Читать книгу Invasion: Earth vs. the Aliens - Robert Reginald - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

STING-RAY

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

—Muhammad Ali

Alex Smith, 24 December, Mars Year i

Novato, California, Planet Earth

After my first tête-à-tête with the Martians, something made me stay close to the action. Becky was begging me to leave, but I had to see it through. I wanted to know what was happening. I kept staring at the mound that hid the aliens. I wavered between fear and curiosity—and curiosity “killed the cat,” as they say.

Of course, I wasn’t foolish enough actually to venture any closer to the damned thing. I hid myself in the brush, and Becky finally stopped tugging at me.

“What is it about men, anyway,” she muttered under her breath, “that makes them do such stupid things?”

What indeed?

But, the fact remains that I wanted to experience the outcome of our little adventure. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I’d become a spectator of our first encounter with a species from another world. However it came out, this meeting was the most important event in human history. We were no longer alone in the universe!

I tried to find some better vantage point, dragging Becky along behind me. I almost climbed a tree. Suddenly I saw several black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flash against the darkening sky. Then a thin rod was pushed out of the pit, joint by joint; it had a circular disk at the top rotating in a wobbling motion. It reminded me of a juggler balancing a plate on a stick. What the hell were they doing over there?

Most of the onlookers were wandering their way back to Novato. I recognized Frank Somebody-or-Other. I don’t recall his name now.

“Goddam slimy critters!” he was saying to anyone who’d listen. “Gotta kill ’em all!” He repeated this refrain over and over again.

“What do you see?” I asked, but he paid no attention to me, just moseyed on by. Although the crowd had largely dissipated, a few diehards gathered together in a group. I could hear their occasional murmurs in the background.

After awhile sheer boredom brought some of the people back again, including new arrivals from town. As the light dimmed, I could see the reestablished crowd jerking forward 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.