Visitors (5 page)

I stared at the message, my whole body shaking. Who could have sent it?

The aliens?

Why would they be looking for me?

I’d dreamed of this for years. But now I was terrified.

This e-mail could be a joke, I thought. Some jerk in the chat room could have sent it. Or some kid at school. Anyone could have sent it.

Still. A chill ran through me as I stared at the message.

Someone knocked at my door. I quickly switched the monitor off again.

“Come in,” I called.

Summer threw open the door and walked in. “Get your shoes on!” she said. “We’re going ice-skating.”

“Excuse me?”

“The new ice rink is supposed to be really cool, and a whole bunch of kids are going.”

“Summer, listen to me.” I grabbed both her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “An alien invasion is coming. The aliens are already here! I know it for sure now—”

Summer clapped a hand over my mouth. “You listen to me,” she said. “I would like to spend just one afternoon without talking about little green men. Okay?”

She lifted her hand off my mouth. “But I have proof—” I insisted.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen your proof.”

“But—”

“I’m serious,” she said. “You can tell me whatever it is you have to say after we go skating. But I can’t stand much more of this. It’s—it’s getting harder and harder to be friends with you, Ben.”

My mouth fell open, but I didn’t try to say anything. Was she saying she wouldn’t be friends with me anymore if I kept talking about aliens?

I needed her. If the aliens were here, I needed a friend. I couldn’t afford to lose her and Jeff.

“All right,” I agreed. “I have something very important to tell you. But I will wait until after skating.”

She grinned. “What a relief. Let’s go.”

I threw on my sneakers and a jacket and followed her outside.

We rode our bikes through my neighborhood and out onto Route 13, leading downtown. We passed a new development of adobe houses, then a strip mall.

Something caught my eye on the side of the road. A small bush I’d never noticed before.

I pulled over and stopped, staring at the plant.

“Have you ever noticed a plant like this around here before?” I asked Summer.

“No. But then, I’m not exactly into plants.”

I wasn’t
sure
what it was, but it looked a lot like holly—that stuff you see all over Christmas cards. It had large red berries growing inside pointy green leaves.

One of the signs of alien invasion was the sudden growth of non-native plants. Was this holly plant native to New Mexico? How come I’d never seen one like it?

“Are we going to stand here, staring at that bush all day, or what?” Summer said.

“It’s just that—never mind.” She’d never believe that a bush could be proof of alien life. I mounted my bike and started pedaling toward town.

We turned off Route 13 onto Main Street. The downtown area of Bitter Lake was really small. Main Street was about seven blocks long, lined with shops
that had been there since the fifties. A drugstore, a grocery store, a diner, a gift shop…

We rode through town. The new ice rink stood at the very end of Main Street, where it intersected with the highway. It was called the Ice Castle.

It was huge and white, built to look like a castle. The outside was lit up with colored lights, even though it was daytime. And it was packed with kids.

“Where’s Jeff?” I asked.

“Home playing video games,” Summer replied. “You know him. He doesn’t like sports much. Except for pro wrestling.”

I knew what she meant. I wasn’t crazy about sports myself. I didn’t even like wrestling.

“I haven’t been ice-skating in a couple of years,” I admitted. “I might be a little klutzy.”

“You’ll be fine,” Summer said. “It’s like riding a bike.”

We rented ice skates. Then she led me onto the ice. People zipped past me, skating to the beat of the dance music.

I stepped onto the ice, wobbling a little. My ankles felt loose, kind of weak. But soon I was skating smoothly.

Summer zipped around the rink, skating forward, backward, and sideways. I just stuck to plain old straight ahead.

In the center of the rink I spotted Dennis
Corcoran. I braced myself for another belly-button assault. But he just smiled and waved at me. Everyone was having such a good time skating, they forgot to tease me.

Then, through the crowd of skaters, I spotted a flash of blue hair. Who was that?

The blue-haired girl turned around. Rikki Mosely.

I grabbed Summer as she whizzed past me. “Look who’s here,” I whispered, nodding at Rikki.

“Check out her hair,” Summer whispered back. “Can you believe she colored it blue? And those clothes…”

Rikki was wearing a neon-green-striped shirt with orange-and-white-checked pants. They clashed with her blue hair.

But I didn’t care about her clothes. I was wondering about that thing I’d glimpsed in the woods. That flash of blue.

Could it have been Rikki? Could the flash of blue have been her hair in the beam of my flashlight?

Summer grabbed my wrist. “Come on, Ben. Let’s skate.”

I took another turn around the rink. But I kept glancing at Rikki. She was skating alone in the center of the ice.

Something else was bothering me about her.

I watched her as she skated, keeping her eyes on the ice. She skated around and around by herself,
first on one skate, then on another. She looked as if she were trying to draw something on the ice with her skate. Trying to draw a very particular figure.

“Look!” I said to Summer. “Look at the way she’s skating. She’s making the exact same shape as that burn mark we saw in the woods!”

“Yeah,” Summer said, rolling her eyes. “It’s called a figure eight. All figure skaters do it!”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But nobody else in this rink is making a figure eight. Only Rikki.”

Summer shook her head and skated away. I leaned against the wall, studying Rikki.

She’s always hated me, I thought as I watched her skate that figure eight over and over. I never understood why.

Summer skidded to a stop and stared at me. “Earth to Ben. What are you thinking?” she asked.

“It could have been Rikki spying on us in the woods,” I murmured, more to myself than to Summer. “If so, why did she run away from us? What was she doing at that figure eight in the first place?”

“Ben—you said you’d give it a rest,” Summer scolded.

But I couldn’t. The more I thought about Rikki, the more questions I had.

I had to find out if she ran from me in the woods that night. I started across the rink toward Rikki.

“Ben? What are you doing?” Summer demanded.
She chased after me. But nothing could stop me. I was too excited.

I skated up to Rikki, stopping her in the middle of one of her figures.

“Rikki—was it you? Was it you in the woods?” I cried.

“Get out of my way,” she snarled.

“Tell the truth,” I demanded. “Why were you there? Why did you run?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. She straightened up tall and glared at me. “Now get out of my way!”

“Not until you admit the truth!” I cried. And then the words just slipped out of my mouth. Crazy words. A crazy idea.

But maybe not so crazy. “You’re an alien, right? I’m right, aren’t I?” I said.

Rikki’s eyes narrowed. She skated a step closer to me, threateningly. “Have you totally lost it? Are you going completely mental, Shipley?”

I knew I sounded crazy. But it was too late. Too late. I had already asked the question. No way I could take it back.

And what if I were right?

And now I was so excited, I didn’t know
what
I was saying! “Please—I want to be friends,” I said. “I don’t want to stop you in your mission. I just want to learn about it. I want to know about your home
planet and your people.”

“You’re really asking for it, Shipley,” Rikki said. She shoved me, hard. I fell backward, but some guy caught me before I fell. He pushed me back up to my feet. I stood there for a second, wobbling.

All the kids on the rink gathered around. One kid started shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Soon the others joined in.

Rikki charged at me and threw a swing at my head. I ducked. It missed me.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd roared.

She grabbed the collar of my jacket and yanked me close. We teetered on the ice, face-to-face.

Her breath smelled sour, like rotting food.

And then it happened. Her brown, cat-shaped eyes changed. They morphed into burning, glowing
bright blue spheres
.

“Sssssstay away from me,” she hissed. It wasn’t her normal voice. No girl had a voice like that.

It was the rattling hiss of a monster.

I’m right! I realized, staring at those glowing blue eyes, that twisted, evil face.

I’m right—she’s an alien!

My last thought before everything went black.

I opened my eyes. My head ached. I was lying on my back. I could feel the cold, wet ice through my shirt and pants.

I gazed up. Kids had gathered around me, staring down at me. I squinted, trying to focus. I felt so groggy. The rink seemed to be spinning around me.

“Where is she?” I murmured. “Where did she go?”

The faces jutted toward me. I stared at them but I couldn’t make out who anyone was. A girl loomed over me.

I struggled to sit up. But my head felt heavy. I couldn’t move.

“Ben? Are you okay?”

My vision slowly cleared. Rikki stood over me. “You’re okay?” she repeated.

“Wh-what happened?” I choked out.

“You slipped,” she said. “I was kidding around with you. And you slipped and hit your head. You were knocked out.”

I stared up at her. My mind was still spinning. Did I imagine the whole thing? Her glowing eyes? Her inhuman, rasping voice?

It had all seemed so real…so terrifying.

“Glad you’re okay,” Rikki said. She faded into the crowd of kids.

Summer appeared.

I blinked up at her. I lifted my head and shook it a little, squeezing my eyes shut.

After a minute I felt better. Summer grabbed me by the arms and helped me sit up. My head didn’t feel so heavy anymore. My mind began to clear.

As the kids began to realize that I was all right and they probably wouldn’t get to see any blood, they began to skate away.

“Summer—did you see Rikki’s glowing eyes?” I asked. “Did you hear what she said to me?”

“Ben, you just hit your head. Let me help you up.”

She helped me to my feet and we skated over to the side of the rink. I dropped limply onto a bench.

“Summer, her eyes changed,” I cried. “They
turned blue, and they glowed with an eerie light! And she hissed at me in a totally different voice! Did you see it? Didn’t anyone else see it?”

Summer dropped her head in her hands. “Ben, when are you going to give up on this? Rikki is not an alien. She’s just a weirdo who likes to give you a hard time!”

I sighed. I shook my head again. It still hurt a little.

Am I going crazy? I wondered.

“You hit your head pretty hard,” Summer said. “I think you’d better go home. I’ll go with you.”

We unlaced our skates and turned them in. It felt funny to walk in shoes again.

“Do you feel well enough to ride home?” Summer asked as we unlocked our bikes.

“I feel perfectly fine,” I insisted, and it was true.

We rode home. Summer didn’t say much. Every once in a while she glanced over at me. I think she was checking to make sure I hadn’t gone completely nuts.

I’m not nuts, I thought. The fresh air had cleared my mind.

I had seen so many of the warning signs. Too many warning signs to ignore.

Maybe Rikki isn’t an alien from outer space, I thought. Instead, maybe she’s been
invaded
by an alien.
Possessed
.

I’d seen it plenty of times in the movies and on TV. Aliens didn’t always take over a planet using lasers and explosions. Sometimes they just took control of people’s bodies, instead!

What if aliens landed in the woods? Their spaceship burned that figure eight in the grass. They spread out through our town. And they are invading us one by one!

Maybe Rikki is the first. Maybe others have been possessed. Maybe the aliens have come to possess all of us!

“What are you thinking about?” Summer asked.

“Uh…nothing,” I muttered.

“I’ll call you later,” she said as we skidded to a stop in front of my house. “Bye!”

“Bye.” I waved and parked my bike in the garage. I went inside the house.

“Mom?” I called. “Dad?”

No answer. I walked into the kitchen. Through the window I spotted Mom and Dad sitting out back on the patio.

That’s strange, I thought. They never sit outside like that in the winter.

It wasn’t exactly freezing out—maybe fifty or sixty degrees. Winter days weren’t too cold in Bitter Lake. But still, it wasn’t exactly balmy, either.

The kitchen window was open a crack. I could hear their voices faintly.

I strained to listen. I could pick out a few phrases here and there.

“Getting in the way…” Dad said. “We can’t let him find out the truth….”

“…never wanted him to know…” Mom said. “Never wanted…”

“…the home planet…”

I gasped. Huh? The home planet!

No, I thought. Oh, no!

Could I be right?

Had the aliens invaded? Had they possessed Rikki?

And my own parents?

I remembered the blue flash of light in the attic. How alarmed my parents were when I followed them up there.

The padlock on the attic door.

My own parents? My own parents?

I swallowed hard. I realized my whole body was trembling.

Did this mean that Will and I weren’t safe?

Suddenly, as if she sensed my presence, Mom turned around.

“Ben!” she said. “You’re home.”

They stood up quickly. They looked really tense, as if they were hiding something.

They slid open the back door and came inside. “We’ll have dinner in about an hour,” Mom told me.

“Uh…okay,” I said. I stared at them. They
looked
the same. But I knew they weren’t.

I have to reach Zandor, I thought. I have to tell Zandor what is happening here.

“I’m going up to my room now,” I said.

I grabbed a soda and hurried upstairs. My bedroom door was closed. I opened it—and gasped in horror.

My room had been completely trashed.

The bed was torn apart. Clothes had been pulled out of my drawers and tossed over the floor. The closet door stood open, clothes, shoes, and games spilling out of it. Someone had pulled all the books off my shelves and tossed them everywhere.

“I don’t believe this!” I groaned.

I stepped inside the room and gazed around. My posters had been torn from the walls. They lay in shreds on the floor.

The floor was so littered with stuff, I couldn’t walk through my room without stepping on something. I spotted something metal on the floor next to the
computer. I stepped over and picked it up.

My alien antenna! Someone had completely wrecked it! It was twisted, broken, and bent all out of shape.

Then I noticed something. The computer screen was glowing. My computer was on. When I’d left to go skating, I’d turned it off.

I stared at the monitor. Someone had left a message on the screen.

Just two sentences.

Two sentences…