Invaders From Mars (22 page)

With the third explosion, Dad let go and fell on his back, his legs kicking.

David stood, but could not run. He watched his parents and sobbed.

They clutched their necks, rolling on the ground, wretching, arching their backs, becoming rigid . . .

“Mom!” he cried. “Dad!” He took a step back, another, but continued watching.

Linda’s voice called his name in the distance as he backed away from them. Someone grabbed him from behind and he spun around. One of the Marines was pulling him to safety.

“C’mon, kid!”

“But . . . my . . . my mom and dad!”

A painfully loud blast came from the ship and the sky filled with copper light. David and the Marine fell to the ground.

The copper gave way to a bright white. David covered his eyes and screamed.

The light began to dim.

The ship’s thrum became uneven and began to sputter weakly.

“Look!” the Marine shouted, getting to his feet.

David saw something spinning out of his dad’s neck. It dropped to the ground and dirty smoke rose from it, sparks scattered, and then died.

He turned to his mom and saw the same thing. It lay beside her head, black and shriveled.

She opened her eyes.

Dad sat up, rubbing his neck.

“What . . . what’s . . .” Mom’s voice was hoarse and dry.

“Mom!” David shrieked. “Dad! Are you—” He crawled to them. “Are you all right?”

“David,” Dad whispered, taking him into his arms, holding him tight.

Tears burned in David’s eyes, cutting trails down his dirty cheeks. He sobbed so hard, he felt his chest might explode.

“Oh, David . . .” Mom hugged him from behind.

The three of them huddled there, holding tight to one another as the entire ship exploded, its roar going on and on endlessly, setting the sky afire, blowing a hot and powerful wind over the ground that threw dirt in waves around them, burning their skin, blistering, tearing it away . . .

Before David’s horrified eyes, he saw his mom’s face puff up with glistening blisters, watched her skin flake and blow away. He watched Dad’s hair smoke and burn to an ashy white until he was bald, until his scalp began to burn away from the top of his skull. Their eyes flowed with tears, then blood that trickled in streams to their mouths which had been burned open farther and farther until their jaws were naked, shining bone. Their eyebrows disappeared and their eyeballs seemed to melt like butter, dribbling down their cheeks, mixing with the blood.

David screamed and reached a hand out to touch them, to help them somehow, and he saw the bones of his fingers sticking through charred skin, saw his flesh burning away until only his bare wristbone was left.

The ship continued to explode and burn and blow its fiery wind everywhere, howling like no wind had ever howled, mixing with the tortured cries of everyone around David, falling to their knees and wishing for death as their skin burned away like old paper.

“Maaaaawwwm!” David screamed. “Daaaaaad! Maaaawwwm! Daaaaad!”

C H A P T E R
Fourteen

“M
aaaaawm! Daaaaad! Maaawwm! Daaaaad!”

“David! David, wake up! It’s okay!”

“You’re okay, Champ. C’mon, wake up, now.”

He felt hands on his arms and shoulders, on his face, tangled blankets, sweaty pajamas.

David opened his eyes. First there was blurred darkness, then he made out faces . . . Mom and Dad. They loomed over him.

“No!” he screamed, horrified. “Leave me alone! Get away from me!”

“It’s okay, Champ,” Dad whispered, touching his face. “You’re awake now. It’s okay.”

They were sitting on each side of him. Mom patted his chest; Dad stroked his hair with big, gentle hands.

David felt cold and trembly. His pajamas clung to his clammy skin and his lungs gulped air. When he tried to sit up, he found that he was so weak and shaky, he could do no more than squirm and fidget.

“Oooooh, shit,” he sighed, trying hard to pull himself together and calm down.

Mom chided him gently, “David . . .”

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around his room. Everything was fine. The comic books and magazines and toys were still scattered everywhere; none of them were broken or crushed. Light fell through the door from the hallway, stretching all the way across the messy floor to the window. Outside, David saw a gentle flash of lightning from far in the distance.

“Are you looking for something, honey?” Mom asked.

“No, it’s just . . . well, they broke my stuff and stepped on things, and . . .”

“Who?” Dad asked.

Mom leaned forward, her hand still on his chest. “Who broke your things, hon?”

They really didn’t know. It had all been a dream, every bit of it. But where had it started? Where had his waking hours ended and the dream begun? He couldn’t be sure . . .

“It was horrible,” he said. “They chased me all over and they got you and Dad!” The memory clenched his throat and made his voice high and squeaky.

“They did?” Dad asked, cocking a brow.

“Calm down, honey,” Mom whispered. “Just calm down.” Her hand was warm and soft. “Now tell us . . . who chased you?”

“The mar—” He swallowed his words and searched their faces carefully.

Where had the dream begun?
he wondered.

“Dad? Can I . . . let me look at the back of your neck.”

“Boy,” Dad chuckled. “It must’ve been a hell of a dream.”

“Please, Dad . . . let me see.”

“Okay, okay.” He turned his head and pulled down his pajama collar.

David reluctantly touched his dad’s neck. It was smooth and warm. No cuts, no bruises.

“Okay?” Dad asked.

“Yeah,” David nodded, relieved. “Okay.”

“Wait!” Mom sat up on the bed. “What about
me?”

David felt so happy, he could only laugh. “You’re fine, Mom.”

“Phew!” she sighed with mock relief.

David lay back on his bed and told them the whole story, bouncing back and forth in the order of events as they faded in and out of his memory, some clear, some already crumbling.

“That’s pretty weird, David,” Mom said when he was finished.

“Actually, I kinda liked the stuff about the martians coming to steal copper,” Dad laughed. “Copper for energy, huh?”

David nodded. “It was so real.”

Mom stood and went to his desk. “Well, look. Your penny collection is still here. You’re okay. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“You know,” Dad said, “it sounds to me like your nightmare was made up of all sorts of things that happened to you today. The meteor shower . . . your penny collection . . . that big branch in the sand pit. Your mom said that Mrs. McKeltch was mad at you for being late. And Mad Dog Wilson came to your class today; I’m sure that had something to do with it.” He smiled and shrugged. “That’s what all dreams are. Just little pieces of things that happen to us. They fall together when we sleep and make one big, usually weird piece. That’s all.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” David agreed. “But I was so scared.”

Dad stood and went to the door. “You go back to sleep now, Champ. We can talk about it some more in the morning. You’ve got school. Love you.” He walked out.

Mom went to the open doorway and turned to David. Her face was suddenly expressionless. When she spoke, an icy hand clutched David’s heart.

“There is no need to be scared, David Gardiner,” she said, her voice low and flat. “Tomorrow we will go for a picnic. On Copper Hill.”

There was a scuffle in Jasper’s terrarium. The lizard was rigid on its lump of bark; its mouth opened and it hissed loudly.

Mom stepped through the door and slammed it shut.

David whimpered, sitting up in bed. Was she joking? Or . . . Jasper
never
hissed unless he was angry or afraid. He’d never hissed at Mom before. Unless that wasn’t Mom . . .

With his next thought, David clapped his hands over his face and groaned with dread:
I didn’t look at her neck!

When David took his hands away and opened his eyes, spots of light were spinning on the walls. He sat up and looked over the foot of his bed. The planetarium was whirring around madly. David swung his legs from the bed and went to the window.

The floor beneath him began to vibrate; far in the distance he heard a familiar scream, hollow and metallic. He spotted movement deep in the night; something was coming closer very fast, screaming.

“No . . .” He took one step toward the door.

His window shattered; glass cut through the air and rain blew in as lightning flashed, illuminating the drooping face of the Supreme Intelligence, its mouth open, screaming . . . screaming . . . Green fluid ran from the bullet holes in its face and its eyes opened wide as it shot straight toward David.

He screamed, heading for the door as the floor burst open. The air in his room swirled as the three-eyed router shot upward, its blades tossing aside large chunks of the floor and threw the bed against the wall with a thunderous clump.

He threw himself into the hall, screaming for his mom and dad as he ran for their room. He burst through the door and stumbled to a halt.

Their window was open. Rain was pouring inside. A drone turned to him, surprised. David recognized his father’s leg in the drone’s pincers; gnawed meat was visible through the torn pajamas. The creature was eating the leg like a drumstick. Mom was kneeling on the bed in a dark puddle of blood. She turned to David and smiled as the middle of the drone opened up and a tentacle shot toward him. The creature’s mouth, bloody flesh clinging to its fangs, dropped open and it released a horrible, hawking cry. The tentacle wrapped around David and lifted him from the floor, pulling him straight into the drone’s gaping jaws as he—

—sat up in bed with a throaty gasp. His eyes darted around the dark room. His heart was pounding against his ribs. Sweat ran down his forehead and temples, darkened his pajamas like blood, made his sheets sticky.

David held his head in his hands and whispered, “
What
. . . a
dream!”

He threw the covers back and got out of bed, then hurried to the terrarium. Looking over the edge, he said, “Hey, Jasper. Are you okay?”

The lizard poked its head from under the bark.

David grabbed his shirt from the chair and reached into the pocket. The penny was still there, encased in plastic.

Wow,
he thought,
a nightmare inside a nightmare!

Hurrying to the window, he threw up the sash and leaned on the sill.

Storm clouds were gathering, but there were still enough breaks to see the meteor shower. Spots of light were still shooting across the black sky.

David smiled, covered his mouth, and giggled with giddy relief. He took a deep, cool breath of fresh air and exhaled slowly.

He suddenly frowned and cocked his head . . . Was that . . . ?

A distant hum.

Getting louder.

Louder still.

The windowsill began to vibrate beneath his hands. The panes began to rattle.

A heavy, dark thunderhead hovering over Copper Hill began to glow. Something very bright and very big slowly descended through the cloud cover . . .

David backed away from the window. Tears welled in his eyes. “No,” he muttered. “Please, not again.” He rubbed his eyes hard and fast with the heels of his hands.

It was still there.

“No, please let me wake up now . . . please, I want to wake up now . . .”

It lowered beyond the hill.

“Not again. Wake up . . . please . . .”

The light died. The sound stopped. The ship had landed.

“NOOOOOOOO!”