I gasped, pulling up short, then slowly turned around.

  Mr. Novak.

  I couldn’t understand how that could be. How was Mr. Novak standing in his yard? Was I going crazy? I’d seen him die. I’d seen that thing get him. I took a couple of steps toward him, then stopped again as Mrs. Novak shuffled around the side of the house.

  “Mrs. Novak, it’s me, Gracie.”

  She didn’t look at me.

  “Mrs. Novak?”

  More people began coming out of their houses, all of them folks I recognized. Mrs. Royo from over the road. The Hocks. Mr. Hamilton and his kids. Everyone who walked outside stared up at the ship, arms in the air as a baby would reach for its mother. They walked closer and closer, until they were swallowed up by the light, too bright for me to see them anymore.

  The music from the ship seeped into my bones and joints, making them twang and tingle. It was still beautiful, but it felt wrong. As lovely as the tune was, I sure didn’t feel like going anywhere near that ship. What had happened to my neighbors? Why were they walking out to greet the ships, like whoever was onboard was a dear friend?

  I backed all the way up to the kitchen door, but couldn’t quite bring myself to go inside.

  My heart thumped wildly in my chest, so hard the rhythm beat against my ribs, but not just from fear. The ship was incredible, even though I seemed to be immune from whatever crazy effect it had on my neighbors, the ship was still awe-inspiringly lovely to look on. It made me think of those deadly jungle flowers that draw little insects in to their deaths.

  After a while, the flood of people became a trickle, and then the streets were empty again.

  The light was gone in an instant, like someone had flipped a switch, and I was left blinking and rubbing my eyes, staring blindly into the dark. The engines of the spacecraft roared to life, and a great downdraft of sweet, hot air knocked me flat.

  When I could see again, I was all alone in the yard.

  I woke up with a start, banging my head on the kitchen table, which, for some reason, I’d fallen asleep underneath. A loud engine—a bus?—rumbled out in the street, accompanied by a booming voice.

  “Newton Police department. Come on out of your houses. You will be transported somewhere safer. If you can hear me, come on out. Hurry it up, folks.”

  My heart hammered, but it couldn’t be an alien trap. Surely aliens would have better tech than some squealing old megaphone? I chanced a look out the window and, sure enough, a yellow school bus cruised slowly down the street. A tired looking lady in a police uniform hung out the open door. She hefted her megaphone and hollered through it again. “This is an evacuation. For your own safety, please show yourselves.”

  I wasn’t too sure there could be anywhere safe, but if that bus was heading to the emergency center in Needham, then I had to be on it.

  I scrambled around the house, frantically shoving necessary things into my backpack, and almost broke my neck flying down the front steps.

  “Hey, wait for me!” The zipper on my backpack was stuck, and I had to run holding it cradled in my arms like an uncooperative baby. So long as my tablet stayed inside, I didn’t care about the socks and sweaters that fluttered to the ground as I ran.

  The bus pulled to a stop halfway down the next street. The cop leaned out the bus doors to yell into her megaphone again, but stopped when she saw me pelting toward her. She stared at me in a not-friendly way as I skidded to a stop, panting at the bus doors.

  “Anyone else on that street?”

  “Just me,” I gasped, in between big gul
ps of air “I was waiting for my mom and dad and—”

  “They be anywhere, they be at the center. Take a seat and fill out a form. You got any ID?”

  “No,” I began, “I don’t know—”

  She sighed, cutting me off again. “Never mind. Just fill it out best you can.”

  Each seat had a clipboard, complete with a pen on a springy cord thing and a form for filling out your name and address and stuff.

  The cop was a real grouch, but it still felt nice to relax and let someone else be in charge for a while.

  There were ten other people on the bus. Some of them filled out their forms, pens skittering over the paper when the bus bumped and juddered over the broken roads, while some just stared out the window with expressionless faces. The bus drove all through Auburndale, Lower Falls, and out toward Needham, but only a few more folks joined us. Some were in small groups, but most were loners like me.

  A woman came running out of a grubby two-family on King Street. She dragged a girl who looked about my age along by the arm.

  “Boy is it a relief to see you guys! I thought no-one was ever coming. You sure took your time!” The cop didn’t smile back, just rolled her eyes and flapped a hand at the seats. The mom plopped herself down in the seat across the aisle from mine, yanking her girl in next to her.

  “Stephie, hon, you’re sitting right on your form. Can’t you be a little bit cooperative?”

  The girl sighed. “Didn’t see it.”

  “Make sure to write neatly. If they have our names in the system, then Dad will be able to find us… Stephanie Craig, I can hardly read a word of that. Do it over.”

  “You write it,” muttered the girl. “Wanna sleep.”

  She did look pretty bushed. Her face was pale and kind of slack, and she held the pen awkwardly in her fist like she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. The mom took the form away from her and started filling it in, and the daughter—Stephie—slumped over and began to doze. The mom caught my eye and gave me a little smile.

  “Normally, I can’t make her go to bed.” She shook her head, then frowned at me. “You on your own, honey? How old are you?”

  “I’m fourteen. I guess I’m on my own for now, but I think my family will be at the center.”

  “I’m sure they are.” She beamed. “You hungry? I have candy bars.”

  I accepted a Milky Way, realizing that I’d skipped breakfast. I wondered if they would feed us at the center. It’d be a real treat to eat something other than increasingly stale sandwiches.

  “I’m Mona, and this is my daughter Stephie. You just stick with us until you find your folks. Everything will be just fine now.” She grinned at me, but her smile was a little too wide. Her dress was stained with sweat under the armpits, and her hand shook when she held the pen. It was kind of her to look after me, but I wanted to tell her that I didn’t need her to bother. That I had my own mom, and I’d be with her soon. I knew this stranger was trying to be nice, but she didn’t need to act like I was an orphan or something.

  “You and Stephie will get along real well. She’s been so down the last few days. It’ll be good for her to have another girl to gossip with.”

  I glanced at Stephie, who muttered something and twitched a bit in her sleep. She had on those big, hoop earrings everyone had been wearing these last few months, highlights in her hair, and a beach tan. A cool kid.

  She was going to hate me.

  I returned my attention to my form.

  Name.

  Date of birth.

  Address.

  Occupation and place of employment I could skip.

  Any contact or encounters with invaders.

  Dude. That had to be a first for a government form.

  I tried to explain about seeing the thing that grabbed the Novaks, and about the ship. Mona seemed to be stuck on the same section. She frowned, chewing on one of her pink fingernails. Finally, she started writing, filling the little box designated for the answer and spilling over into the margin, then going back to cross bits out and add bits in, until her form wasn’t much better than the one Stephie had started.

  I sympathized. I felt like a goof myself writing down the things I’d seen, although it’s not like anyone could have written me off as a crackpot—not with all the evidence around them.

  The center was a big office building with a warehouse attached, and a sign out front that read “Herman Pharmaceutical.”

  “Wake up, honey,” Mona said, giving Stephie a little prod, as the bus pulled into the parking lot. A cop stood guard out front, and after our bus had driven through the massive gate, he closed and locked it behind us.

  I wasn’t sure what good a fence, even one topped with barbed wire, would be against the Space Men, but it still felt good to have a barrier between us and the outside world.

  Stephanie’s eyes opened slowly, then closed again.

  The bus doors hissed open and we started to shuffle down the aisle.

  “Come on, baby girl. You can sleep when we get inside. Have us something to eat, too.”

  “Ma’am, you need to hurry it up,” said the mean cop. “It ain’t safe outside.”

  “Stephie, come on now, you’re embarrassing me!” hissed Mona.

  I stopped by the door, not wanting to seem rude by ditching them, but pretty eager to get inside. My family could be in there, just through that ugly brick wall.

  Stephie squinted at her mom through narrow red eyes, then settled her head back down against the window.

  “For Pete’s sake!” said Mona. She grabbed her daughter by her wrist and hauled. Her face was bright red. She gave Stephie’s limp arm a shake. “Come on, young lady, now!”

  Eventually, Mona got her standing.

  Stephie followed us off the bus with her eyes half-closed and her legs marching stiffly, like she was still half asleep.

  The lobby was wonderfully cool—there must have been a generator or something, to keep the air conditioning blowing. A dim corridor stretched off ahead of us, disappearing into a warren of offices. A shorter corridor led away to the left, and through the double doors at the end, came the babble of human voices. A cop and two guys in suits stood outside the double doors, collecting forms as people went inside. Most of the people from our bus were already filing through. I tried to look past them to see inside the warehouse. All I could catch was a jumble of faces as the mass of people inside pushed forward, probably anxious to see if the folks they lost were among the new arrivals.

  “No ID, huh?” the cop said to me.

  I shook my head.

  “That’s your mom there?” he asked, nodding at Mona, who was still trying to coax Stephie forward.

  “No, Sir,” I replied. “I don’t know where my mom is. Her name is Helen, and my dad is Ross. Our last name is—”

  “There’s a list up on the board in there,” he said. “If they’re at any of the shelters, their names’ll be posted. Good luck.”

  My pulse sped. I itched to bust through that door, sure that my family would be inside waiting for me. Maybe sitting on a camp bed, playing Hearts, like we used to do down on the Cape when the weather was too lousy to go to the beach. But I couldn’t just run off and leave Mona, not when she’d been so nice to me.

  The cop peered at Mona’s driver’s license, looking like he needed a coffee, or about three days’ worth of sleep, while the guys in suits muttered over Mona and Stephanie’s forms. Just the three of us bus people remained in the corridor now.

  The cop said something to Mona in a low voice.

  “What do you mean she can’t go in there?” Mona yelled, making me jump.

  The guys in suits frowned at the cop, who fumbled for his radio.

  “Six-sixty-seven. We got a six-sixty-seven, guys.”

  “What’s going on?” Mona tried again.

  “Ma’am, we will explain everything to you soon. Your daughter will be quite safe, quite comfortable, but we can’t have her inside with the other people,” said one
of the suit guys. The tramp of boots echoed in the lobby as more cops appeared.

  “Why in the hell not?” Mona’s face was red, but Stephie just stood there staring at her shoes like they were the most interesting thing she’d ever seen.

  “Please, Ma’am. It’s best I explain in private.” He seemed to notice I was still there, then and turned to me.

  “If you’re not with these people, then please make your way inside the shelter, Miss.”

  “We’re leaving.” Mona grabbed Stephie by the arm.

  “I can’t allow you to leave with her,” said the first suit guy. “It’s for your own safety. And hers,” he added.

  Mona strode off toward the lobby, but the cops closed in around her. Two of them grabbed Stephie and started to drag her down the dark passageway, toward the empty offices.

  She seemed to wake up a bit then. “Mom? Where are we?”

  “You let her go! You just let us alone. We’re leaving. You can’t keep us here!”

  The first cop pulled his gun out. Each of the suit guys took one of Mona’s arms and began half dragging her, half leading her down the corridor after Stephie.

  I thought about following them, but the lady cop from the bus stepped in front of me, placing her hand on my shoulder to stop me.

  “Miss, you go on in there right now.”

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “Quarantine.”

  “For what?”

  “Miss, you all in there want to get the flu? That girl is sick. Now hustle. You see ‘em again when they better.”