Earthbound by Adam Lewinson Page B

put my hand on my revolver.
    “Hands where I can see ‘em Ash,” Boze
said.
    Didn’t like that much.
    “Now Boze,” Pace interjected, pouring on the
charm. “Whatever makes you think we have anything to do with the
bank robbery?”
    Boze just started back and nodded his head in
a direction behind us. There was good old Frank, standing on the
front stoop of the bank, pointing his bony finger at us. Thanks
Frank, thought we were pals.
    Pace and I exchanged a look.
    “Jail’s not an option, right?” Pace
asked.
    “Nope,” I said. So we both simultaneously
drew our revolvers. I hoped our target practice was enough. It was
time to find out. See how many we could shoot before they could
shoot us.
    This was the moment I’d been waiting for,
right? A weapon in my hand. Ready to be like my father, just the
way everyone expected me to be. A part of me wanted it too. Wanted
to feel what it would be like to take a human life. All I had to do
was squeeze the trigger.
    But that didn’t happen. I almost wished it
had. It would have been easier to handle than what happened
next.
    We heard a new sound. Kind of a low rumble at
first, hard to hear over the high-pitched ring of the alarm bell.
As it got louder, it was clear it wasn’t the sort of sound we were
used to hearing. It was coming up from the south. I looked down and
saw that some of the townsfolk had stopped cold and were staring
out behind us. Others were walking – no, running – in the other
direction.
    Pace and I glanced at each other.
    “What is that?” I asked.
    “No idea,” he replied.
    I saw the Nugget to the south looking behind
him, Lister his name is, dumb as dirt. Lister started squealing
like a pig and then right quick he rode off to the west. What the
eff scared him off? By that point, pretty much everyone was running
anyway. And then that’s when it hit me. Or nearly hit me. A scorch
of heat that grazed my arm. I’d been shot at. But not by a gun. It
wasn’t a bullet. It was something else. And the sound that
accompanied it. Like a high-pitched wheeze. There was another. Then
another. I felt blasts of heat getting closer and closer to my
body. I looked at Pace, who was as confused as me, and then we both
turned around.
    We saw a sight I had a hard time
understanding. On the horizon was metal. Lots of metal. Dulled
metal to be sure. And it was moving toward us, at kind of a low
speed but it was steady. And whatever it was sent blasts of heat
toward us. One blast connected with the ground at my feet. The
earth sizzled. And that metal kept getting closer.
    “What the eff is that?”
    As I would soon learn, they’re called
Mankins.
    I would come to understand them, but in that
moment I just feared them.

 
     
     
     
     
4.
     
    Keep in mind, I’d lived my entire life in
that settlement, and never had I seen anything remotely like that.
No one had. There were so many questions – what were they, were did
they come from, why were they there. But I couldn’t think about any
of that. Cause I was about to get fried by laser fire.
    One by one the Nuggets hightailed it away.
Our pathway to freedom was clear if we weren’t sandwiched between
Boze and whatever was coming towards us.
    “W-what is that?” Boze stammered. What a
lawman. He’s an embarrassment, that’s what he is.
    Another volley of laser fire came our way.
Pace and I instinctively rode our horses out of the way of the
blasts – me to the left and Pace to the right. We both hid behind
the sides of buildings, for what good that would do us. The
building I was behind took a few hits – I wasn’t sure it could
handle many more.
    And dumb Boze just sat on his horse there, in
the middle of the street. I think the expression is paralyzed with
fear. In that moment I learned what that looked like. And it’s
effing stupid unless you wanna die.
    “Get the eff out of the street!” I yelled to
Boze.
    “Y-yeah!” Boze feebly responded before he
managed to turn his horse around and escape