I Don't Want To Believe

There's Something In the Backyard

    "John." whispered a voice. John groaned, pulling his pillow overtop of his head and squirming under the covers. "John, wake up." it said again, shaking his shoulders violently.
"What Harry?" John asked loudly, shooing her away with his hand.
"I told you there was an alien." She pointed out. John opened his eye carelessly, looking over at his clock through the pale morning light.
"Harry, it's six o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, I don't have time for this." John hissed.
"John, you have to come look, it's really important." Harry whined, poking at John's cheeks to encourage him to get up.
"How did you even get in here, I locked the door?" John pointed out, trying to push his sister away, but she just scurried out of his reach.
"Pleasssseeee." Harry begged, loud enough that John decided he might as well crawl out of bed just to put an end to her nagging.
"Fine, what is so important?" John groaned, sitting up in bed with his hair sticking up in all directions.
"The aliens came last night, in the corn." Harry whispered, suddenly deciding to respect his eardrums.
"Harry, I've told you a million times, there is no such thing as aliens, the locals made them up hundreds of years ago to collect tourist money." John insisted.
"Come look." He insisted, taking his hand and pulling him back. She would never succeed in pulling him out of bed, but dislocating an elbow was much more likely, so John had no choice but to follow, rubbing his eyes and stumbling around on his carpet.
"Why couldn't this have waited until at least ten..." John's words were cut off when he looked out the window into the cornfield. He had a good view from his room of the normally perfect corn, the green stalks swaying in the wind, but this time there was a gaping circling in the middle, a crop circle that definitely wasn't there when he went to bed.
"See, I told you." Harry insisted, standing up on her tiptoes to see over the window sill.
"Another hoax...it must be some kids." John muttered, but his words got caught in his throat when he remembered what else he had seen in his window last night. What he had believed to be a face, on the same night Harry claimed aliens had landed in their backyard.
"Remember, kids are sloppy, they always mess up, this is perfectly circular, from here it doesn't look like a stalk was even broken." Harry whispered.
"I wonder if Mike knows about this." John agreed.
"So you do believe me?" Harry asked hopefully.
"No, of course not, but you should go out with your goggles and see if you can see anything." John pointed out.
"I can see better from up here." Harry muttered, looking a bit scared as she walked over to John's bed and sprawled out on the blankets.
"Oh come on Harry, I was going to go back to bed." John insisted. He may lie down, but he most certainly won't be able to sleep, not with this circle in his backyard. By now John was used to crop circles, they showed up in every cornfield every season, but to be honest there was something about this one, something about the face he thought he saw in his window and the fact that this circle, as Harry had pointed out, was completely circular. But there couldn't be aliens, of course not; aliens were myths, legends for the crazy tourists and believers to lap up. John didn't believe in aliens, not in space and especially not in his own backyard.
"I'm hungry." Harry whined as John loitered by the window, sneaking peaks at the field while trying to pretend he wasn't all that interested.
"Then go get some cereal, just get off of my bed." John insisted, walking over and trying to pry his pesky sister off of his blankets.
"I want toast, and mommy won't let me use the toaster." She pointed out.
"That's not my problem, there's nothing wrong with cereal." John groaned, finally getting a good grip on Harry and throwing her off of his bed. She landed in a heap on the floor, and, to John's regret, burst into tears.
"Harry, no, come on, shush." John insisted, running around the bed to make sure she hadn't broken an arm or anything. But no, she was on the ground sobbing her eyes out for no good reason other than he had thrown her, and she had to make a big show of it of course.
"I'm telling mommy!" she exclaimed, her large blue eyes flooded with tears.
"No, come on, don't be a drama queen, don't wake her up." John begged, patting Harry's hair as if to try to calm her down a bit.
"You're such a jerk!" she exclaimed through her tears. Ooh, how very hurtful. John just sighed; looking at his door as to make sure his mother wasn't hearting this tantrum.
"Alright, alright, I'll make you toast, as long as you shut up." John decided. Harry stopped crying immediately, her frown turning upside down and clambering to her feet.
"Well why didn't you just say so?" she asked, hopping along the hallway without a care in the world. John never did understand his sister, but she seemed to get anything she wanted once she started crying. Maybe John would try that the next time he really didn't want to do his chores, break down in the middle of the living room. When he got down to the kitchen, Harry was already on her tiptoes, trying to reach the cinnamon raisin bread that she liked so much. Unfortunately her little limbs were to short and all she could do was grasp desperately at the counter. So John made them both toast, yawning and groaning that it was only six thirty in the morning, but nevertheless the circle had definitely gotten his attention. He still hadn't ruled out the possibility that some crazy kids were out there with some rope, pulling down the stalks one by one, but then again no kids around here probably knew what a circle was, much less be able to make one in a cornfield. Maybe some crazy adults were trying to prove a point, once more Mike's family came to mind, but why would they bother creeping around on John's roof if their main goal was to make a crop circle? What if John had wandered out, what if he had called the police, they'd have to make a run for it with their circle either halfway done or not at all. Or maybe all he saw that night was a glare from the TV, and this whole thing was just some crazy coincidence. That was the most probable explanation. John watched some more sports in his room until nine o'clock, Harry went off to her room to try to categorize the crop circle, but then again John's room had the best view of the field, so she spent most of her time sitting on the floor next to the window, popping up and down to try to get a clearer picture. John ignored her ramblings, something about spaceships, maximum landing crew and gamma rays. Honestly even if John did care, he still wouldn't have any idea what she was talking about, but he was pretty sure it wasn't legal for his five year old sister to sound smarter than he was. So he just turned up the volume of a recap of a recent soccer game, trying to focus on the players on the screen instead of the aliens in the backyard. About an hour later John decided that this solitude with his sister was about to drive him even more insane, so he phoned Greg and invited him over. It seemed to take ages for that dork to finally ring the doorbell, but when he did it was like music to John's ears. Well, it really was music, since the Watsons had one of those customized doorbells that play certain songs whenever they were rung, but that was beside the point.
"Greg, thank god." John muttered, pushing his sister away as she was trying to read to him the most probable explanation for crop circles. Greg looked both tired and confused, his blond hair matted to his forehead under a red bike helmet and dust on his legs.
"What happened to your mental health day?" he asked, stepping inside and closing the door quietly behind him.
"There's something you might want to see." John decided.
"Is that Greg?" Mrs. Watson called from the kitchen, stirring milk around in her instant oatmeal packet.
"Hello Mrs. Watson!" Greg called back.
"Hi dear!" she said happily, waving from next to the microwave as if Greg could actually see her from there.
"There's aliens in our yard." Harry pointed out.
"Stop with that Harry." John snapped, starting his way up the stairs.
"What else were you going to show him, how much dirty laundry you have under your bed?" she pointed out.
"Oh, I see she's picking up some more sass." Greg laughed, ruffling Harry's blonde hair proudly.
"Shut up Harry, and Greg for that matter. I just thought you might want to see this." John decided, opening his bedroom door and leading the two of them to the window.
"No way, why do you always get the cool stuff?" Greg asked, staring, awestruck, out the window.
"This isn't cool, it's annoying. Now camera crews and tourists and 'extraterrestrial researchers' will be showing up at my door." John groaned.
"Ya, and you'll be on TV, it would be cool." Greg pointed out.
"Not if you're only on the nerdy stations, and then the kids at school will find out, and they'll find my interview and watch it, it'll be a nightmare." John groaned. Harry just laughed, as if imagining John in front of a camera.
"Yes, but you'll be famous." Greg insisted with a wishful smile.
"Whatever, if a newsperson comes, I'll send them your way, claim that you were the one to first discover it." John shrugged. Greg's eyes flashed with hope, as if already imagining himself walking down the red carpet.
"Let's take a closer look." Harry decided, taking both of their hands and trying to pull them out of the room.
"Woah, come on Harry, we were going to watch soccer." John insisted, trying to pry his sister's small fingers from around his wrist.
"I want a closer look." Greg agreed, letting Harry pull him towards the door. John groaned, wondering why in the world he had picked such a gullible loser as a best friend. Of course there was nothing extraordinary about a John's backyard. But never the less, John felt inclined to tag along, just to make sure they weren't abducted or anything. That would be a couple of lawsuits and about fifty years' worth of grounding. So they walked out the front door, the sun already beating down on them through the cloudless sky, the dew still clinging to the grass and therefore soaking through John's socks as the three of them trekked through the backyard towards the cornfield.
"You're not believing any of this, are you?" John muttered to Greg when Harry was far enough ahead that she wouldn't overhear.
"No, of course not, but you spend so much of your time insisting that all of this isn't real that I thought she needed a bit of encouragement." Greg shrugged.
"Encouragement to keep fantasizing over the impossible?" John hissed. Greg thought for a moment, but nodded.
"Precisely." He agreed, and John just groaned.
"You're hopeless." He decided. They stopped at the edge of the yard, that fine line where freshly cut grass met with the soft mud of the cornfields, staring through the rows to try to get a better look at the clearing, but they were too far away to distinguish anything.
"So, you want to go in?" Greg muttered apprehensive, staring at the suspiciously motionless corn.
"Not really." John admitted, staring blankly at the corn and getting strange shivers down his spine. Something about this filed made him uncomfortable, whether it be that he knew what lay behind this curtain of normality, or that there was something radiating off of it, like out of this world landing fumes. No, impossible, there was no such thing as aliens.
"How about you Harry, ready to show the boys up?" John asked. Harry shook her head rapidly, having a much better view from her height, but she didn't seem to be up to wandering through the stalks either.
"Well then, how was this closer look?" John laughed; turning away to pretend that he wasn't disturbed by what waited for them in the field.
"Do you think they're mean?" Harry asked, staring transfixed into the corn as if convinced it was going to get up and walk away.
"The aliens?" John asked. Harry nodded.
"No, of course not, they're just like E.T., they're friendly." Greg insisted.
"Not all aliens are E.T., there are loads of different planets, races, just like humans and monkeys and insects." Harry muttered. Greg and John exchanged confused looks, but nodded as well, pretending they knew what Harry was talking about.
"You're one smart little girl." Greg decided. That seemed to snap Harry out of her little hypnosis, walking over and kicking Greg harshly in the shins.
"I'm not little, I'm almost four!" she yelled as Greg scurried back, laughing too hard to register any pain.
"Yes, sorry, got me there." He insisted, tripping over the playground swings and using the slide to get in between him and the ravenous munchkin.
"Come on Harry, go inside, Greg and I'll pass the soccer ball around, you'll get hit." John insisted.
"I won't get..." she started, but John just waved her off towards the deck door, making her knock on the glass until one of the parents came over and unlocked it. Finally when Harry was safely inside, John walked over to where Greg was sitting, at the end of the slide, and stared off into the corn.
"Mike will be thrilled." Greg guessed. John nodded silently, sitting on a swing and carelessly pushing himself back and forth with his feet, far too tall to actually swing.
"You're not worried?" John asked, sounding pathetic even to himself.
"What do you mean? Are you?" Greg asked.
"No, I'm used to these, but this one, I don't know, it feels different." John admitted. Greg shrugged, lying back on the slide to look at the sky, but sliding down a couple of inches so that his butt hit the grass.
"It looks just as convincing as all the other hoaxes that spiral around here." he shrugged. John sighed, feeling like he should tell Greg about the face he saw in his window, or, whatever it actually was, but deciding against it. John was probably the most anti-alien person in the whole town, the most normal, to start second guessing himself would be betraying his name. So he stayed silent, deciding that if something happened again, more influential this time, that he would have to tell Greg, that he would have no choice, just to make sure he wasn't losing his mind. It didn't take long for the investigators to arrive, John and Greg were having sandwiches on the picnic table outside when the first news truck pulled up, a local station that no one really watched for anything except background noise. Greg was thrilled, of course, patting down his hair in the reflection of the screen door just in case they wanted to interview any witnesses. Mrs. Watson put out refreshments for the crews, being the nice person she was, just in case all of this fairytale chasing got them thirsty. But none of the reporters seemed to care about the drinks, or Greg's nice new hairdo, they just rushed through the yard, pulling along their cameras, wires, and microphones, all of the reporters getting their high heels stuck in the dirt and their hair caught on the stalks as they dove into the cornfield for a better shot. John sighed, deciding that if he were an alien that he would most certainly not appreciate crazed reporters storming his landing ground.