The Millisecond Men Part 2...

THE MILLISECOND MEN

by D.R. MACMASTER

2.

The house shook all around Bob.  Actually, the word vibrate would have been more fitting, but Bob wasn't in the mood to split semantic hairs.  He dove to the floor and held on for dear life.

The vibration grew more intense, then something he heard a strange roaring noise.  Bob crawled to his closet and pulled out his grandfather's shotgun.  It was an old pump action Remington, but he knew it worked, having used it when he and Ken Burton from accounting went skeet shooting.  He pulled out the box of shells and started loading it.

He wasn't exactly sure what a shotgun could do in this situation, but since he was the type of guy who yelled at the TV when the hero left the gun behind, he wasn't going to do it now.

The vibrating stopped, so did the roar, but he could make out a low hum.

Bob crawled over to the window and peeked out.

Everything outside was still frozen, not exactly everything, a genuine unidentified flying object was coming to a landing on the open field the neighbourhood kids used for playing sports.

The craft was round, but it wasn't a saucer.  It looked like an upside-down bunt cake pan that had been painted purple and dotted with glowing yellow knobs.

Holy crap, thought Bob.  It's an invasion.  A real life alien invasion.

Bob felt he had to do something.  Everyone else was frozen, he wasn't, and there was a spaceship landing in the field.

Somebody had to do something.

And that somebody had to be Bob.

Bob rose to his feet, and went downstairs and out the door.

He was going to do something.

He didn't know what that something was.  He just knew he had to do it.

Bob quietly skirted the front lawn, keeping himself low, hoping that whoever the invaders were, they didn't look down or something.  He crept behind Mrs. Appleton's azaleas, which had a clear view of the field, and looked up.

There was the alien spaceship.  Smoke rose from the feet that protruded from the belly of the craft.  However after it got a little more than a metre from the craft, the smoke froze, becoming a clump of grey hanging in the air.

"Hold it right there," said a voice from behind him.

Bob heard an electric hum.

It sounded like a weapon.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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