“Get into the school!” I yell.
She doesn’t let go. A clap of thunder breaks through the silence and a storm begins to brew, dark clouds now forming overhead with flashes of lighting and thunder tearing through the night sky, loud pounding thunder that makes Sarah jump each time one booms. Six has reappeared, standing thirty feet away, her eyes to the sky and her face twisted in concentration with both arms raised. She’s the one creating the storm, controlling the weather. Bolts of lightning begin raining down, striking the scouts dead where they stand, creating small explosions that form clouds of ash that drift listlessly across the yard. Henri stands off to the side, loading more shells into the shotgun. The scout that Bernie Kosar is choking finally succumbs to death and bursts into a heap of ash covering the dog’s face. He sneezes once, shakes the ash from his coat and then rushes off and chases the closest scout until they both disappear into the dense woods fifty yards away. I have this unbearable fear that I’ve seen him for the very last time.
“You have to go into the school,” I say to Sarah. “You have to go now and you have to hide. Mark!” I yell. I look up and don’t see him. I snap around. I catch sight of him sprinting towards Henri, who is still loading his gun. At first I don’t understand why, and then I see what is happening: a Mogadorian scout has snuck up on Henri without his knowing it.
“Henri,” I scream to get his attention. I lift my hand to stop the scout with its knife raised high in the air, but Mark tackles the thing first. A wrestling match ensues. Henri snaps the shotgun closed, and Mark kicks the scout’s knife away. Henri fires and the scout explodes. Henri says something to Mark. I yell for Mark again and he sprints over, breathing heavily.
“You have to take Sarah into the school.”
“I can help here,” he says.
“It’s not your fight. You have to hide! Get in the school and hide with Sarah!”
“Okay,” he says.
“You have to stay hidden, no matter what!” I yell over the storm. “They won’t come for you. It’s me they want. Promise me, Mark! Promise me you’ll stay hidden with Sarah!”
Mark nods rapidly. “I promise!”
Sarah is crying and there’s no time to comfort her. Another clap of thunder, another shotgun blast. She kisses me one time on the lips, her hands holding tightly to my face and I know she would stay like this forever. Mark pulls her off, begins leading her away.
“I love you,” she says, and in her eyes she is staring at me in the same way that I had stared at her earlier, before I left home ec, as though she may be seeing me for the final time, wanting to remember it so that this last image might last a lifetime.
“I love you too,” I mouth back just as the two of them reach the steps of the tunnel, and as soon as the words leave my lips, Henri cries out in pain. I turn. One of the scouts has thrust a knife into his gut. Terror sweeps through me. The scout pulls the knife from Henri’s side, the blade glistening with his blood. It thrusts down to stab Henri a second time. My hand reaches out for it and I rip the knife away at the last second so that it is only a fist that hits Henri. He grunts, gathers himself, and presses the barrel of the shotgun to the chin of the scout and fires. The scout drops, headless.
The rain starts, a cold, heavy rain. In no time at all I’m soaked to the bone. Blood leaks from Henri’s gut. He’s aiming the shotgun into the darkness, but all of the scouts have moved into the shadows, away from us, so that Henri can’t get a good enough aim. They’re no longer interested in attacking, knowing that two of us have retreated and a third has been wounded. Six is still reaching for the sky. The storm has grown; the wind is beginning to howl. She seems to be having trouble controlling it. A winter storm, thunder in January. As quickly as everything started, it all seems to stop—the thunder, the lightning, the rain. The wind dies away and a low groan begins to grow from off in the distance. Six lowers her arms, all of us straining to listen. Even the Mogadorians turn. The groan grows, unmistakably coming our way, some sort of deep mechanical groan. The scouts step from the shadows and begin to laugh. Despite our killing at least ten of them, there are many more than before. From far off a cloud of smoke rises over the tops of the trees as if a steam engine is coming around the bend. The scouts nod to one another, smiling their wicked smiles, and re-form their circle around us in what is an apparent attempt to get us back into the school. And it’s obvious that that is our only choice. Six walks over.
“What is it?” I ask.
Henri hobbles, the shotgun hanging limply at his side. He’s breathing heavily, a gash on his cheek below his right eye, a circular puddle of blood on his gray sweater from the knife wound.
“It’s the rest of them, isn’t it?” Henri asks Six.
Six looks at him, stricken, her hair wet and clinging to the sides of her face.
“The beasts,” she says. “And the soldiers. They’re here.”
Henri cocks the shotgun and takes a deep breath. “And so the real war begins,” he says. “I don’t know about you two, but if this is it, then this is it. I, for one…,” he says, and trails off. “Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll go down without a fight.”
Six nods. “Our people fought back till the end. And so shall I,” she says.
A mile off the smoke still rises. Live cargo, I think. That is how they transport them, by oversized semi-trucks. Six and I follow Henri back down the steps. I yell for Bernie Kosar but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“We can’t wait for him again,” Henri says. “There isn’t time.”