The Aliens

Something’s wrong.

Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what it is.

All I know is that aliens are taking over.

Aliens that look like us, but are evil. Aliens that make bad things happen. Sometimes, when Daddy and I go for a walk, I see them. They all have sticks, and they all wear strange clothes.

They use their sticks to kill people, and make them disappear. When Daddy and I listen to the radio, all we hear is about the hundreds of missing people.

The aliens are invading, I know they are. Aliens that use sticks to hurt and kill people.

I see them everywhere. They used to hide, I think, but now there’s so many of them that they don’t need to.

The first time I saw one was a few months ago. It was standing down the laneway near my school, watching. Then it got its stick, and suddenly the church next to my school was on fire. People started screaming, so I turned away. When I looked back, it was gone.

That isn't the only one I've seen. A couple of months back I caught a glimpse of another one. The next thing I knew, a shop on the other side of the road was blown to pieces, and the alien was gone.

At first I thought the sticks they carried were guns, but they’re not.

Guns can’t make people scream when nothing is actually happening to them. That’s what they did to Mummy.

Mummy’s gone now.

Mummy and I had been walking home from school, and it was raining. Mummy was saying how strange it was that the weather was so bad for April. She was right – it was a heavy storm and our umbrella was flapping around, barely shielding us from the rain. We reached home, soaking wet. But the door was already unlocked.

Mummy was nervous, I could tell. She walked inside cautiously, gripping my hand.

My big sister Emma was lying on the rug in the hallway, asleep, and all the furniture was fallen over and broken. Mum gasped and ran to Emma, to wake her up, I supposed.

But then Mummy began to scream. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. I didn’t know what was wrong, but she looked like she was hurting. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what do to. And why wasn’t Emma waking up from all the noise? Then I saw an alien.

It was the first time I’d seen one close up. It wore strange black clothes, sort of like a dress. Its face, if it had a face, was shielded by a creepy-looking mask. And it was pointing its stick at Mummy.

It was using it to make Mummy scream. I don’t know how it did it, but it made her scream for a long, long time. The green light shot out of the stick, and Mummy suddenly fell asleep. It turned to me. Then it laughed. It laughed for a long time, just laughed. I did not know why, but I knew it was laughing at me.

Then there was a sound like a gun, and it was gone.

I waited for Mummy to wake up, but she didn’t.

I made Mummy a cup of tea, because she liked to drink tea when she was feeling tired. I waited for Daddy to come home from work.

He gave a yell when he walked through the front door, staring at the broken furniture with his mouth hanging open. I told him that an alien with a stick had made it happen. He asked me where Mummy and Emma were. I told him that the alien had made them fall asleep, and showed him.

Daddy cried for a long time, because Mummy and Emma weren’t asleep. They were dead.

The doctors came. They were confused. They couldn’t work out how Emma and Mummy had died. I tried to explain that an alien killed Mummy, and probably Emma, too. It made Mummy scream, and then she died.

They didn’t believe me. I heard them telling Daddy I was confused and disturbed over the death of my mother and sister.

They’re wrong. There are aliens out there, and I know there are. But I can’t do anything to stop them.

I hold Daddy’s hand tighter when I see them, but I know it won’t help. If they can kill Mummy so easily, they can kill Daddy, too.

The aliens make storms come. The weather is always cold and bad.

They kill other people, too. Not just Mummy.

Daddy hides the newspaper from me these days, but I always find it. Mysterious disappearances, unexplainable deaths. They’re taking over the world.

Daddy and I don’t go for walks very often anymore. I don’t even have to go to school. First we had the funerals, then we had to fix our house that the alien had broken. Daddy didn’t make me go to school while it was repaired. We just sat in the living room, not talking. Sometimes, I watch cartoons, but the TV keeps losing signal because of the storm.

I want it to stop. I want the aliens to go away.

I don’t want anybody else to die like Mummy and Emma.

I want someone to save me.

~Midnight Storm

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