It was the worse time of the day for Parker. The morning light was burning right into his closed eyes and forcing him to get up and face another day of honest work. Not that he regretted the decision to go straight. It was just a pain in the butt to get up early; he was a night person.

He rolled to his back, vaguely aware his bed was lumpy, and opened his eyes.

The sun was directly over his face and hovering inches from his nose. Instinctively, Parker swatted at the light and felt a burning sensation when his hand contacted the light.

The sun knocked across the road to hit a tree and wink out of existence.

What the hell? He sat up and tried to understand where he was. His brief exposure to the light had effectively blinded Parker, so he waited for his sight to grow accustomed to the dark and felt the soft bedding he had been lying on.

A shot came from behind. He turned and saw the lights from a house and a ball of light sitting in front of the house, then he remembered. Aliens had landed. As he watched, he saw the entire tree line facing the yard erupted in staccato gunfire. Over the woods and house, thousands of small lights darted in the sky, circling, and diving towards the woods. It was a battle he could not understand.

Parker’s hand touched a nose and his tactile search ended abruptly. Lamar was dead, shot by men in a helicopter.

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“Aw shit,” Parker whispered and scrambled off the body of his friend.

Small detonation drew his attention briefly back to the house where the small lights were exploding as they entered the trees, diminutive flashes that seemed like fire crackers.

The posse was dying. Lamar was dead. What the hell was he doing here? He searched for the shotgun, found it lying a few feet away, then stood and walked away from the war.

His legs were weak as Parker headed south, yet only a few yards into his journey he stopped and looked back at the house and the woods where his friends now fought for their lives. Lamar had thought this was all part of a plan designed by the people who were in the house, a plan that would ultimately destroy more people in the town.

Parker remembered the fear in Lamar’s eyes when he stepped out of the house and walked to the car. Lamar had honestly thought his wife was dead.

Lamar was like any man, just as capable of making a mistake and to misjudge a situation. He had been right about the aliens.

If he kept walking south, Parker suspected he would only prolong the end. He would spend the last hour of his life running away from death. He would be a coward. That helicopter showed the things to come. If the aliens did not get him, the people in the house would, and if they missed, the next helicopter attack would do it, or a ground attack. Whatever.

If he died running away, then the years he spent becoming an upstanding citizen would have been a wasted effort. He would die as nothing more than another piece of human waste.

“Aw shit,” he shouted and faced the house.

Lamar had killed several of the aliens in a simple ambush.

The gunfire was still roaring at a furious rate.

Parker stopped at Lamar’s body long enough to claim the pistol and ammunition.