Strange Invaders

by Rodman Philbrick

  “Yeah? Gold mines?” asked Frasier, sounding interested.

  “Nah,” I said, remembering stories about the old mines. “It was something boring like potassium or zinc.”

  “Mmm,” mused Frasier. “I suppose it could be an old mine shaft blasted open by lightning. But what’s making it glow from inside?”

  As I was trying to think of an answer, the light got stronger. It began to pulsate and throb like a beating heart.

  “There’s something in there,” I said, my own heart beginning to flutter. “Something alive!”

  We watched as the light pulsed, casting long erratic shadows outside the opening.

  “It may be alive,” Frasier said grimly. “But it’s not human.”

  He started to back away, pulling his cape up over his head to shut out the glow.

  “Where are you going?” demanded Jessie.

  “Home.” Frasier sounded determined.

  “Don’t you get it?” said Jessie, wheeling on him. “Whatever this thing is, it’s got control of our parents. We can’t go home anymore!”

  “They’re parents,” said Frasier. “They’ll know what to do.”

  “You’ve seen them, Frasier,” I said. “They’re not acting like parents or even like grown-ups. They’re not themselves anymore. They can’t help us. They can’t even help themselves.”

  Just then, a movement far below caught our eyes. The line of adults had come into view. They were still shuffling along, one after the other, winding around a low hill like a column of ants. They were headed straight for Harley Hills.

  Jessie scowled at him. “If it were the other way around and this were happening to us kids, do you think our parents would just go home and leave us here?”

  Frasier sighed deeply. “No, definitely not,” he said. He stood up, breathed deep, and straightened his cape, squaring his shoulders. “Well, what are you guys waiting for?” he asked, jumping on his bike.

  Frasier headed right for the Harley Hills and the cave that hadn’t been there until tonight, his Superboy cape flying out behind him.

  32

  Pedaling down the ridge as hard as we could go, we built up speed for the ride into the hills. Frasier was in the lead, but this time he didn’t mess around riding up the charred area of the original lightning strike.

  We steered clear of the burned rock even though this other way was steeper. Finally it got so steep we couldn’t ride. We left our bikes below the opening to the cave.

  “Here goes nothing,” Frasier said, touching his Superboy cape for luck.

  Cautiously, we climbed up to the cave opening. As we got closer, the light seemed to pulse brighter and faster as if it were aware of us and excited—or maybe frightened—by our presence.

  Normally I’m pretty brave but right then I was terrified. Scared witless. My insides gurgled as if everything inside my skin had turned to water.

  “Wow,” said Frasier as we pulled ourselves over the last ridge and stood at last before the cave opening. “It certainly isn’t any natural cave, and it definitely isn’t a human mine shaft.”

  The opening to the glowing cave was as tall as a big man and was almost round. It spiraled into the hill as if a giant corkscrew had burrowed into the rock. Frasier walked right up to the cave, gazing around in amazement. He ran his hand along the edge of one of the spirals. The chewed-up rock was melted, the edge smooth and glassy.

  “Awesome,” said Frasier, kneeling to get a closer look. “It looks like it got blasted by a giant laser.”

  “Maybe it was lightning,” said Jessie doubtfully, walking up behind Frasier. The glow of the cold light fell on her, making her skin look as pale as white marble while her eyes flashed with sparks. I shivered, not knowing if it was fear or the chill of the night air that made me shudder.

  “I don’t think lightning can melt rock,” I said, trying to peer into the cave without getting too close. But I couldn’t see more than a few feet inside despite the light. Either the glow was too bright or the cave tunnel took a turn that hid most of it from view. From the entrance it was impossible to tell.

  “Definitely not lightning,” announced Frasier, getting to his feet. He turned a glassy, fist-sized rock over and over in his hands. “Something much hotter than lightning did this. Lightning can’t bore a hole into the earth. Not this deep.”

  “We’ll have to explore it,” said Jessie.

  “We’ll go together,” said Frasier, looking eager and scared at the same time.

  “No,” said Jessie. “What if it’s a trap? Two of us should stay outside while one of us checks it out. You two stay. I’ll shout when it’s okay to come in.”

  Before we could stop her she darted into the cave mouth, into the light. I squinted after her, trying to shade my eyes with my hand, but she disappeared from view.

  I bit my lip anxiously. Jessie was as brave as anybody twice her size. I knew that. But I couldn’t help wondering if whatever it was that had made the cave was also drawing her into it. The strange light wanted Jessie. I was sure of it. I had to go after her.

  But as I started forward, the ground shook. A tingling sensation traveled from my feet up my legs and my back, right to my head. It was the hum. We’d been hearing or feeling it for so long we’d almost forgotten it.

  But suddenly it was louder and stronger. The throbbing vibration began to pulse in time with the light, which was growing brighter. What was happening? Had the light got my twin sister?

  The hum jangled my bones and made my stomach queasy. The light was so bright I couldn’t see a foot into the cave. The vibration made my anxiety seem even worse. I felt like I was going to explode.

  Then suddenly a voice spoke to us out of the light.

  33

  “Comecomcomcomininininininitsssitsssitssscoooooolooooooloooool.”

  Frasier’s eyes goggled behind his glasses. My heart pounded. “What was that?” said Frasier.

  The voice started up again. “Guyuyuyuysss!”

  “It’s Jessie!” I burst out, dashing into the entrance.

  Frasier was right behind me. “Must be an echo,” he said. “Her voice is echoing off all these spirals. She doesn’t sound hurt or anything. I don’t think,” he added.

  “Listen!” I demanded as Jessie’s voice started up again. The echo was much less distorting inside the cave, and we could make out what she was saying.

  “Come on guys,” she was calling out. “It’s cool!”

  “We’re coming!” I yelled back.

  Inside the cave the walls and ceiling curved in a thickly ridged spiral. The glassy rock glowed pink and gold with traces of a darker blue. It was beautiful but creepy, too. What had made this place?

  The continuing hum from the cave floor made our feet tingle. It was almost an electrical feeling.

  The light was glowing from deep inside the tunnel. We felt ourselves drawn to it. Slowly we crept forward, going deeper inside.

  My sneakers skidded on the slick surface and I almost fell. Frasier was right there to grab me. “Careful,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to break a leg in here.”

  Jessie was waiting for us as we cautiously navigated the first curve of the tunnel. A warm breeze coming from under the earth stirred the hairs on my arms, making me realize I was trembling. It wasn’t cold, but I was shivering.

  “Smell that?” asked Jessie. There were diamond bright gleams in her eyes.

  I sniffed. The breeze was carrying some kind of scent. Strange but not unpleasant. Kind of familiar.

  “It’s spicy,” said Frasier.

  “Yeah, like cinnamon,” Jessie said.

  “Maybe they’re baking pies down here,” joked Frasier, laughing nervously. “Heh-heh-heh.”

  “Sure. And we’re the main ingredient,” quipped Jessie, tossing her head.

  “My turn to lead,” I said and slipped past Jessie. I was trying to remember what the cinnamon smell reminded me of. But it wouldn’t come to me.

  We crept along in sil
ence for a while, following the spiraling walls into the hillside. The light wasn’t getting any closer, and we all seemed to sense it was a good idea not to make any noise.

  The tunnel was narrow, only wide enough for us to walk single file. I felt my shoulders hunching with tension. We were deep inside the rocky hill, and I imagined the immense weight of the hills towering over us. There was nothing to protect us from being crushed but the walls of this strange cave.

  I looked back to check on the others. Jessie was right behind me, tight-lipped. Her shoulders were hunched, too, I noticed, and she gave the walls quick, fearful glances. Frasier was hanging slightly back, his Superboy cape wrapped tight around him, his glasses winking and flashing in the cave light.

  He looked almost funny, a big nerd in a costume cape, his eyes bugged out behind the glasses. But I knew he was tough and I was glad to have him there covering our backs. Frasier would never break and run in a panic like some kids would.

  A few minutes later Jessie touched my shoulder. I stopped and looked at her questioningly. “Feel that?” she whispered, laying her hand on the cave wall.

  I put my hand beside hers. My palm tingled and I jerked it away. The hum was coming through the stone. It was on all sides of us now. “Check it out,” urged Jessie.

  Frasier and I both placed our hands flat on the wall, trying not to flinch away. “It’s pulsing,” breathed Frasier.

  There was a rhythm to it. Bump-de-bump. Bump-de-bump.

  “What is it?” asked Frasier. “Code again? Like Morse?”

  I frowned, feeling something nagging at me. Something I should know. “It feels, sounds—familiar,” I said.

  Jessie nodded. Her dark eyes were huge. “It’s like a heartbeat,” she said.

  And I felt my own heart lurch. Bump-de-bump.

  34

  With the hum magnifying our own heartbeats, our feet felt heavy, like lead. As we entered yet another curve just like all the others, I started thinking maybe we should go back. Before it was too late.

  But as we rounded the curve, I forgot about leaving, forgot about the heartbeat in the walls.

  The tunnel opened into a huge cavernous area. The rock walls glittered. Strange stalactite formations hung over our heads, some almost to the cave floor.

  The light still came from somewhere beyond and threw long snaky shadows across the floor and walls.

  “Wow!” Frasier’s cape rippled in the breeze as he threw back his head, looking around eagerly. He walked over to one of the stalactites and looked it over. Then he whipped off his glasses and squinted, his nose an inch from the weird spike.

  “This isn’t rock! It’s metal,” he announced excitedly. “Or metal that’s been melted into the rock.”

  “What?” I moved around the stalactite, looking it over without getting too close. It did have an odd, silvery sheen to it, like steel maybe. “That’s impossible.”

  “Think about it, man.” Frasier’s eyes were feverish with excitement, his fear momentarily forgotten. “What if an alien spacecraft really did land in the Harley Hills? What if it was going so fast it kind of melted through the rock and stone?”

  I looked down the cavern through the pattern of heavy stalactites that hung like huge airplane struts from the ceiling and walls. “You really believe that?” I asked, resisting the idea. My brain scrambled for a better explanation. “There’s such a thing as rock that looks like gold, you know. Maybe this is rock that looks like metal. It was probably a zinc mine once. That’s what it is. Zinc.”

  Frasier shrugged, the cape flaring out behind him. “I don’t know what to believe,” he said softly.

  “Hey, guys,” called Jessie. “Come on! I think I see something.” She was half hidden behind a sharp stalactite, moving in the direction of the light.

  We hurried to catch up, saying no more about alien spaceships. Jessie wove through the “struts” extruding from the rock, moving purposefully.

  The glow was getting brighter and brighter, hurting my eyes and making me blink. The hum was so loud my head buzzed and I couldn’t hear myself think. The spicy smell filled my nostrils, swam into my lungs, and settled in my stomach. I felt dizzy.

  Suddenly it popped into my brain what the cinnamon smell reminded me of. It smelled like the rain had tasted the night of the weird storm.

  I swallowed, trying to keep the fear from bubbling up through my throat in a scream. I knew we should turn around and run as fast as we could out of here. But if we did, then nothing would ever be the same. Life would never be “perfectly normal” again.

  I fought down my panic as best I could, stumbling along behind Jessie. But just when I thought I couldn’t stand another minute, the cave ended.

  We were standing in front of a high solid wall. It was silvery gray, made out of the same metallic stuff as the stalactite “struts.” But it was smooth and glowing. The whole wall pulsed with light.

  My hand reached up like it didn’t belong to me and touched the glowing surface. It was cool and smooth. Smooth like skin. I jerked my hand away—could it be alive? Was this the alien, buried deep inside the rock?

  “I found it,” Frasier said quietly. I wasn’t sure I heard him right over the hum in my head.

  “Found what?”

  “A way inside. Where the light is coming from.”

  35

  Down near the cave floor, almost hidden in shadow, was a small slotlike opening. It was just big enough for a kid to crawl through.

  “I don’t know about this,” I said, down on my hands and knees trying to peer through. My knees were quaking against the floor.

  “We’ve come this far,” said Jessie. “We can’t turn back now. Think of Mom and Dad. They’re out there somewhere, and we’re the only ones that can save them.”

  She was right. I poked my head through the opening before I could think about it any more. A glow came up from beneath me. I wriggled through and, as I pulled my foot in, my knee slipped into nothingness.

  I jerked back against the wall, my heart pounding against my ribs at the near disaster. “Careful,” I whispered sharply to Jessie who was next through. “There’s nothing here but a narrow, clifflike ledge. Scrunch over by me. And warn Frasier.”

  When we were all safely huddled on the ledge, we looked around in amazement. Over us the metallic wall arched in a huge curved dome, perfectly smooth. Jessie coughed. The cinnamonlike smell was so strong here our eyes were watering.

  Carefully I peered over to look below our ledge. I shuddered to see what I had almost fallen into. Just a foot or so below the ledge was a huge pool of glowing metallic liquid.

  “This is where the light is coming from,” whispered Jessie in awe.

  “And the hum, too, I think,” I said, feeling it reverberate against my heart.

  As the shimmering surface vibrated, ripples passed over it in strange patterns. There were swirls, almost whirlpools, and circles that spread across the surface in low waves. Other ripples marched across the pool in straight lines, lapping against the curved wall.

  Under the surface, inside the glow, I thought I saw something move. Was it swimming? I blinked away the water that the spice kept bringing to my eyes, but I still couldn’t get a clear look. Maybe it was my imagination. Then I saw it again, like a shadow that came almost to the surface then dipped away.

  “I think it’s alive,” said Frasier reverently.

  “What are you talking about?” I snapped, fear making me sound irritated.

  “What were you expecting?” Frasier shot back. “Little green men?”

  “You mean you think the liquid itself is alive?” asked Jessie.

  Frasier shifted, pulling at his cape as if it were too tight on his neck. “The liquid. Or something growing inside it,” he said.

  Jessie stretched out on her stomach and stuck her head over. “I wonder what it feels like.” Her hand reached over the ledge.

  “Don’t!” I cried, grabbing for her wrist.

  But it was too late.


  36

  As Frasier and I watched in horror, Jessie’s finger dipped into the pool. “Ooh, it’s thick and icky,” she said. “Like warm Jell-O.”

  Suddenly the light pulsed in a bright flash around her finger. The liquid surged up in a blob, slurping onto her hand. The blob formed dark tentacles which instantly wound around her fingers. Suckers glommed onto her skin.

  “Noooooo!”

  Jessie screamed and jerked backwards, shaking her hand violently. The tentacles flew from her fingers and spattered on the wall behind us. Frasier seemed paralyzed.

  I crawled over him. Grabbing Jessie’s shoulders, I shoved her toward the opening. “Go!” I yelled. “Hurry!”

  I looked over my shoulder. The spatters on the wall were moving, inching together like worms, re-forming.

  The pool was bubbling excitedly. More tentacles began to form and heave themselves up out of the water. Most rose only a few inches and fell back to try again but some hit the side of the pool and began to ooze up toward us rapidly.

  Jessie shot through the opening. I shook Frasier, who was still staring into the pool, mesmerized. “Snap out of it!” I shouted, digging my hand into his shoulder.

  He blinked. Life came back into his eyes. “Yaaaaiiiiii,” he screamed. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Tentacles wiggled up over the edge of our narrow shelf, tips waving in the air, seeking us. I threw myself into the opening, but panic made everything seem slow. My shoulder stuck. Unable to see behind me, I pictured the slimy tentacle winding around my ankle, pulling me back.

  “Hurry up!” yelled Frasier, his voice squeaky with terror.

  With a hefty push from Frasier I rammed myself through and spilled out on the other side. Quickly I twisted around to help Frasier. He was bigger than me. Could he get through all right?

  “Take it easy, Fraze,” said Jessie, kneeling in front of the opening. “If you shove too hard you’ll get stuck. Turn a little sideways—that’s it.”