Slipping down the side of the gulch, John paused and waited for an acknowledgment of the noise he had made in the steep descent. Gravel dug into his knees as he kneeled with the gun held up and ready.

A faint pulse of light came from further north in the gully. He saw nothing and heard only the sounds of the insects. The shaking that had palsied his hands since running from the house had steadied, with his breathing also calming.

As odd as it seemed, he could think clearly now. In the house, it had taken all his effort to keep going, to concentrate on the problem at hand. The confusion seemed to deepen until he gained distance from the house. Maybe the aliens were using some type of weapon against the house, causing the occupants to get dim.

Whatever the cause, he was happy to be thinking clearly.

To move north in the gully was to court disaster. Whoever those men he had seen were, they had obviously thought they could defeat the aliens with firepower alone and they had been wrong. The alien had killed them as effortlessly as a man stepping on a bug. While his gun was still a good means of reaching out and killing an alien or two, it was still a limited use item if he stayed in one place and tried to make a last stand.

He needed an edge. Mobility was a good option. If he kept moving and struck sparingly, he could stay ahead of the aliens, but he would have to come from an unexpected direction.

John looked up the steep side of the gully, knowing instinctively that he would have to continue east and circle around the landing place to attack the aliens from the rear. It was the only chance he had to stay alive long enough to make the aliens leave this place.

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Movement flickered in the corner of his eye.

Turning his head slowly, he saw an alien walk effortlessly down the side of the gully about fifty yards north. It held something in its arms roughly the size of a large football. As he watched, it turned its back on him and walked slowly, woodenly, towards the light.

I could shoot it now, he thought. Shoot the thing and run for shelter in the woods before they could respond to his attack. He swung the rifle and tracked the creature, but did not fire.

It neared a corner that seemed familiar in the sights of the gun. Then John recognized the place. It was where the alien had killed those men, but no trace of the men remained. They had taken the bodies. Why?

The alien rounded the corner and passed out of sight.

Quickly, John slung the gun and climbed the embankment to the cover of the trees above the gully. It took ages to reach the top, constantly looking over his shoulder and scanning the lip of the gully, but he finally rolled over the crest and crawled deep into the trees.

Had he waited a moment longer, John would have seen the sled emerge from the woods on the west side of the gully, pause, then descend to the gully floor, the bodies on it rolling to the movement.

Tree branches moved above, the pines and oak vaguely visible in the dim light.

Bob Harris tried to roll off the ride, but he seemed to be paralyzed. Only his eyes moved as he tried to understand what was happening.

The light grew brighter, detail coming out in the trees as the sled turned a corner.

A spaceship came into sight. A lifeless lump that seemed a prop in a play than a vehicle for traveling the stars. To one side of the ship, an alien was rooting in the dirt, its hands sunk into the dirt as it wove a pattern, looking for something elusive.

The intensity of the light increased as the ship passed from view and the trees edged away overhead. A humming he had not noticed reached the point where it was no longer insignificant. Bob rolled his eyes to see ahead, shocked by what he beheld.

The sleek hull of another space ship slowly came into view, the glow coming from the skin of the craft.

The sled stopped, and an alien stood over Bob. It was nothing like the little man he had seen in the gully.

Bob’s scream came out a muffled croak.