Untaken (15 page)

Not aliens, but people, all walking toward the ship real slowly, like something from “
Night of the Living Dead.”

Then I spotted Dad. He was almost out of our yard already, and picking up speed. I ran to him and managed to grab his skinny elbow just before he made it to the gate.

“Dad?”

He jerked his arm away from me, never even turning his head. It was like I was invisible to him. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. What was wrong with him?

All I knew was I had to stop him before he reached that ship. I tackled him low, driving into his waist with my shoulder, and the two of us slammed into the grass. He was stronger than me and a little taller, but he was still slow and sluggish and I managed to roll on top of him. I tried to pin his arms with my knees, but he landed one punch, then another on my head and my chest.

“What in the hell are you doing, Dad? We need to get back inside!”

He fought harder, shoving and punching at me, until I had to bring my arms up to cover my face. Blood from my busted nose dripped down onto his face, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes were wide open, and he stared at me now, but without seeming to know who I was. He rolled me off him and staggered up to his feet. My head was woozy and I had no choice but to cling to his legs like I had when I was a little kid trying to stop him from going out partying for the night.

The ship’s engines became louder and more urgent, like a jumbo jet when it’s getting ready to climb into the sky. I didn’t have to be a scientist to guess what that meant. Dad grabbed a handful of my hair and gave it a twist, ripping out a whole fistful. He marched toward the street, shaking his leg with each step, so that I could hardly keep hold of him. Dirt got in my mouth and grass stalks whipped at my bloody face. My hands slipped, the denim of his pant legs slithering through my fingers, and then he was gone. The roar of the engines grew louder still, until the air seemed to tremble. I clambered to my feet and staggered through the gate. Dad was running down the road toward the ship, and I followed as fast as I could, the blood from the punches I’d taken dripping into my eyes and mouth.

We were the only two people left on the street now. I hadn’t been able to stop Dad from walking out here, I’d delayed him long enough to stop him from getting on it like I guessed all those other folks had.

The light went out all at once, and that warm wind intensified, knocking both of us off our feet. I tried to cover my eyes from the dust and grit kicked up by the sudden wind tunnel, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the ship. It ascended slowly at first, then gained speed as it rose higher. It was really leaving without him; I’d done it.

Once it had disappeared above the clouds, I crawled toward Dad.

I was scared to get near him in case he wailed on me again, but when I got in close, he pulled me into a hug. We sat there on the grass, crying, covered in blood and dirt.

“Where were you going? What in the hell?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Jeez, I’m sorry, son. I don’t know.” It was the first time I’d ever heard him apologize before.

I helped him back to the house, but I was done with the basement. Whatever was going on, hiding down there wasn’t going to help us anymore. The faucets still worked, so I washed myself up as best I could, then changed my clothes.

The monster still lay dead on the hallway floor, but that was a problem I didn’t feel up to dealing with just then.

Dad flopped down on the sofa. He didn’t look at me. I fetched him the bourbon bottle, and he took a swig. I sat down next to him in case he got the notion to go haring off again, but I hoped that with the ship gone, he was safe. I wanted to ask him what had been going through his mind, but I kind of didn’t want to know either.

The next night, the ship came back. It came down further away from our house this time, but Dad went hog wild all over again just the same. I took another couple of punches and Dad slipped away into the night.

But eventually, he returned.

Seems I’d held him up just long enough again, and he was back by dawn, dirty and pale and avoiding looking me in the eyes, one of which was purple and swollen.

He didn’t want me to tie him down to his bed that night, wouldn’t hear of it.

“You’re the one acting crazy,” he slurred. “Who are you anyway? Don’t I know you from someplace?”

“Jeez, Dad, quit fooling around. I just want to get some sleep.”

“So sleep.”

He’d spent the day drinking, and was pretty wasted. I thought I could tackle him if I had to, but I had gotten about ten hours of sleep over the last three days and I was starting to feel a little out of it myself.

Dad took another slug of bourbon and glared at me. The bottle was almost empty, and there wasn’t any more. There wasn’t much of anything in the house, but how could I go out on a supply mission when those ships could come at any time?

“Well, I guess if we can’t sleep in peace, we should eat anyway,” I told him, but he’d already stopped listening. That worried me, too. Even taking the liquor into consideration, Dad would never have let any back talk from me fly in the past.

I rooted through the cabinets. Right at the very back, there was an ancient half bottle of Kahlua. I guessed it would do to keep Dad mellowed out for now. The bottle had been in there so long it was stuck to the shelf, and when I yanked it out, a little orange pill bottle that had been nestled in behind it tipped over. I recognized what it was right away.

Dad had hurt his back hauling UPS boxes a couple of years ago and had gotten hooked on Tramadol pretty good. The doctors had cut him off eventually, but before they had, I’d taken to hiding it away myself. There were two of the little white pills left in the bottle.

I wondered if the medication would still work, old as the pills were. If I knew for sure he was out for the night, I might be able to grab some sleep myself. It had always knocked him on his ass in the past, and he was sloppy drunk already, but what if I poisoned him? It didn’t seem fair to pull something like that when he was brought so low.

He trusted me, and I was already going to have to do something I knew he was going to hate.

I put the pills back in the cabinet, and shuffled the scant tins and boxes around so they were hidden again. I’d just have to take my chances with the Kahlua.

There was one can of beans left. My stomach rumbled, but dad looked worse than I did, like he’d dropped twenty pounds in the last few days. I had to spoon the food into his mouth, but he chewed and swallowed, slopping a good portion of it down his shirt.

“Here, Dad, this’ll hit the spot, I reckon.” I nestled the Kahlua bottle into his hand. He made a face when he took his first swig, but when Dad got a good drunk on, he never could stop until every bottle was drained, and sure enough, in a half hour he was splayed out on the sofa, muttering in his sleep.

I gave him a little shake, but he kept right on snoring.

I used electric cables to tie his legs together and to bind his arms at his sides. Even with me hauling his limbs about, he didn’t come fully awake, just grumbled a little and swatted at me, in a “shoo fly” way. Finally, I rolled him onto his side. That’s what you were meant to do when someone passed out drunk. Makes it less likely they’ll choke on their own throw-up.

I felt real bad doing it, but we needed food, and I needed to sleep. I squashed down the panicky, scared-rabbit feelings that bubbled up within me when I thought about the fact that I might have to do this to my dad for weeks. For months. It wasn’t something I was equipped to deal with.

I needed help.

Dad didn’t trust many people, but his cop buddies were among the few he did trust.

I climbed on my bike and set off for the police station, praying there’d be someone there who could help us.

Gracie

he Center was boring, but after everything I’d been through since leaving the ice cream store, boring was good. For seven days, I slept as best I could on the green camp bed, which sagged in the middle, and smelled of someone else’s feet. I ate the plates of sticky rice or sloppy pasta the friendly cop, Frank, dished out three times a day. I sometimes talked a little with the other folks here.

There were about forty of us. Most of them were grown-ups, but there were three little kids too.

The little kids found a beat-up old box of board games, and they’d play the same ones over and over again. Sometimes they’d nag to go outside, but of course, that wasn’t allowed. The little girl, Marie, was with her mom, but the two boys were alone. The adults took turns looking after them; in fact ,they’d argue over whose turn it was. There was so little to do, that even wiping noses and singing “the wheels on the bus” for ten hours straight seemed like a good time.

We talked a bit, us survivors, but friendships tended to form during the time it takes to share a cup of coffee, then disappear again just as quickly. If we didn’t make The Center a new life, with new people, then it meant that our old lives were not done with yet. That was what I felt, and I figured the others felt the same.

No one talked about the ships. Once, two of the younger guys started to talk about the things with tentacles. “I don’t think they’re what’s flying those ships, do you?” he asked his buddy. “Don’t seem like they really think or nothing. Just attack when they find you. Like the ships are big old yellow jacket nests, and them things are just the drones. Makes you wonder who the queen bees are, huh?”

“Hush up,” said Mrs. Ostrinsky, the mom of the little girl, Marie. “None of us want to think about those things, Okay?”

The young guys had shrugged and gone back to their card game, and I’d been glad. What good was it going to do worrying about those drones? We were safe in here. The cops would stop anything getting in. During the day, I believed that, but at night, I lay awake, listening for the sly sound of tentacles scratching at the walls.

As for my family, their names hadn’t been up on that list. It was something I didn’t want to think about more than I had to, so, like pretty much everyone apart from the three little kids, I’d spend most of each day dozing on my bed, counting the steel girders that crossed the ceiling over and over.