The End Has Come

He left his room. The guard turned sharply on one heel, knowing where George was going and leading the way without being told. George followed, amazed as always that this had all begun with one simple phone call.

* * *

George finished his call. Or, rather, the call finished for him when the signal dropped. The bars vanished and didn’t return. He was pretty sure he’d given good directions before he’d been cut off. If so, he would find out soon enough.

Through the hull’s cracks, the wind eased from a howl to a moan. The storm died down, like all storms do.

He heard Toivo arguing with Bernie. George couldn’t make out the words. Toivo sounded pissed. Maybe he was campaigning for the others to join him, to murder the children.

Exactly how far was George willing to go to stop that from happening?

“Don’t know what to do,” he said.

The children didn’t answer.

“You guys are a big help.”

The words turned to white as they left his mouth.

Temperature dropping. Winter’s fist was slowly squeezing tight around the wreck, snatching away what heat remained.

The children . . . they were shivering.

From the cold? Maybe. Or, maybe, from fear.

He terrified them.

Which was fine, because they terrified him.

A human shape that could never be mistaken as actually human. Two arms and two legs, but thin, so thin, tree branches come to life with fluid motion. Black eyes  — three, not two  — set in heads too big for the deathcamp-skinny bodies. And those mouths . . . George did all he could not to look at their mouths.

An hour passed.

A banging on the door. The sound reverberated through the room, bounced off the twelve crash chambers, or shock seats, or whatever the capsules were that had kept these children alive while their parents had been turned into paste. The children flinched at the sound, huddled together, made noises that sounded frightened and pathetic.

George unslung his rifle. He held it nervously in both hands. He thought of slinging it again  — was he going to threaten his lifelong friends or something? The pounding came again. George decided to hold onto the weapon.

He pushed the door open.

There stood Toivo and Jaco. Toivo, who had already executed one of the children, and Jaco, little Jaco, who had shown more bravery than George and the others combined.

“Give me your phone,” Toivo said.

George didn’t move.

Jaco stared past George, at the children. He hadn’t seen them yet. The man seemed oddly calm in light of the situation. George wondered if Jaco wanted to kill them, just like Toivo did.

“The phone,” Toivo said, holding out a hand palm-up. “Bernie’s phone ain’t got shit for signal. Mister Ekola isn’t doing great, we need to try and get help.”

George nodded absently. “Already called someone,” he said.

That caught Jaco’s attention. “Who?”

“Ambulance,” George said. “That’s part of the deal.”

“What deal?” Toivo said.

George was suddenly unsure if he’d given enough info before the call cut off. Did they know where to go?

“I had a signal but it’s gone,” George said. “I made a call. Help is coming.”

Toivo’s eyes hardened. “For the last time, Georgie  — give me your phone.”

Any pretense of friendship had evaporated. Three decades they had known each other, come here every year to reconnect, shared all the experiences life had to offer. It was all gone. If George had raised his rifle as Toivo had, if, together, they had slaughtered these helpless beings, that friendship would have been strengthened beyond any measure  — but George had chosen otherwise.

He pulled the phone out of his pocket and handed it over. Jaco and Toivo huddled over it as if it had a secret warmth that might chase away the encroaching winter.

“No bars,” Toivo said. He looked at Jaco. “And it’s almost out of power, eh? What are we gonna do? How do we get Mister Ekola to da hospital?”

Jaco stared at the phone for a moment, perhaps hoping for a connection to suddenly appear. He shrugged.

“I dunno, eh? Maybe we can see if da snowmobile made it through da explosion?”

The three men  — and the eleven alien children  — fell silent. In that void, the sound of the wind, dying even further, from a moan to a whisper. And through that whisper, another noise. The faint, growing whine of a distant siren.

Jaco and Toivo looked at George.

“You called an ambulance?” Toivo said.

George nodded.

Jaco shook his head. “There’s a fucking alien invasion, and you got an ambulance to come out to da middle of nowhere? How? And da roads are snowed shut  — how did you pull this off, Georgie?”

George shouldered his rifle. He felt nervous without it in his hands, naked, as if his friends might suddenly aim and fire, taking more innocent lives. He glanced at his friends’ weapons, at them, until they got the hint. The attitude of both men had changed: Somehow, George had got help for the man who had raised them all.

They both slung their rifles.

“Let’s get outside,” George said. “It will take us at least thirty minutes to hike back to the cabin. We need to be there when they come, or they might drive on by.”