Forging Zero Read Free Page B

something.   Looking into his eyes, Joe knew he couldn’t
just walk away and go back to sulking.  But he couldn’t tell him the truth,
either.
    “I
don’t know when they’re gonna let us out,” Joe said, “but I do know they’re not
gonna leave us in here forever.”  Not by a long shot.  
    The kid
began to shake.  “I don’t want them to come back.  They scare me.”
    They’re
gonna do a lot worse than scare us.   Joe reached
out and put a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder, enveloping it with his palm. 
“Look, kid, they’re just big squid.  You find scarier stuff in your kitchen
sink.”
    “They
don’t look like squid,” the kid whimpered.
    He’s
right.  They’re goddamn aliens, you insensitive son of a bitch.   “Prunes, then.  Big, butt-ugly prunes.”
    The kid
laughed, a relieved half-sob.  Joe patted his shoulder and stood up.
    “Aren’t
you too big to be here?” an older girl behind Joe said, accusation strong in
her voice. 
    Joe
flinched.  “Yeah, I’m fourteen,” he offered reluctantly.  Two years older than
the aliens’ max collection age.  What was worse, Joe was a freak.  At fourteen,
he was built like a professional NFL linebacker and already over six feet.  To
these kids, he probably looked eighty.
    “So
why’d they take you?” another nearby girl demanded.
    “I was
stupid,” Joe said, grimacing.
    “Stupid
how?”
    “I did
something they didn’t like,” Joe said, tensing his fists with the memory,
wishing he had somewhere he could hide from all of their piercing stares.  Every eye in the room was on him.  He probably looked like a lot of their dads. 
    “Like
what?” a kid insisted.
    Joe
grimaced.  “Look, uh…guys.  I really don’t want to talk about it.”
    “You
should tell them you’re fourteen,” a girl said sagely. 
    “Yeah,”
a little boy piped up.  “You can’t be here if you’re older than twelve.”  He was
probably seven or eight, and he looked perfectly sure that if Joe were to walk
up to the aliens right now and tell them he was fourteen, not twelve, he would
receive a Get Out Of Jail Free card and everything would be all right.
    Obviously,
none of them had seen what Joe had done to get into this place.  Or the look in
the aliens’ eyes when they’d first shoved him into this huge room, alone, more
than a day before the other kids.
    None
of them understand.   Joe felt an overwhelming urge to get away from them, to get back to
his empty spot against the wall and be alone, but he forced himself to smile,
instead.  “Maybe I’ll do that.”  Yeah, right about the time they pulled out a
gun and blew his head off for being too damn old.
    Feeling
the pressure of their stares, Joe slunk back over to his ‘corner’ and turned to
partially face the wall.  It was the only way he could pretend they weren’t
watching him.
    I
want to go home.  God, please just let me go home.
    There
were no heavenly choirs, no celestial trumpets, no parting of the skies.  Just
hundreds of desperate little kids, watching him like he had all the answers.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER 2 :  Little
Harry Simpson
     
    Without
warning, the obsidian wall dripped open beside Joe, and a group of aliens
rushed inside in a wave.  They weren’t wearing the glistening black suits that
they had worn on the White House lawn, the ones that deflected bullets.  For
the first time, he could see the sticky brown skin up close, the four slender
tentacles protruding from each boneless arm, the big snakelike eyes that
reminded him of wet gummi bears, the two tentacles wriggling from their heads like
worms had burrowed into their brains.
    In the
chaos that followed—aliens shouting, kids screaming, children scattering—Joe
ducked out the door and ran for it.
    At
six-foot-one, with all of his spare time before the Draft spent practicing for
football season, Joe was faster—much faster—than his boneless five-foot
captors.  He peeled out of the room and down the