Strange Invaders

by Rodman Philbrick

  Jessie’s hand fell away from my arm. She stepped out into the open. “Frasier!” she exclaimed. “You scared the daylights out of us.”

  “Cool!” he said.

  Frasier Wellington was our good bud, same age as us. He was bigger than me but kind of clumsy. He grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth. His eyes got big behind his thick glasses. “Scared you, huh?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, rolling my eyes as if the idea was ridiculous. “It sounded like a herd of elephants coming up the hill, so we thought we ought to check it out before showing ourselves.”

  “What are you doing up here?” asked Jessie suspiciously.

  “Same as you,” said Frasier, bending over to examine a burned rock. “Checking out the storm damage.”

  “So you heard it, too,” said Jessie, looking relieved. Frasier lived right next door to us. “Did it wake you up?”

  “Sure. Who could sleep through that?” He let the rock fall to the ground and picked up another one. Frasier was a rock hound. He collected rocks and displayed them on shelves in his room. “Except for my parents. They’ll sleep through anything.”

  “Your parents slept through the whole thing?” asked Jessie in a strange, tense voice.

  But Frasier was too absorbed to notice. He put the burned rock in his pocket. “Yup,” he said. “They sure did.”

  “Hey, Frase,” I said, shooting Jessie a look. I didn’t want to talk about our parents. “Did you notice anything, um, peculiar about that storm?”

  Frasier shrugged his shoulders, poked his glasses back up his nose. “You mean like flashes of weird light but no actual lightning bolts? Glowing clouds? Glowing rain? Kind of a funny vibration in the air?” He squinted like he does when he’s thinking. “I guess that about covers the peculiar stuff. Except for this incredible expanse of scorched earth. Now this is really peculiar.”

  I felt relieved that Frasier had seen the same things we had. At least our house hadn’t been totally singled out by whatever it was.

  “What about the view?” asked Jessie. “Did you happen to look toward town from up here?”

  Frasier rubbed the top of his crew cut with his palm, a gesture that meant he was uneasy. “A simple, atmospheric inversion,” he said with blustery confidence. “Like a mirage.”

  That sounded like a good explanation until I remembered that Frasier liked to throw around big words when he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “This is really cool,” said Frasier, pointing along the starburst area. He was changing the subject, also not a good sign. He dropped to his hands and knees and began sniffing around the scorched center. He looked like a nervous terrier with glasses.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jessie.

  “Identifying the odor,” he answered, turning his head to squint up at us. “Didn’t you notice how strong it is? It’s ozone.”

  “Ozone? What’s ozone?” I asked. Frasier’s basically a cool guy, but sometimes he’s like a human computer, he knows so much. He wasn’t blustering and talking fast this time, so I knew he really had discovered something.

  “Ozone is created when a strong electrical current passes through the air,” he explained, sniffing the points of the star shape. “Some of the oxygen gets changed to ozone. You can smell it after a storm.”

  “So you think what we saw was an ordinary storm?” asked Jessie, sounding hopeful.

  Frasier grinned and got up, dusting off his jeans. “I didn’t say that. Lightning isn’t the only thing that can make ozone.”

  “Oh? What else?” I asked, pretty sure I didn’t really want to know.

  “A UFO,” Frasier announced triumphantly. “The smell of ozone is often reported following the sighting of an unidentified flying object.”

  “What!” Jessie’s eyes followed the path of scorched earth that widened down the length of the hill.

  “A spaceship,” said Frasier, nodding happily. “We may have ourselves a visitor!”

  All of a sudden I felt a burning sensation on the top of my head, like something with hot eyes was staring at me. One thing I knew for sure, human eyes didn’t feel like that, no matter how they stared.

  My mind flashed back to that horrible scene in the basement last night. And the flickering movement I’d seen in my parents’ eyes this morning. And the crawly sensation when my mom stared at me before going down into the basement.

  I whirled, thinking to catch sight of whatever was watching, and far above us a shadow moved. I shouted and ducked as a shower of pebbles pelted down from above. A shape launched itself into the air and dove straight at my head.

  13

  A piercing cry rang in my ears. I covered my head and crouched. A sound like a helicopter propeller beat the air.

  “Look out!” Frasier shouted as he and Jessie dropped down beside me.

  The shriek split the air again. I felt something hostile slap the top of my head. Gusts of wind blasted my face, making my eyes water.

  “Wow,” cried Frasier. “Haliaeetus leucocephalus!”

  Haliwhatsis? Was this the alien? Were we going to be snatched right off the top of Harley Hill, never to be heard from again?

  I rolled behind the boulder where we’d hid before, dragging Jessie with me. “Frasier,” I shouted. “Over here, quick! Before it comes back.”

  We huddled, covering our heads, but Frasier didn’t come. Everything was quiet. Had Frasier been snatched? Or was he lying on the ground injured? I had to go see. Cautiously I moved forward and peered around the rock.

  Frasier was standing, looking up into the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand.

  “Frasier!” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

  “Did you see that?” he said excitedly. “That was a haliaeetus leucocephalus. Latin name for a bald eagle.”

  “An eagle?” I said. “We got zoomed by an eagle?”

  “It was huge,” Frasier said, nodding. “I read they were nesting here again, but this is the first one I’ve seen. Awesome, wasn’t it?”

  “Real awesome,” said Jessie sarcastically. “It obviously doesn’t want us here and I agree. This place is creepy. I’m leaving.”

  “But what about the burn mark?” asked Frasier, dismayed. “Don’t you want to investigate? See if we can find proof of a UFO?”

  Jessie stalked past him, then turned back angrily. “Right now I want to see if we can find proof of a town,” she said. “Last time I looked, it wasn’t there.”

  I felt a little queasy as we headed back to our bikes. It was bad enough that our parents were acting weird. And I still had the uncomfortable feeling of unseen, unfriendly eyes boring into my back.

  But if the town had really disappeared—? I couldn’t even stand to think about that.

  None of us spoke much as we pedaled back toward Harleyville. But then we rounded the first bend and saw the Wilsons’ house right where it was supposed to be. And then more houses and there was the church steeple rising over the town.

  All of a sudden we were all laughing and talking at once although nobody talked about the crazy fears we’d been having.

  It was peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Mom and Dad were still in the basement. They didn’t even answer when we called out that we were home. The big shiny padlock on the basement door was like a warning.

  Finally, when it got dark, Jessie went and banged on the door. “Mom,” she yelled. “What’s for dinner?”

  “We’re-working-on-a-special-project,” Dad called back. And then Mom shouted, “You’re-old-enough-to-fend-for-yourselves!”

  Jessie and I just looked at each other in shock. We were always arguing that we were old enough to do things for ourselves, and Mom was always arguing that we weren’t. So what could we do?

  We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. Lunch, okay, but dinner? What about the balanced diet Mom was always insisting on?

  Mom and Dad didn’t eat at all.

  Afterwards we settled in front of the TV. It should have been a
luxury. We could watch anything, for as long as we wanted. Usually Dad monitored what we watched and two shows was our limit.

  But we couldn’t concentrate. Every time there was a thump or a bump in the basement below us, we jumped. Finally we just went to bed early, but I don’t think either of us slept much.

  The next morning I woke up at my usual time. I threw off the bedclothes and went to the window. Another bright, sunny day. I breathed deep, smelling the fresh, clean air. All yesterday’s creepy feelings seemed blown away in the breeze.

  The strange thunderstorm and the pink, glowing rain were like a dream. And why had Jessie and I been so upset about Mom and Dad? So they were working on some big surprise in the basement. Why was that such a big deal?

  Maybe they’d finished it last night and today they would show us what they’d been doing.

  I pulled on my clothes fast. I was famished. Mom was right—peanut butter and jelly weren’t enough fuel for a growing boy.

  Heading downstairs, I thought today might be a good day to play baseball. Harley Hills and the badlands had always been spooky, even before the strange storm. If we didn’t want to get weirded out, then all we had to do was not go there. Simple.

  Jessie was already in the kitchen, seated at the table. Mom and Dad were nowhere around. Dad must have gone to work early, I figured.

  Then the back door banged and Mom came in with a big bright box. “Breakfast,” she announced, dumping the box on the table.

  “Doughnuts!” I said, snagging a sugary jelly doughnut out of the box. “Cool, Mom!” I bit down and raspberry ooze filled my mouth.

  “Yeah, this is a first, isn’t it, Nick?” Jessie observed, with an edge to her voice.

  I looked at Mom standing beside the table. She was looking off into space intently as if listening to something we couldn’t hear.

  “You don’t usually let us have doughnuts for breakfast, Mom,” said Jessie pointedly. “As a matter of fact this is the first time ever.”

  Mom blinked. Something moved in her eyes—something that had no business being there. But then she looked away and I wasn’t sure what I’d seen.

  The scrumptious doughnut suddenly went stale in my mouth. Something wasn’t right here.

  “Time-for-a-change,” said Mom, sounding stiff and bright as if she were trying to sound cheerful but didn’t know how. “Change-is-good. Change-is-normal. Perfectly-normal.” She turned on her heel and headed for the basement door, fishing a key out of her pocket and fitting it to the padlock.

  Jessie made a disgusted noise and turned her back. The lock snapped open but instead of heading into the basement, Mom turned and stared at Jessie.

  Her eyes bored into the back of Jessie’s skull but Jessie just sat huddled, totally unaware. A chill ran down my backbone. I felt a buzzing in the air, a ringing filling my ears.

  I jumped up, trying to break Mom’s concentration or get Jessie’s attention but it was like they were locked in a private tunnel away from me. Jessie didn’t move a muscle.

  Then, slowly, a few strands of Jessie’s hair began to rise up from her head, then a few more. They waved in the air like snakes all by themselves. I gulped air but I couldn’t make a sound.

  Then very slowly, as if she didn’t know what she was doing, Jessie started to stand up. She rose from her chair as if she were being tugged by her waving locks of hair. Her face was frozen, like a photograph.

  The air was thick. I felt like I was gasping for breath in a bowl of soup. I tried to shout, but no sound came. Panicking, I flung myself across the table, kicking over my chair, which landed on the tile floor with a crash.

  Jessie jumped. “Sheesh, Nick,” she said. “You’re so clumsy. If you want another doughnut, all you have to do is say so.”

  I thought I heard a grunt of anger and disappointment from Mom. But when I looked over, the basement door was closing behind her. There was the snick of the bolt on the inside, then her footsteps headed down.

  Jessie scratched the back of her head. “I think there’s a mosquito in here,” she said. “It just bit my scalp.”

  Something metal clanked on the basement floor.

  Jessie made a face. “Let’s get out of here,” she said a second before I was about to say the same thing.

  When we were out in the yard, Jessie turned to face me. “There’s something wrong,” she said, scratching her head absently.

  “Hey, what’s so bad about doughnuts for breakfast?” I said, but my voice was shaking too much for the fake cheerfulness to work.

  “It’s not the doughnuts. It’s Mom. She’s acting like the Energizer Bunny.”

  “Maybe she had too much coffee,” I suggested.

  Jessie rolled her eyes. “She didn’t have any coffee. Nothing to eat either.” Jessie’s shoulders slumped. “Get serious, Nick. Something’s wrong and you know it! We need to find out what it is. So we can do something about it.”

  “I like having peanut butter for dinner and doughnuts for breakfast,” I said stubbornly, more scared than I wanted to admit. I peered into the mass of Jessie’s hair, to see if there was a mark on her scalp.

  The doughnut sat like a stone in my stomach. If I told Jessie I’d seen her hair waving in the air while Mom stared like Jessie was some kind of fascinating experiment—well, she’d flip.

  And the more I thought about it, outside in the sunshine on an ordinary day, the more I realized how ridiculous I was being.

  Static electricity made Jessie’s hair stick up. And Mom had been staring at her because Jessie was acting so sulky. That was all.

  But Jessie would go for the alien theory for sure. An alien takeover! Crazy!

  Unless it happened to be true.

  14

  “Hey, weenies!” Frasier skidded up on his mountain bike, saving me from having to argue with Jessie.

  “Whrrooom!” he said, stopping an inch in front of us, his front wheel lifting into the air. “How do you like my full-throated, double-barrel exhaust pipes? Neat, right?”

  Frasier had attached balloons to his tires so they banged against the spokes making a cool noise, if I cared about that sort of thing—which at the moment I didn’t.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, noticing our stiff expressions.

  “It’s my mom,” Jessie burst out, her voice breaking. “She’s acting so, so—different.”

  “Different?” asked Frasier, cocking his head. Binoculars hung on a strap around his neck.

  “Strange,” said Jessie. “Weird.” She knew that telling Frasier about the doughnuts wouldn’t cut it. His mom let him eat just about anything.

  Frasier shrugged. “Parents are always acting strange and weird. That’s no reason to get bummed out,” he said. “Take my mom. Last night I stayed up till two in the morning playing computer games, and she didn’t say a word. Usually she’d go ballistic. But last night I didn’t even hear her go to bed.”

  He started polishing his binoculars on his bright green T-shirt. “Parents go through phases,” he continued, like he knew what he was talking about. “She’ll snap out of it in a day or two. Unfortunately. Then it’ll be back to normal time. Don’t worry, Jessie, it’s all perfectly normal.”

  Jessie grabbed her hair in her fists and screamed, “Don’t say that!”

  Frasier stepped back, startled. “What’s with your sister, man?” he whispered to me.

  “She’s just upset,” I said. “Didn’t, um, get enough sleep.”

  Jessie shot me a dirty look. “I’m going to get my bike,” she said and strode off toward the shed where we kept them.

  “Yeah? Or maybe she ate too many chocolate doughnuts.” Frasier grinned. “Can you spare one for a bud?”

  As he chomped away on the last doughnut, Jessie came back with her bike. “Better get your wheels, Nick,” Frasier suggested, wiping crumbs off his face. “Time to go.”

  “Go?” I asked. “Go where?”

  Frasier stuck the bike helmet back on his head and tightened the strap. “Back to H
arley Hills,” he said. “Where else?”

  My stomach churned around those doughnuts, but I knew he was right. We had to go back. We had to find out what had happened in those strange hills.

  We started wheeling our bikes out to the road. But as we passed the garage, I heard something. I stopped.

  Clank.

  There it was again. Coming from inside the garage.

  “Wait,” I called out. “I think your cat might be in our garage again, Frasier. My dad must have left the door open when he went to work. There’s paint and stuff in there. I’ll get her out and close the door.”

  “Hurry up. We’ll wait here.”

  I laid my bike down and headed for the garage, ignoring the prickly feeling crawling up the back of my neck.

  Clank!

  The noise sounded kind of loud for a cat. Maybe a raccoon had gotten in there. But as I got closer, I saw something really strange. My dad’s car! It was still in the garage. But if the car was there, then how had he gotten to work?

  I moved closer, a little slower now. I heard shuffling noises, and then I saw something big and bulky move deep in the shadows in the back of the garage where it was darkest. It was much too big to be a cat or a raccoon.

  Swallowing, I thought about turning back. But I could just imagine telling Frasier I’d heard noises in the garage and was too chicken to check it out. Right. Weenyville for sure.

  Taking a few more steps, I squinted to see into the darkness. I was almost at the open door, but it was so bright outside I could hardly see in at all.

  Something growled.

  “GRRRRRRRR.”

  I leaped about a foot, my heard pounding. If I could reach the door I could pull it down quick, trapping whatever it was inside. Moving silently, I crept forward, my eyes on the door handle. It was a good plan. Whatever was in there was way in the back, unaware of me.

  I jumped for the door handle, snagged it. Smoothly the door slid on its tracks. Something bellowed and a face swam out of the blackness right in front of me. It had big teeth and they were aimed at my throat.

  Then the door caught and snagged, halfway down. I had failed! I tried to run, then tripped over a rock and went sprawling: