Chapter 6: School (Part 1)

weapon on the back of my neck.

My mouth is held shut by a leather gag that wraps around the back of my head.

I hear them speaking in their native tongue, but I can't discern any of it. They seem to use minimal facial expressions. Perhaps an eye narrows or a mouth frowns or smiles.

After thirty minutes of walking, I am met with not a spaceship or a sci-fi command center, but a large brick building. Covered in some sort of black goo. I know this place. It was a high school. The one David graduated from.

The outside parking lot isn't full of cars or school buses, but hundreds of those human-lizard things walking and taping random buttons on I-pad looking devices.

Among the Barg, were parked buggies. They must have taken them from some store and now use them to get around town or to find humans quickly. I guess these lizard bastards aren't opposed to using our comforts against us.

Toward a side entrance of the school, I see a line of people. Stripped of clothing and crying, shivering and some trying to form words under their gags. Hands bound tightly. Walking in a straight line, seven-foot-tall lizards with their high-powered guns lead them into the building.

The lizards shout in a language I can't understand-but a language that terrifies me.

I see one person try to escape, try to shove himself out of the long line of poor, sick humans. This twenty-year-old guy is shot in the head instantly with a loud blast from a phaser rifle, his body flops to the ground. Blood oozes from a hole in his forehead.

A woman wails as she sees her dear family member (or best friend) bleeding out onto the cement.

His carcass is immediately snatched by a small, flying ship.

The Barg seem to talk amongst themselves as humans are lead, one by one. Like cattle to a slaughterhouse.

I don't know where Gunner is. When we left the house, they took me one way, some other extraterrestrial took him another.

Through the large metal doors of what used to be the school, Julie is led by two armed lizards. One on each arm. Her wrists begin to hurt from the large handcuffs.

Greeting her is a long hallway with rooms on either side, what used to be classrooms. Turning her head as she walked, Julie wanted to take everything in.

Bargs stand and chat with one another in this hallway and these empty classrooms. Some drinking some thick, goopy beverage. Some make high-pitched squealing noises, perhaps noises of anger or annoyance.

In some other rooms, dead humans of all ages, genders, and sizes were piled up. Humans with scars, open chest cavities, mouths agape in terror. Some had missing eyes as well and some were still moaning, ready to die whenever they were graced with the pleasantry of demise.

The stench. Julie had never smelled anything like it. A mixture of weird, alien sweat and rotten human flesh and gore.

Like out-of-date milk and raw meat. I hope I don't puke here. That would get me in trouble. I guess it wouldn't matter. I'll be causing trouble anyway.

Tossed against the wall of the gymnasium, two Barg strip Julie of her clothes, leaving only her underwear on. She shivers as soon as the cold air hits her arms and legs. She wraps her arms around herself, covering her bare breasts.

"Give me my son." Julie looks straight at one of the Barg, eyebrows down and breathing heavily. She takes in this monstrous-looking thing. This Komodo dragon, the two-legged thing seems to show no sign of understanding her language.

It talks to her. She can tell. It looks right at her and makes one of its guttural grunt sounds. It then grips her by the back of the neck and roughly brings her to an empty classroom.

It tosses her into this room so hard, she falls onto her knees with a grunt, and as soon as she stands, the wooden door slams in her face.

Pressing her nose to the door, she looks out the sliver of a window. Only seeing the black wall across from her confines and the occasional Barg walk on by.

"Let me out of here! You motherfuckers! I'm gonna kill you ALL! You took over our planet! You're monsters! I hate YOU!" Julie screams, she kicks the door with her barefoot. Then she pounds on the door with her fists. Her armpits are soaked.

Calming down moments later, she surveys the room. No desks are here, not even one a teacher would sit at. Only a whiteboard, some barred-up windows looking out to a cloudy day and a cabinet remains. Probably where a teacher would keep a jacket.

She opens this cabinet, hoping to find some item she can use to break through this door. Nothing. Hope seemed lost.

If I'm to stay here under the whim of the Barg, I at least want my son back after all this. If he's here, I'll find him. I'll kill every fucking one of these things if I must.

***

One day passed.

Julie woke after quite a deep sleep. In a corner of the bland, empty classroom. Slowly, sounds of screams could be heard through the walls.

Along with the talking of the Barg, their booted footsteps would grow loud, then go silent.

She didn't move from her corner. She was curled in a fetal position, the spot she lay upon had become warm.

A bucket was close by. She had taken a shit since being here, and a Barg soldier tossed it. Beyond this, she had no interaction.

Only the screams of her fellow humans echoed through the hallways.

Couldn't they have just flown over us? Like we were an insignificant speck in the vastness of space? I could be in line with David, ready to purchase groceries, and him holding a DVD of one of his favorite movies.

I haven't seen Gunner. Has he abandoned me? Did he reunite with his father, and he convinced him somehow, that we're worthless? He said so himself-he wanted to be captured. I listened to him. I should've shot him. Then and there. Risk being alone. Find David on my own. How stupid I was. How gullible. Trusting a Barg.

Gunner wasn't human. He didn't understand what I was going through. None of them did. None of them could. I am on my own in this cold, deadly world.

If David is dead, then I'm going to run as fast as I can from these alien bastards. Probably get captured and die.

If somehow, I'm able to fight on, I'll try to make it somewhere. There are probably pockets of people all over the country. I could stay low. We can take evil on. In its purest form. A bunch of people in France did the same thing to a slew of rich snobs. Tore their world apart.

Viva la revolution, bitches.