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Everything is dark and silent, no wind, the forest trees to our right standing motionless. I look around, can see the busted silhouettes of the twisted cars piled in front of the doors of the school. No stars or moon. No sky at all, almost as though we're beneath a bubble of darkness, some sort of dome where only shadows remain. Bernie Kosar begins to growl, low at first so that my initial thought is that it's done for reasons of anxiety only; but the growl grows into something more ferocious, more menacing, and I know that he senses something out there. All of our heads turn to see what he is growling at but nothing moves. I take a step forward to put Sarah behind me. I think to turn on my lights but I know that will give us away even more so than the dog's growl. Suddenly, Bernie Kosar takes off.
He charges ahead thirty yards before leaping through the air and sinking his teeth deeply into one of the unseen scouts, who materializes from out of nowhere as though some spell of invisibility has been broken. In an instant, we're able to see them all, surrounding us, no fewer than twenty of them, who begin closing in.
"It was a trap!" Henri yells, and fires twice and drops two scouts immediately.
"Get back in the tu
One of the scouts comes charging towards me. I lift it in the air and hurl it as hard as I can against an oak tree twenty yards away. It hits the ground with a thud, quickly stands, and hurls a dagger my way. I deflect it and lift the scout again and throw it even harder. It bursts into ash at the base of the tree. Henri unloads more rounds, the shots echoing. Two hands grab me from behind. I almost deflect them until I realize that it's Sarah. Six is nowhere to be seen. Bernie Kosar has brought a Mogadorian to the ground, his teeth now sunk deeply into its throat, hell ablaze in the dog's eyes.
"Get into the school!" I yell.
She doesn't let go. A clap of thunder breaks through the silence and a storm begins to brew, dark clouds now forming overhead with flashes of lighting and thunder tearing through the night sky, loud pounding thunder that makes Sarah jump each time one booms. Six has reappeared, standing thirty feet away, her eyes to the sky and her face twisted in concentration with both arms raised. She's the one creating the storm, controlling the weather. Bolts of lightning begin raining down, striking the scouts dead where they stand, creating small explosions that form clouds of ash that drift listlessly across the yard. Henri stands off to the side, loading more shells into the shotgun. The scout that Bernie Kosar is choking finally succumbs to death and bursts into a heap of ash covering the dog's face. He sneezes once, shakes the ash from his coat and then rushes off and chases the closest scout until they both disappear into the dense woods fifty yards away. I have this unbearable fear that I've seen him for the very last time.
"You have to go into the school," I say to Sarah. "You have to go now and you have to hide. Mark!" I yell. I look up and don't see him. I snap around. I catch sight of him sprinting towards Henri, who is still loading his gun. At first I don't understand why, and then I see what is happening: a Mogadorian scout has snuck up on Henri without his knowing it.
"Henri," I scream to get his attention. I lift my hand to stop the scout with its knife raised high in the air, but Mark tackles the thing first. A wrestling match ensues. Henri snaps the shotgun closed, and Mark kicks the scout's knife away. Henri fires and the scout explodes. Henri says something to Mark. I yell for Mark again and he sprints over, breathing heavily.
"You have to take Sarah into the school."
"I can help here," he says.
"It's not your fight. You have to hide! Get in the school and hide with Sarah!"
"Okay," he says.
"You have to stay hidden, no matter what!" I yell over the storm. "They won't come for you. It's me they want. Promise me, Mark! Promise me you'll stay hidden with Sarah!"
Mark nods rapidly. "I promise!"
Sarah is crying and there's no time to comfort her. Another clap of thunder, another shotgun blast. She kisses me one time on the lips, her hands holding tightly to my face and I know she would stay like this forever. Mark pulls her off, begins leading her away.
"I love you," she says, and in her eyes she is staring at me in the same way that I had stared at her earlier, before I left home ec, as though she may be seeing me for the final time, wanting to remember it so that this last image might last a lifetime.
"I love you too," I mouth back just as the two of them reach the steps of the tu
The rain starts, a cold, heavy rain. In no time at all I'm soaked to the bone. Blood leaks from Henri's gut. He's aiming the shotgun into the darkness, but all of the scouts have moved into the shadows, away from us, so that Henri can't get a good enough aim. They're no longer interested in attacking, knowing that two of us have retreated and a third has been wounded. Six is still reaching for the sky. The storm has grown; the wind is begi
"What is it?" I ask.
Henri hobbles, the shotgun hanging limply at his side. He's breathing heavily, a gash on his cheek below his right eye, a circular puddle of blood on his gray sweater from the knife wound.
"It's the rest of them, isn't it?" Henri asks Six.
Six looks at him, stricken, her hair wet and clinging to the sides of her face.
"The beasts," she says. "And the soldiers. They're here."
Henri cocks the shotgun and takes a deep breath. "And so the real war begins," he says. "I don't know about you two, but if this is it, then this is it. I, for one…," he says, and trails off. "Well, I'll be damned if I'll go down without a fight."
Six nods. "Our people fought back till the end. And so shall I," she says.
A mile off the smoke still rises. Live cargo, I think. That is how they transport them, by oversized semi-trucks. Six and I follow Henri back down the steps. I yell for Bernie Kosar but he's nowhere to be seen.
"We can't wait for him again," Henri says. "There isn't time."
I look around one final time, and slam the cellar doors shut. We rush back through the tu