by Brian Yansky
I do. Especially considering how little sleep I’ve had the past few nights. I hardly lie down before I’m sound asleep, and I sleep until someone — Catlin, it turns out — wakes me.
“Running Bird said you’re supposed to go to the main tent.”
I roll over, but she shakes me. “Now.”
I grumble about it, but I go. And then he isn’t even there. I ask Doc where he is, and he doesn’t know, hasn’t seen him. That’s when two scouts come in and tell Doc it’s safe to make the run to Taos for supplies. Doc tells them to inform Dylan and the rest of the team that the mission is on.
“Tell them to meet here in five minutes,” Doc says.
Since I’m there and there’s no Running Bird, I ask Doc if I can go along.
“Are you sure?” Doc says.
“Yeah. I want to go.” Anyway, it will get me out of meeting with Running Bird. But then I have a strange thought. What if this was why he told me to come here? How could he know when the scouts would come back, though?
When Dylan shows up, he isn’t happy to hear Doc order him to take me along. “It’s my team,” Dylan says. “I decide who I take.”
Doc says, “It will be safer with Jesse. And he could use the experience.”
“Doc’s right,” one of the other guys says. “I saw Jesse fight. I’d feel safer if he came along.”
Dylan is not happy about this, not happy at all. But others say they want me along, too. He gives in.
“Good,” Doc says wearily, as though the exchange was taxing. And maybe it was. Maybe he and Dylan were engaged in some serious mindspeak that they shielded us from.
“Take your meds, old man,” Dylan says. “You look like hell.”
It’s rude, but he’s right. Doc’s face looks pale and drawn. But even as I think this, the impression of weakness fades and is replaced by a healthy glow. Either my eyes are playing some serious tricks on me or Doc did something to make himself seem healthier. What powers do these people have that I don’t even know about?
“Come on, then, if you’re coming,” Dylan says to me, and starts off down the path at a fast pace.
I start to follow but turn to catch a last look at Doc; he isn’t there. In fact, I can’t see the camp at all. It’s disappeared.
“Doc and Running Bird put a cloaking over the camp,” a girl just in front of me says over her shoulder. “You won’t be able to hear anything, either, until we get back up the path.”
“They’ve hidden the whole camp?” I say.
“As best they can. You can’t see it unless you’re close or have a special talent. We’re lucky Doc and Running Bird have the strength. Not many could do it over so much space.”
We continue down the trail, and after about ten minutes, we get to the vehicles. The girl goes to a blue truck, and I follow her. I’d like to hear more.
“You ride with me, New Blood,” Dylan says.
Lucky me, I think.
“I heard that,” Dylan says.
Not surprisingly, the truck he has is one of those big trucks with big tires — the biggest truck of the three, I notice. Seeing it, I wish Lauren had come along. She might ask him what he’s compensating for. It’s the kind of thing she’d say and the kind of thing I’d love to hear her say.
“I’m not compensating for anything, dickhead,” he says.
I put up a stronger shield. I have to admit one thing: his telepathic ability is strong, much stronger than the others with us.
Dylan drives us down the mountain. I can feel someone trying to shield the trucks, but they aren’t doing a very good job. I’m about to see if I can help when Dylan interrupts my thoughts.
“You know why I don’t like you?”
“You were the strongest here before I came,” I say.
“You aren’t stronger than me. You just think you are,” he says, but I can feel his doubt, and I can also feel his hatred swell. “You’re dangerous. You’re going to get us killed because people think you can save us. No one can save us but us. If we hide in the caves, maybe we have a chance.”
“I never said I had the Warrior Spirit in me.”
“It’s just a story,” he says, not hearing me, “a stupid old story. My dad and Running Bird believe in all that, gods and stories. I don’t.” He glares at me. “You shouldn’t have come. You’re not one of us.”
“I didn’t say I was,” I say.
“Good, ’cause you aren’t. And you sure aren’t any demigod.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“But everyone else thinks you are — or a lot of people, anyway. You could help me get them to safety. Help me persuade everyone to follow me to the caves. Use what they think to do something right.”
I consider telling him about the settlers, but Doc told me not to, and I trust him more than I trust Dylan.
“What’s wrong with Doc?” I say instead.
He doesn’t answer me at first. I think he’ll ignore me, which is fine. A little silence would be fine. Then he says, “Bad heart. He’s had one heart attack already. The stress is too much. It’s time for a change.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry. I need you to help me get these people to a safe place.”
We pass through the outskirts of Taos and into the main area of town. Taos has the eerie feel to it that towns, even small ones, have without people. Empty streets. Empty sidewalks. Empty buildings. Empty houses. The only things here are ghosts.
I feel a tightness in my chest as we near the square. This is where it happened. People’s minds being snapped. Bodies dead before they hit the ground. And there’s me, too, killing the great lord. Snapping his mind as he was about to snap mine.
The truck stops in front of a hotel tucked in among a row of buildings. There’s a little patio out front with metal tables and chairs. I see people sitting there. For a second I’m surprised and happy — more survivors. That’s when I look around and see cars going down the street and a UPS truck. I hear voices talking loudly and someone shouting from across the square. I feel unsteady, almost like the earth is shivering beneath me. Then the people and the cars disappear. The sounds of voices die. I’m back. Back from where? Makes no sense. Then I think of Running Bird’s past, present, and future talk and wonder if he did something to me, if he’s playing some trick on me.
Dylan hops out of the truck, and the others do the same.
“Jamie, Susan,” Dylan calls. “You’re with me on food detail.”
Two girls — two very pretty girls — get in the cab of Dylan’s truck. To me Dylan says, “You’re on baño detail. Get toilet paper, soap, anything we can use. Meet out front with the others in about twenty minutes.”
Dylan drives off, and I turn to the guy next to me. “Where’re they going?”
“Hit the restaurants and convenience stores to try to find stuff.”
“Why not grocery stores?”
“Already emptied in this little town. We better get inside.”
He gives me trash bags for my bathroom trip. Others are going to the hotel rooms for towels, blankets, and other supplies. I’m coming out of my sixth bathroom, with one bag full of toilet paper and the other almost full of soap and paper towels, when this girl named Angela tells me it’s time to go. We all meet out front and wait for Dylan.
We’re talking — someone jokes about Dylan probably having to stop at a bar to get some bottles for one of his parties — when I sense someone powerful. Someone a little ways off but too powerful to be human. Alien. He doesn’t seem to know we’re here. Yet.
“Alien,” I say, and the illusion of safety I didn’t even know I was feeling — the safety of being in a group, the safety of numbers — disappears.
The others are looking around nervously, but they can’t sense him. I can feel the panic start to fill them, and I can feel them fighting it.
The alien and I sense each other — mentally. He’s surprised that I can sense him, and I’m surprised, too. It’s like the v
olume of my telepathic power has been turned up.
“He’s on the other side of the plaza,” I say.
I don’t think through my actions. I run. And not away from the alien, which would be a wise strategy, but toward him. My shoes slap hard against the pavement; my breath quickens. The adrenaline is rushing through me, but everything seems to slow down. I think how I’ve been powerless to stop the deaths of so many. Not this time.
What I don’t plan on is the other rebels running after me. I want to tell them to turn around and go back. But by then it’s too late.
The alien is trying to hurry toward his ship so he can give other aliens our position. He’s not very good at hurrying. His body jerks and strains. He looks like Big Bird trying to run after having slammed a couple of lattes. I realize something: all the aliens are like this. Their minds are graceful and fast as sharks, but their bodies are clumsy and slow. Their weakness makes me feel a little stronger.
I rush after him. My mind and body both go, but my mind is much faster. It’s almost like flying. The ground blurs beneath me. I’m near the plaza; the others are far behind me. Good. I nearly run right into the alien because I can’t stop myself in time. We are both surprised, like two people who unexpectedly meet rounding a dark corner at night. Neither of us moves.
Suddenly I have this memory of history class, but it seems more intense than just a memory — almost like I’m really there, back in Mr. White’s class, and not just remembering it. We’re studying World War I, and we’re reading this private’s journal. He’s my age, seventeen, and he describes what it’s like at Verdun in the trenches. At one point he and everyone else are ordered to attack a trench. He has to run across this muddy field while machine guns rattle off rounds and rounds of sharp little pieces of metal and powder. And all around him his friends and his fellow soldiers fall, some screaming in agony and others silent except for the thud their bodies make when they hit the mud.
These trenches aren’t just like big ditches. They have barbed wire in front of them and all kinds of things that make it even harder to get through. Soldiers that do make it as far as the rolls of wire often get caught up in it, their skin ripped from their bodies as they try to untangle themselves.
The private is lucky. He’s one of the few who doesn’t die trying to get to the trench. Somehow he makes it across the killing field, through all those bullets and all that wire, but then he’s all alone. He has no idea where he is or where the other soldiers in his unit are or if any of them are still even alive. Then the shelling starts. He can’t tell if it’s the enemy or his own side. It doesn’t matter. There are explosions everywhere. An avalanche of dirt and sharp objects and body parts falls down on him from the sky, or it seems like it’s from the sky, anyway. He lies with his hands over his head for what seems like hours. When the shelling finally stops and he looks up, he sees a German soldier lying inches away. The German soldier is as startled as the English soldier that they are in the same trench. They jump to their feet and struggle to get their mud-soaked rifles pointed at each other.
But they don’t fire. Even though they are sworn enemies and each has likely killed his share of the other’s friends and fellow soldiers, neither pulls his trigger. Instead, they put down their guns and spend the night in the trench, sharing smokes, not saying much because they can’t speak each other’s language. The next morning they say good-bye and go their separate ways without doing what soldiers are put on battlefields to do. A day later, the English soldier sees the German soldier dead on the ground. He writes that even though the German is the enemy, he feels like he’s lost another friend.
I am back to the present, and somehow I know that my little trip lasted only a fraction of a second. Like the two soldiers, the alien and I are startled to find ourselves so close, both physically and mentally now. We both have our weapons raised: our minds. We are both ready to turn the other off. But we’ve stopped ourselves, just like the German and the Englishman did. We don’t pull our triggers.
This alien patrol is my enemy. I know that. His kind is responsible for the death of my parents, for the death of everyone I loved, for the end of our world as we know it. And yet . . .
The patrol isn’t much older than I am, and he’s scared. I feel that. He’s scared of dying. He does not want to be here. Neither of us wants to be here, and we share this, and for a moment it’s almost like we’re joined — connected mentally in a way that makes it feel like we’re one being instead of two, like we have more in common than I have with my fellow humans.
For a moment, I even think this alien and I might be like the English and German soldiers. I think maybe we don’t have to try to kill each other. We can find a way not to.
Then the others catch up.
That’s when I remember yesterday sitting on the bench at dinner and the strange daydream about this square and fighting Lord Vertenomous and then fighting another alien. This is the alien. I was in this moment. I’ve been in this moment before. And I was losing.
The others circle around him before I can tell them not to. Everyone is scared. Fear and panic are all around me. And anger and hate. Someone is about to attack with her mind. I can feel it, and the alien can, too. Suddenly it doesn’t matter what I say or what he might say or what anyone else might say. It’s gone too far, and there’s no way back.
Was all this written? Did I ever have a chance to stop it?
With one swipe of his arm, the alien kills a boy next to me. The boy’s face goes blank, and he drops to the ground with a thud.
I’m sorry for your loss. I think the alien means it, but it doesn’t matter. He has killed, and he’s going to keep killing.
I move to attack him, but he’s ready and blocks me. I change tactics, and I’m able to throw him, and he flies through the air. Not him, exactly, but his mind or whatever. He’s up in a second, and he grabs me and twists me, and even though my feet are firmly planted on the ground, I feel myself falling. Falling into something deep and dark that feels like there’s no end to it.
I’m sorry for your loss.
At first I think this is for me, but when I twist away from the fall, the darkness fades and I’m standing on solid ground. A girl behind me is dying. Angela.
It’s my fault.
I strike the alien with everything I’ve got — twice. He blocks both strikes but staggers.
My fault.
I need to move faster. I need to strike harder. I feel the vulnerable place in him, and I twist like I’m breaking a neck in a hapkido move, one hand on the chin and one on the opposite side of the head above the ears. I snap something in his mind. He dies.
I’m on my knees, trying to catch my breath. My body aches all over like it does after sparring in tae kwon do, like I’ve been physically beaten.
A truck screeches to a stop on the road, the doors swing open, and Dylan and the two girls jump out. They run over.
“Is it dead?” Dylan asks.
“He,” I say, looking up at him.
He glares at me. “What?”
“He’s a male.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“He’s dead,” I say.
He orders everyone to get in the trucks and to bring the dead, including the alien. He tells me, “Carry it to the truck and get in.”
I don’t move. The hate is still running through me, and it is too big to be just for the dead alien. I hate myself and I hate Dylan and I hate everything.
“He is not an it,” I say.
One word. One more stupid word from Dylan, and I’m going to hurt him. It’s the hate. The hate needs a way out. Dylan is the way. I need to hit someone, and he’s the strongest one here.
“Boys, boys, boys,” a girl’s voice behind me says. I’m shaking, and sweat dampens the back of my neck.
The girl steps between us. She’s a pretty Latina with deep brown eyes and coal-black hair, older than us by a couple of years. She’s one of the stronger ones. Funny, I wouldn’t have been able to tell th
at only a few days ago.
“Doc would want the ship,” she says. “Me and the Chosen One will fly it back.”
“I’m not the Chosen One,” I say.
“Whatever you are, I’ve never seen anything like what you just did. You were moving like they move. I’d like to know how.”
I keep my eyes on Dylan, but my anger has evaporated. As we walk away, Dylan says, “Okay, Sam, you fly that ship back and take the New Blood with you, but just make sure you don’t make any stops along the way.”
“Where would I stop, boss? You think I’m going to grab a Big Mac?”
“Funny,” he says, trying to act like he’s in on the joke instead of the butt of it.
Sam gives him a salute that somehow looks like she’s giving him the finger. I’m not sure how she does it, but it’s a skill I definitely want to learn.
“Jerk,” I say.
“Careful,” she says. “He’ll most likely be the next leader. And he can hold a grudge.”
I follow Sam into the ship. It’s the first time I’ve been back in one of the alien ships since Lauren, Catlin, and I escaped from Austin. It was trying to steal one of these that got Michael and Lindsey killed.
“You know,” Sam says, “there’s a story about the Warrior taking other shapes. You took another shape back there.”
“That was me,” I say, trying to scoff at the idea, but my scoffing abilities have been severely reduced. Alien invasion will do that to you.
“You’re sure you can’t become something else? Not even, you know, a squirrel or something?”
“I was a vampire on Halloween once,” I say.
She gives me a polite smile. “You become like them when you fight, like the aliens. It’s a kind of shape-shifting.”
