The Last Starry Night

It was a brilliant sunny day. They drove through suburbs till they came to the main highway. Once they were on the fast road Johnny fell asleep. Ngoc slept too, and Grandma rested her head on Floyd’s shoulder. Floyd listened to the news on the radio.

He stopped at a drive-through to get some coffee. The girl at the window took his order and handed him his drink as if nothing unusual were going on.

“Seen any aliens?” he asked her. She just laughed and waved him on. Had she heard the news? Did she believe it? Or was it all just too far away from Alabama farm country? He almost found it hard to believe himself: driving along in broad daylight, the news on the radio sounded mad, hysterical. But Azzie was missing, and there was an alien pistol in the suitcase in the trunk.

After a while they stopped for breakfast at a diner. It was pretty empty except for the staff. Nobody acted as if anything were out of the ordinary. The two old men in the booth nearby were talking about a football game. Ngoc stared off into space -- still half asleep, it seemed. Johnny colored with crayons on his paper place mat. He was drawing something with too many eyes. Floyd listened to the men talking.

Grandma ordered them all pancakes and toast.

Then a young man came in, his hair uncombed and his shirt untucked, looking like he was still wearing what he’d had on yesterday. He looked around wildly for a moment.

“Are y’all crazy?” he screamed. “How can y’all just sit there? It’s the end of everything! The Evil One has come to bring the end of the world! His demons is falling from the sky -- ”

The two older men got up and took him by the arms, forcing him into a seat. “You just take it easy, boy,” one was saying. “Ain’t no cause to be making a ruckus. You just sit right here and relax a minute.” The other one called out to the waitress, “Get the police, Annie.” The waitress nodded quickly and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Who is that man, Grandma?” asked Johnny.

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” said Grandma.

“Is he afraid of the demons?” asked Johnny.

“I reckon so,” said Floyd. “Don’t you listen to him, Johnny. You ain’t got nothing to worry about.”

“Johnny knows,” said Johnny. “Johnny is the demons’ Daddy. Got demons in bag.”

Floyd and Grandma looked at each other dubiously.

“What bag, sweetheart?” said Grandma. Johnny put his bag up on the table. Floyd and Grandma were so worried about everything, and so tired, they hadn’t noticed Johnny bringing it in. The bag had a drawstring pulled tight around something as big as a soccer ball. Something wiggling. Grandma let out a sharp yelp and grabbed it.

“What have you got in there, Johnny?” she cried. She almost dropped it. Floyd took it gently from her, put it on the table in front of him, lifted a steak knife with his right hand, and opened the bag with his left.

Inside were four baby aliens. The resemblance to the adults they had fought the previous night was unmistakable. They looked up at him; one of them hissed softly. Ngoc made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

“Where did you get these, Johnny?” asked Floyd.

“On the stove,” said Johnny. “Baby demons were cooking.”

“On my stove?” whispered Grandma. “What were they doing there? Are these babies or are they -- are they food?”

Floyd shook his head. “No way to know,” he said. “But I guarantee the government is going to be eager to see these.”

Johnny said, “Johnny is a good Daddy. Johnny give baby demons cereal.”

“You did?” said Grandma. “Did they like the cereal?”

Johnny nodded.

“We need to keep them alive,” said Grandma firmly. “We’ll give them some of our breakfast.” Carefully Floyd closed the bag again and placed it down between his feet under the table.

“But,” whispered Ngoc, “do you think the government really wants to see these? Isn’t it safer to – to – throw them away?”

“Nope,” said Grandma. “We got to learn everything we can about these aliens, and we got to be quick about it. If these are alien children, they’re worth more than all the money in the world. We could maybe exchange them for Azzie, for example. If they’re alien food, then they’re still important, since we can find out what it is they like to eat, and a lot about their biology. Anyway, I don’t reckon things this size can hurt us.”

“Baby demons getting bigger,” said Johnny.

“We don’t know if they’re babies,” said Grandma. She was starting to think about how Johnny would react to hearing that his babies would be given to strange men in suits. Best to try to prepare him for the blow. “Maybe they’re alien food.”

“Demon babies,” said Johnny firmly. Grandma sighed.

The waitress brought their breakfast. “Ya’ll look pretty tired,” she said. “Long night?”

“Afraid so,” said Floyd. “Couldn’t turn off the television.”

“Same for us,” said the waitress. “About one o’clock I said to my husband that the whole world was going crazy and I was just going to bed. Next morning, the sun come up just like always, so I come to work.”

“That’s about right,” said Floyd. But for them the sun had not really come up. Azzie was missing, and they could not go on, simply hoping that everything would be all right.

They fed the alien things toast and crackers and bits of pancake; it was all eaten ravenously. Floyd carried the bag out to the car, because it was getting heavy.

***

Driving through Chattanooga.

Ngoc sat in the back with Johnny; the bag of aliens was put in the front seat, in Grandma’s lap. Floyd’s rifle lay between them.

The day was still sunny and bright. The radio said things were going badly. A huge battle was going on in Arizona, caused by aliens demanding land on a military base. It was thought that the American military was losing, but no one was sure. It was as if the radio were reporting things happening in another universe.

Grandma’s thoughts were far away when she realized that Johnny was repeating something strange, over and over. “One Oh Two Point Five. One Oh Two Point Five. One Oh Two...”

“Johnny,” said Grandma, “what are you talking about?”

“It’s not Johnny,” said Ngoc. “He’s asleep.”

Grandma glanced down at the bag. One alien had its head out. It was definitely much bigger than before -- about the size of a smallish dog -- and was growing long black teeth. It was looking at her, and saying, “One Oh Two Point Five.”

What did it mean?

Then the radio said, “You’re listening to Chattanooga’s best variety, one oh two point five.” Probably the English that this alien had heard most often.

“The alien’s talking, Floyd,” said Grandma, slowly.

“Horatio’s ghost,” breathed Floyd. “What are we doing? We should leave these things by the side of the road -- just go on without them -- ”

“The government needs them,” said Grandma.

“Who cares?” he snapped. “They’re too dangerous to drag them across the country!”

“They’ve got Azzie,” said Grandma. She squeezed his arm. “Only the government can help us get her back. These aliens are our bargaining chips.”

“One Oh Two Point Five,” said the alien again. A muffled voice from the bag said, “You’re lidening to Tatanooga’s bed bariedy.”

Floyd shifted the gun closer to him and kept driving.

***

The alien children – if that’s what they were – kept talking. They asked questions of Grandma, talked to each other, and tried to engage the radio in conversation. Most of their questions were things like “What’s that?”, and Grandma answered them, but sometimes they asked where they were going and whether Grandma was their parent. Grandma simply said “Washington” and “No”. Sometimes they hissed to each other in what seemed to be a private language.

Around eleven o’clock, Grandma began to have serious trouble keeping the four aliens in the bag. They were as big as large human babies now, and much more wiggly.

“They want to jump around and play,” said Grandma.

“Please jump and play,” said one of the aliens. “We like to jump.” It smiled at Floyd with a mouthful of nasty teeth.

“I reckon that’s one of them ideas that’s really, really bad,” said Floyd. “Tell you what, Ursula. We’d best pull over and tie these things up properly.”

Floyd pulled over and jumped out. They were on a lonely stretch of highway, with endless fields of copper-colored corn stretching out to the west, and a line of forested green Appalachian mountains marching up on the east. The west wind was waving a field of tall grass right by the road. From the trunk he took a long length of rope. He carefully tied up the aliens, all four into a big bundle. This wasn’t particularly easy, since they were wiggly as puppies and slippery as snakes, and none too happy. Then he sat them in the back seat, and squeezed Ngoc and Johnny up front with himself and Grandma. It would be a little too tight for comfortable driving, but nothing Floyd couldn’t handle. The aliens hissed and bubbled and spat and trilled in a frenzy of frustration. Floyd hoped they would give up and quiet down soon.

The wind had changed as he worked, and was now blowing around from the southeast. He suddenly saw something in the grass a little ways off.

“Ursula,” he said, “I think there might be somebody over there in the grass. I’m going to check it out.”

“Take your gun,” said Grandma, as calmly as if she was reminding him to take his lunch to work. But Floyd could see her worry in the lines around her eyes. He took the gun.

Five minutes later he was back. Without a word, he dropped the gun in Grandma’s lap and started up the car.

“Well?” said Grandma.

“Soldier,” said Floyd. “We can’t help him now.”

Grandma was silent for a time, as the car gathered speed. “It’s funny he’s there all by himself.”

“By himself?” said Floyd. “Maybe he’s there by himself. Maybe not. American soldiers don’t just leave casualties on the ground if they can help it. A battle must have gone real bad here. I reckon that fellow’s got lots of friends scattered all over that field.”

Floyd did not cry, because he was too worried about driving as fast as he could. Ngoc did not cry; perhaps she did not understand what had been said. Grandma allowed herself to cry, for the boys in the field, and for her own boy, whose birthday would have been yesterday.