Anaz-Voohri Read Free

night?”
      “Yeah, how’d you know?”
      “Another missing girl!” he overheard the operator calling to someone else at the dispatch center. “What’s your address, sir?”
      “What do you mean? There are others?" Zack’s knees weakened and he dropped to the couch. This was huge. He felt it.
      “It’s all over the news, sir. Several girls were reported missing from their bed this morning. The reports keep coming.”
    Cradling the phone with his shoulder, Zack snatched the remote and turned on CNN.
    On the screen, a female reporter in a raincoat stood before a two-story gabled house with harvested fields in the background. “We are speaking with Rich Porter, father of a missing two-year-old, here at the family farm." The reporter sounded almost casual. “Tell us how you first discovered your child had been kidnapped?”
      “My wife heard some noise in the middle of the night and went up to check on Maya..." The young man tried valiantly to control his facial muscles, but his voice broke. “The bed was empty, the window wide open. Anybody could have come in. As soon as my wife told me, I ran outside. I didn’t see anybody, but there was some kind of humming, like a gigantic bumblebee. Then I saw a one of those things, like a flying saucer. It took off that way." He pointed toward the sky then his face contorted. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed.
    The world was going mad. Alien abductions on CNN? Had other people witnessed the monster? It seemed unreal.
    The camera focused on the reporter’s face. The woman looked embarrassed at the unexpected live testimony. “This man is obviously distraught and there is nothing to confirm his allegations and no reason to believe them. The flying machine was probably a helicopter if anything. The department of Homeland Security has not raised the alert level. However, nine children, all girls, have been kidnapped in the same strange circumstances, a seemingly synchronized operation spanning five states. The authorities are expecting more victims.”
    Zack remained in shock. Nine girls? With Ashley that was ten, and they expected more?
      “...the FBI is leading an investigation and considers claims of alien intervention preposterous. They are not ruling out, however, the possibility of a sinister act of terrorism.”
    Terrorists? What Zack had seen was no terrorist. It was a freaking monstrosity from another world who calmly snatched Ashley from her bed. Anger welled in Zack’s chest. He wished he’d had a gun. He would have shot the bastard instead of the other way around.
    But the awful thought of his baby sister among such monsters angered him the most. What would they do to her? Dissect her alive, like a frog in a science lab? He didn’t want to think about that. What could these aliens possibly want with human children?
    Zack remembered holding Ashley’s hand on her first steps, helping her open her Christmas presents, teaching her to read. They’d played Pokemon videogames on his X-box. He’s sung Britney Spears songs, just to please her, and she’d crack him up every time she tried to rap with him to Eminem. One night, Ashley caught him in his room, making out with a girl while their parents worked on another one of their news assignments, but she never ratted. A true sister.
    Zack dreaded telling his parents, but he had to reach them somehow. Slowly, he picked up the phone again and dialed the Hollywood studio. The production assistant answered. As Zack feared, his mom and stepfather couldn’t be reached at the moment.
      “Tell them it’s an emergency,” Zack said with all the authority he could muster. “They have to take the first plane home, come back immediately.”
      “I’ll have them contact you,” was all the assistant said.
    On the screen, no more reports of alien sightings, but the frightening count kept increasing. By now eleven little girls had disappeared from their bed in the middle of the night in the continental