The End of the World As We Know It

by Iva-Marie Palmer

  “Have a drink,” he sneered, as he splashed the booze at the aliens, hitting three of the four where he needed. They turned to dust right at his feet. But the last one was still on him, its bony, purple foot stepping on Evan’s ankle. It leaned down over Evan, so they were face-to-face.

  Each bottle had maybe a shot’s worth of alcohol left. He raised the bottles over his head and then swiftly smashed them, right into the alien’s mucous chest plate. Broken glass protruded from the alien’s skin, and green blood shot onto Evan’s hands. Just when he started to fear there hadn’t been enough alcohol left, the creature’s skin crusted over, its slime drying up instantly. He kicked the dead alien away. It was dust before it hit the floor.

  “He just killed the aliens!” someone shouted.

  A crowd started to gather around him. “You killed them!” “Are we free?” “How did you do that?” “Thank you!” “What do we do now?”

  Evan liked the attention, he had to admit. It felt better than either of his perfect games. Without a beat, he started directing people toward the far door, telling them it was safe and not to be intimidated by the burned-out nest. In groups, people started to leave.

  There were thousands of people still left, though, and some hadn’t noticed that their captors had been dispatched. Including Godly Jim’s new flock.

  Evan made a beeline for the makeshift church service.

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” Jim gave his folksy grin, his preacher bellow carrying through the high-ceilinged space. “Look at my wife. Her own son—my stepson, but I think of him like he’s my boy—went missing in all this. And she’s struggling—by golly, is she ever. But she knows she’ll see him again after all this is through. Maybe they’re taking us somewhere more special than Earth. Or maybe they’re sending us to the heaven we know is up there for us. Either way, we welcome the Lord’s plan.”

  It was too much for Evan to take. He didn’t know what bothered him more: Jim’s statement that Evan’s mom was cool with his possibly being dead or that Jim had called him “my boy.”

  “Actually, I’m right here, Dad,” Evan called, giving the word an ugly edge. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I killed all the outer-space sorts.”

  He sidled up next to Jim. With his protruding gut—“God gave me plenty, and I said thank you” was one of his lame jokes—Evan’s stepfather was larger than Evan in girth. But Evan was taller and leaner, something he’d never registered when he’d been doing everything Jim said for the last six years or so.

  The weekend had shown Evan some things. Things like he might not get the girl, but he didn’t have to let her treat him like crap, either. Things like he could forgive and forget, for the right person. Things like he needed to stop drinking after three rum-based cocktails. And most important, he was his own man.

  “You’re not listening to this crap, are you?” He summoned his voice and pushed his words out over the crowd. “He’s a fraud.”

  Jim stepped in front of him. “Everybody, this is my boy, Evan.” Nervous laughter. “He clearly has been watching too many of Hollywood’s movies, and he thinks our heaven-sent friends are our enemies.”

  Evan’s mom came up to him and threw her arms around him, despite the dirt and congealed guts that clung to him. “I was so worried about you,” she whispered as Jim stared. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  Evan hugged her back, beyond grateful she was still alive. But today, he couldn’t let his mom get in the way of him finally telling Jim off, once and for all. “We have to get off this ship,” Evan said, his voice a croak. His mom looked at him in surprise, but he could see some pride in her eyes, too.

  He started again, louder, for the whole of Jim’s crowd to hear. “We can’t stay on this ship. My friends and I have been fighting these aliens for days. I’ve seen these things kill everyone and everything in their path,” Evan explained, glad to be covered in greenie guts and dirt and blood. “I took out the guards, but I don’t know how much time we have before more arrive.”

  The crowd’s rapt attention for Jim was shifting to him.

  “We have to get off this ship, so we can destroy these things once and for all,” he said.

  “But we’re chosen, Evan,” Jim said, his milky eyes narrowing.

  Evan shook his head and looked at the crowd. “You can either be saved, or you can be rescued,” he said. “The choice is yours.”

  “We’re not chosen—we’re captured.” His mother grabbed his hand, tears flowing from her eyes. “We’re all going with you. Everyone is getting off this ship.”

  As the crowd fell in line behind him, Evan grinned. Even a guy playing the hero didn’t mind a little motherly love.

  35

  UZI-LICIOUS

  Teena McAuley, 6:08 A.M. Casimir Pulaski Day, Aliens’ Ship

  In the ranking of improbable life events, invading a massive alien ship was pretty high up on Teena’s list.

  Invading said ship with Leo Starnick was up there, too.

  Thinking about Evan Brighton this much was higher still.

  “Do you think Evan’s okay?” she asked Leo. They were walking back through the burned-out cavity of the ship where the alien nest had been. The aggressive odor, like fertilizer that had been soaked in bleach, singed her nostrils and brought tears to her eyes. She welcomed the excuse to cry and blame it on the smell.

  Leo stopped and squinted at her in the darkness, as if trying to see inside her brain.

  “I think he’s okay, Teena,” Leo said, stepping over a pile of alien guts. “But I’m an optimist.”

  Teena’s jaw trembled a little. They shouldn’t have split up. They should have stayed with Evan. Or at least she should have stayed with Evan.

  “I’m sorry about being such a bitch the last few days,” she said, her foot landing with a crunch on a singed alien tentacle. “I think you and Sarabeth are really good together.”

  Leo turned again and looked at her. “You’re kind of unreal.” He reached down to pull the sticky carcass of a greenie off his spandex pant leg.

  “What do you mean?” Teena sidestepped a cluster of the mama aliens’ green hair tendrils piled on the ground like intestines. She hadn’t noticed before, but the floor in this room was smushy and soft, and made slurping noises when you stood on it. It really was, as Leo had said, like a big vagina. How disgusting.

  “I mean, as much as I’d love to sit down with this sweet Teena and talk about our feelings … ” He coughed as some alien dust clogged his throat. “Your timing is so fucked.”

  Teena laughed. “I know, I know. But end of the world and all.”

  They had made it back to the puckered door cavity that led out into the ship’s corridor. From here, they could look back and see the totality of their wreckage. Every surface was charred, and even in the dim lights, you could make out splatters of greenie guts. The people Evan was evacuating were going to freak out. But at least they would be safe. That is, as long as Evan could kill the alien guards. She said a little prayer for him and couldn’t wait to see him on the other side of this.

  She wondered if Leo felt the same tremor of worry for Sarabeth as she did for Evan. She reached out and grabbed Leo in a hug. Beneath their feet, the floor continued to wobble like a trembling Jell-O shot.

  Without a word, he hugged her back.

  “Do you really think Sarabeth was right about this central hub? That she found it?” Teena asked, pulling away.

  Leo nodded. “I kind of do,” he said. “I know she doesn’t rule the school McAuley-style, but she has all that stuff going on under the surface, you know?”

  Teena blushed because she was thinking of someone else with a lot going on under the surface. “Yeah. I know. Evan, too. It was pretty cool, how he told us to go ahead without him back there.”

  “Cooler than anything I’ve ever done,” Leo said. “I’m sorry, too, by the way. About the way I was.”

  Teena knew he meant the way he was before, over the summer. She waved him off. “Yo
u don’t have to apologize. It’s not like I gave you any reason to be nice to me.”

  Leo smirked with a twinkle in his eye. “I can think of several reasons.” He turned serious. “But maybe we needed to go through all that to get us here.”

  Teena looked around. “You mean in a room of smoldering alien guts? With a floor that sounds like it’s going to eat us?” She grinned. “What a way to make a girl feel special.”

  Leo stuck his hand in the door cavity, pulling it back slightly so that Teena could squeeze through. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

  Back in the clean, comparatively well-lit hallway, Teena and Leo paused to get their bearings. Teena almost wanted to step out into another battle, just so she didn’t have to worry about where the aliens were lying in wait for them.

  Leo must have been thinking the same thing, because he stopped walking and pulled a little bottle of perfume from his backpack as if it were pepper spray. “It’s weird, right? That we come out of there, after destroying, like, their wives and children, and they’re not waiting for us.”

  Teena nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “But maybe we’re overthinking it.”

  It was a good thing, the lack of attackers. They needed the corridor as free of aliens as possible so that the captives could escape. And Evan, for that matter.

  Leo loped forward, running a finger along one of the purple illumination strips in the wall like a little kid playing with the handrail of an escalator. “At some point, this hallway has to lead to the ship’s chewy caramel center, where we find Sarabeth and shut this mother down.”

  “Totally,” Teena said, feeling suddenly giddy. Maybe, finally, they’d actually kill all the bad guys. Which meant she could get on with her life. Maybe a kinder, gentler life. After a long shower, of course.

  “Doesn’t this floor remind you of a Tomorrowland ride?” Teena said, looking sideways at Leo.

  “Never been to Disney, but it’s definitely not what I expected from these guys,” he said. “It’s like a futuristic dance club or something.”

  “Yes!” Teena jokingly started moonwalking down the hallway. She hadn’t been goofy like this in forever. Leo doubled over, laughing.

  Leo pointed at her, a look of amazed wonder on his face. “You’re such a nerd!”

  “You would know!” She added some over-the-top Britney Spears-esque hand motions, trying to make them funny instead of sexy.

  She rounded a bend, still moonwalking, when Teena felt a pair of skeletal yet strong arms close around her. They smelled distinctly of good coffee and were a purple color she’d never feature in her wardrobe again.

  Leo’s expression made it clear that this surprise was not of the pleasant variety.

  “It’s only one,” Teena said, trying to remain calm. “Just spray it.”

  Leo robotically pointed his tiny bottle of perfume at the thing’s squishy chest membrane just behind Teena’s head. He sprayed. Teena felt the alien’s skin go crusty, like a rapidly forming scab, and then it turned to dust. She spun around, dreading what she would see.

  A few dozen more aliens were behind her. She backed away hurriedly and grabbed Leo’s shoulder so she wouldn’t fall. The hallway behind them was empty, but there were so many of the aliens, they’d be caught in no time if they ran.

  “Booze,” she said.

  In a flash, Leo swung his backpack in front of him, and Teena reached into her purse. They pulled out bottles of Abe’s liquor.

  It was like a bar fight in an old Western. She smashed a bottle of vodka into an alien’s chest, sending glass shards and alien dust to the floor. Leo twirled a bottle in each hand, hitting two aliens at once, the smell of Captain Morgan spicing the air. They went through every bottle they had, killing most of the aliens.

  Teena pointed down the empty hallway.

  “Go,” she told him. “I’ll hold them off. You find Sarabeth.”

  “But you can’t take them alone,” Leo said.

  “I have an Uzi,” she yelled back, pulling it out of her pack. “I can do anything alone.”

  Leo shook his head, holding his ground. “The greenies,” he said. “The greenies.”

  “I have an idea,” Teena said, more harshly, as she pushed him in the other direction. “Just, you have to find Sarabeth.”

  She loaded a cartridge with a definitive click. “Go,” she said. “Fast.” Leo gave her one long, lingering look and took off running.

  There was a not-so-small number of aliens left, and one ran after Leo. It ran without grace, but fast. Teena fired several bullets into its leg, and as the beast whipped its head around toward her, she said, “Forget him. Come and get me.”

  It did, barely limping despite the bullets she could see piercing its leg. She shot it, right in the throat, letting it retch up its greenie puke. The other aliens didn’t like this and started to close in on Teena, as if realizing they needed to contain her.

  “I can do this,” she said to no one.

  And she believed she could. She was a bitch, and bitches got stuff done. “Unleash hell,” she said under her breath.

  She fired into the alien army, her bullets riddling them with holes that made no difference. She fired more rounds, hitting some of them in their delicate throat and chest region, and they started to puke up the green slime from which greenies began to rise.

  The greenies immediately swarmed around the aliens, and the large beasts jostled one another to get through the haze of little goblins. Teena unloaded two more cartridges into the frenzy, even as greenies attacked her, going right for her leg where she’d been cut yesterday.

  But as she fired more and more, and as the greenies realized that by herself, Teena wasn’t much to sink their teeth into, they began to turn on the purple aliens. The cutthroat greenies dug their pointy incisors into the aliens, just as Teena thought they would, after seeing them go all cannibal on one another in the nest.

  Behind her, Teena heard a commotion. A human commotion. She peeked around the curve in the hallway and saw that captives were appearing down the corridor, emerging from the puckered doorway. Disoriented and tired, some trailed alien tentacles from the burned-out nest on the bottoms of their shoes like toilet paper.

  Teena smiled. “Good job, Evan,” she said.

  She looked back at the aliens, fighting amongst themselves and smashing greenies to the ground. She was lightheaded with pride. She’d done it.

  Now she could return to the holding bay, to find Evan, help him, and tell him how she felt.

  Then she looked down. Her thigh wound had reopened, and blood gushed freely to the white floor. The purple and green lights swirled before her eyes.

  She slid to the floor, her last thoughts of Evan as the white corridor went black.

  36

  LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL

  Evan Brighton, 6:22 A.M. Casimir Pulaski Day, Aliens’ Ship

  People were leaving. He’d helped people escape.

  He was a hero.

  He watched with satisfaction as the room emptied. Even Godly Jim had shuffled out, muttering angrily.

  He just needed to find Teena and the others, and the worst would be over. Maybe Sarabeth could shut down the freaky laser-shooting ship, and with all the captives free, the town could help fight the aliens, if there were any more left.

  The room was down to a couple dozen people, younger guys who’d been helping round up people and get them out. One of them was Cameron Lewis, Teena’s true object of affection.

  But he wasn’t jealous. He wanted Teena to be happy. Maybe someday, she’d pick him. If not, he’d live. Obviously, I’ll live, he thought. At the very least, alien attacks put things in perspective. Even if sometimes, in his heart, falling for Teena felt bigger than life and death.

  “I can’t believe that you did all this,” Cameron said, coming up and slapping him on the back. Cameron was one of those guys who never made Evan feel like a loser. “I mean, it was freaky, man.”

  “Pretty fucked-up,” Evan said. “It
wasn’t just me, though. Leo and Teena helped, and your sister was with us, too.”

  Cameron’s eyes grew watery. “Sarabeth? Do you know where she is now?”

  Evan clasped his arm. “We think she’s okay, and somewhere on the ship,” he said, not wanting to say more because he really didn’t know.

  “She was lucky to have had you guys,” Cameron said, smiling wanly. “Is lucky,” he added, not seeming convinced.

  “We were all lucky, I think. Really lucky.” Lucky to have been trapped in a cellar with the best people you could ever be trapped in a cellar with, he thought.

  “Pretty crazy shit, four high school students fend off an alien attack,” Cameron said, discreetly wiping his eyes. The last few people trickled out the door. Cameron nodded his head toward the exit. “You coming?”

  “I’ll be there,” Evan said. “I just want to do one thing.”

  “Okay, dude. Thanks again,” he said casually, as if Evan had helped him move a couch.

  As Cameron finally left, Evan contentedly took one last look around the empty room. The giant room that he’d helped evacuate. He marched up the ramp, ready to go. Ready to find his friends.

  He was about to push his way into the burned nest when two claws locked around him and dragged him backward. Above him were the fly eyes of an alien.

  The only weapon he had left was his bat. It had done him a lot of good against the greenies, but it wasn’t going to do much good against a huge, indestructible foe.

  The alien had Evan under his arms. He kicked his feet against the ground uselessly. The alien’s grip was so strong, Evan could barely move.

  The creature threw Evan onto the human juicer and fastened straps across his ankles, stomach, and chest. The juicer was like being in a coffin already. Its lid, which would soon close on him, was covered with hundreds of tiny needles, waiting to emerge and pierce his flesh. Beneath him, he felt hundreds of pinpricks against his back, next to his skin. In seconds, they’d be in his skin.