"I know what's going on here, Max. Do you really think your chances out there are that much better than mine?”
"He has a point, Max," Michael said.
"I can't allow it," Max said.
"Well, maybe, but you're not the King and not the boss of me," Kyle said.
Kyle was right, but Max didn't want another person's life on his conscience. He reached out his hand. To his surprise, Kyle acted quickly. He leaned into Max for a moment and grabbed the keys from Max's other hand. Then he twisted his body away from Max. A second later he was holding the car keys.
"Nice try, Max, but I'm going. In fact, I'll drive," Kyle said.
Max felt the time ticking away. "Okay," he said, starting down the street. The boys were immediately at a run and reached the van quickly.
Kyle jumped in the driver's seat while Max and Michael jumped through the side door. Before they were even sit- ting, Kyle hit the gas and the van shot forward.
Even in his super alert and focused state, Max realized that the van was running smoother than it had since they'd gotten it. It also had more pickup, he noted as Kyle accelerated quickly.
They tore down the empty road, past the place where Dawn had been taken.
"There," Max said, pointing to the tall hill to their left. Immediately, Kyle pulled off the road and onto the open field.
The van bumped its way through the field, bouncing up and down. Kyle had to slow down to maintain control, and Max felt precious seconds ticking away. Then, when they were maybe two hundred yards from the foot of the hill, there was a loud snap from up front, and the van veered sharply to the left and came to a stop.
Kyle winced when he heard the snap. Something had broken in the front end. He knew it didn't matter now. The van couldn't take them any farther on tonight's trip.
If they succeeded in what they had to do, they would fix or replace it. If they failed in what they had to do, they wouldn't be needing transportation anymore. It would be cheerfully provided by some mean-tempered aliens. And the trip would be one-way.
"Van's toast," Kyle announced as he opened his door.
Almost as soon as they came to a stop, the three boys had jumped out of the vehicle almost simultaneously. Without a word, they started running for the hill at full speed. They were there quickly, and Kyle was sure that he had just beaten every sprinting time he had ever made on the football team.
They started climbing the hill and were at the top in less than a minute. Looking down, Kyle saw the ship. There was no black cloud, no running lights. Just a large cylinder sitting on some sort of landing struts in the rocky field.
It looked smaller on the ground, and Kyle figured it was maybe sixty yards across. It also looked a lot less men- acing, but that was a dangerous illusion, he realized.
"They don't look so tough now," Michael said, echoing Kyle's thoughts.
"We have to move quickly. Once they're in the air, we'll never see Liz again," Max said.
"What's the plan, Max?" Michael asked.
"No plan. We just go in and hit them with whatever we can, and we go from there," Max said.
"Looks like its about to go down on the street," Michael said.
"And we're not leaving until it's finished," Kyle added.
Michael gave Kyle a thin smile, but Kyle could see Michael's face setting into… what? His friend had had the same look during the confrontation with Gomer. Michael looked dangerous… and so did Max.
Kyle felt a rush of optimism and decided that he wouldn't want to be those aliens in the ship right now.
"Looks like they haven't turned on the cloaking device," Michael said.
"The what?" Kyle said.
"Whatever it is that creates the black cloud," Michael said.
"It might be a defensive weapon, or just a by-product of their energy source," Max said. "Let's hope we'll get close enough to do some damage before they turn it on. Let's go," Max said.
The boys moved quietly but quickly down the other side of the rocky hill. The ship was less than a football field's length from the bottom.
Kyle's heart was hammering in his chest, but not in fear. He remembered the feeling from the big games of his high school football career. He was "flipping the switch." That was what they had called it on the team. Flipping the switch was the change that came over you when you played the game. Athleticism could get you only so far on the field. To win, you had to turn a corner, you had to get aggressive. Kyle felt pretty aggressive now. He felt like he was ready for anything.
"Come on," Max said. "Let's get as close as we can with- out giving ourselves away.”
The trio had taken less than ten steps when Kyle heard a click from up ahead. Kyle kept moving until Max's hand went up and he said, "Stop.”
Instinctively, Kyle went as quiet as possible. Something was ahead of them, and Max was pointing to it.
There was that sound again, a high-pitched click, fol- lowed by another one. Kyle couldn't place the sound, then he realized he didn't like it… it sounded unnatural.
It took Kyle's eyes a moment to focus in the moonlight. Then he saw a figure up ahead. It was tall, taller than Michael… mabye seven feet in height. And though it was roughly the shape of a person, Kyle immediately knew that what he was looking at was no person.
He was looking at a monster… something out of a nightmare that Isabel and a girl named Jessica had shared.
The color of its reptilian-looking skin was hard to make out in the moonlight, but Isabel had called it brown and Kyle thought that was probably right. The shape of the head was the creepiest thing about it. The mouth was wide, but the head was relatively narrow at the top, and it came to a rough point in the back of the creature's skull. The yellow eyes were hard to look at. They had a mali- cious intelligence. And they were looking right at the three boys.
"He sees us," Max whispered.
"Why isn't he doing anything?" Michael wondered aloud.
"I don't think he takes us very seriously," Max replied.
Michael lifted his hand, "Well, he can take this seri- ously.”
"No," Kyle whispered back. "No fireworks or energy balls or whatever it is that you guys do. You'll sound what- ever kind of alarms they have. Let me take him the old- fashioned way. It'll be quick and quiet.”
Max turned his head in surprise.
"I've taken down two-hundred-and-sixty-pound defen- sive linemen on the field," Kyle said. "If I get into trouble, I'll call you and you can come back for me. Come on, we're losing time.”
As if to punctuate Kyle's comment, the ship began to hum. Then a few of the exterior lights switched on. If the ship took off…
Max studied him for a moment, "Okay. He's yours.”
Turning to Michael, Max said, "We'll circle around him and meet up at the center of the ship.”
Kyle nodded and took a step toward the creature. "Man, are you ugly," his whispered to himself.
Freshman year, the coach had decided that all the play- ers take a karate course offered by the phys ed depart- ment, for discipline. Like most of the guys on the squad, Kyle had not taken it very seriously, but there was one thing the instructor had said that Kyle had remembered. He had been showing them how to crack boards with their hands.
"Before you strike, see your hand breaking the board. If you can't see it, you'll never be able to do it," he had said.
This is just like the all county championships. Now there were some scary guys, Kyle thought.
Kyle noticed the creature eyeing him with interest. When it tilted its head, Kyle got the distinct impression that it was amused by him and his friends. There was a sound of footsteps from the direction that Max and Michael had gone. The creature's head turned quickly and scanned the area. It fixed on Max and Michael.
That was it. Kyle started running. He was less than fifty yards from the alien and he covered the ground quickly.
As he got closer he saw that the creature was fairly bulky up top… broad in the chest area. Its legs and lower body were thinner. Kyle knew what to do now. When he was only yards from the alien, he got himself ready and fought back the revulsion he felt.