CHAPTER ONE
Extraterrestrials spying on humanity aren’t going to set up shop where they could be found right away. As you monitor your area, be aware of those quiet, out of the way places most people ignore and overlook. Quite often, the best way to blend in is by hiding where people pass every day without a second thought.
— How to Survive an Alien Invasion: Your Guidebook to an Inevitable Future, by Byleth X. Dongo
“You really think there might be aliens hiding in there?” Jace (code name: Baller One) asked.
I shone my flashlight on the weatherbeaten siding of the abandoned house. “I’m not sure. But that’s why we have to investigate.”
Kenji (code name: Pyro) stood in the home’s gravel driveway, flicking a lighter on and off. “Sneaking into an abandoned house is cool and all, dudes. But if there are aliens, don’t you think they would have done something when we left the car here when we were fighting the TP monster?”
I shook my head. “There may not have been any aliens then. That’s the thing about ETs. You never know when they might show up. Besides, that signal has to be coming from somewhere nearby.”
I pointed at the house with my free hand. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Alien Guidebook, it’s that this is the exact kind of place extraterrestrials might use to stage their infiltration.”
“I dunno.” Despite being a mild spring evening, Jace shuddered. “What if there’s a criminal or someone hiding out in there?”
“Don’t worry, dude,” Pyro said. “I can always fight them off with this.” He pulled a can of body spray out of his adventure jacket and waved it next to his lighter.
Still, he didn’t seem too eager to go rushing into the building, either. I couldn’t blame either of my friends for that. Only a few months ago, we’d faced off against a Sleech-controlled toilet paper monster that had nearly wiped us out. While we managed to defeat the creature and save our town from certain doom, a paranormal investigator who had tried to help us had been killed.
We’d been lucky to escape with our lives. Of course, our families had only seen what looked like the results of us toilet papering our middle school. And with that incident coming after getting wrapped up in a transporter conspiracy the previous summer, I had been grounded ever since.
Fortunately, my parents had finally relented and agreed to let me out of the house again. But even if they hadn’t, I would have found a way to be here tonight anyway.
We were potentially dealing with another nefarious alien scheme.
A few days earlier, while wishing Baller One a happy thirteenth birthday over our walkie talkies, I’d picked up a voice. It sounded human, but to say its message left me unsettled was an understatement. The voice had been repeating the same words over and over, and while it had been difficult to decipher under all the static, I eventually figured out the message.
“We are the homing signal. We are the homing signal.”
The voice disappeared before I could find a way to triangulate the source. The next night when I tried talking to Baller One, the same thing happened again.
Based on the ranges of our walkie talkies, the signal had to be coming from somewhere nearby. Nora (code name: Space Cadet) had rolled her eyes and given a sarcastic answer when I asked if her father was sending or receiving transmissions from his home planet. And the rest of our neighbors checked out as human.
But this abandoned house, which sat at the edge of my walkie talkie’s range, could be the perfect hideout. Paint peeled from the siding. Most of the shingles had been blown off the roof. The yard was overgrown with weeds. There was something undeniably eerie about the place.
“Let’s get to work,” I said. As Byleth X. Dongo said, Hesitation is the enemy of action. When confronting an alien threat, don’t wait. Act.
I approached the front door, which was just as weatherbeaten as the rest of the house. I twisted the doorknob and pushed. The door didn’t budge. I tucked my flashlight into my tactical fanny pack, grabbed the doorknob with both hands, and shoved harder. The door scraped partway open, but not enough for us to sneak inside.
“Hang on a second, Marv,” Kenji said. He pulled a can of WD-40 from somewhere in the depths of his adventure jacket and sprayed the door’s partly exposed hinges. “Try it now.”
I gave the door another push, and this time, it slid open with a groan.
“Good work, Pyro,” I said.
“No problem.” Kenji gave a mock salute as he put his WD-40 away.
“Are you sure about this, Marv?” Jace asked. “I mean, I know the 76ers didn’t make it, but the NBA playoffs are going on right now…”
I shined my flashlight inside, revealing a small, empty entryway with a set of stairs going up, doors to either side, and a hallway leading farther into the house. Mildew splotches covered the walls, filling the air with a musty smell. The wood floor was warped and half-rotten.
The perfect alien hideout.
“This should only take a few minutes, Baller One. We can go watch basketball once we confirm this place is clear.”
I stepped inside, listening for any sign of hidden aliens. But there was nothing. Not even mice skittering across the floor.
“Let’s check the ground floor first, then we’ll go upstairs,” I said. I wanted my friends with me. As the Alien Guidebook warned, splitting up was a sure way to get picked off one by one. If we really did encounter something, I wanted backup.
The humid air seemed to wrap tight around me as I made my way down the hall. The floor creaked as my friends followed.
“Not gonna lie, this place is pretty creepy,” Kenji said.
I hated to admit it, but he was right. My flashlight only seemed to make the surrounding darkness deeper and more sinister. And way out here, far from other houses, a UFO could swoop in and carry us off and no one would ever know. I nervously readjusted my tinfoil-lined baseball hat.
“Wait!” Jace whispered. “I think I heard something.”
We stopped and listened.
“I don’t hear a thing,” Pyro complained.
“Shh,” I said. I’d learned to trust Baller One’s senses, honed from his obsession with basketball. He may have been jittery about our current expedition, but he wasn’t the kind to imagine sounds.
Then I heard it. A static buzzing or crackling, like the distortion I’d get on my walkie talkie when trying to talk with someone out of range.
“I think I hear it, too,” I whispered.
The floor groaned beneath me, and suddenly, it collapsed.
