The Invasion

A Story by Riaan Steffens

Short story or possible introduction to a very sense fulfilling, character experience.

The heart-stopping tugs at the door knob of the basement door was becoming too much to bare, the light beneath the door staggering into the lightless room being broken by two masses of unknown feet rumbling against the wooden floor, creating the utmost noise of what must certainly define fear, as they stomped up and down.

And then - silence.

I was only about ten years old then, a little heap of anxiety crawled up into the corner of the safety of the basement, under the safety of a dirty rag. A damp, grimy basement which belonged to a ragged house - which in turn belonged to my forsaking uncle - with whom I had been living with. I say belonged, and had been living, because most of the house has by now been destroyed and my uncle - judging by the noises which screeched down into the basement through the little crevices in the ceiling boards - has been killed. I could still remember the first time I dealt with death, what a horrifying experience. The glass from the windshield shattering and flying into the car, by the time it reached me it glistened in dark red. As I painfully opened my eyes while wiping the pieces of reflective red off of my face I saw that my parents had vanished, replaced by a hunk of merged metal from one of those lorries that looked just like the toys I loved to play with, those eighteen wheelers which always struck my fancy, but no more.

I woke up in the middle of the night, somewhere between midnight and two o’clock. Flashes of blinding light woke me up as they rushed to expose themselves through my unguarded window above my bed. Thunder had always been a petrifying aspect of my life. I always thought of it as the drum of life warning that something bad is going to happen. That same drum beat the night my parents disappeared out of my life.

I slowly got out of bed and tippy-toed towards my uncles room. I always found solace in seeing his face, even though I knew I would be cursed back to bed and find no real comfort in his words at all, but his rigid and muscular figure would always make me feel protected as long as I could see it was still around.

This time though, there was no figure present in the room that provided any comfort. As I slowly backed out of the doorway that led into my uncle’s room, I heard the colliding sound of bodies crashing onto the floor and against furniture - and the firing of my uncle’s gun. Wood snapped into pieces as cupboard doors were unhinged and plummeted to the floor, plates broke into clashes as they met the ground and the fear inducing noise of shattering glass sent shivers up my spine as I froze into a trembling statue.

At the end of the hallway I stared as two figures came hurtling past, one my uncle, and one a towering massive bundle of muscular, alien-like mass which wrestled my uncle’s brawny but battered body to the ground with bone crushing thumps as they collided onto the floor. In sheer agony my uncle turned his face towards mine with his hand on the invader’s throat, and with an exhausting breath, he yelled in the most unbearable tone of voice:

“Run you foolish boy! RUN!”

That was easily over twenty-minutes ago, and at that time I still had tears gushing down my cheeks from the helpless and deafening yelps my uncle had sounded as he was crumpled to death by the thumps of colossal, hammering fists which came from the room above me.

The damp, rotting smell of the basement oak filled my soul as I stared at the pair of slaughtering feet through the gap below the door. Silhouetted against the light from the gleaming, swinging bulbs hanging down the basement stairs, the invader’s feet were joined by his ferocious legs and knobby knees, and then his blood-soaked hands, and then his immense elongated head. My fearful shivers turned into atrocious jolts and twitches and fits as I clutched onto the rag as tightly as I possibly could, ripping the seams slowly apart. My teeth clattered as the alien figure slowly stood up, once again providing me with the familiar sight of the two ruthless blocks of feet.

The obscure bases took a few steps back, each step generating a bone-chilling creak louder than the previous on the wooden surface. As soon as the few steps came to a halt, my face lifted up trying to focus my ears on where the strange figure was headed.
Suddenly, four abysmal growls came with four hurtling steps as the alien-like thing rammed through the basement door. Chunks of damp oak and splinters gave way to a vast stream of light which shone like a spotlight onto my face as I tried to block it out with my quivering hands. The poised alien figure slowly stood up as if time had started to slow, his shadow lay on my face blocking out the light.

Ultimately, my petrified, watery eyes met his large gleaming, malicious eyes - as he turned his focus on me.