22
Evan’s first thought as he climbed onto the roof of the van was that he’d never been so angry before in his life.
On all sides, the aliens were a sea of purple ooze at least three deep. They rocked the van as they pressed in on the vehicle.
He was angry that the aliens were there, trying to kill his friends.
He was angry that he’d had to see dead, gutted bodies.
He was angry at being forced to do church stuff all the time, instead of going to high school parties.
He was angry at himself for never getting angry until now.
“I need the water balloons,” he said, dancing away from the onslaught of alien claws that stabbed at his feet.
So much for intelligent forms of life, he thought to himself. These things might have a big-ass, scary ship, but they seemed like dumb bullies to him. But you didn’t have to be smart to be dangerous. The aliens were rocking the van like drunk guys after a World Series win, pushing so hard that Abe’s trailer wobbled behind it. If the aliens didn’t kill them directly, then it wouldn’t be long before they had the van turned over or on fire.
Leo hefted the basket of cologne-filled water balloons onto the roof of the van and climbed up. The girls with their water guns followed. Evan gave them a hand and then started plucking balloons from the basket like they were baseballs and he was at pitching practice.
He wound up and threw, and a balloon crashed against the alien trying to rip off his foot. Instantly, its skin went gray and the alien exploded. He wound up again and killed two aliens standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Again and again, he fired off pitches that hit their marks perfectly.
He fired a fastball-speed balloon into a cluster of aliens that had abandoned the perimeter and were making their way to the van. The splash hit each of them about chest-high, exactly where Evan had determined the aliens were most weak.
Every pitch came off his hand like it was on fire. The Evan who played in games—a picture of precision and form and thoughtful-but-deadly control—was there, but gone was the usual mental deliberation he subjected himself to on the mound. His body was a weapon against these things, and there was nothing else quite like it to get the job done.
To Evan’s left, Leo swung his jousting stick against each oncoming beast’s head, disorienting them and leaving them for Teena and Sarabeth to douse with their water guns. The Super Soakers were starting to fade, though, as the girls reached the last of their fragrant ammo.
As the guns’ spray weakened, some aliens would suffer just a wound that created a dead, open patch on their membranes. And the more hideous and scarred they were, the angrier they became. The incensed, disfigured aliens pushed the van harder, rocking it back and forth more haphazardly. Behind it, Abe’s motor home scraped crazily against the ground.
Evan struggled to keep his footing on the roof as he kept an eye on Teena. She looked like she might fall into the gap between the van and the trailer. But somehow, she balanced like a tightrope walker on the van’s edge, her silhouette delicate against the gray March sky. He didn’t know what to make of the way she was all over him one second and ignoring him the next.
But it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was protecting her no matter what.
The aliens spotted Teena’s vulnerable position and closed in on her. As an alien reached for her foot, she kicked it square in its face. “Die, asshole,” she screamed, firing her nearly empty cologne gun. With another swipe, one of the aliens managed to pull Teena halfway off the van’s roof, her legs dangling.
“They’re going to kill her!” Sarabeth shouted, lying stomach-down on the van roof and reaching an arm out for Teena. Teena grabbed hold of Sarabeth’s hand, but the other aliens were rocking the van too hard, and she and Sarabeth slid back and forth across the roof.
Leo and Evan struggled to keep their balance. They couldn’t get enough traction to reach down and pull the girls to their feet. The aliens gave another huge push, and the laundry basket of water balloons slid off the roof, the balloons bursting uselessly on the pavement.
“The glitter,” Teena gasped, her grip on the roof of the van looking tenuous. If she slid an inch more, the aliens could easily grab her. “Get the glitter stuff.”
It took Evan a second, but he remembered flirting with Teena over the glitter at Toys“R”Us. He spied a glitter canister in Sarabeth’s cupholder and pointed at it. “That’s it.”
Leo swung down into the van and tossed the glitter up to Evan. He spotted Teena’s glitter in the backseat cup holder and grabbed it for himself before going back up onto the roof. It only took him about twenty seconds, but it felt like hours to Evan as he swayed from side to side, helplessly watching the girls struggle.
“Hey, fuckers,” Leo said, shaking his glitter canister. The alien let go of the van to look.
“Yeah … assholes!” Evan shouted, now shaking his own canister.
“Prepare to die,” Leo said.
“Just douse them, already,” Sarabeth said. “We’re going to slide right off into the pit.”
At that moment, one of the aliens slashed the air with its vicious claws, connecting with Teena’s thigh. She screamed as blood started to flow.
“Do something!” she yelped. Seeing Teena hurt was all Evan needed to get even angrier.
Leo and Evan jumped off the van like a synchronized stunt team, pressing the spray tops of their cans when they were just inches from the aliens’ lumpy, slimy faces.
The air filled with puffs of glitter, like a bad special effect in a little kids’ movie. Evan’s heart thudded wildly. If this didn’t work, they’d just jumped into a pile of deadly aliens.
Then one alien disintegrated, and then the next and the next. Then the group was gone.
The cloud of glitter that floated down around them felt like New Year’s confetti. Evan turned his face upward, letting the shiny specks coat his face.
“Holy crap!” Evan said, feeling fifty feet tall. “That was fucking awesome!”