32

The huge alien’s shrieks seemed to shatter the air. The noise drilled into my brain until I felt blind and deaf. I knew I was screaming but I couldn’t hear a thing except—

REEEEE-REEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

A black blob the size of a mountain began to roll and bubble through the hole punched in the hillside. Furious tentacles slashed the air so fast they were a blur.

I grabbed Jessie and jumped to the other side of the crate, putting it between us and the boiling alien. But now the crate seemed awfully puny.

Then suddenly the big alien stopped. Its tentacles flopped to the ground. It continued to pulse, giving off a dark angry light but its body stayed half in, half out of the hill.

I took a breath, feeling the smaller blob quiver against me.

“Nick, look at Mom and Dad!” said Jessie. “What’s happened to them? What’s happened to all of them?”

I was afraid to take my eyes off the smoldering alien but I threw a quick glance behind me. My heart lurched. I felt like I was looking at an army of statues. Everyone seemed turned to stone.

“Wow, that was close,” said Frasier, rubbing his arms as he joined us. “One minute my parents were dragging me off and the next second they just let go. Like that alien pressed their ‘off’ switch.”

Jessie nodded. “I think it was because of that one,” she said, indicating our hostage. “The humans didn’t care about it. They had their orders—to get us with the other kids—and they didn’t see anything else.”

“It’s like the aliens don’t really communicate with the adults,” I said wonderingly. “They can make them do things but they can’t understand anything.”

“Yeah,” said Frasier eagerly. “Like a dog does tricks but he doesn’t have the vaguest why you want him to.”

We fell silent, looking at our parents. They stood, slack-jawed and completely still, except for the constant slithering of their eyes. It made me angry to think of them being treated like dogs or windup toys.

I scowled at the big alien slumped half out of the hill. We’d show them!

Then I noticed something about the huge alien didn’t look right. Its tentacles were limp and its pulsing was rapid but dim. “Hey, guys, look,” I said. “Does that thing look sick to you?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Jessie commented.

“Yeah!” exclaimed Frasier. “The tips of its tentacles are shriveling.” He stared at it for a minute. “You know what?” he said wonderingly. “I think the aliens are allergic to our sun! Look at those tentacles. They look burnt. That’s why all the tunnels! They can’t take the sun!”

“Great,” said Jessie sarcastically. “So all we have to do is take off the top of Harley Hill and let the sun pour in and the aliens will fall all over themselves getting off our planet. Terrific plan.”

Just then I felt my own personal alien come unstuck from my shoulder. A pang of alarm went through me when I looked down at it. It was pale and milky-looking. It had stopped making its squealing noises.

Before I could think what to do, it slipped off my shirt and began to slide to the ground. I actually had to catch it in my bare hands.

My stomach rose into my throat as glop engulfed my fingers, hands, wrists, arms. Struggling not to puke from disgust, I swallowed hard and gulped for breath.

Resisting the urge to snatch my hands free of the gummy ooze took all my willpower. I hardly had breath left to speak.

“Frasier, quick!” I panted. “Give me your backpack.”

“My backpack!” He looked at the creature with dismay. “My backpack?”

“Yes!” I insisted. “I’ll put the alien on top of it and we’ll slide it into the crate to keep it out of the sun.”

Reluctantly, Frasier eased out of his backpack, making faces and moaning as he emptied it.

“Hurry!” I demanded in a strangled voice. My fingers felt so icky I couldn’t stand it.

Jessie snatched the backpack from Frasier and dropped it on the ground. As I bent down the creature made a faint noise and feebly tried to crawl up my arm.

But it was too weak. I rolled it onto the backpack where it lay like a puddle of slime-covered dough. Grimacing, Jessie helped me slide the whole thing into the crate.

The alien in the hillside flopped its tentacles when it saw what we were doing but it stayed where it was.

“How are we going to lift the crate?” Jessie asked, looking nervously at the mountainous alien. “The back end is broken.”

“No sweat,” said Frasier, holding up a roll of duct tape. “It was in my backpack. Duct tape is very useful. You never know when it’s going to come in handy.”

Once he got the crate taped up we tried lifting it. That got the big alien all worked up again but it still didn’t come after us.

“Now let’s get out of here,” I said nervously. “We’ll find someplace safer and decide what to do next.”

“But what about that?” asked Jessie, gesturing over her shoulder at the bubbling alien.

“Who cares?” scoffed Frasier. “It can’t chase us. We can do what we want.”

Famous last words.

As we started off with the crate the big alien began to shriek again.

REEEE-REEEEEEEEE-REEEEEEEEE!

And then another piece of the hillside exploded outwards.

KA-BOOOOM!

I threw up my arm to ward off the sudden rain of flying dirt and sharp rock shards.

“Ow!” yelled Frasier. “Let’s get out of here!”

Awkwardly we began to run with the crate. The alien’s shrieks reached such a pitch I felt my head would explode. The terrible sound seemed to paralyze my muscles. Vibrations ran up and down my backbone like shivers of pain.

I glanced back and froze in horror.

The alien was once again boiling out of the hillside. It was even bigger than we’d thought before.

It swelled and bubbled, a massive tidal wave of dark ooze bearing relentlessly down on us.

“Run!” screamed Jessie, snatching up her end of the crate and dragging me and Frasier after her.

But we couldn’t possibly escape it. It kept coming, an endless angry stream of goo rolling after us like boiling tar.

Frasier stumbled on the uneven ground. As I pushed him to his feet, I threw a glance backward.

“AAAIII—!”

But what I saw was so horrible it snatched the scream right out of my throat.