Untaken (8 page)

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 from 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.