New Year's Splash - Alien Attack

New Year’s Splash –993 words

The gash in the ice stretched for a mile, white into blue. Dr Bantman felt like a flea crawling into a giant’s ear and as he lumbered deeper into the interior the only sounds were his breath and the drip of melting ice. The crystals here had formed over hundreds of years of pressure, and for nearly 15 million years ice had covered the lake. A remote sensing satellite had found the opening with its high-frequency array in September but Bantman’s team had needed to wait until the start of the austral summer to get here. ‘Helluva way to spend Christmas.’ he muttered, as he eased the imaging drone into the water. ‘Ok, I’m in.’ he nudged the controls and a dim blue light flared up in the monitors back at base. ‘Something’s wrong. Steve, are you seeing this?’’ Bantman felt tiny prickles of electricity travel up his hands, his arms, ‘I can’t move!’ he cried as the tingling reached his head. Flickering blue lights danced in strange shapes and rhythms in front of his eyes. They were almost too beautiful to look at. He started laughing delightedly. Slowly a pale bulk emerged from the water and slender white tentacles laced his chest and legs. Then he was gone.

‘Sod off Dan!’ Susie stroked her arm where he had gripped it, ‘I am not spending New Year’s Eve playing that stupid game.’ Dan eyed her nervously and licked his lips. Perhaps the nights of staying awake were making him angry, no one in the world seemed to be sleeping. Susie sighed, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout.’ She shot a glance at his face, ‘You don’t look well.’ He seemed to have aged incredibly overnight.

‘Susie, I love you, I wish you’d try it just once. It will change everything’. Nobody knew where it had started but ‘the game’ was in every home, on all on computers and mobiles. Susie had seen a six year old on the underground, peering across his mother’s lap staring entranced as the blue lights flickered mottles of light in his face, his mother wearing the same syrupy lopsided smile. It was half past nine now and the street had been silent for hours. ‘Dan, you’re scaring me’ Susie watched his eyes go dull as he sat beside her, ‘Dan?’ Suddenly he pinned her down on the sofa. She heard a chirping buzz and blue lights spun in front of her. Then it went dark.

When she woke up Dan was sat across from her with his head in his hands. ‘Jesus Susie I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Susie slowly sat up, her head thumping. ‘Why Dan? You know I have epilepsy. What is wrong with you?’’. She felt relief as Dan’s eyes met hers and he slowly took her hand in his ‘Please help me!’ he whispered. ‘ I’m in trouble, everytime I played that game… I’ m scared it’s done something to me.’ He had smashed up his phone and this seemed to have helped. She could feel the old Dan returning back. They cried and talked and hugged and at last both fell exhausted to sleep.

Susie woke to the sound of Dan retching in the bathroom. ‘Are you ok alove?’ She padded into the bathroom with a glass of water. He was curled up over the toilet bowl. ‘Don’t come in here Susie!’ he wailed. His mouth was dripping with white sticky mucus and on the floor decayed round yellow fist-sized balls in the mucus had collapsed and broken, giving off an ammonia-like stench.

‘What is this stuff?’ she gasped, ‘Oh Dan, get it off!’ She helped Dan into the shower. As they left the bathroom they heard a scream. Dan ran to the curtain. An elderly woman with a Corgi was trying to pull her dog away from a large white sticky lump. Several more lumps lay on the ground like pale mummies. There was a white lump sitting immobile in the front seat of a car. ‘Are those people?’ Susie whispered. ‘Let’s switch on the tv’, she hurried across the room.

‘No!’ Dan caught her, ‘Hang on, this could be connected to that game! We don’t know if it will be on the tv too.’ Most radio stations seemed to be off air, when suddenly the radio blasted a loud ringing peel . ‘This is an emergency transmission. If you can hear this you must not, repeat, must not use any electrical visual device. We are under attack. Do not use mobile phones, televisions or computers. Stay in your home. We will keep transmitting on this station as long as we can. Take cover. We are targeting EMP detonations to the London area’.

The dog outside started whining. Susie and Dan looked at each other and ran to the window. The white lumps were shuddering and a strange tickling cry filled the air. Slowly arms and legs appeared. ‘They look ok,’ Susie whispered. The people emerging from the sacs seemed to sway and tilt together in one movement like pale leaves of grass. One turned to the whining dog. It moved its head slowly to the side, then quickly and smoothly a white tentacle whipped out from the man’s mouth and wrapped up the dog, which started a keening wail as the tentacle sucked out blood. ‘Oh Shit!’ Dan gasped. The rest of the white ‘people’ flickered blue and white in excitement. Dan turned to go and caught his breath as several gazes snapped up to watch him. Suddenly a wave of pressure blasted across the street. Susie and Dan were knocked down to the floor. ‘What was that?’ Susie moaned. As they slowly looked over the window sill they could see the white shapes had burst like balloons, showering the street with yellow and white and red. ‘Was that an EMP Susie?
‘Thank Christ it worked, what ever it was’ Susie said.