could all go to this evacuation center together. Last year, Mom had taken Liam and Mikey and me camping, and I’d read this great book on what to do if you get lost in the woods. What I remembered from that book most of all, is that if you got separated from your buddies, you were supposed to stay put so they could come find you. Now, Newton isn’t exactly the deep woods, but I figured the advice was still good.
If my family hadn’t turned up by the time the food in the fridge ran out, I’d go to the center by myself, and leave a note so they’d know where I was. Logically thinking—like a good Outposter—the center would be the most likely place for them to go anyway, if for some reason they couldn’t make it home.
I would have loved to have stayed online longer just to see if any other Outposters logged on, but my battery had already gone down to forty-five percent, and I wanted to be able to get online later if I had to, so I shut down the tablet and went indoors.
My room looked so normal; it spooked me worse than the blown-apart houses somehow. Once I was in bed, there was only the dark of the night and the silence to show anything terrible had happened, and that I was all alone, waiting to see if real life alien invaders were going to blow me to bits as I slept. The thought got me giggling again, but I didn’t like the way my laughter echoed in the black silence of my room. I sounded like a crazy person.
Part of my mind wanted to stay alert and listen for Mom and Dad or another attack, but the other part felt like it was covered in some terrible blank fog that just wanted me to sleep and sleep until things were normal. I was in shock, I guess. That was something else the woodland book had said could happen. Every now and then, the shocked part would drag the alert part down into some confusing half-waking dream, and I’d only realize I’d slept at all when I’d jerk awake with a yell.
Once, I saw the beam of a flashlight through one of the windows, and lay still in bed, straining for the sound of dad’s keys in the door, but after a while, the flashlight moved on.
Sunlight flooded in through the open curtains. I woke up gasping and dazed, painted from head to toe with sweat from a nightmare I only half remembered. I stumbled out of bed and staggered to the window. I wanted so much for everything to be normal out there—Mr. Novak next door running his mower, my mom’s car parked in the drive, Mikey & Liam riding their bikes on the lawn—that for a second, I almost saw it that way through sheer willpower.
Then my dream faded and I was left staring out at the ruined street. I could hardly bring myself to look skyward. When I did, the ships were still there, silent and stationary. The sight of them made me feel cold all over, like I’d plunged into an icy lake, out of my depth and sinking helplessly. I couldn’t help but feel the ships were watching. Waiting.
I tried the TV, but the power was still out. I dragged the little battery operated radio out of dad’s workshop and dialed through the bands, hoping to find some news.
What I got instead was a lot of crackle and a creepy robotic voice shrilling “
Stay in your homes. Await further instruction. Seek shelter if needed.”
Then there was a list of all the local places you could go for help, including 6_star’s place in Needham.
I didn’t listen for long. In a way, I was happy there’d been no news. It was like, if I heard that anything really bad was happening
officially
then it would be true.
The only sound in the house was the tick of the clock on the wall. The clock ran on batteries as brisk and businesslike as it had yesterday, but the hour hand seemed to crawl. I knew that if I wanted to speed that clock up, I should keep busy until Mom and Dad got home, but my mind didn’t seem to want to fixate on any one thing.
I grabbed a broom and swept up some of the plaster dust and broken glass from the living room windows, then got
If my family hadn’t turned up by the time the food in the fridge ran out, I’d go to the center by myself, and leave a note so they’d know where I was. Logically thinking—like a good Outposter—the center would be the most likely place for them to go anyway, if for some reason they couldn’t make it home.
I would have loved to have stayed online longer just to see if any other Outposters logged on, but my battery had already gone down to forty-five percent, and I wanted to be able to get online later if I had to, so I shut down the tablet and went indoors.
My room looked so normal; it spooked me worse than the blown-apart houses somehow. Once I was in bed, there was only the dark of the night and the silence to show anything terrible had happened, and that I was all alone, waiting to see if real life alien invaders were going to blow me to bits as I slept. The thought got me giggling again, but I didn’t like the way my laughter echoed in the black silence of my room. I sounded like a crazy person.
Part of my mind wanted to stay alert and listen for Mom and Dad or another attack, but the other part felt like it was covered in some terrible blank fog that just wanted me to sleep and sleep until things were normal. I was in shock, I guess. That was something else the woodland book had said could happen. Every now and then, the shocked part would drag the alert part down into some confusing half-waking dream, and I’d only realize I’d slept at all when I’d jerk awake with a yell.
Once, I saw the beam of a flashlight through one of the windows, and lay still in bed, straining for the sound of dad’s keys in the door, but after a while, the flashlight moved on.
Sunlight flooded in through the open curtains. I woke up gasping and dazed, painted from head to toe with sweat from a nightmare I only half remembered. I stumbled out of bed and staggered to the window. I wanted so much for everything to be normal out there—Mr. Novak next door running his mower, my mom’s car parked in the drive, Mikey & Liam riding their bikes on the lawn—that for a second, I almost saw it that way through sheer willpower.
Then my dream faded and I was left staring out at the ruined street. I could hardly bring myself to look skyward. When I did, the ships were still there, silent and stationary. The sight of them made me feel cold all over, like I’d plunged into an icy lake, out of my depth and sinking helplessly. I couldn’t help but feel the ships were watching. Waiting.
I tried the TV, but the power was still out. I dragged the little battery operated radio out of dad’s workshop and dialed through the bands, hoping to find some news.
What I got instead was a lot of crackle and a creepy robotic voice shrilling “
Stay in your homes. Await further instruction. Seek shelter if needed.”
Then there was a list of all the local places you could go for help, including 6_star’s place in Needham.
I didn’t listen for long. In a way, I was happy there’d been no news. It was like, if I heard that anything really bad was happening
officially
then it would be true.
The only sound in the house was the tick of the clock on the wall. The clock ran on batteries as brisk and businesslike as it had yesterday, but the hour hand seemed to crawl. I knew that if I wanted to speed that clock up, I should keep busy until Mom and Dad got home, but my mind didn’t seem to want to fixate on any one thing.
I grabbed a broom and swept up some of the plaster dust and broken glass from the living room windows, then got
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