The End Is Now

He pulled the door tight. Hands on the wheel, he leaned back, making sure the door had a good seal, then turned it until he heard something click home inside.

“Just kids,” he said. “Just kids.”

He could protect them, but only because there was no one around for miles save for George's childhood friends. And even then, he wasn’t sure—if Toivo, Jaco, and Bernie all insisted on opening that door and shooting whatever they saw inside, how far was George willing to go to prevent that?

Would a stranger have even let him shut that door? What if it had been ten strangers? What if it had been a hundred? If a ship like this crashed or came down near a destroyed city, human survivors would kill any alien they saw—adult or child, it didn’t matter—the first chance they had.

Humanity would win. George felt that in his core, knew it at a base level just as his body knew how to breathe, just as his heart knew how to beat. Humanity would win because those billions of survivors would fight back, and there were millions of guns out there for them to use.

Bullets did the same thing to aliens that they did to people.

Even if all the cities were destroyed, humanity would win. Too many people, too many guns.

And knives. And clubs. And rocks. And fists.

The aliens had attacked, had announced themselves with violence and death. People would be only too happy to return that greeting in kind. George envisioned instant mob scenes, aliens torn to pieces by enraged people. There would be no reasoning with these mobs—how do you appeal to a person’s humanity when the target isn’t human?

Too many people, too many guns.

Humanity would win.

When this was over, would the alien children behind that door be the only ones left?

George tightened the wheel on the door, made doubly sure it was as shut as it could be. He didn’t want it opening on its own. And he prayed the little creatures wouldn't open it, wouldn't come walking out, because judging by the looks on the faces of his friends, the alien children would be as good as dead.

“Just kids,” he mumbled. “Just kids.”

He walked to join his friends.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Sigler is the New York Times bestselling author of the Infected trilogy (Infected, Contagious, and Pandemic), Ancestor, and Nocturnal, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing; and the co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his Galactic Football League series (The Rookie, The Starter, The All-Pro, and The MVP). Before he was published, Scott built a large online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His loyal fans, who named themselves “Junkies,” have downloaded over eight million individual episodes of his stories and interact daily with Scott and each other in the social media space.

GOODNIGHT STARS Annie Bellet

The redwoods whispered overhead in the warm summer breeze as Lucy Goodwin gathered another handful of fallen branches for the camp fire. She looked up at the sky, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. The meteor shower the night before had been amazing. She hoped she and her friends would be treated to more tonight. Everyone had asked her about meteor showers and the Perseids and all that space crap. It was embarrassing.

As if she knew anything just because her mother was on the Moon. She snorted. Mom was an engineer, not an astrophysicist. Though you’d never know from how hard she pushed sciences at her only kid.

“Can’t wait to have the ‘you declared what major!’ conversation when she gets home,” Lucy muttered. All she and Mom did these days was fight, but it wasn’t her fault. Lucy wanted to live her own life, not a life in her mom’s shadow. One scientist in the family was plenty.

A smoky trail blazed through the sky and Lucy felt an odd pressure in her ears. It faded quickly, but the smoke still hung like some kind of brownish cloud. Repressing a shiver, Lucy headed back to camp.

Loud voices greeted her as she hiked out of the tree line to the ridge.

“Lucy!” Jack, her boyfriend, was waving his cell phone at her.

She sighed and picked up her pace. They’d declared the camping trip a tech-free zone, but apparently that was another promise Jack couldn’t keep.

Kayla, Ben, and Heidi were throwing things into backpacks. Something was definitely wrong.