Invasion: Earth vs. the Aliens. Robert Reginald
back towards the alien craft. They spread out in a thin, irregular crescent to the right and left. I followed their lead, moving slowly out of the cover provided by our trees, but telling Becky to stay where she was.
“Wait!” she said, but I was already moving; of course, she trailed along right behind me, silly woman.
Then I noticed several men standing in front of the mound marking the spaceship; one of them was waving a white flag made from his undershirt. They were too far away for me to recognize anyone, but afterwards I heard (although I could never confirm) that Min, J.C., and “O” were among those trying to communicate with the buggers.
Suddenly, a bright green flash slashed through the night, and then again! and again! in three distinct jabs of lightning, sizzling—zap, zap, zap!—and highlighting everything before me.
Briefly I saw the little group of folks with their pitiful white flag as their faces turned a pale green and just faded away. I heard their flesh boiling and smelled the odor of roasting pork. Becky was violently sick behind me. The hissing slowly mutated into a bass humming, and then became a long, loud, almost droning sound. Slowly a great humped shape rose out of the pit, highlighted by a ghost of pale green light that seemed to flicker within.
More flashes of green fire stabbed through the night, their brilliant glare jumping from one individual to another, turning each man and woman into a pillar of emerald light.
By the glow of these human torches I could see individuals staggering and falling and trying to run away, but always too late, always too goddamned late.
“Oh, the people!” Becky said, choking on her vomit, “oh dear God, the poor people!”
I just stood there agape, not yet realizing what was happening here. Zap! came the lightning, and another man fell forward onto the earth; and, as the shafts of light and heat passed over and through them, the live-oaks surrounding the basin suddenly burst into flame, together with any unburned bushes and brush surrounding them. As far south as Terra Linda I could see trees and shrubs and buildings suddenly coming alight. For a moment, I thought I was seeing some kind of Christmas display, and then realized that everything was tinged with a sickly green.
My God, I thought, what kind of range does this sting-ray have?
Back and forth it swept, this flaming agent of death, this invisible sword of heat and light, back and forth, seeking anything that moved and much that didn’t. I saw it drifting back towards me, and I was a dead man for sure, until Becky grabbed my chest and pulled me to the ground beside her, sheltering us both in a natural hollow. I was too astonished even to protest. I heard the crackling of fire around the pit and a sharp, quick scream that was suddenly choked off in mid-voice. Along a curving green line beyond the hole the ground smoked and sparkled and spit, and oh, oh God, did it ever burn! Something fell with a crash far away to the left, where the road from Novato parallels the fields. Then the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, domelike object sank slowly back out of sight.
We were alive! Becky’s quick action and the luck of geography had saved us when nothing else could. It’s better to be lucky than smart, I discovered, and I remembered that lesson in later days.
Everything had happened so quickly that I was still dumbfounded and dazzled by the residual flashes of light. They seemed burned into my retina, the odd shapes that still floated there. If the sting-ray had swept around again, well, I probably would have died with the others. But it didn’t, and once more I was reminded how much my existence depended on the quirkiness of fate. Call it God, call it what you will, but I lived when so many others died. Even so, the night had become dark and unfamiliar and terrible to me.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I whispered to my dear wife. I should have spoken those words “years” earlier.
The world had declined to near-black. Our road to safety lay gray and pale under the deep ebony sky. The field was nearly deserted. Overhead the stars were beginning to appear, but in the west a small crescent of sky was still tinged almost greenish blue. I could see the tops of a few surviving trees and the distant buildings of the suburbs against the fading dusk.
The Martians and their weapon were gone now, save for one thin black line that continued to move up and down like a metronome. Everything around us stank of destruction. A few houses on the outskirts of town were still spurting spires of spindly flame into the stillness of the evening sky. I could hear the squeaky sirens of the fire engines responding. “Ooh-lah,” they said, “ooh-lah.”
The people were gone. Most of those killed probably didn’t realize what was happening to them. Some had had sense enough to hit the ground, as we had, and one of these, I discovered later, was my friend Min.
But right now we were helpless, unprotected, and alone.
“Quiet!” I hissed.
We turned and began a stumbling, shuffling run back through the smoldering brush.
Our fear turned to panic and terror, not just of the Martians, but of everything around us. We ran quicker and quicker the further away we got. I started weeping underneath my heaving breath; I just couldn’t help myself. We’d lost something out there that could never be recovered. Neither of us dared to look back.
I suddenly got the idea that we were being toyed with, that, just before we reached safety, something would rise up and strike us both dead.
Mercifully or mercilessly, whichever you prefer, we reached our home again within the hour. But we both knew in our heart of hearts that we’d never feel safe—anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
“What do we do now, Alex?” Becky asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
Even to this day, the question is the same.
Even to this day, the answer is the same.
CHAPTER SIX
MERRY CHRISTMAS, NEW NOVATO!
Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
—Sir Walter Scott
Alex Smith, 25 December, Mars Year i
Novato, California, Planet Earth
But where were the media?
Some forty bodies lay sprawled around the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition in grotesque parodies of slumbering sleepers. A few of those killed had been completely or partially vaporized by the sting-ray, leaving just a shoe or watch or leg or arm or…whatever. All during the night the hills west of Novato and south towards Woodacre continued to burn, lighting up the sky with their flames.
What we didn’t know is that the second and third and fourth ships had already impacted on other parts of the Bay Area, one falling on Mountain Court in Walnut Creek to the east, another striking Windswept Lane in Bodega Bay to the northwest, still another crashing into an apartment complex on Fredonia Avenue in Mountain View to the south. News coverage converged on these areas as the alien capsules began to open and their inhabitants emerged, with results similar to those in Novato.
Another Martian ship landed at San Bernardino in Southern California, smashing onto the campus of some university there. I watched the news reports on CNN showing the administration building in flames, men and women running around outside and screaming their heads off, completely without direction or purpose. More impacts occurred over the next week in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, including Maiden Lane in North Hollywood, Santa Avelina Alley in Santa Monica, Wendigo Avenue in Aliso Viejo, El Borgo Boulevard in San Bernardino, Citrón Avenue in Redlands, and near the Hollywood sign in the hills over Los Angeles.
More vessels fell just outside Nevada City near Squirrelly Drive and into the Pacific Ocean west of the Farallones Islands; this was seemingly confirmed by a small tsunami ten to twenty feet high that swept certain south-facing beaches later that day.
The aliens appeared