Pod (12 page)

He puts his glasses on, studies the page. I sit at the table and watch. His lips are moving, sounding things out. The gears are really spinning. He writes down a couple of words, not even close. After a minute he says, “Do I get a clue?”

“Ha! In your dreams!”

It’s his turn to shrug. He says, “You hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Well, tonight’s menu features a can of chili or a can of clam chowder. I recommend the chili. The chowder is supposed to use milk.”

That’s an easy one. I hate clams. “I guess it’s chili,” I say.

“Would you like it hot? I’ll fire up the camp stove if—”

“No thanks. I prefer my chili cold and congealed.”

“Okay, then.” He gets up, starts for the pantry.

“Hold on. I’ll manage this one,” I say. “You sit down, work on that puzzle.”

He returns to the table. I snag a can of chili from the pantry, open it, dump the contents into a bowl. It sits there in a lumpy brown and red pile. Now I recognize the mystery smell. Chili seasonings and beans sear my nostrils. Dutch, unaffected, is up and drooling on my foot.

Dad, back to the riddle, says, “Not In Your Wacky Friend’s Dorm?”

I hear him but I don’t. I’m staring at the bowl, thinking:
I can’t believe I told her to call 911. I’m an idiot!
I poke at the glop with a spoon. It makes a sucking sound that reminds me of a bodily function. Whatever appetite I had is out the window.

Suddenly the brown bucket is calling.

Dad says, “You look a little green in the gills. Would you like a baggie of water?”

“I’ll eat this later,” I say, knowing that will never happen. “Right now I need to make my donation to the neighborhood beautification project.”

Considering the events of the day, this seems like the right thing to do.

My New Address

This is my new address:

Here are the directions. You go to Level 6 Orange—orange because all the levels have different colors. If you have kids, avoid the bloaters on Levels 3 and 5. The smell is so bad they might puke. Find Row J—you can’t miss it, there’s a little brown Toyota truck at the front with muddy monster tires that Richie slashed. Walk all the way down to space 12, that’s two cars up from the end. If you go too
far you’ll be staring at three huge spaceballs. I’m next to the white Ford Focus with dangling side mirrors (be careful not to step on the broken glass—there’s lots of it). Knock three times on the trunk of the blue Volvo. I’ll pop out like a weasel and say,
Nice to see you!
—unless you’re Richie or Hacker, in which case I’ll scream my head off. Like I did an hour ago when I woke up from a dream about Richie cutting into the trunk with a chainsaw.

I like my new home. It smells nice, like leather and perfume. A thin beam of early-morning sun is shining in through a broken window. The front seat is my dining room—that’s where I would eat if I had any food. The backseat is my living room—that’s where I stretch out and read the
Aliens vs. Predator
comic book for the fiftieth time or play with Cassie when she has the energy. The trunk is my bedroom—that’s where I sleep. It’s really dark in there. My bedroom has two exits, one through the backseat, which folds down, and the other through the trunk lid, which Hacker busted with his metal rod. I hang out in the backseat—excuse me, living room—and scurry like a squirrel into the trunk whenever I hear a noise. Which is almost all the time. I tied a piece of string to the inside of the backseat so I can close it from inside the trunk. I’ve got it down to five seconds. Richie won’t even know I’m here.

After the dream I couldn’t get back to sleep. That’s two nights in a row of not sleeping, and it’s wearing me down. I’m so thirsty I can’t lick my lips. I finished the water just
a minute ago, two sips for me, one for Cassie. It didn’t help. My stomach is cramping and I’m starting to smell like a bloater. I look in the rearview mirror. A wild animal stares back at me. Dirty face streaked with engine oil, red zombie eyes, hair like a bird’s nest. If Mom saw me now she’d run away or probably just die. It’s official. I’m a total cave troll.

To cheer myself up I open my backpack and empty the treasures I’ve found onto the seat. Mom was a big fan of writing things down, so I make a list.

Then I make another list.

So now what? I try opening the briefcase but can’t pop the lock with a screwdriver. I decide it’s not safe to keep the case in the car, so I hide it under the trash in the garbage can next to the green door. I could try sneaking into the hotel, but I don’t like that idea—too many scary people come out of those green doors. I’d rather take my chances in here. But I have to do something. The food I have left wouldn’t fill a Dixie cup. I heard the body can live without food for days, maybe even weeks, but I don’t know about water. It
seems
like less—a lot less. I think Cassie is starving, too. There’s nothing but bone under skin when I pet her. She hardly ever wants to play anymore. I know I should get supplies, but my heart isn’t in it. I have this creepy feeling that Richie set a trap. He’s waiting around the next corner, behind the next car. And when he catches me he’s going to take the metal case. And then he’s going to feed me to the aliens. Every time I close my eyes I see
his snakeskin boots. I hear that lady scream “No!” just before the flash of light. So I don’t do anything.

It’s like I’m a long-necked chicken. I sit in my new home waiting for the farmer with the ax.

Blue-Light Special

The screeching sound again, this time in the middle of the night. I twist like a worm on a hook in my bed, then pull my knees up to my chest and wait for it to end. Or wait to die—whichever comes first.

It stops, sort of.

A blue light seeps into my room. At first it’s just a curiosity, maybe a reflection off something. But within seconds I know it’s something much bigger. It fills my room. The light is so intense that my eyelids can’t stop it. And my hands—I see the veins, like I’m turning into some translucent jellyfish. This can be only one thing. I get out of bed and look out the window. The PODs are glowing, each one as bright as a blue sun. It hurts to look at them, even for a second.

Dad slams into my room. He isn’t wearing a shirt. I see through his skin to shadowy organs underneath. Liver, kidney, a pulsing heart. His head is a screaming skull.

“Don’t look at them, Josh! Don’t look!”

The light turns off. It lasted what, fifteen, twenty seconds? Add the ten seconds of screeching brain torture and the whole experience lasted maybe half a minute. That’s thirty seconds of the aliens yanking our chain. Of the POD commander having a little fun, shaking our cages, making sure the humans don’t get too comfortable or feel too safe. Now my room is completely black, except for the lingering blue globs I see when I close my eyes.

Dad, his brain no longer visible, says, “Where’s your flashlight?”

“On my nightstand.”

I grope around, find it, thumb the switch. It doesn’t work.

“Huh,” I say. “It was working fine when I went to bed.”

He says, “I’ll get the one in the hall closet.”

He walks away, his hand sliding along the wall. I look out the window again. The PODs are back to normal—meaning I barely see them. They’re black holes in a moonless, star-filled sky. In the far-off distance a coyote yaps, then more chime in. I guess they didn’t like the show either. Or maybe they did.

Dad walks into the room carrying a lit candle.

“Couldn’t find the flashlight?” I say.

“It didn’t work.”

He stands beside me at the window. I get a sudden flash
of déjà vu. The two of us in my room, trying to figure out what the hell happened. It makes me shiver.

He says, “Looks like our guests have gone back to sleep.”

That’s his latest word for them—“guests.” And we’re the hosts. Like this is Uncle Charlie, Auntie El, and their obnoxious twins visiting from East Lansing. I told him it’s more like “Masters” and “Bitches,” and guess who we are? He said, “To quote one of your generation’s favorite phrases, ‘whatever.’”

“They never sleep,” I say.

He nods.

“What time is it?” I ask.

He looks at his watch. “That’s strange.”

“What is?”

“The display—it’s dead.” He shakes his wrist, checks the watch again, presses some buttons, frowns.

I say, “I’ll get my cell.” It shows the time on the cover. At least it did the last time I checked. I’ve got a sinking feeling that things are different now. I pull it out of my dresser drawer. Feeling confirmed. “Nada,” I say.

He hands me the candle, goes to my desk, and picks up the chair. He carries it to the middle of the room, stands on it, reaches up, and pushes the test button on the smoke alarm. It’s wired into the household circuit, but also has a battery backup. He changes all the batteries four times a year, like clockwork, so it should be fresh. We should hear an angry three-second blast, a pleasant birdsong compared to the alien screech. Nothing happens.

“Maybe it was some kind of electromagnetic pulse,” he says.

And maybe they’re getting ready to kick our ass.
I say, “It was crazy, Dad. I could see your heart beating.”

“And you didn’t have any eyeballs.”

That’s a vision I’d rather not think about.

We stand there for a few seconds, neither of us saying anything. Then he says, “Looks like the show’s over,” and turns to leave.

“Now what?”

“I’m going downstairs to check on a few things.”

“Make an entry in your notebook, perhaps?”

He smiles. “Yeah, that too.”

This is crazy. A week ago he’d be at Defcon 5, running around trying to board up the windows. Now he’s all calm, as if a blue light that turns us into talking skeletons is nothing special. Something doesn’t add up.

“I think I’ll hang here for a while,” I say, not that into making sure there are still three cans of mushroom soup in the pantry. “Let me know if there’s a problem with Dutch.”

He stops at the door and says, “You know, Josh, with the smoke detectors not working, it might be better if you—”

“I know, I know. Don’t use the candle in my room because I might fall asleep and burn the house down.”

“I’ll follow the same rule,” he says.

“Safety first!” I call to his retreating steps.

He walks downstairs. I blow out the candle. I crawl into
bed, pull up the covers, and ponder this new reality. Even when the power was out, we still had batteries. The house had a pulse. Now it just feels dead. The simple truth hits me like a brick: I have over fifteen thousand songs on my iPod, and I may never hear a single one of them again.