distracted by the distant rattle of a helicopter. My ears pricked at the wail of sirens, but they didn’t come any closer, and after a while, they faded away to nothing.
When I went to the bathroom, the toilet wouldn’t flush properly and flooded the bathroom with gross pee water when I tried to flush it a second time. I needed to get a mop, to fix it before Mom got home. The toilet gurgled like it was dying and glugged out more water. I skipped back into the hall in my sodden sneakers and slammed the door shut on the whole mess. The plumbing must have been screwed up by all the explosions or something; I wouldn’t be able to fix it with just a bit of mopping. I couldn’t fix anything! I breathed in a great whoop of air, and before I knew it, I was sobbing—ugly, little kid sobbing—with streamers of snot hanging down my face and everything. It was pathetic. I was being pathetic. How was crying going to fix any of this? My mom and dad would know what to do.
It would all be okay as soon as they got home.
All through the day, I listened for the familiar sound of a car engine, or the voices of my mom and my brothers, but they didn’t come. There had to be a lot of people downtown, and surely the Police or someone was organizing rides for people. Someone would be in charge. In fact, the most likely thing, now that I thought about it properly, was that all of them had been taken to one of 6_star’s emergency centers, just waiting for the all-clear to come home again.
So really, there was no need to panic just because they hadn’t shown up the very first day.
Brandon
he Biedermanns had split town some time during the night, and that had to account for some of Dad’s good mood today. Our remaining neighbors had dragged their radios and portable TVs outside, so they could keep an eye on the invaders, but no one was getting anything but static and a pre-recorded emergency broadcast I was already sick of hearing.
The ships were back in the sky again, but Dad ignored them and I tried my best to do the same.
We worked all day, side by side, me fetching and carrying, and Dad whacking in nails. We did a real good job of turning our little ranch house into a genuine bunker. Dad was clever with his hands. He used plywood to cover the doors and windows, with neat little slots cut in that we could look out through. He hauled his old welding kit out of the basement, and sent me running round the back yard, wrenching all that old scrap iron free of the weeds. It was almost like he’d had a plan for that junk all along.
The basement was the real triumph though. It was past midnight when we started working on it. My eyes kept slipping closed, and my shoulders felt like someone had run piano wire through them and was yanking on the ends, but Dad was still going strong. He swapped the flimsy wooden doors that led from the kitchen to the basement stairs with the heavy metal one from the gun shed and did likewise with the bulkhead door that led out into the yard.
“That ought to do it,” he said finally, sometime around three a.m.
“Looks good,” I said.
“It don’t look pretty,” he said with a smile, “but yeah, it looks good.” He clapped me on the shoulder.
“How ‘bout a beer before we settle in?”
We drank our beers sitting in the yard, the moonlight glinting off our new reinforcements. I kept my gaze on the ships, but I didn’t feel so scared of them now. I guess what I felt was something like gratitude.
That night, I slept sounder than I had in months. It was the hard work that did it. That, and knowing Dad was sleeping too, instead of out wilding somewhere.
It was dark in the house when I woke up, even though my bedside clock said 8:00 a.m., but it felt safe, too—cozy, I guess I’d call it—with so much plywood over the windows, not even the sun could get in.
We worked all day again on the house, tearing down the weak parts and building them up strong. Lou drove by once in his big police cruiser,
When I went to the bathroom, the toilet wouldn’t flush properly and flooded the bathroom with gross pee water when I tried to flush it a second time. I needed to get a mop, to fix it before Mom got home. The toilet gurgled like it was dying and glugged out more water. I skipped back into the hall in my sodden sneakers and slammed the door shut on the whole mess. The plumbing must have been screwed up by all the explosions or something; I wouldn’t be able to fix it with just a bit of mopping. I couldn’t fix anything! I breathed in a great whoop of air, and before I knew it, I was sobbing—ugly, little kid sobbing—with streamers of snot hanging down my face and everything. It was pathetic. I was being pathetic. How was crying going to fix any of this? My mom and dad would know what to do.
It would all be okay as soon as they got home.
All through the day, I listened for the familiar sound of a car engine, or the voices of my mom and my brothers, but they didn’t come. There had to be a lot of people downtown, and surely the Police or someone was organizing rides for people. Someone would be in charge. In fact, the most likely thing, now that I thought about it properly, was that all of them had been taken to one of 6_star’s emergency centers, just waiting for the all-clear to come home again.
So really, there was no need to panic just because they hadn’t shown up the very first day.
Brandon
he Biedermanns had split town some time during the night, and that had to account for some of Dad’s good mood today. Our remaining neighbors had dragged their radios and portable TVs outside, so they could keep an eye on the invaders, but no one was getting anything but static and a pre-recorded emergency broadcast I was already sick of hearing.
The ships were back in the sky again, but Dad ignored them and I tried my best to do the same.
We worked all day, side by side, me fetching and carrying, and Dad whacking in nails. We did a real good job of turning our little ranch house into a genuine bunker. Dad was clever with his hands. He used plywood to cover the doors and windows, with neat little slots cut in that we could look out through. He hauled his old welding kit out of the basement, and sent me running round the back yard, wrenching all that old scrap iron free of the weeds. It was almost like he’d had a plan for that junk all along.
The basement was the real triumph though. It was past midnight when we started working on it. My eyes kept slipping closed, and my shoulders felt like someone had run piano wire through them and was yanking on the ends, but Dad was still going strong. He swapped the flimsy wooden doors that led from the kitchen to the basement stairs with the heavy metal one from the gun shed and did likewise with the bulkhead door that led out into the yard.
“That ought to do it,” he said finally, sometime around three a.m.
“Looks good,” I said.
“It don’t look pretty,” he said with a smile, “but yeah, it looks good.” He clapped me on the shoulder.
“How ‘bout a beer before we settle in?”
We drank our beers sitting in the yard, the moonlight glinting off our new reinforcements. I kept my gaze on the ships, but I didn’t feel so scared of them now. I guess what I felt was something like gratitude.
That night, I slept sounder than I had in months. It was the hard work that did it. That, and knowing Dad was sleeping too, instead of out wilding somewhere.
It was dark in the house when I woke up, even though my bedside clock said 8:00 a.m., but it felt safe, too—cozy, I guess I’d call it—with so much plywood over the windows, not even the sun could get in.
We worked all day again on the house, tearing down the weak parts and building them up strong. Lou drove by once in his big police cruiser,
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