Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 4

A large blur thundered in from the other direction. At a dead run, Martin jumped up onto a picnic table and launched himself off the other end. I finally caught on. Henry wasn't the attacker - he was the decoy! The alien turned around only to catch Martin's full weight right in the center of his chest. With perfect timing Henry lifted the alien's feet off the ground. The alien landed with a loud thud, Martin right on top of him. 

Henry and Martin bounced up, yelling and high-fiving themselves. The alien wasn't moving. Henry reached down and took the alien's gun. He held it up over his head, doing a victory dance. 

What Henry forgot was that there were still two able-bodied aliens with guns nearby. I heard a click and looked up to see them aiming their guns at Henry and Martin and pulling the triggers. Everything around me stopped. Nothing was moving. Or was it? Looking at the barrels of the alien guns, I saw a bullet coming out the end of each, very slowly. What was going on? Everything was in slow motion, except me. 

The first bullets from each gun were followed by several more about six inches apart. I had to do something. I reached out with my hand and visualized catching the first bullet, stopping it, and letting it fall to the ground. When I "let go" of the bullet, it stopped moving forward and kind of floated in mid-air. I blinked and looked again. I convinced myself that the bullet was lower than before, falling at a barely perceptible rate. I turned my attention to the next bullet in line and then the next one and so on. As I "caught" each bullet, I felt an electric shock. I tried to ignore this and kept going. I sure was getting warm. 

I had stopped all of the bullets that had been fired so far. The triggers were still being pressed and more bullets were on the way. I needed to take more direct action. I focused my attention on one of the alien's trigger finger and tried to lift it off the trigger. It wouldn't move. I felt a resistance preventing any motion. I paused to catch two more bullets and returned to the trigger finger. Straining as hard as I could, I saw the tiniest of movement in the finger and then I slipped. If that's the way it's going to be, I thought to myself, I'll just take the gun away. That produced the same results. The gun wouldn't move. Even straining as hard as I could, the gun slipped from my grasp. 

I was desperate. I stopped the next two bullets, feeling groggy and boiling hot. Frantically looking around, I saw that the swing set had been blasted apart. A chunk of pipe from one of the legs, about six feet long, was lying on the ground. I concentrated on the pipe, reaching out with my hands to help visualize it. I imagined grasping the pipe and it lifted up. It flew across to the nearest alien. I could barely concentrate now. Everything was spinning slowly, not quite in focus. I batted another bullet out of the way with the pipe and swung it down on the alien's gun. I swung again, smacking him on the back of the head. I turned my attention to the next alien. The pipe didn't sail smoothly through the air this time. It was pretty wobbly, and so was I. Things were speeding up around me. I knew I didn't have much time. I feebly knocked another bullet aside with the pipe. With my last bit of strength I smashed the gun away from the second alien. Okay, so "smashed" might be an overstatement, but the pipe and the gun made contact and the gun fell. 

Too late to do anything I saw that I had missed one last bullet that was speeding toward Martin. I desperately reached out for the bullet but I had nothing left. I was shaking violently and burning up. It was so hot. I couldn't fight it anymore. Everything went black as I gave in to unconsciousness. The last thing I saw was the bullet ripping Martin's shoulder apart.