Behind the Stars (26 page)

“So you know they’re aliens,” I said.

“Yeah, we do! Clinton saw one of ’em cut through a tree limb from four feet away.”

D’Lo nodded. “I saw pretty much the same thing when we were working early on. Sliced through a rope thick as Pren’s wrist with nothing. Just a glance, and
Bam!
cut. They’re strong, too, but they’re soft. Like us.”

Jackson clapped and pointed to his friend. “That’s the key! That and the element of surprise. We’ll sneak up on ’em when they don’t know we’re coming, and take them all out at once.”

My stomach tightened as they talked, and all I could think of was Gallatin.

“But why?” I said.

Jackson looked at me like I’d just barfed up a squirrel. “
Why
?” His voice was incredulous.

“I mean, I heard them say they were leaving. Soon.”

“Then we’ve got to act fast!” He jumped up.

“But why not just let them leave?”

“Let them leave?” he cried. “What’s going on with you, Pip? What if this is a scouting party? What if a whole army of alien invaders comes back to take over our planet, and we let it happen?”

“But what if it doesn’t?” I argued. “What if they’re peaceful?”

Jackson looked at Dee. “Is she for real? Prentiss, this is
not
peaceful behavior. They attacked us. They took you prisoner. Russell said one of them jammed a syringe in his neck right in front of Yolanda and left him for dead. They started it, and we’re gonna finish it.”

I knew too much he didn’t know, but I decided to stop arguing with him. Instead, I studied the map. “So what are you planning?”

“We need to get back to our camp and get organized. Dee, you’ll be my muscle. Russell’s there, and he’s like my second in command. The three of us’ll figure out an attack we can execute simultaneously but that only requires a few of us in each location.”

D’Lo nodded, but I couldn’t speak. All I could think about was saving the alien who’d caused Flora’s death. I closed my eyes. I was a complete traitor. At the same time, that wasn’t fair. Everything had gotten mixed up, and he didn’t know I was sharing my food with her. He tried to save her, and he
did
help Braxton...

Jackson slid his hand over mine and threaded our fingers. “What’s the matter?”

“I was just thinking we’ve got friends in the camp.”

He squeezed my hand as his lips tightened. “We might not have time to stage a rescue op. But we’ll do what we can.”

My eyes shot to D’Lo, and he frowned. “Yolanda’s back there,” he said. “Russell should know that.”

Jackson stood up. “Then let’s stop wasting daylight and get back. We’ll have a war council and see what we can do and what we can’t.”

I stood followed by D’Lo, and we walked to the mouth of the cave.

“Which way did we come from?” Jackson asked, looking in the direction of the rising sun.

“Directly behind us.” Dee pointed to the back of the cave. “We came over this hill from that side. There’s a creek with a small pool there.”

Jackson nodded and pointed toward the sun. “That way’s east. I know where to go from here.”

We started down the hillside following Jackson into the shadowy woods. He was moving fast, and my feet kept slipping on the wet leaves as we traveled down the steep slope. More than once, I sat on the damp ground, and the rear of my coveralls was wet by the time we reached the bottom. Once we were level, Jackson started to jog.

“I was scouting in this area when they caught me,” he said. “Russell led a group around the other side. I must’ve been just coming up on that hill when everything went black.”

“It was a tranquilizer dart,” I said, breathless from trying to keep up.

“I was so close,” Jackson muttered. “But now we know. I’ve got the direction in my head. The other two camps triangulate out from there.”

He kept moving fast, and soon we were all silent, the only noise being the swish of the leaves under our feet and the huff of our breathing. We ran up another hill and down again, then we crossed the road. I had to stop, and luckily so did the other two. I pulled the zipper down on my coveralls as I bent forward at the waist, squinting with a cramp.

“That’s Old School Road,” Jackson said, pointing up ahead. “It seems to be the dividing line between where we are and where they’re hiding out.”

I looked up the road where it all began for me, to where it curved into the woods and disappeared in the trees. I thought about what Gallatin said about the others being safe. But safe
where
?

“What about your daddy? Dr. Green?” I said.

Jackson shook his head. “Don’t know. We’ve been exploring, hunting, getting closer to you, and then waiting. It’s possible they’re in one of the other two camps and we just didn’t see them.”

“They must be. Did you go in and look for them?”

“We’ve been looking for everybody. But we didn’t go into their camps. We didn’t want to be captured.”

“Have you seen any of them at the farm or in town?” D’Lo asked.

“Nah, but we’ve got spies watching from the trees. We’re keeping tabs on everything.”

He started off again with us following. Underground... I remembered Gallatin said they were underground, and I was just about to ask how much farther when he stopped at the top of a second hill. We were in an area I knew had a deer stand and was somewhat popular with the local hunters.

“We’re camped down there,” he said.

I squinted in the direction of his point, but I didn’t see anything. Then suddenly he charged down the hillside letting out a loud
Whoop! Whoop!

I jumped at the noise, and then as if on cue, teenage boys started crawling out from behind logs and under shelters made of ropes and tarps and covered in leaves and branches. They were mostly shirtless with the same brown blood smeared on them, and the shelters they crawled out of reminded me of something from an old jungle or war movie. I counted eight, ten of them crawling out, hollering back at Jackson like Indians. Some had gone so far as to strap deer hides onto their backs. One had antlers. Behind them, I noticed Star’s little sister Eden walking up, and the last person I saw was Star.

She came out of a tent strung near the back of the camp. It was made from ropes hung between the trees with tarps flung over them, and it formed a roomy enclosure. I recognized Jackson’s handiwork, and the expression on Star’s face when she saw him. It was the expression I thought I’d be wearing when I saw him again. She smiled, and I could tell she was relieved.

Until she saw me.

––––––––

R
ussell was gone with his scouting party trying to locate Jackson. Dexter, his little brother, said he and two others had taken off at first light to try and retrieve their stolen leader. With Russell’s group and the group in Jackson’s bandit camp already, the total made twelve kids ranging in age from thirteen to twenty. There was really only one twenty year-old, a drifter named Clinton they said came in off the road. Dexter was the youngest, but even at thirteen, he was taller than me.

Dexter had been with Jackson in the woods near the prison camp, and he’d escaped undetected by Ovett’s men. He’d returned and told Russell what had happened, and from there Russell had set out to find us. He’d returned last night having lost the trail, but he set out again at dawn.

Star and Eden were the only girls in the camp. Eden was a year younger than Star and me, but she was just as obnoxious as her older sister. The two shared a shelter now, it looked like, but I was willing to bet it hadn’t been that way before five minutes ago when I’d walked into camp behind Jackson. As we made our way through the small settlement, he acted like we were all old friends, which wasn’t exactly true.

“Star and Eden’ll be glad to have some help around here,” he said. “They’ve been trying to keep up with the cooking and gathering while we’ve been hunting and scouting.”

I narrowed my eyes at Star in her brown shorts and tank top. “They’re doing all the cooking?” I asked.

“It seemed like the easiest way. Neither of them’s got any experience hunting or scouting,” Jackson said. “Every night we have a war council in my tent, but after that, you can bunk in with me.”

“Won’t it be crowded with all three of us in there?”

“What?” Jackson laughed and acted confused. “It’ll just be us two.”

Star didn’t say a word as we passed, but I caught her glaring daggers in my direction. Then she turned and went into her sister’s shelter.

“C’mon, Dee,” Jackson said, leading him into the back tent. “We’ve made some rough drawings of the paths to the different sites. Soon as Russell gets back, we’ll see what we can pull together. I say we strike at dusk tomorrow. That’ll give us all day to prep.”

At those words, Dexter’s friend with the deerskin on his back let out a yowl that made me jump forward.

“
WAR PARTY TONIGHT!
” he screeched, and the other boys started dancing around in a little circle.

“I found wild mushrooms under one of the old logs,” Dexter’s buddy Thomas said. “We can do a war dance, smoke ’em, and call on the spirits of the forest to help us drive out the invaders.”

Jackson shook his head, but I saw his eyes twinkling like he was enjoying their antics. “I’ll meet with Russell and Dee, and then we’ll announce our plan at campfire.”

“It’ll be a bonfire!” Dexter cried, taking off into the woods.

Another guy followed him, and Jackson led D’Lo into his tent. Thomas took off in the opposite direction with a skinny, shirtless boy on his heels. I was left standing alone in the center of it all, blazing hot and wondering what the heck was going on here. Another skinny boy who looked about twelve sat on a nearby log holding a line with a dead rabbit on it. The animal hung by its feet, and the boy pulled out a sharp stick.

“Fresh blood,” he said. “Want some? Good camo.”

I shook my head, and he slipped down from the log looking into the trees, past the deerskins, leaves, tarps, and branches. A low, twiddling whistle sounded above me, and I looked up to see a guy hiding in a forest-green, wooden deer-stand the same height as the tree branches.

“Russell’s back,” Rabbit-boy said, and he took off up the hill. “I’ll let him know Jackson’s here.”

It was like they were all playing roles in the same tribal game, something they’d read in a book or seen in a movie. None of them appeared too eager to get back to civilization or even to rescue our friends. They were all having too much fun playing “attack the aliens,” acting like Indians and living like savages. I wasn’t sure how I fit into this jungle ecology, but as I had the most knowledge of who they were calling The Enemy, I figured I’d better sit in on the war council, if only to know what would happen next.

Russell walked into camp leading two guys who looked about sixteen or seventeen. Russell was in our graduating class, and he was tall with a slim, muscularly built from being a wide receiver. My first thought was how happy Yolanda would be to see him, and my second was he didn’t seem too impressed by his fellow bandits, more like he was impatient with them. The thought crossed my mind that Russell might be the only one here with his head on straight.

He didn’t look at me, but his manner changed when he got inside Jackson’s tent. I heard laughter and carrying on like the three were long-lost brothers. It sounded like the beginning of a championship football game, and they were getting each other fired up to play with all their jostling and high-fiving.

“I thought you were gone for sure, Dee,” Russell laughed. “And look at you. Fat!”

I watched through the opening as the two clasped hands and bumped shoulders. Jackson sat back smiling at them, and Russell looked up.

“And you, crazy little white boy.”

“Dee carried me out of there, man.” Jackson’s voice was full of pride. “It was just like on the field. No man left behind.”

They went on talking, and I frowned waiting for D’Lo to set the record straight, to tell them Gallatin had helped us escape because I asked him to. He didn’t, and I peered through the crack in the tent trying to see what he was doing. He was laughing, but I could tell he was also watching their interaction, studying what was going on. He smiled and nodded, but he seemed to be on guard as much as I was.

“So we’ve found where they’re all hiding, and I say we strike tomorrow at dusk,” Jackson said. “Molotov cocktails.”

D’Lo snorted. “Where we gonna get something like that? Bottles and gasoline.”

“Dexter and his guys are something,” Russell said. “They’re like raccoons or little monkeys. You say you want something, and the next morning, they’re handing it to you.”

Jackson nodded. “That’s the plan, then. I’ll tell them tonight at campfire.”

I almost burst in to argue for our friends, my brother, and Russell’s girlfriend. But D’Lo beat me to it.

“There’s other folks there. We should try to get them out first. Right?”

Jackson paused and rubbed his mouth. “I don’t know how we’ll do it. Not if we’re gonna use surprise to our advantage.”

“Yolanda’s there,” D’Lo said, looking at Russell.

That got his attention. “Is she okay? I haven’t seen her since—”

“She’s fine. And she’ll be glad to see you.”

“So what’s your plan?” Jackson asked Dee, changing his tone but still not completely onboard.

“Send Prentiss back.”

“Prentiss!” Jackson nearly shouted. “No way—”

“She knows her way around, and she can sneak them out like she did with us.”

They were quiet a few moments then Russell spoke slowly. “If Dee thinks it’ll work, I’m willing to give her a shot.”

Jackson didn’t answer, but my heart was racing now. I was ready to go back, ready to save our friends, and if I were honest, I was ready to see Gallatin again.

I also felt like I’d just learned something very important. No matter how it looked, D’Lo was still on my side.

––––––––

O
nce a plan was made, the war council devolved into a bragging match. I walked back to the other tents hoping to find something to eat and a place to cool off and wash up. A quiet boy gave me some cold venison, and as I ate it, he told me a smaller spring ran down a hill in the woods below the camp. I thanked him and slipped away after I’d finished.