Arrival

Kevin woke with a gasp. It was still dark, but one look at the time on his phone told him that was just because they were underground. In the background, an alarm was sounding, the dull buzz of it constant, while underneath it, there was a dull, metallic thudding.

He knew Luna was awake, because she turned on the lights.

“What is it?” Kevin asked.

Luna looked at him. “I think… I think someone wants to come in.”

CHAPTER TWO

They rushed down to the command center, the knocking louder now that they were closer to the entrance. Even so, with the airlock in the way, Kevin was impressed that the sound was carrying. What were they hitting the door with?

Luna didn’t look impressed; she looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.

“What if it’s the aliens, or controlled people?” she demanded. “What if they’re going around, rounding up survivors?”

“Why would they be doing that?” Kevin asked, but fear crept into him at the thought of it. What if they were? What if they got in?

“It’s what I’d do if I were an alien,” Luna said. “Take over everything, make sure there’s no one left to fight back. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

Not for the first time in his life, Kevin vowed never to get on Luna’s bad side. Even so, he could hear the fear underneath her words. He could even share it. What if they’d run all the way to somewhere that felt safe, only for it to be falling apart already?

“Can we see who’s out there?” Kevin asked.

Luna pointed to the blank screens. “They’ve been dead since last night.”

“But that’s just the signal from around the world,” Kevin insisted. “There must be… I don’t know, security cameras or something.”

There had to be. A military research facility wouldn’t stay blind to everything happening around it. He started to press buttons on the computer systems, trying to find a way of getting them to do what they wanted. Most of the screens there were blank, the signals from around the world cut off, or blocked, or just… gone. Luna started pressing buttons beside him, although Kevin suspected that she didn’t know what to do any more than he did.

“Whoever it is, I don’t know if we should let them in,” Luna said. “It could be anyone out there.”

“It could be,” Kevin said, “but what if it’s someone who needs our help?”

“Maybe,” Luna said, not sounding convinced. “Whoever it is, they’re hitting the door pretty hard.”

That was true. The metallic echoes of each blow reverberated through the bunker. They came in groups of three, and slowly Kevin started to realize that there was a pattern to the spaces between them.

“Three short, three long, three short,” he said.

“You mean SOS?” Luna asked.

Kevin glanced over to her.

“I thought everyone knew that,” she said. “That’s about all I remember.”

“So someone out there is in trouble?” Kevin asked, and the thought of that brought a different kind of worry. Should they be helping, rather than hesitating? He spotted a picture of a camera down in the corner of one of the screens. He pressed it, and now the screens lit up with images from security cameras around the deserted base.

“That one,” Luna said, pointing to one of the images as if Kevin didn’t know how to pick one out from the rest. “Here, let me.”

She pressed a button, and the image came to fill the screen.

Kevin didn’t know what he’d been expecting. A horde of people controlled by the aliens, maybe. Some soldier who knew about the base and had fought his way across the country to get there. Not a girl their age, holding what looked like the remains of a signpost and banging it against the door in a steady rhythm.

She was athletic and dark-haired, her hair cut short and a stud through her nose as if daring the world to say anything about it. Kevin could see that her features were pretty, very pretty, he thought, but with a tough edge to them that suggested she wouldn’t appreciate being called that. She was wearing a dark hooded top with a leather jacket over it that seemed a couple of sizes too big, ripped jeans, and hiking boots. She had a small rucksack, like she was just on the mountain for the hiking, but the rest of her looked more like a runaway, her clothes streaked with enough dirt that she could have been out there for weeks before the aliens came.

“I don’t like this,” Luna said. “Why is there just one girl out there, trying to get in?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin said, “but we should probably let her.”

That made sense, didn’t it? If she was asking for help, then they should at least try to, shouldn’t they? The girl was looking up at the screen now, and although there didn’t seem to be any sound, she didn’t look happy at being left out there.

Luna pressed something and now they could hear her, microphones picking up her words.

“…to let me in! There are still those things out here! I’m sure of it!”

Kevin found himself looking past her on the screen, and sure enough, he thought he could make out the signs of people there, moving with the odd purposelessness that suggested the aliens had them.

“We should let her in,” Kevin said. “We can’t just leave someone out there.”

“She’s not wearing a mask,” Luna pointed out.

“So?”

Luna shook her head. “So if she’s not wearing a mask, how is the alien vapor not converting her? How do we know that she isn’t one of them?”

As if in answer to that, the girl on the screen moved closer to the camera, staring straight up into it.

“I know there’s someone in there,” she said. “I saw the camera move. Look, I’m not one of them, I’m normal. Look at me!”

Kevin looked into her eyes. They were wide and brown, but most importantly, the pupils were normal. Not shifted to pure white the way the scientists’ had been when the vapor from the rock had claimed them, or the way his mother’s had been when he’d gone home…

“We have to let her in,” Kevin said. “If we leave her out there, the controlled people will get her.”

Sure enough, Kevin could see figures in military uniform moving forward, moving in unison, obviously under the aliens’ control.

He ran for the airlock and used the key Dr. Levin had given him to open it. Beyond, the girl was there waiting, while the former soldiers were closing in now, breaking into a run.

“Quick, inside!” Kevin said. He pulled the girl inside the airlock, because there was no time to waste. He went to pull the door closed, knowing that they would be safe the moment it was there between them and the controlled who advanced on the base.

It didn’t budge.

“Help me,” Kevin shouted to her, hauling on the door and feeling the solidity of the steel beneath his hands. The girl grabbed hold of it with him, pulling at the door, throwing her weight back to try to move it.

A little way away, the former soldiers were advancing at a run, and it was all Kevin could do to keep his attention on the door, not on them. It was the only way he could keep his terror at bay and focus on throwing his own weight back, pulling at the door.

Finally, it gave way, grinding into motion as they dragged it closed. Kevin heard the echo of it as it slammed, locking with a click that rang around the airlock.