Footfall

Reynolds turned back to the window. In the street outside, three men hid among the trash cans behind the McDonald’s. They’d laid dinner plates on the street surface. From somewhere nearby came the roar of large motors.

“You had to tell them,” Reynolds said.

“It was a story I’d heard from the Hungarian uprising. How did I know they’d try it?”

“Bat turds, Roger! George Bergson was itching to kill an alien, so you told him how! You knew he’d try it if it killed him. It will, and we’re too close. What if they bomb this building?”

Roger Brooks shrugged. “George promised they wouldn’t to anything to call attention to this place.”

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Reynolds said. “And probably us with him.”

“Stop saying that,” Carol North said. “Please stop saying that.”

“Okay.” But it doesn’t change anything. Your friend is doomed, lady. A thought came unbidden. She’d come to his, room at the convention. Her relationship with George Bergson was clearly an open one. Would she be faithful to his memory once he got killed? That could be inconvenient.

The roaring grew louder. “They’re coming,” Roger said. “The snouts are coming …” He stayed well back in the room and aimed his camera out toward the dinner plates in the road.

Two large armored vehicles came into view. They floated a foot or more off the road surface. Their crews were invisible inside.

It’ll be okay. George will kill some invaders and live through it, and we’ll all learn levitation and fly to safety. Right? But Nat’s belly and guts were knotted in fear. He heard Roger say, “It worked in Budapest …”

The first ground effect vehicle approached the line of dinner plates and stopped. Something protruded from the forward deck and extended toward the plates.

George Bergson and his friends stood and threw their bottles at the armored vehicles. Two of the bottles hit the lead tank, and burst into flames, Flame spread across the vehicle, and rivers of fire ran off its sides and were dispersed by the ground effect fan. There was a high-pitched whine and grinding noises, and the vehicle fell heavily to the roadway.

Two more gasoline bombs arced out.

The second vehicle began rapid fire. Holes the size of baseballs appeared in the buildings behind Bergson and his crew. The men dashed behind the McDonald’s building.

The gunfire continued, The McDonald’s building was chopped nearly in half. The upper part of the building fell into the lower part.

From somewhere far above a beam of greenish light speared the McDonald’s building. The wreckage exploded in flame. The green light-pencil drew an expanding spiral around the pillar of flame, first tightly, then in ever-spreading arcs that grew and grew…

Reynolds dived away from the window.

There was the sound of crashing glass. The tank outside continued to fire, and two large holes appeared in the wall in front of him. Carol and Roger Brooks dove into the hallway. Carol lay next to Reynolds. “Jesus,” she whispered. “Jesus Christ. They’re killing everybody-you knew!”

Reynolds shook his head. “I didn’t know, but it was a good guess. Look at them! Herd beasts. No speed, and all their defenses in front, and have you ever seen less than six together? I bet their ancestors stood in a ring to fight. It was a reasonable guess that if someone does something they don’t like, they go after the offenders’ whole herd, not just the individual!”

The gunfire continued to pound.

“Smoke!” Carol shouted. “The building’s on fire.”

Trapped!

“Out the back way,” Roger Brooks said. “Quick!” He crouched low and ran down the hallway to the stairs. “Stay low. Stay away from windows!”

Nat Reynolds ran down the hall. He heard Carol behind him.

Roger sat in the biggest Cadillac in the lowest level of the underground parking structure. It was noon. They’d been here almost twenty hours.

There were sounds from inside another Caddy two cars away. Jeez, what does she see in him? Roger wondered. They were at it not six hours after her live-in boyfriend bought it.

And you’re jealous, because you had nothing to distract you from the thought that they’d tumble the building down on your head. Or from them — There hadn’t been any sounds from outside for hours. Roger couldn’t stand it any longer. He crept toward the exit. Another small group-a man, two women, and four small children — huddled in one corner of the garage. They stared at Roger as he went past, but they didn’t say anything.

The ramp was blocked by debris, but the stairs were intact. Roger climbed up, pausing at each landing.

“Ho.”

He jumped, startled. The voice had been feminine and definitely human. “Hello.”

“It’s quiet out there,” she said.

Roger climbed up to the landing.

She was older than he’d thought from her voice. Roger guessed she was almost forty. She wore jeans and a wool shirt and a bandana, and her face was covered with soot and grime. Her nose had once been broken, and wasn’t quite straight. Not quite ugly, but she could work on it. “What’s happening?”

“I think they’ve gone. I’m Rosalee Pinelli, by the way.”