“Janny, I love you so much. I’m so sorry this happened,” I blurted between sobs.
She looked me in the eyes, and for the first time in weeks, I saw her own eyes well up. A single tear fell slowly and splashed on my cheek. It mingled with my own, and somehow, I felt better for it.
“I have to tell you something.” She leaned back down on her pillow, and it was almost as if I noticed how sick she really was for the first time. Her eyes were sunken, skin tight against her hollow cheeks. She coughed lightly and I saw a speck of blood fly out onto the bedding.
“Just remember that I’m sorry.” I went to stop her and she waved me down. “Dean, don’t say anything…” another cough, “just listen. One day you’ll learn something about me. Just know that I’m sorry, and that I truly do love you with all of my heart. You mean everything to me, and I never expected to feel this way. My life has been worth it just to have met you, and don’t forget it. Don’t ever forget this moment.” Her hand wiped the tears from my face as her own streamed down her cheeks.
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew she was almost gone. Her voice had gotten so quiet, her breathing ragged. “They’ll come one day. Appear in the sky.” My heart hammered in my chest as she spoke, the words sounded so foreign to me. I glanced over to the night stand and saw the half empty bottle of pills, and assumed she was hallucinating. She tried to take off her necklace, which she had never done before, but I put my hand on hers and stopped her from over-exerting herself. Her eyes were closed and she whispered softly. I had to move in, our cheeks pressed together tightly. “Wear the necklace. When they come… wear the necklace.” She coughed hard, but I kept close. I could feel her breath on my face, hardly there at all. “Promise me, Dean. Promise me. When the ships come… wear the necklace…”
“I promise,” I said.
Her breathing stopped, and I held her close to me one last time.
FOUR
The pendant was cold on my skin, and I found the sensation comforting. I’d seen it on my wife so many times that it was strange to be wearing it. I kept an eye on the news as I made a sandwich and dumped my lukewarm beer down the sink. There was a near worldwide ban on airplanes, helicopters, air balloons; really, anything that could be seen as an act of hostility. The countries that had fired at the ships had given up, and now were mere observers of the phenomenon like the rest of the world.
England had shut down their nuclear plants and most countries had followed their lead. They figured anything generating power like that might be a quick target for the intruders, and the result if they were targeted would be catastrophic. This left many nations running on low power grids or backup power. As I heard this on TV, I saw the streetlights turn on from the photocells telling them the sun was going down; then, just as fast, they went dark. The power in the house followed suit, and I was left in darkness, slopping mayo on a piece of rye bread.
“What’s going on?” James asked from the dim living room.
I reached into my side drawer and pulled out an LED flashlight that doubled as a small lantern. Growing up in the country, I was used to storms blowing out the power, and my dad always had flashlights sitting around where they were easily accessible.
“Power’s out.” I passed him the lantern. He set it down on the coffee table and I grabbed a couple of candles and lit them, leaving them flickering on the kitchen island. “Still no change out there.”
James stretched and checked his watch. “Just before seven. Sun’s almost down, and these things still haven’t done anything! God, I just wish they would do something already.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted them to do anything but leave just like they came. Quickly and quietly.
“Do you want a sandwich?” I asked, and jumped back as the pendant on my chest seared my skin with heat. “What the hell was that?” James looked at me, alarmed, as I grabbed the chain and pulled the pendant out, leaving my shirt to protect my skin. It was glowing bright green.
James moved to help me, and in an instant, he was covered in a green light coming through my house from above.
“Dean! Help me!” he called as his feet left the ground. He was screaming, but my heart pounded in my ears so hard I could hardly hear his shriek. I was sure my ears must have been bleeding, and I covered them hard with the palms of my hands. James was being lifted up by an outside force, his feet above the back of the couch now. I ran to him and tried to put my arms around his legs. I was jolted back from the green field surrounding him, and I watched as he headed towards the ceiling. The pendant was still glowing hotly as he moved into the ceiling, passing through it like a ghost. He shot me a terrified look right before he crossed into my upstairs.
I shot up onto unstable legs, which were shaking like I’d just run a marathon. I half ran, half crawled up the stairs and made for the room James would be floating through. There he was! I hurled myself towards his screaming, green-light-covered body and tried to grab on to his legs. The light repelled me and sent me sprawling to the corner of my guest room, a floor lamp whacking me on the head.
“James!” I called to him, but he just kept screaming. In mere moments, he was gone.
I slowly got to my feet and looked out the window. Thousands of green lights were beaming down. Every person on my block was floating towards the darkening sky; the terror in the air was palpable. I felt the urge to vomit and choked back that first bite of my sandwich. The pendant still glowed hot green and kept glowing until every last soul was gone. The green lights blinked out, and the shadow of the ship I could still see vanished into the dark atmosphere.
The ships left at dusk.
There are many feelings someone goes through when they experience something traumatic. I quickly went to denial. There was no way I’d actually witnessed my city being teleported off the planet by a huge alien cube ship. It was just so impossible that, clearly, I was having a dream; hallucinating from an illness or an accident, maybe. For all I knew, I was lying in a hospital bed, morphine flowing through my veins, and I was dreaming the whole thing up. Janine was probably by my side holding my hand, telling me it would all be all right. My clients’ get-well cards would surround the room, and those cheesy balloons would be floating beside my head, tied to the hospital bed. As I lay on the guest room floor with my eyes closed, that scenario seemed likely. I could almost hear the steady beeping of the hospital equipment, keeping an eye on my blood pressure and oxygen levels.
I must have stayed there, curled up in the fetal position, for half an hour before I braved opening my eyes. My heart had been pounding so hard I thought it would expel itself from the cage it was trapped in. It finally relaxed and soon I felt almost normal. The pendant hung cool around my neck, its color just the regular green I’d always seen on my wife.
The noises I’d heard in my daydream were multiple car alarms going off a few blocks away. Soon even they stopped, to leave me with an eerily quiet night. I heard a dog bark down the street. I was now in the grieving phase. James’ look of terror as I helplessly watched him ghost through my roof and into the night sky was engrained in my memory. I realized I didn’t know if the ships had done this everywhere, or if I was just in an unlucky pocket. I tested my shaky legs and found them sturdy enough to carry me back downstairs.
I didn’t have a landline, so I reached for my cell phone and tried to call my mom first. A lovely robotic operator told me my call couldn’t be completed as dialed. I then started to go through my contacts one at a time and got the same message. I texted, tweeted, emailed… all with no reply from anyone out there.