Instinctively, they all looked up at the ceiling, even Marie pointing the camera at the source of the offending noise.

“What was that?” Carol asked sharply, but knew better and regretted the words the second they were out of her mouth. Turner had his command post up there in a room they were told to avoid. Turner was wandering around the second floor of the house, but why would he make so much noise?

“They’re in the house,” Jim shuddered, the words echoing hollowly in the room.

This was wrong. The children would conclude Jim had voiced the only choice available. Carol reached for the gun in the center of the table, only to have her arm shoved aside as Jim grasped the weapon and checked the barrels.

The shotgun gun held a shot. The aliens had to have loaded the thing for just this event. Carol grasped Jim’s arm and held tight, her fingernails digging into his flesh. “Don’t go up there,” she ordered, while trying to place as much steel in her voice as possible. “It’s a trap.”

There had been an argument and Jim knew what it had been about. He knew the second he took hold of the gun, the moment his hand touched the cold metal. It was the same old argument; his brothers thought he had dodged the service he was required to give his country in payment for living in freedom. They thought his avoiding the use of weapons was a symptom of his lack of moral character when it was a symbol of the choice he had made for life. There was a big difference between fighting for the foreign policies of his country and fighting for survival; one required faith in the corrupt politicians, while the other only required faith in his own judgment.

Holding the gun up to look at it, his eyes filled with a grim anticipation, Jim decided his brothers might have been right; he might have been avoiding the possibility of death. He could see the women staring at him as if they were waiting for Jim to save the day. It was time to grow up and assume the responsibility of defending the family.

Watching the young man’s eyes, Carol knew she had lost. He was going to take the gun upstairs and use it on the men whom represented their last chance at survival. In her heart, she knew the gun was part of an elaborate trap designed by the aliens, yet there was nothing she could do to stop the man from playing the hero.

Jim looked at his mother and saw in her eyes a doubt of his ability, a legacy of his brothers’ arguments over the years. A cold weight formed in his chest, anger that he had never realized he felt towards the people in his life that had categorized him with a chilling efficiency.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered harshly, “I won’t shoot myself on the foot.” Cocking the gun, he walked with steady determination to the stairs leading to the second floor of the house.

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“I’m going with you,” Carol said firmly, hoped she conveyed a sense of matronly restriction on the man.

“Me too,” Marie added.

“No,” Jim said sharply and blocked the women with his arm across the entry to the stairs.

“If you think I’m staying down here while you take the gun upstairs, you are nuts.” Marie ducked under the arm and started up the stairs. Jim caught her with his free arm, the momentum pulled from his authority.

Carol looked at Sally and Barb, who stood to one side watching the activity. “We’re all going.”

“At least let me go first,” Jim growled at Marie and began climbing the stairs, pushing the young woman aside.

It was better than letting Jim face the men upstairs alone, Carol reasoned as she followed Marie up the stairs. She could stop Jim from making a mistake and shooting Turner. She hoped it would not be a vain attempt.

Climbing slowly, Jim winced at each creak of the steps and soft words from the women; he wanted to surprise the alien, not face it in a gun battle.

The hallway came into view and he stared at the territory he should have known like the back of his hand, a place foreign and frightening to him. He could see nothing other than floor, walls, and ceiling, then a smudge on the wall only a few feet away claimed his attention.

Climbing the rest of the way to the hall, he walked to the mark and bent to examine it while feeling Marie press close behind to aim the camera at the discoloration.

It was the print of a hand in a dull red color, dried blood. Jim pulled back from the print in confusion. “Was anyone upstairs?” he asked in a whisper.

“No,” Carol replied adamantly. “That must be from them. We should go back downstairs.”

Traces of blood on the floor told of a person who had fallen, then used the wall to support himself as he stood. The blood was old enough to dry. To Jim, the blood was a sign something had occurred hours ago, a proof that the aliens had been attacking the family longer than he remembered.

Who was missing? Ian, John, and Guy were gone, but they had died outside, hadn’t they? It was enough to fry a man’s brain. The holes in his memory were more than aggravating; they were frightening. What could he not remember? Come to think of it, he had yet to see an alien. He only took the word of the women that there were aliens up here.

He could see it in his mind’s eye; they would break into a room and shoot down an unsuspecting member of the family because he had trusted the word of hysterical women. There was a reason his father had beaten his mother, not for lack of respect; his father was finally tired of the airs and foolishness the women of the family were prone to exhibit.

He did not know for certain his brothers were dead. All they had for proof was the blood on the porch. And this blood on the wall could have come from anything; someone could have fallen and hit their head.

The stealth and fear suddenly seemed stupid to Jim, a veil pulled from his eyes and he could see how deeply he had fallen into the spell of hysteria. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at the women and could see the fear that dominated them as they waited for an alien to jump out from an ambush.

How could he have allowed himself to give in to the fear? Brazenly, he walked down the hallway to the first door. He looked in the room and saw the bathroom in perfect condition and awaiting the needs of the family.

The next door was partially open.