Homicidal Aliens and Other Disappointments (24 page)

“We’ll need her,” he says.

I feel time stop. Everything freezes except me. I run toward Dylan, pushing aside the still forms of people as gently as I can. I don’t know how much time I have, but I need to get the gun before Dylan gets away. And I almost make it. Almost. But I’m still a good two feet away when time starts back up again and Dylan doesn’t hesitate; he aims his gun and fires at me.

A lot of things happen at once. The roar of the crowd starts back up. Dylan’s bullet comes at me. And I step out of the moment.

I move to another moment. In that one I fall, dying.

Wrong moment.

I move into another. In that one I’ve turned so the bullet enters my side. Hurts. Maybe I’ll live, maybe not. Catlin rushes toward me, her expression horrified.

Wrong moment.

There are a lot of variations of these moments. I die, and I die, and I may or may not die, but I fall and am helpless in all of these. But then I find one where I don’t. Just one.

In that moment, the moment in which I live, I raise my hand and use my mind to turn the bullet. And the bullet misses me. I choose that moment. I step back into it; the bullet misses me.

But Dylan is not done with me yet. He takes aim again, and neither of us sees Lauren until it’s too late. She rushes between Dylan and me just as a second shot goes off. She stops so suddenly. I can hear the surprised breath catch in her throat. I will hear it for the rest of my life.

I try to force myself backward, back to an earlier moment, so I can stop Lauren from jumping between us, but I can’t. I can’t force myself anywhere. I’m stuck in this terrible moment, one of the worst in many terrible moments since the aliens invaded.

Lauren falls.

Catlin gets to Lauren before I do and tries to pull her back from death, but I can feel Lauren going, slipping away, and I know even Catlin can’t help her.

I try talking to the Warrior Spirit even though I don’t even know if he’s there. I beg him to save her. I say if he’s a god and he’s really in me, then he will. Silence.

I kneel by Lauren. I take her hand. She says something, but her voice is gone. I lean close to her and mindwhisper,
You’ll be okay. You’re going to be fine.

Liar. I can pick them, can’t I? A boy who’s in love with another girl and a boy who’s in love with himself.

I want to say something that will make things better, but it’s too late for that. All I can do is kiss her on the cheek, a hopeless gesture that is too little and much too late. I almost loved her. Sometimes
almost
is an unforgivable word. You might as well say you were drowning and were almost saved.

I guess I won’t be the first woman president after all,
she mindspeaks.

I smile. She smiles. It’s her real smile, her private one. And for a second it’s almost all right, and in another second she’s gone.

I look up and see Catlin and Michael staring helplessly at Lauren. Another dead — and this time Lauren. Lauren.

I stand, scanning for Dylan. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to make the world a better place.

“Where’d he go?” I say to no one in particular.

Michael looks around and sees what I see — no Dylan.

“Gone,” he says.

“I don’t see Running Bird, either,” Catlin says.

I’m about to take off running, though I don’t know which direction to run in. But I don’t get a chance.

I hear them before I see them. Not Dylan. Not his sidekicks. Too powerful. A second later the killing begins.

Sorry for your loss.

Sorry for your loss.

Sorry for your loss.

It’s chaos. People are trying to run away, but in their panic, they run into one another. I’m yelling with my mind for them to fight the way we’ve trained. I’m yelling at them to form groups, to join. The Hunter hears me. He smiles when he catches sight of me in the crowd.

There you are!
he thinks, like we’re old friends.
So nice to see you again.

I manage to get a group of three — two women and one man — to join. And Catlin and I join. And we attack. We attack the group of hunters that have made a little wedge into our camp, like an arrowhead, with
the
Hunter at the front.

Surprise. The aliens are surprised by our strength and even more surprised when they’re shot. I look up the hill and see Running Bird and Michael firing rifles from between the trees. The aliens see them, too, and stop the next round of bullets in midair. Running Bird and Michael have automatic rifles, though, and they keep firing, faster than the aliens can stop the bullets. I see a hunter drop.

I can feel that the Hunter is furious about the guns. He thinks of the guns as machines. He has the alien hatred of anything machine.

Catlin and I kill a hunter who’s distracted by the bullets. The Hunter comes toward us then. He sends some kind of wave that knocks Michael and Running Bird back. I don’t know if it kills them or just knocks them off their feet, and I don’t have time to check because the Hunter is headed straight for me.

He mindspeaks,
Time to die. Past time to die, Dreamwalker.

People are backing away, trying to retreat without full-out running. The Hunter’s focus on me takes it off them, and many make it to the safety of trees. The hunters chase after them in their awkward alien way but can’t keep up. They may be awesome fighters, but they run like ducks.

Nearly everyone has made it to the trees. It’s just me and Catlin now, holding our ground. The other hunters have closed around us; we’re surrounded.

Some movement from up the hill catches my eye. Michael and Running Bird are running down the hill toward us. I’m so relieved to see that they’re alive that it takes me a second to realize they’re headed for certain death. I mindshout at them to run away, but they don’t.

The Hunter stands before me.
You’re keeping everyone waiting.

I need to make this stop. I try to freeze time again or move into another moment. Something.
Anything.

And then . . . I’m gone.

I’m on the peak of a mountain, though not the one I climbed earlier. There’s mist all around, through which I can just see a valley below and other mountains, all thick with trees.

Where in the devil’s home am I?

Off to my right is one of those tall book stands. A book is open on top of it, the pages flipping in the soft wind.

“It is all written,” says a voice from the wind.

“Are you the Warrior Spirit?” I ask, though who else can it be, really? “If you are, you’re a crappy god. You didn’t help me when I asked. You didn’t save Lauren.”

“It was written that she would die,” the voice says. “Is written, will be written. And I am not the Spirit of the Warrior.”

“Who are you, then?”

But the wind voice ignores my question. “
You
are the Spirit of the Warrior. Well, technically, the Spirit is within you. Read the book. All questions and all answers are contained in its pages.”

“My friends —”

“They are safe — for now. Read the book. Read the book and know.”

I walk over to the book, wondering if any of this is really happening or if the Hunter killed me and this is some joke. Like maybe the angels and god or gods play this joke on everyone — look at that guy believing he’s really getting to read
the
book!

The pages keep blowing one way and then the other. I put my hands on them to hold them in place. I try to read a few lines, but the words won’t stay in place. They fade and come into focus and fade again. I think they even change.

“Everything is written, was written, and will be written,” the wind voice says. “But it is not written in stone.”

I can’t focus. I force myself to concentrate. One line catches my eye. Just one. But I think the wind, whatever the wind is, means for me to see that one line.

“That is my gift,” the wind says.

“Nothing is written in stone,” I say because I feel like I almost understand. Then I think I do. “Nothing is written in stone, but everything is written.”

I don’t have a lot of time to think this over. I’m back in my moment. The Hunter, swollen with power and rage, is right in front of me. Catlin, Michael, Running Bird, and I are surrounded and completely outnumbered.

In this moment and in this place, we are about to die. It’s written. So, we can’t be in this moment and this place.

“Explain to me how we got here again,” Michael says.

We’re sitting on a cliff above the camp: me, Michael, Catlin, and Running Bird. But just a few moments ago, we were standing in the center of camp, surrounded by aliens.

“I saw it in my mind. Then I thought of us here. And here we are.”

“But how?” Michael says.

“I read it in THE BOOK,” I say.

“What book?” Michael says.

“THE BOOK.”

“That really clears things up,” Michael says.

I describe it, then I say, “There was a sentence in it that said the four of us could move from the place of death to this place, but I would have to see it. Then the book showed me. I saw it was one in billions of possibilities — the only one we weren’t dead in. I only saw it because I saw it in the book. I couldn’t have found it on my own. I pictured this place in my mind the second I got back to the place of death, and we were there, and then we were here.”

“But
how
?” Michael says again. “I’m not complaining — I’d rather be here than dead — but how could we be there one second and here the next?”

“All is written,” Running Bird says, “but it is not for us to know the whole story. We are a few lines, nothing more.”

“But not written in stone,” I say.

Running Bird looks disturbed but thoughtful and, for once, has nothing to say. Michael looks more irritated than thoughtful.

I look over at Catlin, who has been unusually quiet this whole time. Even in the dim light, I can feel her eyes locking on to mine.

There’s no talent for what you just did. None of the talented have ever done something like that,
she mindspeaks at me.
You have the spirit in you.

You still have faith in me?

Yes.

I have faith in you,
I mindspeak.

She smiles. I wonder if she knows what I mean. There’s no doubt. There’s no almost.

We lost some moments somewhere. Maybe hours. We realize this as we make our way down the mountain. We go to the clearing about a mile off, where Running Bird — wisely, it turned out — ordered everyone to meet in case of another attack. We’re relieved to see a lot of New Americans there. Some are asleep, some awake. They gather around us, thanking the gods that we’re safe.

Running Bird asks how many were lost in the attack, and they tell us twenty-three were killed or are missing. Twenty-three.

Also missing are Dylan and his friends, who ran off during the confusion. “Good riddance,” most people say — but not all.

Some people say that they want to make a stand here or go back to our first camp, our home, and make a stand there. They want to fight.

“They’re too strong,” I argue. “We barely got away this time. We were lucky. Any stand will be a last stand.”

“So what do we do?” someone asks. “We can’t run. We can’t fight. What else is left?”