The Last Stand

Jack Barnes walked anxiously back and forth inside his home. A revolver was tucked in his belt and he carried a Winchester Hunting rifle in a nervous grip. In the kitchen were his wife and daughter, both trying to hold out as well as they could considering these ungraspable circumstances.

The sun had since long set over the suburban areas of New South Hampshire. On a normal evening most people in the small houses would have been fast asleep and off to whatever dreamland their hearts imagination would take them to. But this was no ordinary evening.Tonight was the night that a nightmare had invaded this quiet rural street.

Jack was the only one who'd had a chance to prepare for this and he had barricaded his house to the best of his powers. The windows were barred with heavy planks and he had done the same to the doors. He had intended to be prepared when when they came. And now they had come.

He could hear them outside. The noise from their machines boomed through the cracks of the barred windows. For several years he had been expecting them. It was a real shame that none had believed his warnings, but then, why should they? Who in their right mind would believe a middle aged social worker telling them about a hostile civilization yet unknown to the majority of mankind.

They had slowly begun to infiltrate our world, observing, biding their time, getting ready to strike when we had lowered our guard enough. It would be the invasion that none would see coming until it had already run us over. But Jack had found out and even if no one else believed it, he had decided to make sure that his family would not fall into their hands.

Strong blue lights broke through cracks in the barred windows. He dared a chance and moved up to one of the said cracks, taking a quick peek outside. The cold blue shine was so strong that it was impossible to discern anything about them or even how many there were. A weak sort of humming noise accompanied the light so Jack guessed they must have their vehicles surrounding the house. This was not how he had planned it.

Jack felt helplessness creep over him and walked back into the kitchen to check on his family. Kelly, his 9-year-old daughter was holding out surprisingly well considering the circumstances, but his wife of ten years, Jamie, was obviously taking it all rather hard. She sat quiet for the moment but her cheeks were still reddish and her eyes swollen from the last hours of crying, since she with shock, had realized what was happening.

"Daddy I want to go outside..." Kelly's face had an expression of seriousness that melted Jacks heart while at the same time stabbing it. He searched his heart but truth be told he didn't know how to save them from what was inevitably happening. "You can't, sweetheart.." He leaned the rifle against the dinner table and hunched down beside her. "There are evil men out there that want to hurt us and separate us from each other. But we are not gonna let them do that are we? As long as we stick close together we'll be alright. Nothing can harm us if we stay brave, dear" He gently stroke her cheek and put an arm around her, hugging her close to him.

The fact that she did not return the hug but remained still, hurt his feelings for a second before he realized that she was trying to be brave through this, for his sake. No matter how all this was going to end they could never take away the pride he felt for his daughter. Smart, kind and now so brave, she would grow up beautiful and be a highly sought after woman, if they got through this alive.

"Please Jack, you're scaring her... and me...." Jamie's words startled him and before she could continue he rose to his feet and burst out at her "Stop being so condescending of everything I do. You have no idea what is outside our house right now... I do... and I'm trying my best to get us through this but not even I have all the answers... OK?" His tone was harsh and Jamie burst into tears once again. As soon as he saw her distress, he regretted having snapped at her. Her good heartedness and naivety were some of the things he liked the most about her when they first started dating. He himself had a tendency to plunge into fits of cynicism every now and then and her good spirit would always balance him back. But now she was having severe troubles coping with the current events. Hell, even he was feeling the pressure approaching the boiling point now. He was usually very calm and not at all prone to these kind of angry outbursts.

Before he had a chance to say he was sorry, a sound as from a window breaking was heard from the laundry room further down the hall. Jack did not hesitate for a second. With the rifle at ready he took a few quick steps across the hall and kicked open the door to the laundry room. As the door flung open he caught a glimpse of one of the sinister beings just outside the window. It was the size of a heavy set man but its head was perfectly circular, eyeless and pitch black. Perhaps it was a droid of some sort he thought as he heard the bang from his rifle bounce around his usually so quiet middle-class home. Blinded by the searchlights outside, his aim failed, but at least it was enough to get the creature to abandon its intrusion attempt and duck out of sight. Jack dashed back into the hallway and out of any line of fire. A loud screeching noise came from the yard as if some weird metallic voice echoed out commands that he was unable to comprehend.

"Go to hell you freaks!" he yelled while peering through the doorway and pulling off two more shots towards the cold blue suns in the now so distant outside. As he retreated back towards the kitchen he knew that this was the end. The barrier had been breached and it would only be a matter of time now before their invasion would include this, his home and shelter.

Second by second, that seemed like eternities to Jack, it dawned on him that even though the battle was now lost, there was still a way to keep them from winning completely. He put his rifle down against the wall in the hallway and pulled out the revolver from his belt. He then entered the kitchen where his family looked up at him, fear and confusion distorting their faces. With regret already swelling up within him, he pointed the gun at Kelly. He closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger, for he could not bare to witness the anguish in her eyes. At least it was over so quick for her that she didn't even have time to let out a terrified scream. Jamie however screamed that scream of terror to the full extent of her powers as she in a hysterical frenzy, threw herself violently at Jack.

Being startled by Jamies leap and still slightly paralyzed from the realization of what he was doing, he missed and the bullet hit Jamie in the neck. She fell to the floor with blood gushing out all around her. "I'm sorry!" he cried out, tears now pouring down his own cheeks "I'm so sorry..." that made it one sorry for each extra round he emptied into her body.

Glass was now breaking around the house and a crashing sound indicated that the front door was broken through. None of that mattered now though, Jack was long beyond caring. At least death came to his family, quickly and with a minimum of suffering this way. No experiments... No torture.. He had promised that he would never let them hurt his loved ones, and he had kept that promise. He turned the gun on himself and another shot rang through the building. Jack's body fell to the bloodsoaked kitchen floor and as his last breaths of life faded out he could have sworn that he heard a man call out next to him. "Oh! Christ! Get paramedics in here, Fast!!"

Outside the building, at the perimeter of the yard, a well-groomed man holding a microphone looked into the glass ocular of a channel 6 news network camera and declared "This is Brian Johnson for Channel 6 news outside the house where a 44-year-old Social worker has held his wife and daughter hostage for the past 9 hours. Gunshots were just heard from inside the building and the SWAT team at site have been ordered in. One member of the SWAT team was earlier shot at while trying to find a safe entrance. It is still unclear what the suspects motives are but a neighbor and friend of the family states that the suspect has been suffering from an increasing paranoia concerning some form of alien invasion. Events are very dramatic here at the moment so stay tuned and we will bring you more updates on this after this commercial break."


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Word count: 1625