ARRIVAL

Genre: Science Fiction 

ARRIVAL

By Randy Romero

Rust Cogdale was the first to spot the anomalous shapes in the sky. He was standing outside his house on the veranda, puffing his cigar and blowing out rings of smoke.

Rust had never seen anything like it before. They weren’t ordinary aircrafts. They were irregularly shaped and diverse in size. Some were round and disk-shaped. Some looked like giant fighter jets, but with a bizarre, unearthly features. One metallic spacecraft hovered above them all, bigger than a house.

Rust’s neighbor, Sheila Barnes, joined him outside. She gazed in disbelief at the enigmatic space crafts that loomed over them.

“What in God’s name is that?” Sheila cried.

“I don’t think God has anything to do with this,” Rust said, shaking his head.

The otherworldly spaceships blotted out the sun, engulfing the town in darkness. It was three in the afternoon, but it might as well have been midnight.

Other people soon joined them and before Rust knew it, the whole neighborhood was gazing skyward, mystified by these technologically superior space crafts.

Kaitlin Caruso stood on her porch, huddling her children who looked like scared rabbits.

“Government?” Kaitlin asked. “Are they military?”

“No way can the government hide something that big from us,” Rust said. “I served as a Marine for eight years. That sure as hell doesn’t look like military to me.”

Tom Holt shouted from down the street. “It’s not just us! It’s the whole damn city! They’ve got us completely surrounded!”

The situation reminded Rust of those old black-and-white Sci-Fi movies he used to watch as a kid. The idea of an alien invasion used to scare the life out of him. But this was no movie. And Rust had a funny feeling that these aliens didn’t come in peace.

The space crafts cast a terrifying shadow over the whole city. This finally answered the daunting question of whether or not life truly existed on other planets. But the question on Rust’s mind was, “Why are they here? What are their intentions?”

He didn’t have to wait long for his answer as a laser beam from the largest ship reduced the town’s clock tower to ashes.

The first shots had been fired. They had come to declare war.

People rushed inside their houses, seeking shelter. Rust went back inside just in time to see the latest news on TV. The whole city was under attack. Seconds later, the signal was lost and every channel was on standby.