The coffin in the open
grave lay forgotten.
Mouths had fallen
open, eyes were bulging, gasps of indignation whispered among the graves.
The mourners stood in
shock as the alien performed its ritual dance, damaging several gravestones in
the process. As debris came hurling past her – she could just duck out of the
way of a metal cross – Anne wondered what had brought the alien here. They had
heard of them, of course. Little else had been on the news these past few
weeks. But seeing one for real, well, it was… mind-blowing.
Huge, somehow slug-
and dinosaur-like at the same time, with an armoured skin and stupendous power,
they had instilled fear from the beginning. Anne puffed out her chest in pride
at her family’s reaction. There was no screaming, no crying, no panic. Just
silence.
The beast heaved a
heavy leg up towards the sky, turning the headstone in its path into a cloud of
rubble. Anne had seen one of the aliens perform the same dance on TV, in that
case in the middle of a shopping mall. The federal agencies had tried to
contain the aliens when they had first arrived, of course, but there was no
reinforced concrete or bulletproof glass in the world strong enough to hold
them in. The FBI had given up on trying to study them in private. The aliens
roamed where they liked, and only if they strayed too close to the human
population did the feds intervene. The aliens were tranquilized and released in
the Everglades – probably in the hope that they would slowly sink to the bottom
of the nature reserve.
Anne noticed a slow,
heavy rumble roll down the graveyard. The alien in front of them froze, its paw
still in the air, but its head twisted in the direction of the sound.
Slowly, Anne turned
sideways.
A shock went down her
spine as she spotted a second alien at the edge of the graveyard. The rumble
intensified as the newcomer advanced, crushing several graves underfoot. Her
mother sucked in her breath abruptly, letting it go again with a muttered ‘Aunt
Molly!’.
Anne nervously cast a
look at the original alien, but it still stood rooted to the spot. The new
arrival quickly closed the distance between them and plonked down
unceremoniously behind the mourners.
They held their
breaths in unison.
The beast howled and
stretched its hind leg. A shiver ran through the alien in front of them, as
though it was shaking off its own shock. Then it started moving too.
Anne felt her mother’s
grip on her arm tighten like a vice. They were trapped in between the dancing
aliens.
