The Call of the Others

Chapter 30

Mr. Robinson looked like he had just shit his pants.

“But…But…” he squeaked. He cleared his throat. “It’s raining.”

“Hey, Mr. Robinson!” Charles said, peeking out from behind Mr. Woodward. “Remember me? Yeah, your supervision skills suck.”

Mr. Robinson looked like he was going to cry. He didn’t know what was going on. What was one of his students doing with a suspicion man—two suspicious men—with guns?

“Charles?” Alice hopped up. It was him! See? she told the voice in her head. He still likes me.

“Hey!” Charles said, waving.

“Hey, Alice! How’ve you been?” Cary asked, entering the hotel.

Martin peeked out from behind Charles and waved, a shy smile on his face.

“Where are Preston and Joe?” Alice asked.

Her friends all looked at each other, perhaps to see if they would randomly appear (“Surprise!”).

“I don’t know,” Charles said, calmly.

“Oh, my gosh, you don’t know?! I’ve already lost track of the three of you; I can’t lose two more!” Mr. Robinson yelled, tearing out his hair.

There was a flash of lightning, which illuminated the whole room.

“Oh, yeah! We should go,” Scott said, beckoning to the door.

“What? No!” Mr. Robinson yelled. “It’s lightninging! Lightning! It’s… There is electricity in the sky! I’m not taking a bunch of kids out there.”

“No, it’s okay,” Mr. Woodward said. “It’s a lot more dangerous in here than it is out there. Trust me.”

“The man doesn’t lie,” Cary said, shaking his head, although he wasn’t actually too sure which Mr. Woodward was speaking.

Mr. Robinson appeared to consider the idea when the radio reported an urgent alert:

“TORNADO WARNING!  TORNADO WARNING! STAY INDOORS AND AWAY FROM WINDOWS.”

You will pay, foul radio broadcaster, Mr. Woodward thought.

Scott held up his gun. “Now, there are two ways we can do this—”

He didn’t even have to finish before Mr. Robinson fainted.

“Well, that was easy,” Scott said, putting his gun back in its holder.

“That’s… That’s not what he fainted about,” Alice said, pointing to something behind the crowd of people in the doorway.

Joe stopped in his tracks. “Did—did you just see you that trashcan move?”

Preston stared at the trashcan in question. “No.”

“I swear, it moved. It’s moving! It’s moving now!”

“No, it’s…MOVING! IT’S TOTALLY MOVING! JOE, WHY IS IT MOVING?!”

The trashcan started to shake in its spot, but not because of the wind, but because something was inside of it. Our heroes clung to each other, hoping that the creature within the trash receptacle was only a stray dog. Heck, even a vicious cat; anything but an alien.

The trash can toppled onto its side, meriting a girly shriek from Joe, and a small creature crawled out of it, a dirty shoe in its mouth. It would be cute if it was a dog, not an extra-terrestrial creature. It was tiny and looked like dog, but it had no tail and a face more like a ferret. Yep, Joe thought. That, my friends, is an alien.

“It’s kind of cute!” Preston said, releasing Joe.

The alien dropped the shoe. Smoke started to billow out of its nostrils before it blew out fire, causing the shoe to burn.

“Except that it breathes fire,” Preston said, backing away, “that burns in pouring rain.”

“Should we kill it?” Joe asked. It just felt wrong. I mean, other than the shoe, what has it done to harm anything? he thought.

“I—I don’t know. I guess, because of the germ thing Mr. Woodward was telling me about.”

“What germ thing?” Joe asked. The alien sneezed, spraying spit and sparks everywhere.

“That!” Preston said, pointing to the alien. “See, it sneezed, so it might have some alien germ thing we’ve never had contact with.”

“Like the Native Americans and the Pilgrims! I learned about that in AP History,” Joe said, finally grasping this purple plague stuff Preston kept telling him about.

“Oh, yeah. AP History. I don’t take that class,” Preston said, staring at the alien.

“I know.”