Attack of the Alien Horde

  “No, Mom,” Miles said, trying to recover. “I, um, heard about it, is all. This kid . . . His mom works in the city . . . She’s a—”

  “Please, tell the truth. What were you doing downtown on a school night? Were you with your father? He took you to one of his job sites, didn’t he? How many times have I told him I don’t want you going to those places? All those machines driving around, and rusted nails sticking out of every other board. It’s no place for a child to be.”

  “I’m not a child, Mom!” Miles shouldn’t have raised his voice, but he couldn’t help it. She was acting like he was still in pull-ups. He could take care of himself. Thanks to her and Jack the season-ticket holder, he pretty much had to. And with the Gilded cape, he’d be taking care of everyone else now, too. If she only knew the amazing things he could do.

  “You are a child. You’re my child. And I love you.”

  There it was. The words struck him like a bowling ball to the gut. He wanted to be angry with her for leaving, for making him move and change schools and start his life over from scratch. It’d be so much easier, if he didn’t know she still loved him.

  And if he didn’t love her back. He wanted to tell her, to say those three little words that always made things better. But they were lodged in his throat, a lump he couldn’t quite cough out, no matter how badly he wanted to breathe easy again. Instead there was the cold, barely audible crackle of a phone line waiting for a voice to fill the void.

  Finally, Miles’s mom spoke. “This isn’t your fault,” she said. “Could you please put your father on the phone?”

  “Okay.” Miles sighed. “Bye.” I love you, too, Mom.

  Miles turned back into the kitchen and held out the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Mr. Taylor’s shoulders sagged. He grabbed the phone without making eye contact and headed for the living room. “Don’t let the dogs burn.”

  Miles took his dad’s spot at the stove. The hot dogs curled in their blistering, browning skins. Over the sizzling and popping, he heard his dad’s voice carrying in from the living room.

  “Hey, Eve.

  “No, it wasn’t like that.

  “Simmer down, will you?”

  Miles could only eavesdrop on one side of the conversation, but he didn’t need to hear both sides to know what his mom was saying: She was blaming her ex-husband for putting their son in danger.

  “Aw, the kid likes going to the job sites.”

  Miles had heard his parents argue many times, even more so over the past few years. Their disagreements always started out the same, with his dad downplaying the issue. No matter what it was, he’d say it was—

  “—no big deal. It was after hours. It wasn’t like the crew was in full swing.”

  Mr. Taylor’s attempts to defuse the situation never worked, though. His soothing Southern drawl only goaded Miles’s mom on, like she was spoiling for a fight and wasn’t going to take no for an answer. The argument inevitably escalated until—

  “For crying out loud! What was I supposed to do? I had work to finish. It’s not like I can afford to give up any hours. Things are tight enough around here as it is.

  “What?” Mr. Taylor boomed. “Are you really telling me what you would’ve done? I see. You would’ve done that from all the way down in Hollywood? Well, then, why don’t you swing by the school and pick him up next time? Oh, that’s right. You can’t! What gives you the right to—hello? Hello?”

  Mr. Taylor stomped into the kitchen and slammed the phone onto its cradle. “That woman,” he muttered. Then he turned to Miles. “I don’t guess there’s any chance you had the good sense to mind your own business during all that?”

  Miles didn’t answer, but he knew he didn’t need to. The answer was written all over his face.

  Mr. Taylor leaned against the counter and rubbed his beard. He looked tired. Spent. “Miles, when your mom and me go at each other like that, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Nothing to do with him? The entire fight had been about him. They always were. His parents argued about his bedtime, and his grades, and his extracurricular activities (or lack thereof). Miles felt like a wire fence dividing his parents from each other, and every time they tried to get closer, they pricked themselves on the barbs. The question nagged at him—if he weren’t around, would they still be married?—but he forced it to the back of his mind.

  “It sure sounded like it did.”

  “I know it did, son. I know. But if we weren’t arguing about whether or not you should be coming to work with me, we’d be arguing about something else. Somewhere along the line, your mom and me got broke. Heck, maybe we were always that way, and we were just too young to know it.” Mr. Taylor pressed his lips together. “But broke as we were, your mom always said we managed to get one thing right. And that thing is you.”

  “If I’m so right, then why did she . . .?” Miles’s voice cracked. He couldn’t say it, no matter how obvious the question was. Tears stung his eyes, and he looked away.

  His dad looked away, too, and Miles wondered if he was feeling a sting in his own eyes. “If I knew that, I would’ve figured out a way to keep it from happening.”

  They stood apart, neither of them knowing what to say next.

  The kitchen fire alarm changed the subject. It shrieked suddenly, and Miles and his dad nearly jumped out of their shoes.

  “The dogs!” Mr. Taylor yelped.

  He pushed Miles aside and yanked the frying pan off the burner, but it was too late. Smoke was already billowing from the pan. He pulled up the kitchen window and fanned the smoke out with one hand.

  “Wave a towel in front of that squaller!” he hollered, trying to be heard over the deafening wail of the alarm.

  Miles snatched up a dish towel and leaped onto the countertop, so he could get closer to the alarm. He waved the towel furiously, breathing in smoke and coughing it back out again. It tasted like hot dogs, if hot dogs were made of charcoal.

  After a minute, the alarm fell silent. His dad dropped the pan back onto the stove, looking down at the hot dogs grimly. The tops didn’t look so bad, but when he rolled them over, the undersides looked like sunbaked pavement. He prodded them with his finger, and the scorched skin flaked off.

  “I’ll take dibs on these,” he offered. “I like mine a little crispy anyway.”

  Miles had been hungry a few minutes ago, but after listening to his parents fight, he’d lost his appetite. “I just remembered that Henry’s mom made us sandwiches,” he lied. “I didn’t want to be rude, so I filled up over there. Sorry.”

  For a second, Miles thought his dad might force the issue, but instead he smiled weakly. “No, you don’t want to be rude. A mom fixes you a sandwich, you best give thanks and eat it.”

  “Yeah,” Miles agreed.

  “Go on, then,” Mr. Taylor said, nodding in the direction of the hallway. “I can tell you’re itching to go to your room. You’re excused.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  NEVER, IN ALL HIS YEARS of conquering, had Lord Commander Calamity gazed upon a horde as wicked, hateful, and perfectly Unnd-trained as the one that stood before him now. There were platoons of gutting warriors wielding corkscrewed disemboweling drills. Ranks of clubbers hoisting two-handed smash-bats. Even an entire battalion of skiff-riders with halberds sharp enough to shave the fur from a boar-fly while it slumbered.

  The Lord Commander had assembled the horde for a single purpose: to kill the GGARL! that had been located, capture its golden cape, and slaughter the inhabitants of Earth in the most Unnd-compassionate manner imaginable.

  Make that three single purposes. The Lord Commander has always been an overachiever.

  All was silent. The Lord Commander stood tall on the balcony outside his great chamber with his best battle blade, Crymaker the Mutilator, at his side. He knew the horde was waiting for him to deliver a rousing speech, but he wasn’t sure he’d made them wait long enough. No doubt they were already quite
disgruntled, but they were Unnd warriors. The more disgruntled they were, the better.

  The Lord Commander glanced at his quivering servant, who clutched a timepiece in one trembling hand.

  “Well?” the Lord Commander asked.

  The servant shivered like a leaf with a high fever. “Y-you’ve made them s-stand in full armor in the scorching h-heat for twice as long as standard Unnd etiquette d-dictates, Lord Commander. A f-fitting decision for a l-leader twice as horrible as any other.”

  The Lord Commander puffed out his chest. “Thank you.”

  “My p-pleasure.”

  The moment had at last arrived. The Lord Commander cleared his throat, dislodging an unruly glob of mucus. He swallowed it down for luck.

  “Unnd horde!” he bellowed. “Hear my—”

  “Oh, Oogie!” a shrill voice interrupted. “Don’t start without me, Oogie!”

  The Lord Commander winced. He turned to see a rotund Unnd matron hurrying toward him from inside his great chamber. She wore a jangle-beast pelt and iron tusk rings. She held a large gourd in one hand.

  “Mother . . .” He groaned. “I was about to give my most Unnd-inspiring speech yet.”

  “Not if I’m not there to hear it, Oogie!”

  The Lord Commander glanced at those around him warily. “Mother,” he whispered, “please don’t call me ‘Oogie’ in front of the other warriors.”

  “Oogalus Berbert Calamity!” Mother Calamity huffed. “I carried you in my belly sac for eleven moon cycles! I will call you what I please!”

  The Lord Commander lowered his eyes sheepishly. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Now here.” Mother Calamity held forward the gourd. A murky, greenish liquid sloshed within. “I cooked you a little something for your trip.”

  The Lord Commander perked up. “Rodent bile soup!” he blurted excitedly. He opened the top, and a pungent odor wafted over the balcony. “Is it extra gassy?”

  Mother Calamity pinched one of the Lord Commander’s tusks. “Just how you like it, Oogie. Now close it up before all the fumes escape.”

  The Lord Commander did as he was told. He handed the sealed gourd to his servant, who looked like he was about to keel over. “My mother made this rodent bile soup for me,” he sneered. “Don’t you taste a single drop.”

  “Y-you have my s-solemn vow,” the servant said, nodding.

  “Go on and give your speech now, Oogie. I didn’t put my beard in a bun for nothing.”

  The Lord Commander turned back to the waiting horde. “Unnd horde! Hear my words!” The Lord Commander paused for Unnd-dramatic effect. “We’re going to Earth. Kill everything, or I will kill you!”

  The Lord Commander’s speech was finished. He waited for a resounding cheer from the horde, but none came. Perhaps they thought he was pausing again to be even more Unnd-dramatic.

  “GGARL!” the Lord Commander boomed. He thrust Crymaker the Mutilator into the air and launched a mucus glob over the balcony.

  “GGARL!” the horde roared in unison. They spat so many mucus globs onto the ground, Mother Calamity’s clapping could barely be heard over their steaming.

  The horde turned and began marching aboard the Lord Commander’s battle cruiser, their boots stomping the ground in rhythm. The Lord Commander felt the balcony shaking beneath his feet, and he knew this was the horde that would bring him a golden cape at last.

  “V-very Unnd-inspiring, Lord Commander,” the servant said shakily. “As advertised.”

  “Your skill at groveling has improved greatly, servant.” The Lord Commander nodded. Then he turned and yelled at one of his gathered fortress guards. “Snarlpustule!”

  Snarlpustule stepped forward. “Sir!”

  “See that this servant joins me aboard my battle cruiser.” The Lord Commander always traveled with servants, particularly those who excelled at quivering. They were good role models for the newly conquered.

  “At once, sir!” Snarlpustule hoisted the servant by the scruff of his neck and carried him from the room, nearly causing him to drop the gourd of rodent bile soup. The servant hugged the gourd tightly to his chest and whimpered.

  “Oh, Oogie,” Mother Calamity cooed. “You make a matron so Unnd-proud.” She dabbed at her eyes with a mucus bib, then blew her snout into it. She offered the bib tearfully to the Lord Commander. “To remind you of home.”

  The Lord Commander took the bib. Though he would never admit it—and he would kill anyone who he even suspected had taken notice—he felt a small dampness welling at the corner of one eye. “I’ll carry it with me until I return in glory.”

  “If you found an Unnd-nice matron of your own to settle down with, you wouldn’t need to carry your mother’s mucus bib, would you? That Gargonia girl is rather revolting and knobby around the—”

  “Mother!”

  “Fine. Run along, then.”

  The Lord Commander did as he was told. He ran through his great chamber and bounded down the steps of his horrible fortress with the excitement of an Unndling on his first day of bloodletting camp. He joined the last of his horde as it strode aboard his battle cruiser, and the last thing he saw as the gangplank closed behind him was his mother waving from the balcony.

  He hoped there was curdle pudding waiting in the fortress cellar when he returned.

  CHAPTER

  12

  MILES NEEDED AN ESCAPE. HE didn’t want to dwell on his dad or his mom or all the things he should or shouldn’t have done to keep their marriage together. That was in the past. The very near, very painful past, but still the past. There was nothing he could do about any of that now.

  But the future . . . There was plenty Miles could do about the future, and he planned to do it all. He just needed instructions.

  Miles spread Henry’s copies of Gilded Age on his bed, wondering which to read first. He instinctively arranged them in order by issue number and was miffed to see they were completely out of sequence. Oh, well. He’d fill in the missing issues later. Provided Henry could locate them in that sty he called a bedroom.

  Miles dove in. He’d never really read a comic book before—he’d always thought they were kind of hokey—but as he pored over the stories, he had to admit there was something engrossing about them.

  In issue 265, Gilded busted up a ring of shoplifters operating out of a U-Haul stuffed with stolen cell phones and designer clothes. He made the thieves confess and then used his superspeed to return all the stolen goods to the stores they’d come from in a single afternoon.

  Issue 282 told a story about Gilded taking down a gang that had set up shop in a family neighborhood. Mean as the gang was, their knives and guns and tough talk were no match for the Twenty-Four-Karat Champion.

  Miles was hooked. The comic books weren’t hokey at all. They were full of hope, brimming with the promise of a tomorrow that would be better than today—a message Miles was wholeheartedly onboard with, since his todays pretty much stank. He found himself becoming so invested in the stories, he kept forgetting the reason he was reading them: to learn what the cape could do.

  What he could do. Could he really clap his hands together so hard, it’d create a tidal wave (issue 307)? Was it really possible for him to carry a mobile home on his back (issue 314)?

  As he read, a warm sensation started in his chest and swelled until it seemed like his heart would burst out of his rib cage. It was an emotion he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was pride. The people were safe with the cape in Miles Taylor’s hands. He would never let them down.

  Miles finished every single comic book Henry had given him, and then he read them all again. He read until the late-night hours, eventually falling asleep facedown on an open copy of issue 299.

  The double-page spread showed Gilded flying across a clear blue sky, his golden costume gleaming in the bright, yellow sun.

  • • •

  Miles’s weekend went pretty much like that. He holed himself up, studying the copies of Gilded Age until he knew them backward and for
ward. He emerged every few hours for a drink or a bowl of cereal, then returned to his room before his dad could invite him to watch football. He felt guilty about not spending time with his dad, but he had the greater good to consider. There were too many questions that needed answers. He had too much to learn.

  When Monday morning arrived, Miles bounded out of bed, excited for the first time in a very long time about the beginning of a new school week. He loaded the cape and comic books into his backpack and headed for the bus stop, hoping Henry had thought ahead and would bring more back issues of Gilded Age to school. Miles would’ve called to remind him, but in the rush to escape from Henry’s house, they’d forgotten to exchange phone numbers.

  Miles was looking forward to seeing his new friend. He wanted to show off all the things he’d learned. Heck, maybe there was a thing or two about Gilded he could tell Henry for a change. Okay, that was probably a stretch. But Miles definitely knew his stuff now. At least he could talk to Henry and not feel completely lost.

  When he stepped off the bus, Henry was waiting for him. “Where have you been?” he scolded.

  It wasn’t the welcome Miles had been expecting. He looked around, just to make sure Henry was talking to him. “Home?” he offered.

  “DOING WHAT?” Henry screeched. He was worked up, exasperated. What had gotten into him?

  “Reading up on Gilded, remember?” Miles pulled the comic books from his backpack. “There’s some really great stuff in these. I totally get why you’re so into them. I realize I’m not exactly unbiased, but—”

  “Come with me,” Henry cut in. He clamped his hand onto Miles’s arm and started hauling him through the bus corral.

  “Is there a problem?” Miles nearly dropped the comic books, but he recovered before they slipped from his hands. He accidentally bent one in half, but they were already so worn, he doubted Henry would notice.