Brain Stealers

by Rodman Philbrick

I scrambled backward, pressing myself as far away as I could. And then I stared at the crate, unable to look away. My stomach crawled up my backbone in desperate fear.

  Any second, I knew, hordes of tentacles would erupt from the slats in the crate and swarm through the bars over me. I stopped breathing.

  “Nick?”

  The crate spoke. It was a hissing, whispery sound. My heart punched against my lungs. They knew my name!

  “Nick? Are you okay?”

  I felt sick. The aliens even knew how to imitate my sister’s voice.

  “Nick, it’s me!” The crate rumbled closer until it touched the bars. “Can you answer me?”

  Through the slats I saw Jessie’s eyes peering anxiously into my face. In my excitement I forgot about the thing on my chest and bolted upright, or tried to. “Jessie! How did you find me? What is this thing?” I asked, gesturing at the crate. “Where did it come from?”

  “No time for explanations,” said Jessie. “We’ve got to get you out of here.” Then I saw her eyes go wide with fear when she saw the glistening horror that covered me from neck to waist. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Are we too late? Did they get you?”

  “No,” I said uncertainly. “I don’t think so.”

  “What’s going on?” said a second voice inside the crate. “Do you see any tentacles?”

  “Frasier!” I cried.

  “Yeah, man. We’re going to save you,” promised Frasier’s voice, sounding muffled. “You’ll be okay in here.”

  Clattering over the floor the crate began moving away.

  What were they doing? Weren’t they going to get me out of here? They couldn’t just leave me!

  The crate stopped beside the wall and Frasier’s arm reached out. He was holding the baseball bat. He pushed and jiggled it up along the wall until he managed to hit the switch that opened the cage.

  As the side of the cage swung open and the crate moved back toward me, the alien shot out two short tentacles and grabbed the bars of the cage behind me. It was trying to keep me here!

  Fury shot through me. I twisted and broke the alien’s hold more quickly than I expected to. I lost my balance. I grabbed at the cage to catch myself but the door had swung away.

  The crate was still too far off.

  I looked down. Fog swirled below me. Down there was the place the blobs bubbled up from. My stomach turned inside out. I was about to fall right into it.

  I toppled out of the cage into the murky fog and shut my eyes. All my insides crawled away from my skin.

  Then suddenly I bounced in midair. My eyes snapped open. I was suspended half out of the cage and I was bouncing like a ball on a rubber band.

  It was the alien. It had shot out a tentacle and held on to the cage. But already its hold was slipping, the tentacle sliding slowly off the bar. I quickly hauled myself back into the cage opening just as the wooden crate pulled up.

  The front panel slid open. Jessie’s face looked scared, anxious for me, and sick with loathing at the sight of the pink, pus-colored alien. She reached behind her for Frasier’s bat.

  “Hold on, Nick,” she said. “I’ll get rid of that thing for you.”

  But as she put her hand on the bat, a horrible shriek pierced our ears, freezing us in place.

  REEEE-REEEEE-REEEEEE-RREEEE.

  Jessie’s eyes filled with terror as she looked behind me. I glanced back.

  A mass of screaming tentacles was whipping toward me from out of the fog behind the cage.

  REEEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  27

  “Quick!” Frasier shouted. “Jump in the crate. You’ll be safe in here!”

  A tentacle strafed the air over my head. The blob on my chest started to crawl up my neck.

  I jumped.

  Jessie screamed and fell backward into Frasier. “Whoa, careful,” Frasier yelled, pushing her up. “Get behind me so I can steer.” Then he caught sight of what was in the crate with us—the blob on my chest.

  His eyes bulged and he grabbed the bat.

  “Wait!” I shouted as the blob wrapped itself wetly around my neck, trying to crawl over my shoulder. I shuddered with revulsion but held my hand up to keep Frasier’s bat from striking the alien.

  Outside the crate a storm of tentacles shrieked. One of them whipped inside the opening of the crate and lashed at my head.

  I reached behind me and grabbed the sliding wooden panel of the crate. The tentacle hissed in fury and recoiled. I slammed the panel shut.

  “Come on,” I shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”

  It was dark inside with the door shut. The only light came through the slats in the sides. We could see tentacles writhing in frenzy outside. But they didn’t smash into the crate.

  I heard more than saw Frasier scrambling up. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw he had his bike rigged inside the crate to propel it. He climbed onto the seat, trying to keep his knees from knocking into me.

  We were pretty squeezed together in there. I couldn’t sit up straight and my chin was almost mashed into the alien goo still clinging stickily to my chest.

  “I think they got to his brain,” Jessie whispered fearfully to Frasier.

  “No, they didn’t,” I said irritably. Or had they? The thought nagged at the back of my mind like a splinter. “I have a plan.” But did I really? Was it my plan? Or the aliens’?

  Just then a tentacle whizzed shrieking by the slat near my ear and I flinched.

  REEEEE-REEEEEEEEE!

  The crate rocked from the turbulence created by the thrashing tentacles.

  Frasier adjusted his feet on the bicycle pedals. “Relax,” he said. “They can’t get to us in here. You know why?”

  I thought I did but before I could say it, Frasier said, “Wood! The aliens hate wood! That’s why the baseball bat worked.”

  “You mean like Superman and kryptonite?”

  “Something like that, yeah. I think,” said Frasier. “All we really know is they’ll do almost anything to avoid wood. So we’re safe in here.” He eyed the thing on my chest. “Except for that.”

  “But how did you do this?” I asked, mystified. “Where did this contraption come from?”

  Frasier grinned, proud of himself. “After the aliens got you, they were so distracted we managed to escape back down the tunnel to the school. I worked it out about the wood while we were running and remembered all those crates we had to move.”

  Suddenly Jessie spoke up, her voice shaky. “Frasier, I think we better head out of here. They look like they’re going to attack.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!” But he sounded uncertain.

  But even as Frasier hurried to turn the crate around, he kept talking. “I realized we needed a way to maneuver the crate from inside. My bike was an obvious solution. Luckily all the adults are still off somewhere doing aliens know what, so it was no problem getting the bike. Mounting the crate on it was a serious feat of engineering, however.”

  “Hurry, Frasier!” urged Jessie.

  I peered out the narrow slat. The tentacles were more frantic than ever. They’d coiled into a writhing mass and it seemed like they were getting ready to hurl themselves at us, all together, no matter how much it hurt.

  Frasier pedaled hard and wrenched the handlebars. The crate wobbled. The alien pressed itself against me, its sliminess seeping through my shirt.

  Frasier kept talking. “First I had to get the balance just right,” he said. “Later you’ll see the supports over the front and rear fenders—”

  “Save it, Frasier!” yelled Jessie. “Later!”

  The crate dipped. I felt myself slip and reached out to grab the sides. But there was nothing to hold on to.

  “Stay still,” Frasier commanded nervously. “I had to work fast so this thing isn’t very stable. We need to keep our weight balanced.”

  I forced myself not to move even though I felt we were going to topple over. Slowly Frasier maneuvered the awkward vehicle around and got it headed towar
d the entrance.

  REEEEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  The piercing shrieks grew deafening. Pain ricocheted through my ears. I risked another glance through the slat.

  The pulsing tentacles were twisting and untwisting together in a mad riot. It was like they wanted more than anything to attack us but couldn’t.

  Then suddenly there was a new sound.

  HSSSSSSSSHSSSSSSSHS!

  A wave of heat struck the crate like a blow and a strange hot smell washed over us.

  Outside the crate the agitated fog began to glow. And then I saw it wasn’t the mist that was glowing but the chamber wall nearest us.

  As we stared, the edges of the wall began to melt. The rock sizzled and bubbled, turning to liquid before our eyes.

  “No!” cried Jessie. “They’re going to bury us in molten rock!”

  28

  Frasier pedaled furiously for the entrance as all around us rock smoked and hissed.

  Through the slats we could see the wall bubbling. Pockets of gas erupted into flame. Liquefied rock flowed down and slid straight into our path. Frasier veered and the bike tilted dangerously.

  The tentacles shrieked gleefully, unharmed by the boiling streams of rock.

  Ahead of us the entrance began to melt, stones tumbling and dissolving against one another. Frasier pedaled harder. But the bike moved sluggishly, going slower and slower the harder he worked.

  “The tires must be melting!” Frasier shouted over the noise of tumbling, superheated rock.

  At that moment a big slab of the wall crashed into our path. A geyser of steam shot into the air. The rock melted like butter in a hot pan, bubbling furiously and spattering glowing drops in all directions.

  Jessie cried out and threw her arms over her head.

  Frasier labored to turn the bike. We had to find a new path to the entrance, but how? Everywhere we looked puddles of boiling rock melted holes in the chamber floor.

  “Look!” cried Jessie in shock.

  I turned my head just in time to see the two walls of the entrance come crashing together in a burst of flame. The walls flowed together in a molten river of glowing orange that was strangely beautiful.

  Our hopes vanished with a burp of steam. Now there was no way out of here. We stared at the horrible beauty as if mesmerized, watching the rock throw tongues of blue and red flame among the bubbling pools and streams.

  Over our heads rock sputtered and exploded, battering the crate with shards of glowing stone.

  Any second the wood would burst into flame. If the flames didn’t get us, if the molten rock somehow didn’t get us, then the aliens would—the instant the wood went up in smoke leaving us unprotected.

  But I didn’t think we had to worry about lasting that long.

  The alien blob on my chest began to bubble too, as if imitating the rock. It formed a small tentacle which snaked up toward my ear.

  Jessie and Frasier, too horrified by the sight outside our crate, didn’t notice. But I couldn’t stand another second of boiling alive with an alien bag of goo slimed to my chest.

  I turned and flung open the sliding crate panel. Heat struck my face like a slap.

  “Come on,” I shrieked. “Come and get me.”

  REEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEE!

  The alien tentacles tumbled over themselves to get to me, their slimy tips dripping with anticipation.

  29

  Behind me Frasier and Jessie screamed. “Nick! What are you doing?”

  Someone grabbed the back of my shirt. The crate rocked dangerously.

  “Keep back,” I shouted, twisting away.

  Hands grabbed again for my shirt. The aliens were close, knocking each other aside to be the first to get me. I reached behind me and shoved at the hands holding me.

  “Trust me,” I shouted. “And keep back. Don’t let the crate fall over.”

  I shut out their arguing voices. I needed all my concentration.

  I waited until the tentacles were so close I could almost touch them. Then I swung myself sideways, so the alien stuck to me was no more than an inch from the wooden edge of the crate.

  The blob bubbled and flattened against me, making small squealing noises. The approaching tentacles stopped dead, their tips quivering.

  I focused my thoughts at the tentacles although I didn’t think they could understand. “Let us out,” I demanded loudly. “Let us out this instant or I will mash your friend against this wood. And that’s a promise!”

  The tentacles recoiled, shrieking and slapping against one another. I went through the whole thing again, using lots of sign language. I pointed at me, at the closed-up glowing former entrance, at the blob sputtering slime all over my shirt.

  “Out!” I screamed.

  The tentacles backed off. As quickly as it had come the heat went out of the rock walls around us. The steam died down and the flames and colors disappeared. The rock stopped flowing.

  Frasier gasped. Before us was a new glow. The entrance was glowing again but this time the glow was burning a hole—a way out!

  The hole grew wider. The tentacles were backed against the walls, swaying slightly and silent.

  “We’re outta here!” whooped Frasier, standing on the pedals. The bike didn’t work very well but at least it moved. And we were still safe inside our crate.

  We rode out of the chamber and found ourselves in the vast cavern of the mothership, the place I remembered as their control room. But before we could look around and get any ideas, another hole opened on the far side of the control room.

  Through it we could see what looked like daylight!

  “Oh, yes,” breathed Frasier thankfully, and started pedaling with all his might.

  Th-wunk, Th-wunk.

  The tires were definitely flat. I looked behind us. The chamber entrance was filled with fat, hissing tentacles, pulsing and glowing with purple light.

  “Come on, bike,” Jessie urged. “Just a little farther. Just a little more.”

  Th-wunk, Th-wunk, Th-wunk.

  The bike limped across the cavern and bumped on into the tunnel. Sunshine slatted across the melted-rock floor.

  I looked over my shoulder. The tentacles were slithering across the cavern after us. My heart flip-flopped but when I turned to see how much farther we had to go, we were there! Outside!

  Frasier stopped the bike. We were on the slope of Harley Hill, the tallest of the barren rocky hills west of town.

  I climbed out of the crate so Frasier and Jessie could get out but I kept my hand on the wood at all times. I wasn’t taking any chances with our resident alien.

  “We made it,” cried Frasier, high-fiving me and Jessie and me again. We were all laughing and ready to collapse with relief.

  “I guess you were right bringing that alien,” said Frasier. He reached into the crate and brought out his baseball bat. “But now it’s time to get the slimy little sucker off you, don’t you think? Its friends can come and collect it when we leave.”

  My flesh crawled. More than anything I wanted to do what Frasier said—get this revolting thing off me and run from this place as fast as I could. But—

  “We might be safe—for now—but the aliens still have our school friends,” I said. “Our parents are still taken over by them. The aliens are too strong for us. We’ll never save everybody and get rid of them on our own.”

  Frasier’s eyes narrowed. He straightened his glasses and looked back at the new tunnel, its melted rock surface still glistening in the sun. Jessie looked at the little alien as if she had an apple stuck in her throat.

  The alien was pulsing rapidly. It looked like a huge beating heart made out of half-melted gummy bears.

  “What’s your plan?” asked Jessie cautiously.

  “Uh-oh,” said Frasier. He was looking over my shoulder, down the hill. “All plans on hold for the moment, guys. We got trouble coming.”

  I turned, careful not to scrape the alien against the wooden crate. Marching up the hi
ll in zombie formation were all of Harleyville’s adults.

  They were hefting pickaxes and shovels and making straight for us. Their eyes were stone-cold except for the slithering thing that glowed in their depths.

  30

  “Run!” shouted Frasier.

  “Wait!” I demanded. “We need the crate. For the alien.”

  Frasier bit his lip and threw a worried glance down the hill. The townspeople were getting closer. I could make out Mom and Dad marching in front. Frasier’s parents were close behind.

  Soon it would be too late to run.

  “Come on, Frasier, help me get the crate off the bike,” urged Jessie, struggling with it. “Hurry. Nick can’t help. Not with that thing stuck on him.”

  Frasier gritted his teeth and helped Jessie wiggle the big crate up off the bicycle.

  It was eerie the way the adults kept staring at us without making a sound. They marched steadily, not even speeding up when we got the crate free.

  We headed off along the side of the hill, our feet slipping and sliding on the pebbles and loose dirt. Pebbles bounced down the hill. I winced when one of them struck Mr. Burgess, our principal, but he didn’t flinch, like he never felt it.

  The little alien hanging off me jounced like a big sack of overripe tomatoes. Slime ran down my pant legs and dripped onto my sneakers. My stomach curdled but I kept going.

  With Frasier and Jessie carrying the crate between them, and me burdened as I was, we couldn’t go very fast. I looked down the hillside and my heart sank like a lead sinker.

  The adults were veering off along the hill below, cutting us off.

  “We’re not going to make it,” said Jessie. She looked grimly at me, wiping sweat off her forehead. “If you really have a plan, Nick, now’s the time to tell us.”

  “We hold the alien for ransom,” I said between panting breaths. “They give us back the other kids and make our parents normal again and we return their friend.”

  “We have to make them leave, too,” said Jessie, breathing hard and casting worried glances down the hill. “Otherwise what’s to stop them from doing it all over again?”

  “Mmm,” I said thoughtfully. “There could be a problem with that. With them leaving. The alien ship seems to have broken down.”