by J. Thorn
As they headed west, art deco highrises shrunk to apartment blocks and the shells of sushi-fushion joints. Surf rumbled ahead, hollow and rhythmic. Beyond the sand of Santa Monica, waves foamed in the clouded moonlight. The lights of the ship hovered in foreign constellations. At the first sight of color to the east, Raymond pulled them off the PCH down a curling, palm-lined street, where they holed up in a clay-tiled hacienda the size of a high school gym. Out back, the pool was half full of green sludge. He slept in a dusty canopy bed and was awakened twice by the rumble of engines from the highway.
David and Anna heard them, too, and readily agreed to stay put until nightfall. Raymond watched the street through the curtains while they discussed trajectories and targeting. The sill was cold against his elbows. He remembered holding Mia.
They returned to the road with the return of the night. The upscale density of Santa Monica transitioned to stark houses on dead lawns. A short hill rose just past the highway. On the other side of the road, cream-colored manors on stilts crowded the black sea.
Ahead, chaotic thrashing broke the metronymic wash of the waves. White spray drifted on the buffeting sea wind. Raymond hunkered down beside a damp white wall and peered down an alley between two houses. Past the sand, dark shapes fought against the breakers, leaping and plunging, jerky yet graceful—and all wrong.
He got out his binoculars and leaned into the night. Three of the creatures stood on the beach, silent and still. Past them, dozens of others tumbled and tussled and grappled. At times, they fell without being touched. One lashed the water with its tentacles, splashing everyone near it.
One of the three on the beach waded into the water. By the time it reached the pack of swimmers, their heads bobbing and disappearing in the swells, the sea reached only to its swollen carapace.
Raymond lowered his binoculars. "They're children."
28
"We should have killed them."
Otto glanced at him over top of his glasses. "Unless you had a Stinger in your back pocket, I'd say that jet was a little out of range."
Walt poured a bottle of rain water over his hands, scrubbing sweat and grime. "Raymond. The others."
"I don't know who raised you, son, but unless it was a Khan, you don't kill a man because he disagrees with you."
"If they launch that nuke, they'll kill anyone who's left here."
The old man spat on the platform. "They won't be launching a nuke any more than they'll call the squids over for a handjob. An ICBM is not a video game. Why d'you think I told them where the damn things are in the first place?"
"What do you think the army was doing when the bodies were clogging the street?"
"The hell should I know? I took the president off my speed dial when I discharged."
"In New York, the military rounded up the survivors for lab rats. The normal protocols got chucked into the East River the moment the dead outnumbered the living."
Otto eyed him through his thick and scratched-up lenses. "Yeah, well I don't see you hunting Raymond down and slinging him over the hood of your car. What's going through your crooked mind?"
"We destroy the mothership first."
"Just blow it right up."
"To bits."
"And you've got an idea how?"
"Yeah."
"To smash it all to hell."
"It's not to invite them over to watch the Jets."
Otto laughed, a honking, hooting laugh that should have been paired with a hat slapping a knee. "Then why the fuck have we been shitting in these tunnels all winter?"
"Because," Walt said, "it's a terrible plan."
"Quit making me thrash the bush here."
He sucked in his cheeks. "We capture one of their jets, load it up with explosives, and fly it to the carrier."
"You're talking about that movie. With the guy who talks too much."
"No, Jeff Goldblum uploaded a computer virus to alien software. We're going to upload a plane full of bombs."
Otto tapped his thick finger into Walt's chest. "And they blew up the White House, those disrespectful sons of bitches. Independence Day. You think the squid blew up the White House, too?"
"I don't think they gave a shit."
"Never bought that myself. I think you stick a word like 'psychological' in front of 'warfare,' you're losing sight of the real objective."
"So you think it'll work?"
Otto hooted again. "Hell no, you idiot. But what else do we got?"
Walt hadn't expected any other answer. He didn't know how they'd get a ship. After failing to make more than the scantest progress with the alien computer in the desert, he didn't see how they'd possibly get one of the jets off the ground, let alone handle it well enough to thread it inside the carrier's belly without ruining a bit more than its paint job. It was all stupid, frankly. Cruelly, horrifically stupid. They ought to just leave. Shoot themselves. Worst of all, the idea was inspired by Independence Day, the brainchild of the guy who'd directed the fucking Godzilla remake. All the dozens of sci-fi books and movies he'd absorbed over the years—his favorite hangover treatments had been lemon-lime Gatorade, darkness, and a flick like Omega Man or ID4 or 28 Days Later—and the best he could do was rip off one of the most widely-mocked solutions in the history of the apocalypse.
He supposed that was the truth of it. Any species advanced enough to reach Earth would be so overwhelming that the only thing to do was hide until you died. Even this lackluster bunch—capable of mustering just a single carrier and a few thousand troops instead of the tens or hundreds of thousands you'd need to occupy (rather than annihilate) a planet, bearing technology which was human-superior but nothing unimaginable or godlike—had easily quashed everything the survivors had thrown at them. The outcome, except possibly the moment before the first nuke had been launched, had never been in doubt. This wasn't Die Hard. It wasn't Star Wars or First Blood or Red Dawn. There was no victory. If there was a point to fighting back, it was for the simple joy of hurting creatures who'd hurt them first.
He knew of worse ways to pass the time.
"You know those mines you rigged at the Staples Center?" he said. "You know how to make anything bigger?"
Otto chuckled. "You kidding? When the Y2K or Peak Oil hits, you want a bomb, you got to know how to build it for yourself."
* * *
Otto squinted from behind the BMW whose trunk he'd keyed with "BUY AMERICAN" while Walt was scattering tracking devices across the parking garage. The old man's glasses glinted with a stray glimmer. It was nearly pitch black down there, musty with old rain. Silent shells of cars waited in the darkness for drivers who'd died months ago. Horror movie stuff. Walt shivered, then rolled his eyes. Real monsters were on their way, and he was still spooked by the make-believe ones.
They'd spent two days preparing. While Otto put together explosives of all different size and shape, Walt had planned and scouted. Lure in a flier, kill the crew, try to figure out how to fly the thing before anyone noticed it was missing. Meanwhile, if Raymond had risked pulling a car off the side of the road, his crew could already be balls-deep in a nuclear bunker, smoking cigars and running the final check before sending their missiles winging to LA. Walt should be treating every moment as if it were his last. He should be thinking poignant thoughts and writing them down to enlighten and shame alien scholars sifting through the ashes of the civilization they'd destroyed. He should at least be praying for forgiveness from Vanessa for not being more of a man, from his parents for not calling more often, from Nate in 3rd grade whom Walt had jump-kicked in the stomach after Nate intentionally booted a kickball over the fence.
But they were all dead. They couldn't hear him. These were apologies he should have made in the moment they happened, not after months of the distanced hindsight and soothing regrets that make every man's intentions as pure and bright as a glacier. In this world, the world of scared truths, Walt's last words might be no more than a tacit agreement with Otto's somewhat obsolete message about
supporting the local economy.
Out in the mist, an engine wailed, faded, wailed, faded.
"Circling," Otto said. "Ideally not so as to find the best angle to open the bomb bays."
"They'll come down."
"Says who?"
"When one goes missing, others come. They care about each other. That's how we're going to kill them."
"You should have worked for Nixon, boy."
The engine keened closer until grit and scrap paper blustered against the narrow windows near the garage ceiling. The ship touched down. Its engine spooled to silence. Walt could hear his own blood in his veins. Feet and claws stomped the street, became muffled, then returned twice as loud at the top of the ramp to the basement garage.
Two of the creatures slapped down the slope. Pale light fanned from metal handhelds. The looted tracking devices continued their noiseless broadcast. The soldiers raised their rubbery sensor-arms, turning them slowly through the gloom. They glanced at each other, flashed hand signals. One gestured up the ramp. The second plodded forward. Walt grinned and brace himself.
Orange light flared from the front columns. A nauseating bang shook dust from the ceiling. Twisted metal shotgunned the parked cars. Walt's guts splashed inside his ribs. He rushed through the dust, laser and sword in hand. Yellow remains smeared the ramp, bubbling, slipping down the concrete in the stink of burnt powder and vaporized flesh. Otto ran beside him, chuckling, holding up his pants with his free hand. In the street, swirling lights painted the apartment complexes around the landed flier. A blue beam flicked above Walt's head.
He dove behind a Porsche. Otto flopped in beside him, popping up to exchange lasers with the soldiers around the plane. Walt dropped flat and sent beams slicing beneath the undercarriage of the Porsche. An alien fell, tentacles flailing. Another volley and the tentacles relaxed across the pavement.
"Got to kill that crew before they start blabbing," Otto panted.
"Give me one of those pipe bombs."
"You aren't gonna hit them from here, Johnny Unitas."
"Light one up and hand it over before your fat heart gives out."
Otto's salt-and-pepper mustache twitched with laughter. Walt poked around the car to pepper the squid moving from the flier's wheels to the cover of an SUV. In the whirling lights, their octopoid, deepwater bodies looked like something from a dream that can't be wholly forgotten nor remembered. A laser appeared between the aliens and the Porsche's headlight cowl, sizzling the orange paint. Walt ducked.
Otto passed him a shockingly heavy metal rod with an honest-to-god fuse hissing from its end. Feeling like a cartoon, Walt said, "Cover me."
The old man swore, dropped the laser pistol, and unslung his bolt-action rifle. He triangled his elbows across the Porsche, aimed, and squeezed off a round. He'd fired a second before Walt rolled out from the car, ducking alongside the line of parked Lexuses, Hummers, and Nissans. The rifle bellowed over the crackle of blue bolts. A beam caught Walt on his pack, melting the plastic into the shoulder of his jacket. A rifle round clanged into the hood of the distant SUV. The aliens flinched back. Walt's fuse had nearly disappeared into the bomb's rounded end. He skipped forward, planted, and slung the fizzling pipe end over end toward the cluster of soldiers.
It fell from the whirling light, rattling across the asphalt. Walt crouched behind a van and pressed his palms to his ears. A shot echoed between the apartments, followed by a second. Adrenaline tingled across Walt's gut. Otto must have botched the fuse, the chemistry. This was it.
A metallic bang splintered the night. Shrapnel pinged into car doors, shattering windows. The van rocked against his back. Walt stood. A blinding light burned from the side of the dark oblong flier. At first he thought it was a weapon, but then there was light and noise and force and darkness.
And Otto stood over him and he could smell blood and burning and plastic and smoke and his ears keened and the sidewalk under him swelled and rippled, carrying him nowhere. Otto was saying something. He said it a few times more before Walt understood.
"Sure," Walt said, standing to prove it. His knees buckled. Otto grabbed his arm with tough, knotty knuckles.
"That doesn't look like any fine I've seen."
"Well, see it." He frowned. "Where did the ship go?"
"Davy Jones' of Mars."
"Those aren't words."
"Come on, kid."
"We have to get the ship." A craggy heap of metal smoldered where the ship had rested. It must have taken off, but he couldn't hear it. Just the ringing in his ears. The crackle and whip of flames. And Otto chuckling ruefully.
"Oh, you got it. Now lean on me. We got to be gettin' ourselves."
Walt tried to resist, pawing at the smoke as if waving it away would reveal the flier, but Otto pulled him along like a leashed beagle. By the time the keen of a second ship whined across the skies, Walt understood. They were already a mile or so from the explosion, but he mumbled something about holing up in a nearby boarded-over Thai restaurant to wait out the search. Otto helped him through a gap in the boards, then grabbed a newspaper from the table by the front bench and swabbed dust from a booth.
"Well, shit." The big man eased himself into the padded seat. "It was a good idea, kid."
"It was an awful idea."
"Don't see anyone else doing any better."
"Can't try the tracking devices again. They'll just bomb us. Then bomb our bombed-out craters."
Otto retrieved a red handkerchief and swabbed his sweaty face. "It ain't the end of the world. If Los Angeles is about to get turned into a silicon parking lot, you don't need a Ph.D. to know you might be better off hitting the trail."
Walt leaned back into the squeaking plastic seat, sighing with something a lot like relief. It felt good, in a way, to be done. Not just with this campaign. It had been a long time since he'd wanted to die in LA. If he left—and the fact that, one way or another, the city was about to be destroyed made that "if" something of a nondecision—he couldn't imagine himself rejoining the fight in San Francisco or San Diego or wherever the hell else there were still people trying to do something about the uninvited guests. He could no longer pretend resisting would do anything for the survivors or the ghost of Vanessa or even himself. It would simply be suicide in another form, a helpless admission of a lack of imagination. He supposed he'd like to watch the city blow up before moving on. That would probably be pretty spectacular. The hills would probably be far enough away to be safe. Or get up above it all somehow, watch from the skies. If they noticed, there would be worse ways to die.
He went very, very still.
"I changed my mind," he said. "I'm going to die after all."
Otto's brow wrinkled. "Look, I don't see how's there any reason to stay. You're young. You go be a pirate or some such."
"I have a better idea. In that it's much, much worse."
29
"That's it, then," David said under the sound of the surf. Down the beach, alien children tumbled in the waves. "There's no hope. They'll outbreed us."
Raymond rubbed his mouth. "There's always hope. All we have to do is get to the nukes."
"They could have these creches everywhere."
"And if we take out their carrier, they won't have anything to defend them with."
"You propose we stay the course," David said.
"Let's get out of here before they see us."
Anna wagged her head. "We can't leave."
Raymond frowned. "It's dark. We'll just cross the street and sneak north."
"Those are monsters in our ocean. If you see a monster, you don't say 'Oh, I hope the water's not too cold.'"
"What are you talking about?"
"We should...you know." She mimed a machine gun with her hands, made a "sh-k-k-k" noise down in her throat.
He cocked his head. "They're kids."
"For now."
"No, that makes sense," David said. "Every day they continue to grow, they will become that much more threatening to wh
oever eventually contends with them."
Raymond glanced between them. "What if we get hurt? Who will get to the missiles?"
"What's going to hurt us?" Anna said. "I count three adults and a whole lot of nothings."
"Kids."
"So what? You find a baby rattlesnake in your bed, you grab the biggest boot you got. You think after we kill all their parents, we can just hug them up and say 'Hey, now who wants some s'mores?'"
Raymond was struck with sudden mental vertigo. Who were these people? "We don't know how those things think. We can cross that bridge when we come to it."
Anna laughed, cold as a Northwest rain. She kicked to her feet and sprinted from the alley onto the dry sand. She whooped and drew her laser. David glanced at Raymond, eyes wide as hubcaps, and started after her. Blue light streamed between her and the whirling adults. They fell as fast as she could press the button. Amidst the breakers, the children froze, silent as always, all the more terrifying for having no voice. Raymond raced after David, slowed by the sand.
"Stop it!"
Anna charged the nearest child, black hair flapping behind her. Her laser knocked the youth into the surf. David shot, too, screaming, not as a battle-cry, but something wilder, the scream of a man falling off a ledge. Electric lines criss-crossed the beach, lighting up those long, bug-eyed faces, their whipping tentacles and quivering claws. Raymond slowed, drifting to a stop beside a clump of stinking kelp. Anna whooped, surf splashing her knees. David held his gun in both hands with his elbows tucked tight against his belly. The last child ran parallel to the water, glancing behind itself, Anna high-stepping at its heels. She drew close enough to grab it, then shot it down.
Bodies bobbed in the waves. Others twitched on the tideline, cold water foaming over their punctured shells. Limbs rolled in the shells and seaweed. Raymond felt thrilled and sick and frozen. His leg throbbed. David blinked by the water, clearing his throat. Anna shot the last corpse again, then turned and strode back down the beach.
