Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Nigh

He ducked back out of sight. Arnold started after him, the old-timer more sure-footed through the snow than the men twenty-five years his junior.

George fell in behind. Bernie came out of the cabin, one flashlight in his right hand, another under his right arm. He waved his left hand; the glowing cell phone screen he held seemed to blaze like a comet.

“Told ya,” he said. “AT&T works in da big city, Georgie, but out here Verizon gets full signal. Hey, where you going?”

“Come on,” Arnold snapped. “Jaco saw something.”

George followed in Arnold’s footsteps, which was easier than plunging his feet into the thigh-deep snow. Bernie followed behind, putting his feet in the same spots. He handed George the extra flashlight. George turned it on, pointed the beam out in front of Arnold. The old man moved like he had the place memorized—he did, but the snow was deep and who knew what fallen log or stick might lie below the surface?

George felt a little embarrassed that the snow here was untouched save for Jaco’s fresh prints—he and his friends had barely left the cabin at all. Deer camp wasn’t really about deer; it was about drinking and sleeping and playing cards and telling stories, about making fun of each other, about hanging out with the people who had made grade school, junior high, and high school a great experience.

The four men turned the corner, saw Jaco standing between two towering pines, not even fifteen feet from the cabin. A lone set of footprints showed his path through the snow. George and Bernie’s flashlight beams spotlighted Jaco, and the fluffy white that came up almost to his crotch. He had his back to them. He stood still, yet he was shaking, and somehow George knew it wasn’t from the bitter cold.

Jaco looked down, looked at the lit-up white around him, then turned so fast George took a step back. The flashlight beams lit up his glasses, making him look like a movie android about to unleash a death ray.

“ Turn off da damn lights ,” he said in a snarling hiss.

Out of nowhere, little Jaco, the runt of their litter, had transformed into the scariest person George had ever seen. That wasn’t like Jaco, not at all—he was terrified .

Bernie’s flashlight blinked out. George fumbled with his own, then clicked it off. The entire world blackened for a split second, plunging George into a cold, dark, silent void. His eyes quickly adjusted—and the first thing he noticed was a glow coming from deep in the woods.

A green glow.

His friends had become reverse shadows, their faces and clothes spots of less-dark that moved and turned, all facing that strange light. They walked to Jaco, feet crunching loudly on undisturbed snow until they stood next to their friend.

George stared. He couldn’t tell how far away the lights were, exactly, but through the trees and the thick underbrush he could almost make out a shape. Not the shape of a big jet, like a 747, or even a prop plane for that matter, but instead a thick rectangle, the upright edges maybe twenty or thirty feet high. The lines parallel to the ground were much longer, maybe a hundred feet, maybe more.

A rectangle… or, the profile of a disc.

“That’s not a plane,” George said.

Arnold nodded. “Told ya.”

“Oh, jeeze,” Toivo said. “What da hell is that thing?”

Bernie shook his head in wide-eyed disbelief. “Sorry, Dad. Sorry. Guess there won’t be any news stories about a crashed plane.”

Arnold nodded. “Yah, that’s fine. Maybe you should look anyway, though. Check one of those news sites.”

Toivo crunched over to Bernie. “CNN? That’s a good one.”

Bernie stared, dumbfounded, at Toivo. “CNN?”

“Your phone,” George said. “You got signal, right?”

His own voice seemed oddly normal, when he knew it probably should have rang with panic. Something was very, very wrong, but Mister Ekola was standing right there and Mister Ekola was calm as could be.

Bernie twitched like someone had stabbed him with a fork. “Oh, shit, right.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen blazed, lighting up slowly billowing cones of breath.

“Oh, jeeze,” Toivo said. “Turn down da brightness, eh?”

Bernie ripped off a glove and tossed it down, not even bothering to put it in his pocket, then stabbed at the screen with the tip of his finger.

Arnold put his arm around Jaco. “Son, are you all right?”

Jaco shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think I am.”

“Yah, I suppose that’s to be expected,” Arnold said.

George stared at the man. How could he be so damn calm ? George knew he should be the one to say something, to get things organized, but all of the sudden he was twelve again, and so was Bernie and Jaco and Toivo; Mister Ekola was the adult.

Jaco’s dad had died when he was just a toddler. George’s dad had left when George was eight, had never come back. Toivo’s dad had beaten the shit out of him more often than not, had sent Toivo to school with long-sleeved sweaters to hide the bruises on his arms. That had happened since at least the fourth grade, when Toivo’s family moved in, until the summer after the fifth grade, when Arnold had paid a visit to Toivo’s house and given Toivo’s dad a lesson on how to dish out a real beating. After that, Toivo’s dad walked with a limp; he also never laid another hand on his boy.

Arnold Ekola and his wife hadn’t just raised Bernie, they’d basically raised three more boys as well. For George and Jaco and Toivo, Arnold wasn’t their biological father, but he was their dad .

Mister Ekola knew what to do—he always had, he always would.

Bernard looked up from the phone.

“Oh my god,” he said. “Oh, god, Dad… it’s everywhere.”

Arnold squeezed Jaco’s shoulder, pointed out at the green lights.

“Jaco, can you keep an eye on that thing for me?”

Jaco nodded. “Sure, Mister Ekola. I can do that.”

“Good boy,” Arnold said. He turned to Bernie. “Exactly what is everywhere?”

Bernie pointed to the lighted rectangle. “That is. I mean, those are. Milwaukee, Boston, New York, it even says there’s one in Paris. It’s fucking aliens , Dad. That’s what CNN says.”

Toivo nodded. “Was bound to happen someday,” he said. “There’s lots of stars, dontchya know.”

Bernie pulled the phone closer to his face. “They’re landing all over the world. They’re attacking, killing people in the cities. Air Force is fighting them, Army’s been mobilized… Dad, we’re being invaded .”

George took two steps toward Bernie, snatched the phone out of his friend’s hand. They weren’t being invaded, that was ridiculous. There was some other explanation for this, shit like this didn’t happen .

One glance at the web page confirmed what Bernie had said. George tried to poke the screen, realized he, too, was wearing gloves. He tore them off and threw them down. The cold sent needle-stabs into his hands, the same way it had been stabbing his neck and face—he just hadn’t registered it.

George tried Fox News. Top story: New York On Fire, London Destroyed .

He looked at Yahoo: It’s Not a Movie: Our World is Invaded .

NBC: Invaders Overpowering Militaries Worldwide .

George’s eyes fuzzed; the screen blurred into nothing. He was at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, so deep in the woods there weren’t even paved roads. He was 370 miles away from his family.

My son, my wife… I have to get to Milwaukee .

George handed back the phone.

“Bernie’s right,” he said. “I don’t know why this one landed in the Yoop, Mister Ekola… but that’s an alien ship.”