29

Behind me Frasier and Jessie screamed. “Nick! What are you doing?”

Someone grabbed the back of my shirt. The crate rocked dangerously.

“Keep back,” I shouted, twisting away.

Hands grabbed again for my shirt. The aliens were close, knocking each other aside to be the first to get me. I reached behind me and shoved at the hands holding me.

“Trust me,” I shouted. “And keep back. Don’t let the crate fall over.”

I shut out their arguing voices. I needed all my concentration.

I waited until the tentacles were so close I could almost touch them. Then I swung myself sideways, so the alien stuck to me was no more than an inch from the wooden edge of the crate.

The blob bubbled and flattened against me, making small squealing noises. The approaching tentacles stopped dead, their tips quivering.

I focused my thoughts at the tentacles although I didn’t think they could understand. “Let us out,” I demanded loudly. “Let us out this instant or I will mash your friend against this wood. And that’s a promise!”

The tentacles recoiled, shrieking and slapping against one another. I went through the whole thing again, using lots of sign language. I pointed at me, at the closed-up glowing former entrance, at the blob sputtering slime all over my shirt.

“Out!” I screamed.

The tentacles backed off. As quickly as it had come the heat went out of the rock walls around us. The steam died down and the flames and colors disappeared. The rock stopped flowing.

Frasier gasped. Before us was a new glow. The entrance was glowing again but this time the glow was burning a hole—a way out!

The hole grew wider. The tentacles were backed against the walls, swaying slightly and silent.

“We’re outta here!” whooped Frasier, standing on the pedals. The bike didn’t work very well but at least it moved. And we were still safe inside our crate.

We rode out of the chamber and found ourselves in the vast cavern of the mothership, the place I remembered as their control room. But before we could look around and get any ideas, another hole opened on the far side of the control room.

Through it we could see what looked like daylight!

“Oh, yes,” breathed Frasier thankfully, and started pedaling with all his might.

Th-wunk, Th-wunk.

The tires were definitely flat. I looked behind us. The chamber entrance was filled with fat, hissing tentacles, pulsing and glowing with purple light.

“Come on, bike,” Jessie urged. “Just a little farther. Just a little more.”

Th-wunk, Th-wunk, Th-wunk.

The bike limped across the cavern and bumped on into the tunnel. Sunshine slatted across the melted-rock floor.

I looked over my shoulder. The tentacles were slithering across the cavern after us. My heart flip-flopped but when I turned to see how much farther we had to go, we were there! Outside!

Frasier stopped the bike. We were on the slope of Harley Hill, the tallest of the barren rocky hills west of town.

I climbed out of the crate so Frasier and Jessie could get out but I kept my hand on the wood at all times. I wasn’t taking any chances with our resident alien.

“We made it,” cried Frasier, high-fiving me and Jessie and me again. We were all laughing and ready to collapse with relief.

“I guess you were right bringing that alien,” said Frasier. He reached into the crate and brought out his baseball bat. “But now it’s time to get the slimy little sucker off you, don’t you think? Its friends can come and collect it when we leave.”

My flesh crawled. More than anything I wanted to do what Frasier said—get this revolting thing off me and run from this place as fast as I could. But—

“We might be safe—for now—but the aliens still have our school friends,” I said. “Our parents are still taken over by them. The aliens are too strong for us. We’ll never save everybody and get rid of them on our own.”

Frasier’s eyes narrowed. He straightened his glasses and looked back at the new tunnel, its melted rock surface still glistening in the sun. Jessie looked at the little alien as if she had an apple stuck in her throat.

The alien was pulsing rapidly. It looked like a huge beating heart made out of half-melted gummy bears.

“What’s your plan?” asked Jessie cautiously.

“Uh-oh,” said Frasier. He was looking over my shoulder, down the hill. “All plans on hold for the moment, guys. We got trouble coming.”

I turned, careful not to scrape the alien against the wooden crate. Marching up the hill in zombie formation were all of Harleyville’s adults.

They were hefting pickaxes and shovels and making straight for us. Their eyes were stone-cold except for the slithering thing that glowed in their depths.