Raging at the Stars Page 6

  Sofia sighed again and looked out into the darkness. “Dink? Why is there no one on the road? It’s never this empty.”

  “They struck at night. It’s obviously caught everyone unawares. Also, think about it. There are saucers in the sky. Who in their right mind is going to escape on the road that leads toward Area 51?”

  She had to concede that point to him. “What the hell are they going to do with us?” Sofia was worried by what his answer would be.

  “I was hoping you’d know.”

  “I have no idea. This wasn’t anything I was made a party to. I’m as clueless as you are.”

  “Then we’re in trouble, Sofia, because we need to see what and who we’re up against before we can fight back.”

  Sofia had never felt so powerless. All the might of the military behind her, and still the saucers kept coming. “What are we going to do?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Dink heard her. “Survive. It’s all we can do.”

  *

  The sound of pumping gas echoed across the forecourt. Emory barely watched what she was doing; she was too busy looking around her. Something felt wrong. As wrong as an empty gas station in the middle of the night with flying saucers bombing the planet could feel. Her nerves were already jangling from what she’d witnessed at the base and beyond. The eerie stillness of the gas station was sending her warning signals. There were three other cars at the pumps, but their doors were open and no one was around. Oddly, there was a car door on the ground, just lying there. The metal looked strangely twisted and bent. The lights were all on, but the store part of the station looked deserted. Emory finished filling up her tank and removed some bills from her wallet. Belying her fear, she walked as confidently as she could toward the store to leave her payment. She couldn’t shake the feeling she really shouldn’t step one foot inside.

  Emory was a frequent visitor to this station. It was on her route planner when she went to see her brother, so she was friendly with the elderly owner. She couldn’t see him anywhere in the store, and that only made things worse.

  “Mr. Sudzin?” Emory left her payment beside the cash register and braced herself to look over the counter. She was half expecting to find a body there. It was empty. “Mr. Sudzin? It’s Emory Hawkes. You remember? The crazy lady who keeps getting chased off from Area 51? You let me hide in your car wash the last time when they followed me all the way down here?”

  Emory nervously looked up and down the aisles of goods. There were items scattered all over the floor, as if someone had come in and thrown a fit, knocking the chips and popcorn all over. The soda fountain was running. Coke was spilling in an endless sticky stream to create huge puddles of bubbling brown on the floor. Emory stepped around it as best she could and switched it off. “Mr. Sudzin, I left my gas money by the register for you.”

  A noise from behind her made Emory spin around. Blindly, she reached for something, anything, to use as a weapon. A window washer was all that came to hand, but Emory brandished it, poised for whatever was coming.

  A trap door in the flooring slid open, and a pair of frightened eyes peered out at her, along with the twin barrels of a shotgun aimed at her legs.

  “Alien lady!” The gun was mercifully withdrawn.

  Emory bit back a sigh. She wished he’d call her Emory.

  “Hi, Mr. Sudzin. Are you okay?” She lifted the door up a little, but he refused to come out.

  “Are they gone?” he asked, his eyes darting back and forth over what little he could see of his store.

  “Who?”

  “The weird children. What looked like a whole school bus load of them suddenly appeared out of nowhere.”

  “Kids did this and made you hide?” Emory was a little skeptical. She knew he kept the shotgun behind the counter for protection and wasn’t afraid to brandish it.

  “They weren’t real kids, just looked kid sized. There was so many of them. They all had these huge heads with large black eyes. They terrorized what few customers I had this morning, dragged them out of their cars and took them off to who knows where. They ripped the door off one car to get in at a guy. He managed to drive off though, screaming and yelling at them to keep the hell away from him. When I saw them coming toward the store, I hid. I’m too old to wrestle with young ’uns. Are they still out there?”

  Emory shook her head. “No one is out there except for me and…a friend.” Emory was loathe to leave him there. “How about you come with us and we’ll take you somewhere safe?”

  “We’ll never be safe now that they’re here. You need to go hide too, otherwise they’ll take you as well. They weren’t anything I’ve ever seen before. These old eyes have seen a whole lot in my lifetime, but I have never seen anything like what they were. They weren’t human, and they didn’t look like any critter either.” He tightened his hold around the edge of the door he held up. “Thank you for being a good customer and for not stealing the gas. But you need to go now before they decide to come back.” He ducked his head back down and began closing the door behind him. “Take some food with you, on the house. Who knows when you’ll get a chance to eat again? And don’t just take chips. I sell healthy stuff too. Grab you some of the fruit roll-ups by the counter.”

  Emory watched as Mr. Sudzin disappeared back under the floor and closed the trap door. She heard a bolt slam firmly into place. Hastily, Emory grabbed up cans of soda, a couple of bags of chips, and handfuls of candy bars. Stuffing everything into a paper bag, Emory then dug out some more money. She put it on the counter because no matter whether the world was coming to an end or not, she was not shortchanging Mr. Sudzin for his kindness. Lastly, she scooped up a few packets of the fruit roll-ups as directed. She then fled the store.

  “What the hell?” Sofia squealed as she was alarmed by Emory throwing herself into the van and tossing the grocery bag at her. Sofia barely caught it in time.

  Emory started up the van and peeled out of the station with a horrendous squealing of the tires. The van lurched onto the road in her haste to get as far away as possible.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sofia shifted the bag in her lap and peered inside. “Oh, for God’s sake. Please tell me you didn’t just rob the gas station. I’m already staring at a long list of offences against you without adding not paying for gas and groceries to it as well.”

  Sofia’s sarcasm was lost on Emory as she put her foot down heavily on the gas and drove.

  “Emory, get the fuck out of there before what he saw comes back,” Dink said.

  “Whoever is in the saucers, they’re not just in the sky now,” Emory explained to Sofia. “He said they’d taken some of his customers, and not by using the beams this time. They physically pulled them from their car.”

  “They’ve landed?” Sofia’s grip tightened on the grocery bag.

  “He called them children with misshapen heads and black eyes. Dink, I don’t want them to be Grays.” Emory couldn’t help but sound whiney. “Mr. Sudzin saw them. They trashed his place, took his customers, and ripped a car door off its hinges, so they might be the size of kids, but their strength is something else entirely.”

  “They’re obviously not content with dominating the skies; they’re invading on the ground too. How many abductees do they need for whatever purpose it is they seem to have for us?” Dink asked rhetorically. “From my news feeds, the rest of the world is being attacked from above. There are reports of the huge mother ships, those big black triangles, hovering all over the major cities.”

  “Hitting Area 51 seems mighty personal,” Emory said, sliding a look in Sofia’s direction. “Without me getting your standard ‘that’s classified’ comment, Captain, do you have any ideas as to why that base was not only attacked but wiped from existence?”

  Sofia clung to her seat as Emory took a corner a little too fast. “We need to be in one piece to go save your family, Emory. Killing us before we get there isn’t going to help them.”

  “Do you have any
ideas, Sofia?” Dink said.

  After a long moment of silence, Sofia finally replied. “Perhaps it’s because that’s where it all began. The original saucer was moved there, as were the bodies. Or so rumor has it. You know the history as much as I do. Probably more with your research.” She returned Emory’s look steadily. “I have never seen anything to corroborate those stories. I just know we have the technology from a craft that crash-landed. For all I know it could have come from Russia as a spy craft and we’ve taken their technology and made it our own.”

  “And the bodies that were said to be found?” Dink asked.

  “Could have been children, could have been monkeys,” Sofia said. At both Emory’s and Dink’s disbelieving noises she added, “I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. I just know about our saucers that were kept at the base.”

  “And you never asked where they came from originally?” Emory couldn’t believe that Sofia had no knowledge of the genesis of the crafts that had been hidden away in the hangars on Area 51.

  “You know the old adage, Emory: don’t ask, don’t tell. My job is on a need to know basis, and what those crafts were I did not need to know.” Sofia reached into the grocery bag and rummaged inside. “Tell me this isn’t your regular diet.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Emory said, taking a can from Sofia’s hand and managing to pop the ring while still driving.

  Sofia puffed out a sound of disgust. “You eat like a child.”

  Emory shook her head. “You sound like my mother, and I listen to her even less than I listen to my brother.”

  “That’s probably why you’re a magnet for trouble,” Sofia muttered, opening up a bag of chips and staring back out the window.

  “She’s got your number, Em,” Dink said.

  “Switching you back to silent, Big Brother, or as it’s technically known, shut the fuck up!” Emory tapped the phone screen and took him off speaker.

  “I’m still in your ear,” Dink sing-songed.

  “And I’m not listening to you either until you tell me something I want to know.”

  Emory knew this leg of her journey by heart. She just hoped that by the time they reached the quaint little suburb Brad and his family lived in there was still something left to save.

  It was time for her to bail her brother out this time.

  Chapter Seven

  Winchester was in pandemonium. All of Emory’s fears and dreads were realized. Multiple saucers were plainly visible in the predawn light, darting back and forth above the neighborhood where her family lived. They’d just appeared out of nowhere, with no warning and no sound. Until the humming started, and Emory knew that sound all too well.

  “Oh God no,” she moaned as a large black craft swept over entire blocks and shut out the fading stars. The light it emitted lit everything up in a blinding white intensity. The brightness was too much to look at directly. Even from the short distance Emory still had to cover to reach the suburbs, she knew she wasn’t going to get there in time. There were too many silver saucers, hovering in the air like a swarm of angry bees.

  “Dink? Tell me what is happening there because I can’t drive this thing fast enough. Traffic is starting to choke the roads too. People are awake now; all hell’s breaking loose. They’re evacuating but have no idea where the fuck to run to.”

  As she steered them down a block, frantic people were running from their houses. They were tossing everything and anything they could carry into their cars. They were jamming the neighborhood roads as they tried to escape in droves.

  Just where the hell can they escape to? Emory joined the frenzied drivers and tried to find her brother’s street. The other cars were testing her already nonexistent patience. She had to get to her family, and short of ramming through every car in her way, she was stuck in a long line that wasn’t going anywhere fast.

  To hell with being polite. Emory swung the wheel around and drove up onto the sidewalk, not caring that she was digging huge ruts into the perfectly manicured lawns.

  “What are you doing?” Sofia clung to her seat as they bounced over an ornamental pond and her head nearly came in contact with the roof of the van.

  “The saucers aren’t waiting and neither am I.” Emory winced and feared for her tires as she drove straight through fences and walls. She bumped the van back down with a bang onto the road again. She spotted the street she needed and careened around a reversing car to tear down the road toward her brother’s home.

  “Emory! Saucers are everywhere. For fuck’s sake, do not get taken!” Dink was frantic. “There’s too many to count. I can’t keep track of them all.”

  There was a strange unearthly whine and then the van was hit. The next thing Emory knew, the vehicle was lifted off its wheels and tossed aside as if it weighed nothing. The near miss by a saucer’s laser flung the vehicle into an adjacent driveway. It slammed against a trailer-bound speed boat and mercifully remained upright. Emory heard the sickening sound of Sofia’s head hitting the passenger side window as the van’s flight stopped so abruptly. Emory’s own head whipped back making her cry out in agony. Half blinded by the pain and dizzy from the whiplash she’d no doubt sustained, Emory barely had the chance to gather her wits about her before the beam of light struck the buildings on the other side of the road. Realizing that one of the houses bathed in light was her brother’s, Emory screamed.

  “NO!”

  She struggled to release the seat belt keeping her trapped in her seat.

  Sofia grabbed her arm. “You can’t go out there!”

  “It’s going to take them.” Emory wrenched her belt free and scrambled for the door handle. Sofia lurched out of her own seat and tightened her grip on Emory.

  “Don’t be a fucking idiot! What use are you to them if the goddamn saucer takes you too?” She tried to pull Emory back into the van.

  Not thinking about anything but getting to her family, Emory wrenched herself out of Sofia’s hold. She flung open the van door and fell out, crashing to her knees on the hard concrete driveway. The jolt shocked her but didn’t deter her from trying to get up and run toward the light.

  She never heard Sofia chase after her over the sound of the screams coming from the residents who were streaming out of their houses, terrified by what they were witnessing. Everyone watched in horror as the light beam literally drew people up and out of their homes.

  Emory ran until she was just about to step foot onto her brother’s driveway and into the cool white beam. She could feel it, the temperature was immediately different from the dawn’s September air. The chill of the beam barely brushed her skin before she was bodily yanked off her feet and flung to the ground out of the light’s path. Sofia wrestled her down and rolled her out of the way to safety. Emory fought her, swinging with wild punches and kicking her legs to try to get Sofia off her. They ended up with Sofia holding her firmly in some kind of restraining hold. Emory could feel Sofia beneath her, her arms and legs wrapped around Emory’s, stopping her from escaping.

  “Stop it! I’m trained to do this. Don’t make me hurt you any further.”

  Sofia’s harsh words eventually made Emory stop struggling, and she was left lying on her back, held firmly in Sofia’s strong arms, looking up at the sky. Above her, the white beam sparkled as if alight with tiny diamonds. Or with millions of tiny snowflakes, Emory thought, as the cool beam lit a pathway into the sky. The widest end of the light enveloped the houses, blanketing them in the glow. Emory watched helplessly. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the horror unfolding, as limp, lifeless bodies were plucked from the buildings as if the walls and rooftops were not even there. From her vantage point, Emory could see each person pulled up into the beam then sucked out of existence into the saucer.

  Emory was able to recognize the tiny body of her youngest niece, Ellie. The five-year-old was still in her nightdress. It flowed around her ankles as she was pulled up in the paralyzing beam. Emory could see the look of terror on Ellie’s face, her mouth fixed i
n a silent scream. Emory never took her eyes off her as Ellie disappeared into the air to be swallowed up by the saucer.

  The light cut off abruptly, and the saucer shot up like a bullet shot from a gun. It went so high into the sky to become lost to the fading night.

  Emory could hear wailing. It was a mournful, distressing sound of utter loss.

  She didn’t realize it was coming from her.

  *

  The cloth against Sofia’s temple came away bloodied. She gingerly dabbed at the ragged cut, catching her breath as it stung like crazy. She had managed to clear out all the glass that had come from the fractured window she’d smacked her head against. She was just thankful she’d been alert enough to get out of the van quickly to stop Emory from her insane plan to stop the invaders from taking her family while they were in the process of being taken. Sofia shook her head at herself in the mirror. The sooner she had Emory Hawkes behind bars the better, and the military courts could take care of her.

  She wiped her hands off on the towel that hung beside the sink and paused to gather her bearings. She was standing in the bathroom in the home of Brad and Callie Hawkes. The saucers had all gone once the harvesting had taken place. Only then had Sofia felt it safe to loosen Emory out of her hold. Emory had headed straight for the house. She’d used her key to get in and then torn the place apart in case anyone had been left behind. There was no sign of Brad, his wife Callie, or seven-year-old Missy. Sofia had seen the numerous family photos scattered around the home; she’d recognized little Ellie from them and knew that had been the child she and Emory had seen taken right before their eyes.

  Sofia shook herself to try to clear her memory of that scene. It would haunt her for the rest of her life. Which wouldn’t be long, if the aliens had their say. She really needed to get to a base and regroup with the military.

  “Emory?” Sofia wandered from empty bedroom to empty bedroom until she found Emory on her knees beside a little bed. In her hands was a teddy bear dressed in a princess gown. The look of agony on Emory’s face made Sofia pause.