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the army guy had introduced himself to the alien, and maybe the alien had done the same.

A sound pulled Jeremiah’s attention from the screen, and he realized that he had been hearing Lori for a while now, her voice overflowing from the next room. She seemed to be demanding to talk to the aliens herself.

On screen, there was sudden movement as an alien pointed to the sky and shouted something. The others all looked as well, and then they were all pointing and shouting.

And then abruptly, they stopped. Had one of them given an order? Jeremiah was sure it hadn’t been the one closest to the human ambassador, the one he had assumed was the leader; that one was still lowering the arm that had been pointing. The camera swept up to capture what had caused their excitement. Helicopters.

The alien in front said something to the army guy, and Jeremiah wanted to pull his hair out. The aliens all kept glancing into the sky. Finally, the alien in front seemed to have had enough of the conversation, and he turned to walk past the human.

Half of the entourage continued to cover the lone man with their wands as they walked past him across the parking lot toward the mass of army vehicles that surrounded the castle.

Poor guy, Jeremiah thought, seeing the fear and uncertainty on the man’s face as he turned to watch the aliens pass him.

The lot was half-full of cars, and the line of aliens began adjusting to move through them. As they passed the first row, a white sedan disappeared, replaced by another of the furry orange spider creatures from Jeremiah’s garage.

The switch happened so suddenly it took everyone a few seconds to react. While the humans were still trying to grasp what had happened, the aliens continued with barely a pause. The spider crouched in their wake where it had appeared.

The aliens advanced to the second row of cars. Two more cars vanished; two more spiders appeared.

The aliens reached the third row. The view on the screen turned suddenly to one of the spiders that had appeared. It was galloping across the parking lot between the human line and the front of the castle, moving with alarming speed on those six legs.

The aerial view made Jeremiah itch for a rolled up newspaper to squash the thing. Then they zoomed-in, and he wanted to go hide under the bed.

Meanwhile, the aliens had reached the third row of cars, and a minivan turned suddenly into what looked like a giant millipede. It stood about four feet tall, was dark grey, and stretched out maybe fifteen or twenty feet.

Then the view was back on the panicked spider, which was approaching the army convoy that surrounded the castle on the east side. The soldiers in the direct path of the spider were scrambling to get out of the way, while soldiers to either side trained their guns on the charging monster.

Jeremiah heard a quick succession of cracks over the laptop’s speakers.

“Did they shoot it?!” he asked, incredulous.

Either they didn’t, or all their shots had missed, or the thing was bulletproof, because it veered abruptly and scurried back toward the castle. When it reached the base of the wall, it cowered, pulling its legs in and its body down.

By the time the camera view returned to the aliens, they were nearly through the parking lot, some twenty yards from the mass of soldiers and armored vehicles that surrounded them. A small herd of orange spiders milled about the parking lot in their wake.

The aliens passed the last of the cars, which became yet another spider. And here, finally, the camera got a straight shot of the action.

One of the aliens, not the one in the front, but one in the middle of the pack, as he passed the car, had subtly pointed the stick he was holding, and his lips had moved long enough for a medium-length sentence. Then there was a blur of SOMETHING connecting the alien’s stick and the car, and then the spider was there.

The words, “Did you see that?” died in Jeremiah’s mouth as the room erupted in chatter. Everyone had seen that.

The talking quickly faded though, for now, finally, the news microphones were picking up words from the lead alien, who had halted just a dozen feet from the army barricade.

Jeremiah strained to hear, but it sounded garbled. A scientist tried to turn up the already-maxed speakers.

“...Bew xi kepx. Bu ozg thiash jizchexoyexth oz bu zu nu birsushz ik nez chyorux.” The alien held out his arms and gave a very slight bow. Jeremiah glanced around. He didn’t think anyone else had understood that either. The aliens moved forward.

The barricade of army vehicles was not air-tight. That is, from a distance, it gave the impression of a solid wall of vehicles and men, but there were no sandbags, no barriers, and up close, Jeremiah could see the web of clear spaces that wove through the barricade. Through this, the aliens began to thread their way.

“Aren’t they going to stop them?” he wondered aloud. On screen, the army guys held their ground, guns ready, waiting for the order.

The news crew was apparently operating from a van just behind the army guys, the camera and cameraman perched on a swiveling stand on its roof. It wasn’t quite in the alien’s direct line, but the aliens noticed it. For a second, the leader of their pack looked straight at the camera, and it felt to Jeremiah that he and the alien made eye contact.

It was creepy.

The aliens adjusted their course toward the news van. The news microphone picked up cursing now, a lot of it, apparently from the news crew itself. The camera shook for a second, and then it drifted so the aliens weren’t quite in focus.

The approaching aliens