21
It didn’t happen often, if ever, that Teena had to question why she was riding in the backseat. If she rode there, it was usually—no, always—because she wanted to.
Not, as just now, because Leo and Sarabeth had climbed into the front seats like an established couple who were just dragging around the friends they’d set up on a date. “You sure your arm feels good?” Teena leaned closer to Evan, making sure to bump the back of Leo’s driver’s seat as she did so, but careful to not disturb the shopping baskets of cologne-filled water balloons they’d worked the past five hours to prepare. “We really need you for this.”
Evan gulped and nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
She actually felt bad, doing this to Evan. She knew he liked her. Yes, he’d momentarily stunned her in the toy store when she’d been massaging his arm and he’d actually pulled away to become Mr. Take Charge. But she knew he was like a puppy dog that would follow her anywhere, and she’d always been more of a cat person. Still, he didn’t deserve to be used the way she was using him. She had no other options, though. Making the guy you liked jealous by paying attention to another guy was one of Teena’s specialties, and poor Evan happened to be the only guy she had to work with.
In the rearview, Leo grinned at Evan. “Yeah, man? You sure you’re good? Not to put pressure on, but we’re counting on you.”
Seriously, how could Leo not care about her at all? How was it possible that just last night he was dying to sleep with her again, and one alien invasion later, he suddenly was all a-dither over Sarabeth? Teena ran her tongue over her teeth to check for errant food.
“We’re counting on you, too, Teena,” Sarabeth piped up from the front seat. “You’re our best shot.” Her voice was a little feeble. She must have been picking up on Teena’s mood. But Teena was hurt. Leo had rejected her. And then, right when they had been bonding, it felt like Sarabeth had dropped her for a guy as soon as Leo had materialized with meaningful eye contact and a teddy bear he hadn’t even paid for. She wanted to be happy for Sarabeth. She was obviously stunned by the attention from Leo and had done nothing to actually steal him from Teena. But this was life, not the CW, and Teena wasn’t ready to neatly air her teenage emotions.
“Yeah, I know,” Teena replied, pulling the pump on her Super Soaker and pretending to be very interested in the scenery, which was either wasted or void. She was so used to being a queen in Tinley Hills that she’d never noticed how blah it was. The horizon was all parking lots and shopping centers, just like anywhere else. It was weird how different the world looked when you were no longer on top of it.
In the front seat, Leo looked over at Sarabeth. “You okay?” He asked it with the kind of casual concern a guy reserves for a girl he truly cared about. If this were a romantic comedy, Teena would have been wanting the Leo and Sarabeth characters to quit with the cute chitchat and get together, already. As it was, it made Teena want to barf and cry at the same time.
Seven weeks. Seven weeks of summer she’d wasted with him, and not once had he expressed that kind of like for her. Never even “Are you cold?” when they were half naked down in her clammy basement. Yes, their affair had been clandestine, but it wasn’t as if Leo even tried to make it more than that. If he was feeling generous, she got some free burnt pizza, a hit of his pot, and maybe a compliment on her cute underwear.
She’d set out to host her party and told herself she would finally land Cameron Lewis. But now it was so clear: She was definitely not over Leo. The lame-o therapist her mom sent her to would say that she had daddy issues and that was why she coveted the love and affection of men whose attention was directed elsewhere. But Leo’s wandering eye and man-slutness had never bugged her more than it did now. They were all going to die, and she couldn’t get a date.
Teena just needed to do a much more convincing job of “liking” Evan, prompting Leo to snap him out of his Sarabeth stupor. Teena wanted Leo to choose her now, not just settle for her once he figured out that Sarabeth would not put out.
Across the backseat, Teena could feel Evan’s eyes on her back as she looked out the window at the gray buildings and drab, empty landscape. “Is it freaking you out?” The way he said it oozed thoughtfulness. She cocked her head in his direction to see him eagerly questioning her with his bright baby-blue eyes, half sweet and half bewildered to be talking to her. He looked kind of cute geared up as they all were in foam chest plates with Super Soakers, paintball guns, and jousting sticks strapped to their chests and sides.
She’d be lying to say that, looks-wise, Evan didn’t do anything for her. But he was Evan Brighton and so pure he made even Sarabeth look like the class slut. She didn’t know if she could handle pure. A week ago, she might have gone out with him on a dare, just to mess with his head or prove she could make a lame guy seem desirable on her arm.
“I’m fine,” she said, wondering what this whole experience would have been like if she’d survived with different people, with her so-called friends. Ermer’s finest would probably have wanted to use an alien invasion as an excuse to get extra drunk. The guys would have gone through the rubble at Teena’s looking for lost bottles of Boone’s Farm. Nathalie Oliverio and the rest of her girlfriends would probably still be hyperventilating and hugging one another while they talked about their emotions and tried to start an exclusive Facebook group for survivors.
As per the plan they’d concocted, Leo came down a side street and pulled into the parking lot of a Jewel grocery store. He kept the Gussy Me Up van and Abe’s trailer hidden behind a tall hedge that faced Fordham Avenue. Just across the four-lane street from them was one stretch of the alien perimeter, covering the sidewalk and streets between 159th and 161st. Past that was the start of Prichard Estates, a gated townhome community that, even from here, Teena could tell contained no signs of life.
“Ready?” Evan asked her. Teena looked from the aliens to him and gave a single nod. Screw Salvador Dalí and the melting clocks she’d studied in art history class. Aliens lining the sidewalk in front of Red Lobster while Teena shared the backseat with Supervirgin Evan? This was surreal.
“Step one, divert,” Sarabeth said. With the van still running, she and Leo set down remote-control cars on the pavement, steering them across the empty road toward two of the biggest aliens. Leo’s red Lightning McQueen whizzed right over an alien’s slimy feet. The row turned to look, closing in on the red car just as Sarabeth’s yellow monster truck steered its way into the circle. The aliens were like apes at the zoo, poking the cars with their long, clawed fingers. They looked around for the source of the cars while Leo launched a remote-control helicopter and Sarabeth operated a remote-control inflatable shark.
“It’s working,” Evan said, watching. “They’re taking the bait.”
“You ready, offensive line?” Leo asked Evan and Teena, dropping his remote and sending the chopper down into the alien circle. He floored the van toward the distracted group.
Teena and Evan leaned out the large window Evan had broken. Teena pressed hard on the trigger of her Super Soaker, shooting a huge stream of Otherworldly at the aliens. Evan picked up a water balloon filled with the cologne from a shopping basket at his feet. They had a hundred of them, painstakingly filled with cologne. His eyes narrowed and, almost like he was possessed, he hurled the balloon at the cluster of aliens that had gathered away from the perimeter.
Evan’s first balloon hit with a massive splash, dousing three aliens clustered around the car. Almost instantly on contact with the liquid, their purple membrane went gray. Beneath the slime, their insectlike faces shriveled like old grapes. Their chests sank inward, and even amid the din, Teena could hear their skin crisping out. Simultaneously, the three turned to dust and burst, clouding the clear, cold air.
“It worked, it worked!” Sarabeth shrieked in the front seat. “You’re a genius.” She was looking at Teena. Sarabeth shrieked again in victory, and Teena did, too, forgetting that she was mad as Sarabeth high-fived her.
The victory celebration was short-lived. The dead-alien vapor floated overhead, dusting the other guard aliens. One of the creatures looked down the line, seemingly confirming its missing compatriots. All at once, dozens of aliens moved in on the van. Their offensive worked, but they were surrounded.
Teena blasted another stream of cologne out her window, killing an alien instantly. But several more came in its place, reaching in the window, their long claws ripping through the upholstery as Teena backed away from the window and into Evan’s lap. He gripped her arm protectively, his hands stronger than Teena had imagined. He hurled a water balloon at the group, killing three aliens. Teena’s heart hopped the slightest bit when his warm breath hit her bare neck.
She wondered if they’d find them dead like that, Evan holding her. If there was a “they” left to find them.
“We’ll be okay,” Evan told her. He walloped another alien with a water balloon. As Teena watched the thing go up in a cloud of dust, she actually believed him. Her body relaxed a little, and she took aim again. As she did, one of the aliens lashed out with its claws across the top of Evan’s chest. Teena took aim and shot the alien square in the face.
Evan was bleeding. Teena pressed her hands to his chest. “Oh my god,” she said, looking into Evan’s eyes, wondering if he was going to die.
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, looking down and wiping away the blood. It was a big scratch, but he’d live. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
He turned away from her and lobbed another water balloon at the angry mass of aliens. Puppy dog, she reminded herself, somewhat unconvincingly.
Up in the front, Sarabeth and Leo sprayed away at the aliens pressing into the front windows, killing some but unable to fully squelch the onslaught. They were soon overwhelmed as a fresh set of aliens abandoned the perimeter, pushing in on them.
“There are too many,” Sarabeth said, pale and ghostly with fear.
“We just need to break through,” Teena told her. “If we can get to the mall without a tail, we might be okay.”
Sarabeth rolled up both front windows, trapping one alien’s arm. Leo squirted the alien’s flailing limb with cologne. The arm dusted instantly, raining onto the van’s upholstery. Outside, the alien backed away, poking at its damaged limb. The other aliens weren’t frightened, though, and continued to come at the van.
Behind Teena, Evan lobbed Otherworldly-filled water balloons with all his might. His angle wasn’t great, now that he had to stay back from the window. He was missing as many as he was hitting, and the supply was running low.
His eyes shot to the sunroof above Sarabeth’s seat.
“I can throw better if I get out of the van,” he said, his eyes fixed on the sunroof, unblinking as he pushed the button for it to open.
“Yeah, but if you get out of the van, they can kill you better, too,” Leo said, noticing Evan’s wound with concern in his eye. At the front of the van, an alien’s claws screeched against the glass. Teena’s spine curled at the sound. The van rocked like it had been rammed.
“Well, we’re all gonna die if we stay in here,” Evan said. Teena was still partially leaning against him, and she felt his body tense, like he was holding in energy he had to let out. “Get me on top.”
“If you go, we all go,” Teena said, surprising herself. And she wanted to kill these things, which wasn’t going to happen when they were trapped like rats in here.
“Fine, but me first,” Evan said, getting up. Teena instantly felt the absence of his arm. She watched nervously as he pushed off Leo’s shoulder and heaved himself onto the roof.
Teena watched him go, thinking that even puppy dogs could surprise you sometimes.