They Came In The Night - J.L. Melton

They Came In The Night - J.L. Melton

Book excerpt

The Arrival

IT was in October 2150 that our lives on the planet Earth changed forever. I was home by myself. My wife and kids had gone to visit her parents for the weekend. Yeah—I guess I was batching, just me and Princess, our Yorkie-mix with whatever. She is eight years old, small with black-and-gray fur, and we love her very much. Princess was a rescue who came into our lives after we lost our other dog Mackie to cancer.

I mention our dog Princess in detail because she played a big part in the way our lives changed on Earth after the Zarks’ invasion on Saturday, October 18, 2150.

My name is Michael Kenner. I am forty-five years old, six feet tall, slender, with green eyes and brown hair, and married to a beautiful woman named Nancy. We have a son, James, and a daughter, Rita. They say that I am too tall for my breeches at work because I try to do more work and solve problems. We live in a small town called Timmons in the state of South Carolina.

I didn’t know why but for some unknown reason the Zarks’ invasion of Earth took place in our small town first. And they were specifically looking for my dog, Princess, and me.

I worked at the local mill here in Timmons. I had been working here for twenty-two years. So, I guess you could say that I was one of the senior engineers here. The mill here went by the name “TIMMONS ENGINEERING PARTS, LLC”. The mill made parts for hovercrafts and space vehicles that traveled to the moon bases and back. I was one of the primary design engineers for the parts and accessories used in these crafts.

I was feeling sick on this particular Saturday in October and I left work early that evening. When I arrived home, which is not far from the mill, my dog Princess was going ballistic. She was snarling, growling, and barking so loud that you could hear her all over the house. She ran into the kitchen, panting and pacing all over with a sense of uneasiness. I, the not-knowing human, assumed she needed to go outside in a hurry. I figured she needed to do the “pee-pee” and the “poopy”. But that wasn’t the case. She wanted to go outside for another reason that I didn’t expect.

When we got outside, she just looked at me nervously and then she looked up and started growling and barking continuously. I was extremely perplexed. I had no idea what the matter was with her. And then it happened. The sun was setting in the west … and I saw what was causing Princess to be so upset.

***

They were flying just above the trees. Golden spacecraft with an elliptical shape. The spacecraft were glowing vividly. There were a least a dozen of them. I could not believe what I was seeing in the sky. But my dog Princess believed what she was seeing. She somehow knew ahead of time that they were coming … tonight.

I knelt and picked up Princess and she finally settled down. Almost immediately, she ceased her barking, snarling, and growling.

The golden spacecraft circled all around our little community here in Timmons, as if they were looking for something or someone. I ran back inside the house as quickly as I could. Antsy, Princess began to whimper and whine loudly when I put her down on the kitchen floor. She kept looking up at me with anxious eyes as I attempted to reach my wife and kids on my mobile phone. I was shocked to see that the four bars I usually had at home were showing “NO SIGNAL” on the home screen. We don’t have a landline anymore, so my cell phone was the only way I could contact my family.

I sighed and exhaled heavily because I was getting concerned about what was happening around here, and I needed to make sure my family was safe. I looked down at Princess and she turned her head and looked at me with concern in her eyes. I patted her and told her to follow me to the living room. I turned on the TV to see if any news bulletins were being given. But the same problem I had with my mobile was the same problem with the TV: “NO SIGNAL” was bouncing across the big screen on every channel I tried to get.

“Come on, Princess … we are going to town to see if anyone there is having the same problems we are having here at home.” I attached her leash to her collar and we left the kitchen and went outside to get into my old pickup truck.

When I turned the ignition key, the damn truck did not do anything—like, it was completely dead. Nothing worked. The horn, the lights, the radio, the signal lights. Not a damn thing worked. I was getting frantic, and Princess could sense this as she started whimpering and looking at me with loving and gentle eyes. The only reason I could come up with was that the spacecraft must have something to do with it.

“But why are they … here?” I said to myself and Princess. I was getting frightened and worried about what was happening, and concerned about my wife’s and kid’s well-being.

I was wondering if the spacecraft were from our military. Are they Russian, Chinese, North Korean? Or are they aliens from another planet? I knew—to the best of my knowledge—we didn’t have anything like these crafts in the sky.

“Could this be some kind of secret weapon? That they are testing or deploying in an actual invasion?” I asked myself and Princess.

Princess just looked at me with a puzzled expression, like she was bemused about all the things I was saying.

I took my old bicycle out of the garage and oiled the rusted chain before we rode it into town. I figured I would stop by my best friend Bobby Brook’s house first before Princess and I rode on into town. Bobby works at the mill, too. He is a design engineer and is quite talented.

He recently got his master’s in engineering from our college here in Timmons. Bobby was divorced and had two daughters. Bobby’s mother is Black and his father is white, and they were both retired schoolteachers; he was an only child and they used to spoil him all the time. Now, they tended to spoil the granddaughters. Bobby was fifty years old, tall and slender, with brown eyes, bald, and a goatee. He loved wearing his blue jeans and short-sleeved shirts.

Bobby and I had been friends ever since we were toddlers, and if anyone would have an idea what the hell was going on, he would.

I put Princess in the baby carrier and attached it to my shoulders. We then headed to Bobby’s house. Little Princess’s black-and-gray fur was blowing in the wind, and she was squinting her eyes to keep from getting dust in them.