Free Grunt Life by Weston Ochse Page A

aliens in residence like this one?”
    I nodded.
    “Sixteen.”
    No shit. “And how many others?”
    “We were too late twenty-three times.”
    “So on thirty-nine separate occasions, you’ve never figured out what they’re doing?”
    “Not exactly, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re prepping for an invasion.”
    “How can you even know that?”
    Mr. Pink pointed at the four family members. “We don’t know what they’re broadcasting, but NSA satellites have picked up their outbound transmissions. Attempts to decode them have fallen flat, but that the aliens are landing and setting up transmissions out of the ionosphere is enough to convince me that they’re doing something , and invasion’s the top candidate.”
    “How do they get here? Is there a spaceship on the roof?”
    Mr. Pink gave me a sharp appraising look.
    “What?”
    “You asked the right question almost right away. Then again, military men always do. It never occurred to the early scientists studying this event to wonder how they got here.”
    “You’ve been detected,” came the voice of the tech team through the comms.
    “Shit.”
    One of the orange trunks had released the young girl, who was now slumped onto her rotting meal. It waved in the air, millions of white cilia twitching.
    Mr. Pink began moving across the room. “Downstairs, and fast.”
    The team found the stairs and stacked down them.
    Mr. Pink followed. I ran to catch up.
    The stack was already moving down into the basement when I arrived at the door. The uncarpeted wooden stairs creaked with their weight. The walls were lined on one side with canned vegetables and on the other with old license plates. A bare light bulb dangled from a length of cord at the bottom of the stairs, low enough for the second man in line to brush it with his head.
    As bad as the air had been in the dining room, it was far fouler in the basement.
    “We have positive contact,” said one of the men.
    Mr. Pink put his hand on my shoulder. “I want you to see this.” Then he descended the rest of the way and walked out of sight.
    I crept down a few stairs and leaned out. I could see something moving on the other side of the picket of men, a flesh-colored mass about three feet high, from which a thick trunk rose through the broken ceiling above.
    “Is it like the others?” Mr. Pink asked.
    “Yes.”
    The word had been said quickly, but held a finality to it that I couldn’t understand. That is, until the men stepped aside to let Mr. Pink see what was in front of them. And in that moment, I saw the babies, at least a dozen of them, rising and falling in a sea of alien flesh, like they were bobbing, or maybe sinking, in and out of the substance. Their eyes were closed, but their mouths were open, emitting a chorus of low-pitched hums.
    Mr. Pink fell back, his hands over his ears.
    I watched him, wondering what was happening. Then I saw him for what he was. He was an intruder. He was causing the babies pain. They’d done nothing to harm him, yet here he stood, ready to kill them. I looked down at the pistol in my hand, then brought it up, and aimed at Mr. Pink. He was so close I didn’t even need to align the sights. The humming grew and embraced me, and I could hear screams hidden inside the sound. The screams of babies. Mr. Pink was killing babies. I had to—I pulled the trigger as fast as my finger would move. Never once did my aim waver. Never once did I hesitate. But the sound continued unabated.
    I watched in stunned amazement as Mr. Pink turned to me, raised his own pistol, and pressed it against his head. He squeezed the trigger over and over, his mouth open in a silent scream.
    The sound of the alien children was cut off as the four men fired their Taser rifles. Four, eight, twelve lines of electricity sunk deep into the alien flesh. Suddenly the babies were gone, replaced by a frozen sea of spikes.
    I realized I’d been screaming, and I shut my mouth. I made eye