Aliens on Earth: The day they arrived

by Nelson Angel

  Leonardo takes the initiative folding his map and jumping on the moped.

  “Let’s go, people. Let’s go further and beyond. I always wanted to say that in a real situation.”

  Sophia looks at Jack and shakes her head.

  “Can you believe that he is a scientist?”

  Jack smiles but doesn’t say anything.

  Leonardo raises his arm after getting comfortable on his seat.

  “Follow me, good ones”.

  And they drive for a short time because Sophia lives two blocks away from the train station.

  Chapter 10: The long journey continues

  They got onboard the train. Not many people are trying to travel, so it wasn’t difficult to get tickets and places for the mopeds and themselves.

  Jack is surprised at how Italians behave in a situation like that. He approaches the person selling tickets to ask a question.

  “Why are most of the people still working?”

  Luckily this person speaks English.

  “Why not? I don’t have anything better to do right now.” Replies the old man.

  “Don’t you want to be with your wife?” Jack asked noticing a ring on the old man's finger.

  “We’ve been together for many years and she woke up in a terrible mood this morning. Let her drink her own poison.”

  The man walks away to attend someone else.

  Jack walks to sit near his friends at the moment the train starts moving.

  He can’t believe how beautiful the scenery is and he thinks of how he would like Jennifer to be with him right now. He shakes his head to forget Jenn for a moment and focus on the present.

  But at this point, another thing crosses his mind. If the aliens are not friendly, as Leonardo thinks they are not, what’s going to happen to all that beauty? This thought brings a mix of sadness and desperation coupled with an incapacity to do anything to help.

  It’s practically impossible to find out what Sophia is thinking because her facial expression changes so much and so fast that it shows confusion in her way to deal with the situation.

  Jack wants to comfort her but he’s in no position to do that, since he’s confused as well. Maybe more than her.

  So, he turns to his side to check on Leonardo and to his surprise, Leonardo is sleeping. Nice and calm as though if nothing is happening.

  He turns to Sophia pointing to Leonardo.

  “How can he do that? Sleeping like a baby…”

  For one brief moment, Sophia smiles and shows tenderness in her face and voice.

  “He always says that what happens is what has to happen. We can try to change a little bit but we are not capable of changing anything. He calls that fate.”

  The train is in Castelfranco. Some people get off, but nobody gets on. Nothing happens at every stop until Vicenza, where they need to get another train. This train takes them to Verona.

  When they get off the train in Verona, they notice that the small spaceships are in a pattern in the sky that is similar to a fishing web. They are not too high in the sky and in a stationary position. It looks like they are waiting for something. Maybe a form of contact, if they are here in peace. But they could be waiting for a coordinate attack if they came as conquers.

  Everything is so surreal because nothing like this has happened before. Nothing in History shows similar events to prepare humans to behave in a way to react properly.

  The spaceships stay inert in the sky for hours, until the three friends reach Turin. From there, they need to go to Bramans, the city where Nate lives. It’s a matter of crossing the mountains that divide Italy on the east and France on the west.

  They can’t get another train because all electric equipment stopped all of a sudden.

  Nobody felt or heard anything. Nobody knows if this is an action from the aliens or not. The only thing they know is that electronic and electric equipment are not working anymore.

  Luckily, their mopeds are old Vespas. No electronics at all. They have old and reliable carbureted engines with kick starters. Their tanks are full, which means that they can reach Bramans with no problem at all.

  Leonardo turns to his friends in excitement.

  “Now the fun starts.”

  They all get on their mopeds and depart to Bramans. The only thing they need to do is cross the mountains.

  Chapter 11: Crossing the mountains

  This next step on their journey seems to be the easiest so far. Getting onto their mopeds and crossing the mountains that work as the natural border between Italy and France is.

  It’s exactly what Jack had in mind when they were leaving Turin. It should be easy to do this last part of the journey.

  Jack was hoping that the aliens would be inert the way they were so far for all the time they had to spend riding their Vespas.

  It is not a long ride. In good conditions Leo tells him that it would take about a little over one hour to drive those 123 km or 76 miles. But they are not riding under normal circumstances.

  Leonardo is the leader of the three, followed by Sophia, and lastly Jack.

  Jack doesn’t have much experience riding Vespas. They are completely different from any moped he had driven in the past in the USA. he’s doing good, though.

  Twenty minutes after their departure from Turin, they noticed something different happening to the small spaceships.

  Leonardo signs for them to stop. They obey the order. They look at the sky and observe that the small spaceships are rotating in different angles. It seems like they are pointing to specific locations on the ground.

  None of them understand what is happening or what might be about to happen, but all of them had the same feeling whatever is happening is not good.

  All of sudden, these small spaceships fire lasers to the ground. They can hear loud sounds like a roar in the air followed by explosions. The lasers are concentric. They hit very specific points on the ground. By the distance from point to point where the lasers hit the surface, Sophia and Leonardo assume that they are aiming at cities, especially because they are on the road in the forest and none of the hits are close to them.

  - “Dio mio (my God), they are shooting at the cities” scream Sophia looking at the places being destroyed from the Italian side that is still visible to them.

  Jack can’t say a word because so far, this feels like part of fiction movies that he used to enjoy watching.

  Leonardo is trying to keep himself calm but it’s not an easy job.

  “They are destroying everything that can represent a threat to them. Eliminating these threats and most of the people will help them to take Earth easily. They definitely didn’t come in peace. Or they came to take this planet or perhaps to destroy it with everything on it. Let’s get the mopeds and hide deep in the forest. Let’s move away from the road. They are not targeting us, but playing it safe is better than dealing with a situation that’s going to be difficult to deal with later on.”

  That’s what they do until they don’t hear any more noise coming from the lasers. They can still hear the explosions from everywhere. It’s difficult to hear those explosions and not imagine what is happening to the people living in the cities.

  Jack was holding himself together, trying not to cry, imagining what had happened to Jenn in Los Angeles. He wished Jenn had had time to go to the countryside of Los Angeles to her mom's house. Her mom has a house on Topanga Canyon. Pretty far from any city.

  After a while, Leonardo tells them to get their mopeds and walk them back to the road, so they can be on their way to Nate’s house.

  They don’t even know if they are going to find Nate’s house or if Nate is in one piece. But it’s too late to go back, if there is something for them to go back to.

  In silence, they start their mopeds and start the trip that is no longer fun anymore. It has become the opposite a, horror trip.

  Chapter 12: Meet Nate in Bramans

  From the point of view of the group, nightmares are a playground compared to
everything they are witnessing during their time riding to Nate’s place.

  They can see smoke everywhere. From every place they can imagine that that was a city before, they see columns of smoke rising to the air.

  They are quiet, but they feel that everybody is thinking the same thing. They want to know if they will find Nate’s house and himself by the time they arrive there.

  Sophia stops at this moment. She is the one with the courage to say what she is feeling. She breathes fast and inconsistently. She looks as though her heart is almost leaving her body through her mouth. This is something different than anything they have ever felt before.

  Jack is riding behind her, so he stops right after.

  Leonardo notices that the group is not together when he looks at the mirror and doesn't see his friends behind him where they’re supposed to be.

  He comes back to check what is happening.

  Jack looks at him, pale in appearance.

  “She’s not feeling well. She can’t even talk. Is Nate’s house far from us?”

  Sophia turns to her friends trying to compose herself.

  “If we find Nate’s place and him in one piece you mean! Can’t you see what’s happening around us? We can see smoke coming from everyplace we think that had a city before. It’s obvious that they finished all cities with everybody in them.”

  Leonardo holds her hand, trying to calm her down.

  “Sophia, you are in shock. Say everything that you want to say and put it all out. It’s going to be better for you if you vent and process.”

  Sophia starts crying loudly. It’s a mix of crying, tears, and hiccups.

  All three friends hug in a group hug and remain in silence for some minutes, until Sophia calms down.

  Leonardo takes the initiative again.

  “She’s right. We don’t know what is about to happen, but we need to continue. Bramans is behind that hill.” He points to a hill right in front of them.

  Jack fixes his eyes in the direction Leonardo is pointing to.

  “I can’t see smoke coming from behind the hill. Are you sure that this is the right direction that you are pointing to?”

  Leonardo, Sophia and Jack look at the hill and notice the same thing. This brings some relief and cheer to the group. They get their mopeds and continue riding to the city.

  As they draw close enough that they can see the city, they notice that the aliens didn’t hit Bramans. They can also see Nate’s house, with the big antenna still intact.

  They can feel some hope, and they smile.

  Jack learnt to observe a lot due to his job, and he notices that the antenna at Nate’s house is pointing to the sky. He doesn’t know if all antennas are similar, but that one looks a lot like the antenna Leonardo had at his place that he’d used to contact the lab. It doesn’t look like a radio antenna at all. He doesn’t say anything, but he keeps that in mind for sure.

  They finally arrive at Nate’s. They knock on the door, and to their surprise, Nate appears to be very calm and relaxed.

  Leonardo hugs his friend and introduces Sophia and Jack.

  “Nate, these are my friends Sophia and Jack. Guys, this is Nate.”

  They shake hands.

  “It’s so nice to meet you all. If you are Leo’s friends, you are my friends as well,” says Nate like nothing is happening in the world.

  Nate continues,

  “Let’s get inside. Let me get you all something to drink and eat. You must be hungry and thirsty.”

  They are so relieved to see that Bramans was not hit and Nate is fine, that, for a moment, they forget all the catastrophe around them.

  But Jack, he doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t trust Nate for some reason. It could all be in his mind, but something is not fitting in the puzzle. He’s so tired, hungry, and thirsty that he can’t think. But that feeling sticks with him.

  They got inside the house after parking the mopeds in the front yard. It’s a simple but well maintained and decorated house. Not much furniture, but this is normal, taking into consideration that Nate is single.

  They all sit at the table while Nate gets food and drinks to his friends.

  Leonardo starts the conversation because he is a close friend to Nate.

  “Are all the communications down, or do we still have a way somehow to talk to others?”

  “Everything is down, Leo. Nothing is working since they knocked down our satellites.”

  “Not even radios?” asked Jack.

  “Not even radios. It’s difficult to find someone with radios at home nowadays. It’s common in trucks but they are not driving anymore. And not being an alarmist here, but after these attacks on the cities, we don’t even have many people to talk to. You know about the attack on the cities, right?”

  Sophia sounds discouraged and disappointed.

  “Yes. we saw them from a front row view in the mountains coming over.”

  Jack, suspicious of Nate, wants to know more.

  “It seems that the aliens didn’t attack this city at all.”

  “Lucky us. I believe that Bramans is so small that they didn’t think it was important to attack here.”

  Jack gets more comfortable on the chair.

  “I also noticed that you are pointing your antenna to the sky, to space.”

  Nate walks away from the kitchen sink and sits in a chair at the table.

  “Since we don’t have satellites for proper communication, I decided to point my antenna to space to get some readings, if possible.”

  It’s Leonardo's turn to question him.

  “Did you have any success on that?”

  “Nope. The only thing I got was some noises, like blips, but nothing that I can identify as language or radio signals for communication between them.”

  “Jack was hoping that you could help him to talk to his girlfriend in Los Angeles…”

  “Sorry, Jack. It’s a long call, and I don’t even have my radio antenna or equipment anymore.”

  Jack is disappointed and curious about Nate.

  Chapter 13: Jack loses it all

  After a night well slept, Jack wakes up earlier than the others. Way early.

  He is still lost in a foreign town. He’d left his hometown and travelled to another country, meeting people who he’d never had contact with before, not knowing the language and arriving in the middle of a war that started during his flight.

  For all these reasons, and they are not a few, he’s been playing a passive role. Following others leadership, not talking a lot. Not expressing his ideas.

  This is bothering him a lot, especially because now he wants to speak. He doesn’t trust Nate at all. Everything about him looks and sounds suspicious. He can feel it.

  He walks out his bedroom, downstairs to the kitchen. By the time he passes close to the studio door, he hears some noises like clicks. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a machine. It sounds organic.

  Curious as he is, he follows the noises, and to his surprise, he sees Nate in front of a device, making those noises with his mouth. And it seems that noises come back from the device, simulating a conversation made with clicks instead of words.

  He is frozen to the spot. He can’t move a muscle. He’s got no action at all.

  At that moment, Nate notices Jack in the room.

  “Morning, Jack. how did you sleep last night?”

  “Very well. I really needed to rest.”

  They look into each other's eyes. The silence is absurdly loud. So loud that Jack feels his ears hurting with complete absence of noise.

  Jack can’t hold it any longer.

  “I know that I’m not qualified but, what the heck were you doing there?”

  Nate looks surprised.

  “Nothing special. I was just trying to imitate the noises I can hear and establish some sort of communication with them.”

  “Every time you say they or them, you are talking about the aliens, right?”

  “Of course. The aliens. Who el
se would I be talking about?”

  Another moment of silence. Jack knows that something is off. But he doesn’t know what.

  Nate breaks the silence.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll prepare your breakfast. Best French breakfast ever.”

  They walk to the kitchen. By the time they reach the kitchen, Leonardo and Sophia are there too.

  “Good morning, everyone. I just told Jack that I’m going to prepare the best breakfast ever.”

  Leonardo and Sophia greet Nate, and they help prepare the table.

  Nate goes to the stove. Jack takes this moment to approach Leonardo.

  “I saw something really strange when I was walking down this morning. I saw and heard Nate making noises like clicks on the device in the studio, and I can swear that the other side on the device keeping a conversation was something making the same kind of noises. They were talking, but instead of using words, they were using clicks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. How well do you know Nate?”

  “We were colleagues for a while…”

  “So, not that well.”

  Leonardo agrees.

  “I’m going to talk to him, and I’ll let you know, Jack.”

  “Be careful. I don’t trust him at all.”

  Nate came to the table with a feast, not a breakfast.

  Jack looked at the spread of food and thought, how could somebody prepare such an elaborate meal as though the death, destruction, and everything that is happening around the world doesn’t really matter.

  Leonardo was serving Sophia.

  “I’d like to check your equipment in your studio if you don’t mind. A comparison with the one I have in mine.”

  “Of course, I don’t mind. At least this is the minimum colleagues can do to help each other.”

  Nate looked at Jack trying to figure out what really was behind that sudden curiosity of Leonardo.