Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Now

“But you still don’t want them to die.”

“Of course not. I don’t want anyone to die.” I wasn’t a hero, not like my mother, not like my father. I just wanted to live.

“If you need anything, Annette, promise me you’ll come to me, alright?”

I promised.

Then she told me to go home, before they started worrying.

No one had missed me. They were getting updates from Joplin; the uprising there had begun tonight. Most had been killed in the skirmishes, and the rest had fled and gone into hiding. The army base was strong as ever. The rebels had failed.

“We won’t fail, though, will we?” Nicole asked. “We’re stronger. We have more people. We can do this. We can win.”

On the radio there was talk of new cities destroyed, demolished by alien weapons and leveled to cinders and ash. Albuquerque. Florence. Perth. Lahore. The announcers speculated on the next target. “I’ve heard military strategists fear an attack on the financial center of the northeast,” said one. “Or perhaps a psychological strike, aimed at America’s heartland.”

“Omaha? St. Louis? Des Moines?”

“Tomorrow,” my father said. “Dumb fucks in Joplin. Tipped our hand. Tomorrow, before they start doing block sweeps over here. Tomorrow we strike.”

Jane woke me a couple hours past midnight, gripping my shoulder with her bony fingers. “Annette,” she whispered. “Larry’s missing. Wake up. I can’t find Larry.”

“What time is it?” I groaned, but then I understood and I was up like a shot.

We crept barefoot through the house, over and around the sleeping hulks of men, passed out anywhere and everywhere. We looked in the kitchen, in the backed-up bathrooms that smelled of sewage, in the abandoned backyard, and even in the basement, where a couple guys were still awake, guarding the guns. They looked us up and down as if they barely knew us. “Nope. Haven’t seen the kid.”

We went outside, holding hands now, more afraid than we’d admit. We should have gotten Dad, but we understood that he was no longer here for us, not like that. He’d become part of something else—he was leading something else—and now we were the distraction.

We found Larry standing in the middle of the street as the Paradisers had done, staring up at the brilliant full moon. The clouds had passed. Jane called his name in a quiet voice, but he didn’t seem to hear.

I followed his gaze. There, soaring and zipping across the sky, I saw a spacecraft.

It was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and I knew immediately that it was completely and totally alien, not of this world. It was dimly luminescent, speedy and nimble. Along one triangular side were racing patterns of turquoise and violet light.

“Look,” I said, pointing toward the sky, but Jane was occupied with Larry, and when I looked back, the spacecraft was gone.

“Is he sleepwalking?” But he seemed awake, just groggy and confused. We dragged him back to the safety of the front porch, demanding to know what was up.

“I got up to pee,” he said. “Then I looked out the window and I saw an alien standing here, in the front yard. I knew it was one because it was fat and scaly like a frog. Then it waved at me. It wanted me to follow. So I did.”

“But the windows are boarded up,” I said. “Remember? You were dreaming. It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” he insisted. “I’m awake.”

“No,” Jane said sharply. “Stop lying. Annette’s right. The windows are boarded up. You didn’t see a thing.”

“I’m not lying. I saw an alien. I did.”

She slapped him, hard. “There are no aliens, Larry. There’s no such thing. Jesus wouldn’t allow it. Now come back to bed.” She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him toward the front door.

He began to cry. “You’re hurting me.”

“Stop hurting him, Jane,” I said. “It’s okay. Everyone just go back to bed.”

But I couldn’t sleep for a long, long time. I lay on the floor by my siblings, remembering the way the glowing spacecraft had zigzagged across the sky. I wondered if I’d been dreaming, too.

The next morning I woke late. By the time I came downstairs, everyone was already eating breakfast. Nicole had taken over what she called “Provisions,” so I didn’t have to worry so much about cooking anymore.

But Nicole and Jane were telling everyone about the “witchcraft” Ruth had forced Nicole and me to do, and how it made Larry hallucinate an alien and sleepwalk down the street. All the men were cracking up at the idea of Larry following an alien because it waved at him. Embarrassed, Larry started laughing too.

Nicole and Jane were serious, though. “I’m telling you,” Nicole said. “There was something real creepy about that lady. I’m not going back there. And I think Annette best not either.”

“Agreed,” my dad said, looking at me as if he’d just remembered I was his daughter. “We need your help around here. And no more talking to outsiders! That kind of thing could get us all killed.”

I was going to tell them about the spacecraft, but then I realized they’d just laugh at me the way they’d laughed at Larry. So I didn’t say a word.

I still wanted to talk to Dad, though. I pulled him into the empty pantry where we could have a moment to ourselves. “Dad. I’m afraid,” I said. “I don’t want you to do this. I don’t want you to die. Don’t you remember what you said to Mom?”

He looked like I’d hit him. “Don’t you see, Annette? Your mom fought back. Now we’re fighting back. Everyone else is a collaborator. They’re followers, Annette, traitors, sheep. Not us. Not me. That’s why we’ve all got to fight.”

“But what about me and Jane and Larry and Timmy and little Sylvie? If you die, we’ll be alone.”

“That’s just it. I’m doing this for you. So you kids can live in a future that’s safe and free.”

“I don’t care about the future. I care about now. I just want us to be okay.”

He promised that we would.

I went back to the ration station that day, hoping my soldier would still be there. I had to tell someone about the alien ship.

In the old days, if my parents said there were no such thing as aliens, I’d have believed them without a second thought, never mind what I thought I saw. But things were changing now. I could believe what I wanted to believe, be whatever I wanted to be.

I figured my soldier would understand. Maybe he’d even be pleased; his aliens were finally near.

Instead he bit his bottom lip and looked at me with brooding eyes. “A lot of people have been seeing things,” he said. “All kinds of weird things. Things that don’t always match up, don’t always fit the facts. My commander says it’s ‘stress-induced hallucinations.’ That’s what he called it. Some of the boys been gettin’ ’em too. Maybe sometimes we just see what we want to see.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “It looked so real. It felt real, too. I felt it in my skin. Like electricity. A tingle.” Then I got embarrassed, talking about my tingly skin.

“Maybe it was,” he said kindly, and I knew he was humoring me. “Anyway, I gotta say goodbye. I probably won’t see you no more . . . I’m headed out to St. Louis tonight.”

“Everyone? All the soldiers?”

“A good bit,” he said. “You know, I’m sure you’ve heard the talk.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Like there could be an attack. What time you headed out?”

“Night. Maybe around oh one hundred hours,” he said, like I was supposed to be impressed. “Anyway, so long. Maybe I’ll run into you somewhere, after the war is over.”