Brain Stealers

by Rodman Philbrick

  A weight of despair descended over me as I started running out of places to look. I even pulled everything out from under the bed. Finally there was no place left except my old toy box. I knew it wasn’t in there. I hadn’t even opened the thing in about a year. But what else did I have to do?

  I pulled out old trucks and broken models and fistfuls of toy soldiers and—my Combat Talker!

  I snatched it up and clicked it on. Nothing. It was broken. But wait. Batteries, didn’t it take batteries? I flipped it over and opened the back. Yes! It needed batteries.

  Feverishly I looked around for a Laser Fighter action figure I knew I’d seen somewhere. I finally found it kicked under the bed. Hoping its batteries were still good, I transferred them to the old walkie-talkie.

  The little “on” light lit up. A wave of joy washed over me so great that I jumped up and threw my arms into the air. The Combat Talker almost slipped out of my hands and smashed against the wall.

  And then I had a horrible thought. What if Jessie’s voice in my mind was just my imagination? I pressed the “talk” button.

  “Jess?”

  “Took you long enough, dummy,” said Jessie. “Now listen up, I’ve got a plan.”

  12

  It was hard work cutting through Sheetrock with just a pocket jackknife. That was the first part of Jessie’s plan—to cut through the back wall of my closet into her closet.

  She was trying to help from her side but all she had was a metal nail file, not even a pocketknife, so she wasn’t making much progress.

  I kept breathing in white dust and sneezing and I was terrified that Mom and Dad would suddenly come home. But the faster I tried to go, the more my knife seemed to slip and snag.

  But finally I’d cut a crooked sort of hole. I kicked it out and crawled through, getting Sheetrock dust all over Jessie’s clothes. The pull-down ladder to the attic was in her room.

  While I was still halfway in the closet she had the ladder down and was motioning me to hurry.

  Her eyes were wide and strained and she kept jerking her head over her shoulder like she expected something to come bursting through the door.

  Then we were up the ladder and into the attic. Jessie pulled the trapdoor shut behind us, folding the ladder into place. It was pitch-black. Neither of us had had a flashlight in our rooms. The attic was just the peak of the roof, a crawl space with no light.

  Spiderwebs hung down and something scurried near our feet, making my heart thump. We’d often heard critters up here, mice probably, no big hairy deal. But I didn’t want one running across my foot in the dark.

  “Jessie, you’ll have to open the door a crack,” I said. “We need light.”

  I felt her nod. “But if Mom and Dad come, they’ll see the trapdoor open and know where we are,” she said.

  “You stay here,” I said. “If you hear them, pull the door shut.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Hurry.”

  With the tiny crack of light to guide me I crawled as fast as I could toward the vent in the side peak. The light wasn’t bright enough to let me see if I was putting my hands in mouse droppings so I tried not to think about it.

  Using my knife’s screwdriver attachment I got to work on the vent grate. I couldn’t see the street so we’d just have to hope that whatever the adults were doing would keep them busy until we got out. I was so nervous my fingers kept fumbling the little screws. It was taking me forever.

  But at last the grate came away in my hands. Suddenly the opening looked awfully small. What if we couldn’t fit? “Okay, Jess,” I called softly. “Let’s try it.”

  Jessie was thinner and smaller than me. She could just barely squeeze through. When I heard her thump down onto the dining room roof below, it was my turn.

  I took a deep breath, let every bit of air out, hunched my shoulders close to my body, tucked my arms against my sides and pushed. It was tight but I got my shoulders through.

  I paused for a quick breath then pushed again. And stuck. My arms were pinned. I squirmed and pushed but nothing budged. My chest felt squeezed. I was starting to feel panicky.

  “Take it easy, Nick.” Jessie’s voice floated up from below. Light filtered up from the streetlight. “See if you can work one hand out.”

  “I can’t.” My voice sounded strangled. “I’m stuck.”

  “Try. Wiggle it.”

  Again, I let all my air out, sucked in my gut and pulled. My hand moved. I felt a surge of hope but the sides of the vent were biting painfully into my arms. I wiggled and yanked and strained and wiggled some more. Just as I was about to scream in frustration my hand came free. After that it was easy.

  We crossed the dining room roof and skinnied down an old rose trellis that lucky for us had no roses on it. We were free!

  “Which way should we go?” asked Jessie. We hadn’t thought any further than getting out.

  “Not the road,” I said with a little shudder, thinking of the zombies.

  “And not the woods,” said Jessie with a shudder of her own.

  “That leaves backyards then,” I said. “Let’s just get away from here. We can figure out what to do later.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me,” said Jessie.

  We headed behind the house and then crossed the lawn to Frasier’s backyard. “I wish he was with us,” sighed Jessie.

  “Yeah, me too—AAAAAHHHH!”

  Out of the shadowed hedge stepped a stiff bulky figure with huge shoulders. The dim streetlight glinted off its head. It was wearing a shiny metal space helmet.

  The kind of helmet worn by astronauts.

  Or alien space invaders.

  13

  The menacing figure took an awkward step toward us, raising its stiff arms. Had the aliens posted one of their creatures to grab us if we tried to escape?

  Jessie jumped in fright and I skidded on the damp grass, almost falling. The creature flung its arms out and both of us leaped away, getting our feet under us to run for our lives.

  “Hey! Guys! Where you going?”

  Jessie and I skidded to a stop. “Frasier?” we both asked at once.

  “Well, yeah, who did you think it was?” He pulled the helmet off his head and grinned. “I got out okay but I was afraid the aliens might steal my brain. I thought this might help protect me,” he said, indicating the helmet.

  Now we could see it was only an old dirt bike helmet with a Plexiglas faceplate. I remembered Frasier used to wear it riding his regular bike, pretending he was revving a motorcycle.

  The massive shoulders turned out to be a loaded backpack. Not a day pack, a real backpack.

  “I guess we ought to be used to you by now,” said Jessie, who was still shaking a little.

  “That’s right,” said Frasier. “‘Cause I’ve got a plan.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “We’re not going back to Harley Hills. We’re not going back into the tunnels and we’re not—no way, no how—we’re not going to fight those slimy aliens. I know we’ve got to figure out how to save our parents but those aliens are too strong.”

  Frasier just looked at me calmly. “That wasn’t my plan, donut brain. My plan is much simpler—and much, much safer.”

  “So tell us, already,” Jessie said impatiently.

  Frasier looked over both shoulders then pulled us into a huddle. We were so close I could smell the toothpaste on his breath. “We camp out,” he whispered. “That’s my plan.”

  Jessie pulled away. “Camp out? That’s your plan? Pretty lame, Frasier. Obviously we can’t go home until we get our parents straightened out but camping isn’t going to make the problem go away. This isn’t Boy Scouts. This is alien invasion.”

  Frasier looked mildly injured. “I didn’t say where we were going to camp out, did I?”

  “Not Harley Hills,” I said.

  “No, not Harley Hills,” Frasier agreed. “The school. We’ll camp out behind the school.” He looked very pleased with himself. “Nobody will ever think to look for us ther
e. We can keep an eye on the other kids, find out what the aliens have planned, and then stop them.”

  “How do we do that?” Jessie asked.

  Frasier ducked his head, fiddled with his backpack. “I don’t know. I haven’t got that figured out yet. We can plan that as we go.”

  “Oh great,” I said.

  Frasier turned and started into the night. “Coming?”

  What else could we do? We couldn’t go home. We couldn’t go to the Harley Hills. So we followed Frasier into the darkness.

  14

  At the edge of the woods, Jessie stopped. “I’m not going in there,” she said. “I don’t want to be nibbled and pecked to pieces by squirrels and birds.”

  “Our only other option is the road,” said Frasier, “where we’re likely to run into our alien parents. And we know what happens then.”

  Jessie chewed her lip uncertainly.

  “I have a flashlight,” said Frasier. “If any creatures attack us, I’ll shine it in their eyes and blind them.”

  But Frasier’s flashlight didn’t penetrate the darkness very well. We kept stumbling on each other’s heels trying to stay close to the light. Roots in the path kept arching up to trip us and branches whipped out of nowhere to slap our faces.

  Every time there was a rustling in the trees, Frasier would stop short and shoot his light up into the branches. But there was never anything there.

  “It’s just the wind stirring the leaves,” said Jessie, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.

  But we reached the rise behind the school without seeing any animals at all. No owls or squirrels or birds of any kind. Not even a mosquito or a cricket.

  Where were all the creatures? I knew we should just be grateful they weren’t attacking us but I couldn’t stop wondering if they were watching us from the dark and planning something really horrible.

  Frasier unpacked and we set up his tent. “Too bad we can’t have a campfire,” said Frasier. “But someone might see it.”

  We flipped to see who got the first watch and I lost. Not that I minded. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. The night was so silent it was spooky.

  I never realized how noisy it was until all the noise went away. No car engines, no doors banging or people calling, no tree frogs or insects, or dogs barking, no bird noises. It made me feel creepy, like I was the only one in the world.

  So it was kind of comforting when first Frasier, then Jessie began to snore. They didn’t snore loudly, like adults, but even so, it was company. Only, I felt my eyes getting heavy.

  I pinched myself, got up and walked around, but eventually it wasn’t any use. I was asleep when I heard the footsteps sneaking up and I couldn’t open my mouth to shout a warning.

  15

  I struggled to yell but no sound would come. I had to get to the tent to wake Jessie and Frasier. I tried to get up but my muscles wouldn’t respond. The footsteps were coming closer but I couldn’t even crawl.

  Then at last I felt my breath returning. The footsteps were running. I opened my mouth to scream, feeling a huge wave of sound building in me.

  “AAAAAAAHHHHHH—!”

  Hands grabbed me from behind, digging into my sides. My scream broke off as I snapped awake. Jessie was shaking me.

  “You fell asleep,” Jessie said accusingly. “It’s morning. We’re lucky those icky aliens didn’t slime their way into our brains while we were asleep.”

  “Here you go,” said Frasier. “Breakfast.” He handed out shrink-wrapped packets.

  “What’s this?” asked Jessie, tearing hers open.

  “MREs,” Frasier answered proudly. “Meals Ready to Eat. I got them a while ago at the Army-Navy store. Cool, huh?”

  “It’s brown,” I said, picking at some kind of goo. “What is it?”

  Frasier shrugged. “The labels fell off so they were cheap. But they’re all certified nutritious.”

  “Mine’s brown too,” said Jessie. “Except where it’s gray.” Experimentally, she touched some to her tongue. “Fried cockroach, definitely. And this here seems a lot like ground night crawler.”

  “No,” I said. “I think it’s roadkill. Pressed flat by army tanks, a delicacy, like caviar.”

  “Sssh,” said Frasier, binoculars to his eyes. “A school bus just pulled up,” he reported, shoveling some brown glop into his mouth. “Teachers lining up just like yesterday, herding all the kids inside.”

  “Let me see,” I said, putting aside my plastic tray for the ants. But even ants didn’t seem interested. Frasier handed me the binoculars and dug into his food.

  The last of the kids went inside and the teachers followed, marching in formation. There wasn’t anything else to see but I kept looking because I didn’t want to watch Frasier eat that stuff.

  But after a few minutes—Frasier was smacking his lips and Jessie was making barfing noises—the doors to the school opened again.

  I jerked to attention. “There’s people coming out,” I said. “Wow. They’ve been in there all night!”

  “What!” cried Jessie. “Let me see!”

  She grabbed the binoculars out of my hands but the image stayed with me. All the adults we had seen in the street last night, now pouring out of the school, carrying their shovels and picks and stooped with exhaustion.

  “They’ve been digging,” said Jessie in an awed voice. “They’re covered with dirt.”

  Frasier dropped his empty tray and snatched the binoculars. “It looks like they’ve been digging graves,” he said after a minute. “Lots and lots of graves.”

  16

  If there was one thing in the world I didn’t want to do, it was go into that school. But we had to find out if all our friends and classmates were okay. We had to.

  Frasier pulled a baseball bat out of his pack, his favorite, an old wooden Louisville Slugger. “If any of those slimy creepoid aliens tries to grab us again I’m going to splat ’em like a bowl of Jell-O,” he said, strapping his pack on confidently. But his voice cracked with fear.

  We crept down to the school, keeping close together and staying low to the ground. There wasn’t much cover, just grass. But all the window shades were pulled down so we hoped no one would see us.

  We crawled the last stretch. I kept expecting an alarm to go off or a mob of teachers to burst out and grab us but nothing happened.

  When we reached the school we flattened ourselves against the brick wall and inched close to the nearest window. There was a slight gap between the shade and the edge of the window, just big enough to put an eye to.

  Frasier pressed his eye to the window. We all jumped in fright as his glasses clicked loudly against the windowpane. Jessie and I were ready to run but Frasier stopped us. His face was white.

  “They’ve got them already,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “The kids are gone.”

  “What?” I looked for myself. I could only see a corner of the room. It was empty. A chair was knocked over in the aisle as if someone had put up a fight. There was a sweater on the floor and a sneaker under a desk.

  We circled the school nervously, trying to see inside, terrified somebody would see us. With all the shades down we could only see bits of rooms. Nobody moved in any of them. Lots of rooms seemed disturbed, as if something had happened in a hurry. We saw packs spilled over and papers and open books on the desks and the floor.

  “We’ll have to go in,” I said when we reached the back door. Dread stole over me as I reached for the doorknob. Locked. I almost felt relieved.

  Then Frasier said, “No problemo,” and pulled a paper clip out of his pocket.

  “What are you going to do with that?” asked Jessie.

  “Watch and learn,” Frasier said, straightening the paper clip and sticking one end into the lock. “Lock-picking,” he said confidently.

  I watched him jiggle the paper clip one way, then the other, then back again and around. Nothing happened. “Patience,” he said. “And a light touch. It might be easier if you weren�
��t watching.”

  Just then the paper clip wire got stuck in the lock. He couldn’t even pull it out much less wiggle it. “Well, if you hadn’t been staring like that—”

  “Me?” I said, outraged. I turned to Jessie. But she wasn’t there.

  “Jessie?” I felt my stomach shrivel up and disappear. “They got Jessie,” I cried in a panic. “While we were fooling with this stupid lock, they grabbed Jessie!”

  I started running around the building like a crazy man, hoping I was in time to see where they took her. And I almost ran smack into my twin coming the other way.

  Jessie smiled. “I’ve found a way in,” she announced.

  I was too relieved to answer. Frasier leaned against the wall catching his breath. “What did you do?” he asked. “Break a window?”

  “No,” she said. “Not being a genius like some people, I just went around and tried the front door.”

  We followed her back. After making sure no one was coming we slipped around the building and went into the school. It was deathly quiet. No voices, no footsteps, no papers rustling.

  I was sure there was nobody in the building.

  Nobody human, that is.

  17

  It felt like the school was waiting for us.

  As we stood huddled in the entrance, the empty, brightly lighted corridor seemed to beckon us inside. It took all my effort not to turn around and beat it out of there as fast as I could. But we couldn’t abandon the other kids.

  I took a deep breath and started down the hall, Jessie and Frasier right behind me. Our footsteps echoed like drums on the tiled floor even though we were all wearing sneakers.

  The door to the school office stood open like always. My heart started to thump. What if the principal, Mr. Burgess, was lurking inside to pounce on us?

  I gestured at Frasier and Jessie to wait while I checked it out. No sense all of us getting captured at once. I pressed against the wall and sneaked up close to the office window. Slowly I moved my head to look inside.