Untaken Read online

  What she said made sense, but I’d never seen a cop pull a gun on anyone before outside of a movie, let alone point it at a nice suburban mom like Mona. The world really was different now, but what could I do about that? It was finding my family that mattered. I pushed open the big double doors and found myself in a warehouse filled with camp beds.

  The room was about half-full of people, and had that gross school cafeteria smell you get from a lot of people living and eating around each other. Some folks jumped up when I came in, then, seeing another stranger instead of the family member they’d hoped for, sat back down on their beds again. One man started to cry, covering his face with his hands to hide it.

  I scanned the faces of my fellow survivors again and again, like if I just kept staring at them hard enough, they’d suddenly be the people I wanted to see. But it was no use.

  My family wasn’t here.

  The lists of names covered a big notice board and spilled over to the walls around it.

  I stepped up and began reading.

  Brandon

  ooner or later, I’d have to get rid of the dead monster that still lay in the corridor where I’d left it after pulling dad free. I wasn’t even sure if I could bring myself to touch it again. Sure, it seemed to be dead, but who knew what creepy Space Man diseases something like that could be carrying?

  As for Dad, there didn’t seem to be a mark on him.

  I laid him out on the sofa and fixed him a bourbon. He took a big swig, his eyes all bugged out, and his hair and clothes torn and crumpled.

  “You okay?” It was a dumb question, but I had to ask.

  “What in the hell happened?” Dad rasped.

  I shrugged.

  “That thing. What in the hell?”

  “You killed it, Dad. You shot it, remember?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t sound sure.

  I wasn’t so sure either. I’d seen movies. Like where the alien queen lays eggs in people, then crazy alien killing machines come bursting out of them.

  But this was my Dad. If anything funky started going on, then…well, I didn’t know what, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him down again. Maybe all my kicking had done the trick after all, and I’d stopped that thing before it could eat my dad, or whatever it planned to do.

  Everything could still be okay.

  “I think it’s best we get back to the basement.”

  Dad nodded, but when he tried to stand up, his legs trembled and he flopped back onto the sofa like all his strings had been cut. I slipped an arm round his ribs and hauled him to his feet, neither of us meeting the other’s eyes as I half carried him down the basement stairs. His legs were a little shaky, but he’d been struggling against those tentacles pretty hard. It didn’t mean he was hurt or anything. As I helped him onto his camp bed, Dad kept hold of the whiskey bottle, taking a pull every now and then. I jogged back up the stairs, breathing hard, to lock the basement door behind us.

  “That was a hell of a thing,” Dad muttered, as I double-checked the bulkhead locks out to the yard.

  “Dad, I’m real sorry. I know I should have stayed in the basement. I was just trying to change the bucket. Ah, shit, I forgot the damn bucket!”

  “Hey now. We won, right? And you’re gonna mind me from now on, ain’t you?”

  “Sure, of course I will. I’m just real sorry.” I hunkered down next to his bed. His face was very pale and ugly bruises stood out on his neck and his ropey arms.

  “Don’t start with that sniveling. Fix me something to eat, would ya? Kicking alien butt gives a man an appetite.”

  I had to smile a little at that. Dad ate his plate of beans and chased it with another shot of bourbon, then he lay back on his bed and started to snore.

  I kept a close eye on Dad the next day, but he seemed pretty much normal. We slept and ate, ate and slept, and though I was starting to feel like we’d been living in the black, timeless stink of the basement forever all over again, I did my best not to mind it.

  The first we knew of the ship’s retun was a stirring of the air, then the hatch out into the yard began to rattle. I threw up a hand against the bright light that forced its way in through every little chink in our basement fortifications. My bed jittered and shook beneath me with the power of the engines. I rolled off my camp bed and was just wriggling underneath it when Dad strode past me towards the bulkhead that led out into the yard.

  “Dad! What are you doing?”

  In reply, he shot back the first bolt, then the second.

  “Jeez, Dad, don’t go out there!” I hardly heard my own voice over the noise of those engines, and if Dad heard me at all, he didn’t give any indication of it. He flung open the first set of doors and started turning the locks on the second. I grabbed his arm and tried to tug him back. Without even looking at me, he shoved me hard, knocking me flat on my back. He had the second set of doors open now, flooding the basement with brilliant light and a warm, sweet smelling wind that picked my hair up off my sweat-soaked forehead.

  Dad stopped for a moment, closing his eyes. He tilted his head back, like he was letting the light and the sound wash over him, breathing in the too-sweet scent. Then he scrambled on up those steps and was gone.

  I ran after him, trying not to think too hard about what I might see out there. I tripped up the stairs after him, half-falling into the yard, my feet tangled in the long patchy grass of the overgrown lawn.

  “Dad! Where are you?”

  I stared around me, the light making my eyes burn and weep. Out in the street was a parade of staggering figures, silhouetted black against the glare of light.

  Not aliens, but people, all walking toward the ship real slowly, like something from “Night of the Living Dead.”

  Then I spotted Dad. He was almost out of our yard already, and picking up speed. I ran to him and managed to grab his skinny elbow just before he made it to the gate.

  “Dad?”

  He jerked his arm away from me, never even turning his head. It was like I was invisible to him. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. What was wrong with him?

  All I knew was I had to stop him before he reached that ship. I tackled him low, driving into his waist with my shoulder, and the two of us slammed into the grass. He was stronger than me and a little taller, but he was still slow and sluggish and I managed to roll on top of him. I tried to pin his arms with my knees, but he landed one punch, then another on my head and my chest.

  “What in the hell are you doing, Dad? We need to get back inside!”

  He fought harder, shoving and punching at me, until I had to bring my arms up to cover my face. Blood from my busted nose dripped down onto his face, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes were wide open, and he stared at me now, but without seeming to know who I was. He rolled me off him and staggered up to his feet. My head was woozy and I had no choice but to cling to his legs like I had when I was a little kid trying to stop him from going out partying for the night.

  The ship’s engines became louder and more urgent, like a jumbo jet when it’s getting ready to climb into the sky. I didn’t have to be a scientist to guess what that meant. Dad grabbed a handful of my hair and gave it a twist, ripping out a whole fistful. He marched toward the street, shaking his leg with each step, so that I could hardly keep hold of him. Dirt got in my mouth and grass stalks whipped at my bloody face. My hands slipped, the denim of his pant legs slithering through my fingers, and then he was gone. The roar of the engines grew louder still, until the air seemed to tremble. I clambered to my feet and staggered through the gate. Dad was running down the road toward the ship, and I followed as fast as I could, the blood from the punches I’d taken dripping into my eyes and mouth.

  We were the only two people left on the street now. I hadn’t been able to stop Dad from walking out here, I’d delayed him long enough to stop him from getting on it like I guessed all those other folks had.

  The light went out all at once, and that warm wind intensified, knocking both of
us off our feet. I tried to cover my eyes from the dust and grit kicked up by the sudden wind tunnel, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the ship. It ascended slowly at first, then gained speed as it rose higher. It was really leaving without him; I’d done it.

  Once it had disappeared above the clouds, I crawled toward Dad.

  I was scared to get near him in case he wailed on me again, but when I got in close, he pulled me into a hug. We sat there on the grass, crying, covered in blood and dirt.

  “Where were you going? What in the hell?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Jeez, I’m sorry, son. I don’t know.” It was the first time I’d ever heard him apologize before.

  I helped him back to the house, but I was done with the basement. Whatever was going on, hiding down there wasn’t going to help us anymore. The faucets still worked, so I washed myself up as best I could, then changed my clothes.

  The monster still lay dead on the hallway floor, but that was a problem I didn’t feel up to dealing with just then.

  Dad flopped down on the sofa. He didn’t look at me. I fetched him the bourbon bottle, and he took a swig. I sat down next to him in case he got the notion to go haring off again, but I hoped that with the ship gone, he was safe. I wanted to ask him what had been going through his mind, but I kind of didn’t want to know either.

  The next night, the ship came back. It came down further away from our house this time, but Dad went hog wild all over again just the same. I took another couple of punches and Dad slipped away into the night.

  But eventually, he returned.

  Seems I’d held him up just long enough again, and he was back by dawn, dirty and pale and avoiding looking me in the eyes, one of which was purple and swollen.

  He didn’t want me to tie him down to his bed that night, wouldn’t hear of it.

  “You’re the one acting crazy,” he slurred. “Who are you anyway? Don’t I know you from someplace?”

  “Jeez, Dad, quit fooling around. I just want to get some sleep.”

  “So sleep.”

  He’d spent the day drinking, and was pretty wasted. I thought I could tackle him if I had to, but I had gotten about ten hours of sleep over the last three days and I was starting to feel a little out of it myself.

  Dad took another slug of bourbon and glared at me. The bottle was almost empty, and there wasn’t any more. There wasn’t much of anything in the house, but how could I go out on a supply mission when those ships could come at any time?

  “Well, I guess if we can’t sleep in peace, we should eat anyway,” I told him, but he’d already stopped listening. That worried me, too. Even taking the liquor into consideration, Dad would never have let any back talk from me fly in the past.

  I rooted through the cabinets. Right at the very back, there was an ancient half bottle of Kahlua. I guessed it would do to keep Dad mellowed out for now. The bottle had been in there so long it was stuck to the shelf, and when I yanked it out, a little orange pill bottle that had been nestled in behind it tipped over. I recognized what it was right away.

  Dad had hurt his back hauling UPS boxes a couple of years ago and had gotten hooked on Tramadol pretty good. The doctors had cut him off eventually, but before they had, I’d taken to hiding it away myself. There were two of the little white pills left in the bottle.

  I wondered if the medication would still work, old as the pills were. If I knew for sure he was out for the night, I might be able to grab some sleep myself. It had always knocked him on his ass in the past, and he was sloppy drunk already, but what if I poisoned him? It didn’t seem fair to pull something like that when he was brought so low.

  He trusted me, and I was already going to have to do something I knew he was going to hate.

  I put the pills back in the cabinet, and shuffled the scant tins and boxes around so they were hidden again. I’d just have to take my chances with the Kahlua.

  There was one can of beans left. My stomach rumbled, but dad looked worse than I did, like he’d dropped twenty pounds in the last few days. I had to spoon the food into his mouth, but he chewed and swallowed, slopping a good portion of it down his shirt.

  “Here, Dad, this’ll hit the spot, I reckon.” I nestled the Kahlua bottle into his hand. He made a face when he took his first swig, but when Dad got a good drunk on, he never could stop until every bottle was drained, and sure enough, in a half hour he was splayed out on the sofa, muttering in his sleep.

  I gave him a little shake, but he kept right on snoring.

  I used electric cables to tie his legs together and to bind his arms at his sides. Even with me hauling his limbs about, he didn’t come fully awake, just grumbled a little and swatted at me, in a “shoo fly” way. Finally, I rolled him onto his side. That’s what you were meant to do when someone passed out drunk. Makes it less likely they’ll choke on their own throw-up.

  I felt real bad doing it, but we needed food, and I needed to sleep. I squashed down the panicky, scared-rabbit feelings that bubbled up within me when I thought about the fact that I might have to do this to my dad for weeks. For months. It wasn’t something I was equipped to deal with.

  I needed help.

  Dad didn’t trust many people, but his cop buddies were among the few he did trust.

  I climbed on my bike and set off for the police station, praying there’d be someone there who could help us.

  Gracie

  he Center was boring, but after everything I’d been through since leaving the ice cream store, boring was good. For seven days, I slept as best I could on the green camp bed, which sagged in the middle, and smelled of someone else’s feet. I ate the plates of sticky rice or sloppy pasta the friendly cop, Frank, dished out three times a day. I sometimes talked a little with the other folks here.

  There were about forty of us. Most of them were grown-ups, but there were three little kids too.

  The little kids found a beat-up old box of board games, and they’d play the same ones over and over again. Sometimes they’d nag to go outside, but of course, that wasn’t allowed. The little girl, Marie, was with her mom, but the two boys were alone. The adults took turns looking after them; in fact ,they’d argue over whose turn it was. There was so little to do, that even wiping noses and singing “the wheels on the bus” for ten hours straight seemed like a good time.

  We talked a bit, us survivors, but friendships tended to form during the time it takes to share a cup of coffee, then disappear again just as quickly. If we didn’t make The Center a new life, with new people, then it meant that our old lives were not done with yet. That was what I felt, and I figured the others felt the same.

  No one talked about the ships. Once, two of the younger guys started to talk about the things with tentacles. “I don’t think they’re what’s flying those ships, do you?” he asked his buddy. “Don’t seem like they really think or nothing. Just attack when they find you. Like the ships are big old yellow jacket nests, and them things are just the drones. Makes you wonder who the queen bees are, huh?”

  “Hush up,” said Mrs. Ostrinsky, the mom of the little girl, Marie. “None of us want to think about those things, Okay?”

  The young guys had shrugged and gone back to their card game, and I’d been glad. What good was it going to do worrying about those drones? We were safe in here. The cops would stop anything getting in. During the day, I believed that, but at night, I lay awake, listening for the sly sound of tentacles scratching at the walls.

  As for my family, their names hadn’t been up on that list. It was something I didn’t want to think about more than I had to, so, like pretty much everyone apart from the three little kids, I’d spend most of each day dozing on my bed, counting the steel girders that crossed the ceiling over and over.

  Some folks had bad dreams, and would wake up shouting for people they’d lost. When that happened, it was polite to pretend like you hadn’t noticed. We were all pretty good at ignoring anything upsetting by then.

  The sound of boots
echoed towards us down the corridor just after eleven a.m. that morning. Everyone’s eyes flicked to the big clock on the wall, then back to the door. Breakfast had been at eight. It wouldn’t be lunch for another hour. Hearing that many cops out there likely meant one thing: new people. We’d heard the busses go out several times over the past few days, but they’d come back empty each time.

  I slipped from my bed and crept over to the door, joined by a good crowd of people: the two young guys, Mrs. Ostrinsky, and some others I didn’t know so well yet. I managed to duck and shove my way to the front and put my ear to the door, straining to hear through the thick wood. Liam never could keep quiet for more than three seconds. It was him I’d hear first, then Mom, telling him to settle down. Dad would be joking with Liam, putting on some silly voice….

  “You hear anything?” asked an old man behind me.

  “Shhh!” hissed about a dozen of us at once.

  I pressed my ear to the wood.

  “You wanted to do it the hard way, so suck it up, Officer.” I recognized that voice as one of the guys in the suits, the young one with the glasses.

  No one said anything, but I knew they all listened as intently as I did.

  “Some of us think the easy way ain’t so easy.” I recognized that voice as Frank, the nice, older cop. “Put her in an office on her own. We’ll look in on her. If we put her in here she’ll get them all acting out.”

  “I need her out of the way. One way or another. Those bastards will be here before the week is out. They have the papers. It’s official. They’re shutting us down. And after they shut us down, there are gonna be questions. I have three other centers to deal with. I don’t have time for this.”

  “She’s Untaken. You can’t just—”

  “Shut it, Frank,” said the guy in the suit.

  The footsteps came closer.

  “Get back,” Mrs. Ostrinsky told us.

  “What is it?” asked one of the women who’d stayed sitting on her bed, but Mrs. Ostrinsky hushed her. Usually at least one of those Center people would have had to argue with her, but everyone moved away from the doors as they opened, exchanging worried glances.