“Soon as I open the door. After three, okay? One… two… three!”
Ryan pressed the latch release and pushed the door outwards and stepped onto the driveway.
Where’s Sean?
Ryan searched left and right and caught movement over by the car. It wasn’t what he expected though, and instead of seeing Sean, he saw Loobey throwing himself onto the driveway. He hit the gravel and immediately started scrambling, fear igniting a fire behind him.
Ryan called out. “Loobey!”
Loobey looked up and saw Ryan, and it caused him to change direction. He straightened up and sprinted towards the shed. “Run,” he shouted. “It’s Brett.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron shook his head in confusion. Instead of taking off on his bike, he chose to stand idly by. When Loobey reached the brothers, Aaron asked the question again. “What do you mean about Brett?”
Loobey grabbed Aaron and shook him. “Get the hell out of here.”
Ryan grabbed the other bicycle from inside the shed and rolled it towards Loobey. “Take it. Get Aaron to the village.”
Loobey took the handlebars, thought about it, then rolled the bicycle back. “No, man. Brothers should stick together. You go with Aaron. I’ll never make it. I’m too weak.”
There was a loud crack from the car. Everyone turned around.
A bony arm broke through the driver’s side window, brown flesh melting away and dripping onto the driveway. Bugs erupted from a bony protrusion on the back of a rotting hand.
Loobey put his palm over his mouth and wobbled. “That’s what I mean about Brett. He’s changed. Like Sean. Only worse.”
Ryan swallowed a hot coal in his throat. “How could he be worse?”
Loobey shoved the bicycle at Ryan. “You don’t want to stick around to find out.”
Chapter Ten
Aaron was on the yellow bike, ready to ride away. The problem was who took the red bike. No way would Ryan take off and leave Loobey behind, but it seemed like Loobey was in the same mind frame. He waved a hand at Ryan. “Go, Ryan, now!”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Me neither,” said Aaron. “Take my bike. I’ll run.”
“This isn’t a video game. You’ll be out of breath before you make it a hundred metres.”
“He’s right,” said Ryan. “I’ve seen you on sports day.”
Brett was still inside the car, his bony arm hanging out of the broken window. He was shouting at them, but the raspy voice was alien. It didn’t sound like Brett at all. “A little help… A little help here, please? Hey, Ryan? Be a mate and help me. Be a mate and help me.”
Ryan took a step towards the car, but Loobey put a hand on his chest. “That ain’t him in there, man. Trust me.”
As if to prove a point, Brett shoved his head and shoulder through the car window. He was facing away, but the back of his head was elongated and misshapen, more like a hairy peanut shell than a human skull. Slowly, like a slimy octopus, he pushed more and more of himself through the small gap, until eventually his entire body flopped onto the driveway like a stillborn foetus.
Ryan felt woozy, his legs getting weak beneath him. “Brett?”
“Get on the goddamn bikes,” Loobey shouted.
Fear made Ryan selfish, and he finally jumped onto the red bike’s saddle. Rather than complain, Loobey put a hand on each of their backs and shoved. “I’ll hide in the shed,” he said. “Bring help.”
Ryan didn’t have chance to reply. Movement to his right caught all of their attention. It came from the cross beside the cottage. Perching on the cross beam, and lit by the last gasps of sunset, Sean glared at them like a twisted bird of prey. The white stones on the ground below him were stained green.
Sean raced towards them, taking them by surprise. The resulting collision knocked Ryan clean off his bike and onto his back. Sean whipped one of his talons like a cowboy’s whip. Ryan threw an arm out and wailed as a white-hot flash of agony bit into his elbow. He rolled aside, desperate to get out of danger, and grabbed at his aching elbow. In his horror, he expected to see blood, but he was monumentally relieved when he saw his coat still intact. The talon had struck him hard, but it hadn’t made it through to his skin – more a vicious punch than a slice.
Sean whipped his talon again but missed. Ryan cried out for help, almost calling for his mam. It took him back to when the ex-paratrooper had knocked him unconscious and broken his arm, and just like then, Aaron was once again a fearful spectator. The fun had turned deadly once more.
Forgive me, brother.
Loobey tackled Sean to the ground. In his current, emaciated form, Sean was only one third of Loobey’s size, and he was unable to get out from under him once he was pinned to the ground. He whipped his talons and thrashed, but he couldn’t get free. Loobey sprawled himself out, making himself even heavier.
At the same time, Brett stood up on the driveway. He was at least two feet taller than before, but inhumanely thin, as if a cruel God had clutched him by the head and feet before stretching him out. His fuzzy green eyes were uneven, the left at least an inch lower than the right. In the centre of his face only part of his nose remained. In a matter of hours, Brett had transformed.
He tottered towards them now, like some kind of humanoid plant. His arm waved wildly like a plant stem, like the bones inside had turned to liquid. He hadn’t yet formed the talons that had replaced Sean’s arms, but several of his fingers had fallen away to make way for the emerging bone.
Not bone. Chitin.
It really is aliens. Sean and Brett have been taken over by aliens.
Aaron stood next to Ryan, brandishing his pitchfork. “We have to do this, right? That isn’t
