Strange Invaders Read online

  He nodded and winced. “Weird experience,” he said.

  “You must have been terrified,” I said, leaning against a rock. “What did it feel like?”

  “I wasn’t scared,” said Frasier, trying to straighten his glasses. “It was kind of cool. It was like I was there watching while this weird voice came out of my mouth. It never really had a hold of me. I felt like I could push it out with a flick of my fingers, mentally speaking. But I was interested.”

  “Interested!?” Jessie cried. “Those slimy things have fifty-foot-long tentacles. They took over the whole town, turned all the adults into zombies, including our own parents in case you didn’t notice. After what we did, walling them in with that avalanche, you should have been terrified they’d turn your brain to mush!”

  Frasier grinned. “I’m telling you, the thing couldn’t really get a handle on me. But you guys! You guys looked scared!”

  Jessie made a face at him. “Know what, Frasier? You were from another planet even before the alien ate your brain.”

  Frasier stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes. Jessie punched his shoulder lightly.

  But I was thinking. “Maybe we could learn something from this,” I said. “Those things are still there, under Harley Hill. We blocked their tunnel, sure, but it won’t stay that way for long. We have to be ready for them. They’ll find a way out. And when they do—”

  Suddenly Frasier stiffened. “Earth-will-submit,” he said in that flat, robotic voice.

  Jessie and I sprang back. Shivery chills raced up my spine.

  “Everything-will-be-normal,” Frasier stated, baring his teeth. “Perfectly-normal.”

  3

  “AAAAH!” cried Jessie, backing away.

  I couldn’t make a sound. My brain felt frozen.

  Frasier boomed out laughing. “Ha, ha, ha, ha.” He slapped his knee, and his glasses slid down his nose. “You should see your faces,” he said between bursts of laughter. “You guys are so easy!”

  Jessie looked murderous, which was about how I felt. She turned and stalked off down the hill, which was hard to do since it was so steep. “I’m going home,” she yelled back.

  Frasier scrambled to his feet. “It was just a joke,” he called out. He looked at me and shrugged. “I thought we could all do with a laugh.”

  Maybe I was crazy, too, but suddenly it did seem funny. I laughed so hard I almost fell on the ground.

  But when I stopped laughing the hills suddenly seemed too quiet. “We’d better catch up to Jessie,” I said.

  Frasier nodded. But as we started down he looked around, a puzzled look on his face. “Hey, Nick, where did everybody go?” he asked. “Weren’t there like a million people here just a little while ago?”

  My heart skipped. He was right. How could I forget all the adults? We’d followed them up here, unable to shake them out of the zombie trance that was pulling them to the aliens’ cave.

  After the rockslide the aliens had lost their hold on them. The adults had awakened and come back to themselves.

  But they’d been horribly confused. They all started wandering aimlessly, uncertain about where they were and where they wanted to go.

  Now the hills were empty, except for us.

  We hurried down the hill. Jessie was waiting for us where we’d left our bikes. “It’s awfully quiet,” she whispered, her brown eyes big and anxious in the moonlight. “Does it seem too quiet to you?”

  The back of my neck prickled. “It’s night,” I answered. “It’s always quiet at night.”

  “We’ll probably catch up to the adults on the way to town,” said Frasier. “They can’t be that far ahead of us.”

  We got on our bikes and rode in silence. The rocky hills cast huge spooky shadows and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for us in each pool of darkness.

  But nothing moved.

  “Look!” cried Jessie, pointing to the sky.

  My stomach lurched but it was only a flock of birds and they were far away—no danger to us.

  “Since when do starlings fly at night?” muttered Frasier.

  “They’re too far away to tell what they are,” I said sharply. “They could be any kind of bird.”

  “No. I can tell by how they fly,” Frasier said quietly. “Starlings.”

  “They’re going so fast,” said Jessie, her voice sounding fearful in the dark. “They look like they’re fleeing the town as fast as they can.”

  I shivered uneasily. “Let’s not get spooked,” I said.

  We left the dusty, treeless hills. The road to town led through a wooded area. Hardly any moonlight filtered through the trees. It was so dark we had to slow to a crawl.

  Still no people. And no more birds or any other animals either.

  But finally the trees began to thin and we saw a few houses, then a few more. All were dark. Nothing stirred on the streets. Harleyville was like a ghost town.

  “What’s that noise?” asked Frasier, stopping his bike.

  There was a rumble in the air and a snuffling noise, too. It sounded like an elephant with a very bad cold.

  “It sounds alive,” breathed Jessie. “And big.”

  “It’s coming from that house,” I said, pointing to the one on my right.

  “No,” said Frasier. “That one.” He pointed to the one across the street.

  “It’s all of them! All the houses,” cried Jessie. She dropped her bike in the road and dashed for the nearest house. “I’m going to find out!” she called as she ran.

  “No, don’t!” I yelled, but she was already up the porch stairs. She yanked open the front door without even knocking and darted inside.

  “Jessie!” I shouted.

  All around us the noise seemed to get louder. Hungrier.

  Buy Things Now!

  About the Authors

  Rodman Philbrick grew up on the coast of New Hampshire and has been writing since the age of sixteen. For a number of years he published mystery and suspense fiction for adults. Brothers & Sinners won the Shamus Award in 1994, and two of his other detective novels were nominees. In 1993 his debut young adult novel, Freak the Mighty, won numerous honors, and in 1998 was made into the feature film The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone and James Gandolfini. Freak the Mighty has become a standard reading selection in thousands of classrooms worldwide, and there are more than three million copies in print. In 2010 Philbrick won a Newbery Honor for The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg.

  Lynn Harnett, who was married to Rodman Philbrick, passed away in 2012. She was a talented journalist, editor, and book reviewer, and she had a real knack for concocting scary stories that make the reader want to laugh, shriek with fear, and then turn the page to find out what happens next.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1997 by Rodman Philbrick and Lynn Harnett

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-8541-3

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

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