Joey glanced around the room. Family pictures on the mantel over the fireplace showed at least three generations. A picture of Jesus Christ hung above them, His hands together as He looked up. As Joey gazed at the picture, he knew a moment of peace, but the confusion inside him won out as soon as he took his eyes off the painting to see the confusion around the room.
“Do you understand what I’m talking about, Joey?” Zero’s voice held a hint of warning.
“Yeah,” Joey said, knowing he could give no other answer.
Zero smiled. “Good. You might just survive this thing.”
“Did you find out what was causing the disappearances?” Joey asked. He knew Zero kept up with the news. Somehow, if he knew who the mysterious enemy was, he felt certain he would feel better about the whole situation.
“No,” Bones said. “There’s all kinds of people on television making all kinds of claims about who did this. A lot of them don’t believe the president when he says that Russia wasn’t behind it. I mean, who else has that kind of tech?”
“China,” Maxim said, “for one. North Korea for another.” He was normally quiet, always watching. Zero and the others adopted him into the group because he was so knowledgeable about games and game systems. He had a habit of sitting around flicking disposable lighters, watching the flame for a moment, then blowing it out.
Zero was the oldest of the group at nineteen or twenty, but Maxim was second in line. He wore thick glasses, black button-up shirts, and long hair. He never discussed the three scars on the right side of his face, but Derrick had told Joey that Maxim’s dad, an ex-convict, had given him the scars when he was ten.
Dropper shifted on the couch. He was the biggest of the group at six feet four. Solid and heavy, he was built like a Mack truck. Closecropped blond hair framed a round face that at first glance looked innocent. But there was little that was innocent about Dropper.
Joey thought Dropper’s name might have actually been Tony or Anthony or Andrew, but no one called him by that name. His father was a cop, but he lived with his mom and ended up getting kicked back and forth between his parents. Everybody called him Dropper because when he fought he usually dropped his opponents after a few punches.
“You guys are forgetting a basic thing,” Dropper rumbled in his deep voice. Joey had learned the big youth had a keen and incisive mind, despite his slovenly looks.
“What’s that?” Bones asked in a challenging manner.
Dropper swiveled his attention on Bones. The slender youth drew back into himself as if trying to fade into the couch.
“We have that kind of technology too,” Dropper said. “The United States government. What’s going on out there, it could just be the result of something the U.S. government did. Of course, we wouldn’t want to claim it was us.”
“I think you’re all wrong,” Zero stated.
All of the others, Joey included, looked at Zero. During the past few days, Zero had kept to his own counsel, volunteering no idea of what he thought caused the disappearances or how he felt about them. If Zero had lost anyone, no one knew it.
“Okay,” Bones said. “I’ll bite. What caused all the disappearances?”
“Aliens,” Zero stated.
Of all the explanations Joey had heard, that one was the dumbest. Still, he remained quiet. No one ever argued or disagreed with Zero; there were stories about people who had that and ended up getting their heads busted.
“Aliens,” Bones repeated. Maybe he’d drunk enough that he wasn’t thinking straight, which Joey knew was possible, or maybe he’d grown braver about his responses since he’d accompanied Zero full time for the last three days.
“You have a hearing problem?” Zero demanded.
Bones quickly held his hands up. “Nope. Not me. Just, you know, trying to get around the whole aliens-concept thing.” He paused. “Kind of out there, don’t you think?”
Zero fixed the other youth with a cold stare. “You don’t believe me, Bones?”
“I’m just thinking, you know, that maybe if it was aliens that did this, we’d know by now.”
“Not if they didn’t want us to,” RayRay said nervously.
“The air force would have seen their ships,” Bones replied.
Shut up, Joey thought, looking at the dark anger that filled Zero’s hard-planed face. Quit while you’re ahead.
“Cloaking devices,” RayRay said. “Air force wouldn’t have seen them if they’d had cloaking devices.”
“They’re not Romulans,” Bones insisted.
“We got cloaking devices.” RayRay tried valiantly to battle Bones’s arguments. “Got them spy planes and boats that radar can’t detect.
Ain’t so hard to believe that somebody would figure out how to do it in outer space. I mean, aliens are from outer space, for crying out loud. They’re going to know lots of stuff.”
Maxim and Dropper gazed at Bones with avid interest. Even Derrick seemed hypnotized by the possibility of impending violence.
And Joey knew that was going to happen. Zero wouldn’t put up with anyone challenging him. Not even Bones.
Bones blinked, suddenly aware of Zero’s intense scrutiny. His survival instinct kicked in. “Oh,” he said hoarsely. “Cloaking devices. Yeah, I guess that could be it.”
Tension hung in the room for a moment.
“Why aliens?” Dropper asked.
“Because I can’t figure out who else would do something like this,” Zero answered. “I’ve turned this thing over in my head every which way. You see, something this big goes down, you gotta look for the angle. What the prize is. The people who have the most to gain from something like this.” He nodded to the television. “I’ve been watching the news.”
Joey remembered the other nights they’d stayed in other homes. Zero had watched the news then, too.
“The way I figure it, nobody has anything to gain by disappearing so many people all at once.” Zero lit a fresh cigarette. “The whole world is in chaos. Sure,
