Up on the Mountain

I was in the middle of dressing when the helicopters came roaring over the house. I hadn't paid their distant droning any mind except to wonder where they were going, but it was hard to ignore them when it seemed like they were passing by inches away from the roof.

I paused, still in the middle of putting one leg into my pants, and stared at my ceiling. Their thunderous arrival chased away any leftover grogginess that lingered in my system from waking up early.

With only minimal stumbling, I hobbled over to my window while still trying to coax my pants over my hips and threw it open. They were long gone by that time, though, the sound of their rotors fading away into the mountains.

The gray sky was empty, hanging over the peaks where the aspens had only just started to change colors.

I'd fought tooth and nail for my room when my parents had bought the house, just for that view. The oranges and yellows stood out this time of the year, making hiking the national forest's trails worth the frigid weather.

After the sound had completely disappeared, I sighed and stopped pushing my face against the screen. All I'd wanted to know was how many there had been—it sounded like a whole friggen army. That was way too many to be for one lost hiker.

Maybe it was a VIP who wandered too far off the path and found themselves lost.

Once I was decent, I scrambled down the stairs, skipping the last couple of steps, and slid on the linoleum into the kitchen. I nearly crashed into a chair in my enthusiasm but managed to halt at the last second.

Mom turned around in response to the commotion; she was standing at the sink with a suds-covered bowl in her hands.

Her short hair, that used to be the same dark color as my sister's but was now graying at the roots, was coiffed and styled. She was wearing her work uniform, too.

I had grown accustomed to her ass-crack-of-dawn bedhead and bathrobe style she normally wore, but since she had finally found work, she was a fully functioning adult that had to suffer early mornings like the rest of us.

Though I would deny it, I missed having her around sometimes. I had to find my own dinner most nights, now.

We'd been able to buy the house, though, with her working. Alan was in school, so she had decided to stop being a stay-at-home mom.

"You're full of energy this morning," she commented.

"What was with the helicopters?" I asked, rummaging through the cupboards until I came back with everything I needed for a bowl of cereal.

It was hell remembering the new set up; we'd finished unpacking months ago but I still wasn't used to where they put the bowls. I sat down in my place at the table—first chair on the left—and set about making my breakfast.

Alan was still nursing his own, sitting across from me and staring at the back of his box with a look of determination.

Mom placed her bowl in the drying rack next to the sink and shook her head, saying, "I have no idea. I haven't checked the news at all yet."

"There's nothing in the news about it," Dad said. He'd just made it down the stairs, fresh out of the shower and gussied up in his suit.

I vaguely recalled him saying something about a meeting, but I didn't fully understand what it was he even did at his job. No matter how many times he explained it to me, it was all mumbo-jumbo about bank stuff.

My mom's job was easy. She issued parking tickets for the national park all day. Simple.

He and Mom kissed (Alan, whom I thought hadn't been paying attention, made a face) and my dad said, "Where's Kristie?"

"Allison picked her up a little bit ago. Said they were going to get coffee before school."

"With whose money?"

I caught Mom rolling her eyes when I glanced up from my breakfast. "With her leftover birthday money," she said.

Whatever Dad muttered under his breath, I didn't catch it.

/Probably something along the same vein as "she's too young for coffee."/

Even I had already asked my ride to grab me a latte on her way over. I had some cash on me and planned to pay her back when she came. Whatever. I was two years older than my sister, anyway.

With his peace said, Dad headed out of the kitchen and toward the front door. His departing words were, "I'll see you later tonight when I get home from work. Love you guys."

"Love you too," Alan and I mumbled back.

"Alan, hustle up and finish that bowl, we gotta go," Mom said, standing in the kitchen's entryway, her hands on her hips. "Do you have all your homework together and ready to go?"

Nodding, Alan reluctantly pried his eyes from the box and drank the last dregs of his cereal. He had to stand on his tiptoes to clean his bowl, but he managed and hurried up to his room to grab his school bag.

By the time he came back down, I'd also finished eating and set my bowl in the sink for later.

"Ah-ah, missy. Clean that up."

"Later, when I get home. Promise," I chirped, skirting around her to complete my own morning routine before school. I added over my shoulder, "I'm running late!"

"Honestly . . . ," I barely heard her muttering.

My cell phone was waiting on my nightstand and I checked it real quick. One message from Michelle detailed that she would be at my house in three minutes. Sent two minutes prior.

With a groan, I collected the homework I'd rushed to finish the night before and stuffed it into my messenger bag with my text- and notebooks.

Mom and Alan were gone when I came back down the stairs. I hadn't even heard them leave. Michelle's beater was already parked in front of my driveway and she honked mere seconds before I opened the front door and stepped out.

"God damn, I'm coming," I harrumphed, locking up the house behind me.

Not even two steps down the walkway and the cold had settled into my bones. I shuddered and pulled my jacket tighter around me, hugging my belongings to my chest, and I scurried through my dead yard.

The green grass Dad so meticulously cared for turned brown from an early winter. I couldn't jump into Michelle's car fast enough.

Shotgun was empty, so I slid into the front seat and set my bag down between my feet. I threw the door closed behind me and huddled there, huffing and puffing as I pushed my hands up against her heater.

"Morning!" Michelle said, handing me the latte I'd asked for. I took it with a grunt and she performed a three-point turn and drove off toward the main road.

"You're a lifesaver," I murmured, taking a whiff of the delicious-smelling steam wafting out of the lid.

/Pumpkin spice season at last!/

After taking a sip, I asked, "Does Jess need a ride?"

"Yup, gonna go pick her up now. This hot chocolate is hers. Where's my cash, bitch?"

Rolling my eyes, I plucked my wallet out of my bag and tossed the carefully folded bills at her. They fluttered down around her and she made an affronted sound.

"What was that for?"

"You're a cheap whore so I made it rain."

With a huff, she said, "See if I do anything nice for you again!"

"But I love you."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

Leaving it at that, both of us in smiles, I set my cup in one of the holders next to me and leaned back with my eyes closed; it wasn't going to be a long drive.

Prior to me moving, Jess and I had lived two houses down from each other since we were ten.

After seven long years of having constant access to my best friend, it had been a bit of an adjustment. Her house was now a six minute drive instead of a two minute walk.

I think I dozed off because next thing I knew, Michelle pulled to a stop and Jess was climbing into the back bench seats.

"Hey," I yawned when she waved at me.

"Here's your drink," Michelle said, twisting her arm into a weird position to hand it back to her.

Jess smiled and took it, then exchanged it for a wad of cash. "Thanks again."

"Don't mention it."

When Michelle drove out of the network of neighborhoods and back streets, we hit the main highway that cuts through the majority of the town.

"Are we under siege?" Michelle scoffed, leaning forward so her chest was almost against the steering wheel.

Our path was blocked by a procession of military trucks zipping by as fast as the roads allowed. There was maybe half a dozen in total, led and followed by a few squad cars from the local precinct.

I wasn't sure exactly where they were going, but if they were following the helicopters from earlier, it was probably the mountains.

"I don't know why all of this would be needed for a couple of missing hikers or whatever," I commented.

"For real. Did the president get lost in our woods or something?"

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for tourists to lose their way while hiking or camping. This time of the year, what with the coming of the Leafers, it was more common than any other season.

Usually, they were found within a couple days, but there had been a few occasions when they weren't found at all.

"You guys," Jess said, poking her head out between our seats, "did you really not notice the thing that crashed up there early this morning?"

Michelle's eyes went wide. "Is that what I heard?"

"What? I didn't hear anything!"

Nodding, Jess said, "Yeah, it woke me up. I was almost afraid to look out my window, but there was this big fireball that crashed somewhere over the national park."

"Man," Michelle scoffed, "I just went back to bed. It was like, four in the morning."

"How did I not wake up? Was it really loud?" I asked.

Jess shook her head. "It wasn't that loud, but I'm a light sleeper. It was like, a rumbling sound. It got louder and louder, then when it crashed, there was a small 'boom' sound and some of the woods started to burn. I didn't really get back to sleep after that."

Traffic finally broke and Michelle shot through a gap to make the left turn. I twisted around in my seat, trying to see if I could spot something—anything—that would show me where this big fireball thing had crashed.

"What do you think it was?" I wondered out loud.

"Maybe it was a plane," said Jess.

Michelle added, "Could have been a satellite."

"What if it was a big meteor?"

"MeteorITE," Jess corrected me.

"Same difference."

Before we could launch into a heated debate about the differences between the two, Michelle rolled into the school parking lot and announced, "We're here, tuck and roll girls."

"Oh whatever," I scoffed.

We were too late for a decent spot, so we wound up somewhere in the middle of the lot. At the very least, we didn't have to wrap around and park behind the school.

"I'm gonna try to find something about it," Michelle muttered, her face buried in the newest iPhone to come out recently. "Someone had to have recorded it, I mean come ON."

"Maybe one of them has a video?" Jess said, indicating to the front doors.

There was a much larger congregation of students standing in the doorway than usual. They were all huddled around a junior whom I recognized as Tanner from my science class. He had his tablet out, holding it low so everyone could lean in and get a peek at what he was showcasing.

Among the crowd was Michelle's on-again-off-again boyfriend, Jacob. We all called him Jake, though.

Someone had tried to coin the nickname "Cake" for Michelle, but she hadn't understood the Adventure Time reference and hated it, so it never caught on.

"Babe!" she cried out, catching Jake's attention as we approached.

He broke away from the crowd to meet us halfway. Michelle asked him, "What are you guys watching? Are you watching the thing?"

Jake glanced over his shoulder and nodded, saying, "Yeah. Here, I have the link. I'll tag you real quick so you can see it."

"Thanks, you're the best!"

As he fiddled on his phone, he caught a look at Jess and I, then gave Michelle a hurt look. "What, you took everyone to get Starbucks but you didn't bother to get me anything?" he whined.

She huffed and said, "They asked, you didn't! I'll grab you something next time."

Jake made a non-committal sound and then raised his phone to shoulder-height, giving it a little shake. "Okay, you're all tagged. Enjoy."

The three of us whipped out our phones and opened up Facebook. I had a few different notifications waiting, but I skipped to the one that said: "Jacob Holt has tagged you in a video" and watched the whole thing unfold.

"Ugh, this is barely watchable," Michelle muttered. "Maybe my Instagram will have some better videos."

"This was the best one I could find," Jake said.

Jess chimed in. "It's just a little shaky, that's it."

I made a face at their constant yammering and turned away to watch the video. Jess was right; whoever had filmed the whole thing hadn't been able to hold still, but you could still tell what was going on.

Whatever they were saying was garbled by the low din of conversation around us and the muffled fumbling as the phone filming the video was manhandled. Eventually, the picture cleared and the guy behind the lens shouted in surprise, turning it skyward.

From the sky fell a massive ball of flame. It careened at an angle, blazing through the air with a low, rumbling roar, lighting up the night in an eerie orange-red glow.

I brought my face closer to the screen in my disbelief, wishing that the wanna-be cinematographer would hold still. At least he'd been smart enough not to record vertically. It fell out of sight after a few seconds, disappearing behind one of the peaks and its trees.

Debris and smoke billowed into the dark, still lit by the thing that had fallen from the sky.

The guy kept recording for some time afterward, stopping only when the fire began to die down and the camera couldn't pick up anything worth filming.

At the end, I thought maybe he'd said something about going to check it out, but I couldn't be sure.

My two friends finished their videos around the same time and we huddled closely together to discuss what we'd seen.

"Something must've blown up! A plane or something," Michelle said, pressing against her boyfriend for warmth.

Someone from the other group chimed in. "Looks to me like burning up in re-entry."

Jake said, "What do you mean?"

"Re-entry!" the guy repeated. "When something breaks into our atmosphere from space. Like a meteor or something."

"MeteorITE," Jess muttered under her breath. I gave her a consoling shoulder pat.

This new revelation elicited a whole new bout of muttering and theorizing, but the crowd was beginning to disperse all the same. However, Michelle hung back with her boyfriend and I found myself sticking to her side along with Jess.

Though neither of us would admit it, Michelle was kind of our unspoken leader. Not quite a ringleader, but we followed her around for the most part if we didn't have our own matters to attend to. I was next in our hierarchy, with Jess staying by my side if we were together.

"How would you know if it was something falling to Earth?" Jake asked. "It could be that something exploded."

The kid opened his mouth to answer, but the warning bell beat him to the punch, startling several of us. We finally broke out to enter the school. Jess scurried along at my shoulder, both of our cheeks and noses rosy from the biting chill.

"What do you think it was, Nichole?" she asked me.

I said nothing while concentrating on opening my locker. Finally, I said, "I don't know. I hope it wasn't a commercial flight exploding or something. I don't think anyone would have survived that."

She sighed and opened her own locker, two away from mine. It was the closest we could get. "Yeah, definitely."

"It doesn't make sense for the entire military to show up for one commercial flight, though. Maybe it was one of their jets that crashed."

Jess shrugged. "I guess all we can do is wait for more information to be released later."

"Yeah . . . if they even release the real story at all."

"True."

We gathered our belongings for our first period (both Jess and I shared a morning Economics class) and hurried up the stairs. I sat in my seat at the same time the final bell rang.

Ignoring Mr. Kinkaid's greeting, I spent a moment setting up my notebook and textbooks. Jess was three rows away, doing the same.

'Re-entry.' The phrase repeated over in my head as the lecture on stock markets droned on. Had a shuttle or a satellite crashed? It looked too big to be a meteorite.

/Or maybe . . . a spaceship?/ I smirked to myself and shook my head. /Don't be ridiculous./