Invasion

kick.
        No effect.
        And another.
        Rivets popped.
        Yet another.
        A
        second gauge broke.
        Hooves drummed on steel.
        Yet the generator hummed.
        The buck stopped kicking. It turned around, faced the purring machinery once more, lowered its head, and plowed straight into the two heavy, pine stands -like troughs on legs-that held the four big storage batteries.
        The left antler snapped off at the base. Blood erupted from the flesh around it, streamed down to join with the blood that leaked from the animal's injured left eye.
        The battery stands rocked wildly back and forth. A nail screeched as it was forced out of the wood. But the stands did not collapse.
        The buck was dying. Blood poured from half a dozen cuts, but it was the eye injury that was serious.
        Sensing the nearness of death, the animal panicked and tried to regain control of itself, tried to run. But the alien held its mind as tightly as a miser's fist might grip an extremely valuable gold coin.
        The buck charged the battery stands again.
        A battery fell to the ground. A cap popped from it. Acid gurgled across the barn floor.
        Once again the buck threw himself into the stands, and once again dislodged a battery. But this time he also tore loose a live cable. Bam! Sparks exploded. Something went fitzzz! As the twisted end of the cable fell into the battery acid, the deer danced up onto its hind legs, twirled around in a full circle, at the mercy of the burst of current. But then the current was drained away, the generator finished at last, and the proud animal collapsed with an awful crash. Dead.

----

    19.
        
        Toby and I were halfway down the cellar steps, on our way to see about using the tarp for a sled, when the lights went off. Surprised, I grabbed hold of the railing to keep from falling in the darkness. "Something's happened to the generator."
        Behind me Toby said, "You think those guys busted it up, Dad?
        Those guys from space?"
        My first thought had been that the fuel supply was depleted or that the equipment had malfunctioned. But when Toby asked that question, I knew that those yellow-eyed bastards had gotten to the machinery and had mined it. I remembered the dead bull and the battered generator on the
        Johnson farm, and I knew I could rule out the idea of a natural failure of the equipment.
        (I should have foreseen all of that! For god's sake, there was that bull at the Johnson farm. How could I overlook the possibility? But I'd been so weary, propped up by hot showers and shots of whiskey and bowls of vegetable soup and hope, too weary to think clearly. Yet… Even if I had realized the danger, what could I have done about it? Come on, Hanlon, quit the breast beating. It's useless. I couldn't have stood guard in the barn all night, for they could have gotten to me too easily.)
        "Dad?"
        "You all right, son?"
        "Sure.
        You okay?"
        "Fine."
        The darkness was absolute. I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight shut, opened them: still nothing.
        "What next?" Toby said.
        "We've got to get upstairs right away." As I heard him getting turned around on the steps above me, I said, "Be careful you don't trip and fall in the dark."
        Connie was in the kitchen. "Don?"
        "I'm here."
        "I can't see you."
        "I can't see you either."
        "Where's Toby?"
        "I'm okay, Mom."
        I was feeling around with my hands, like a blind man.
        Connie said, "Did they do it?"
        "I'm afraid so,"
        "What's going to happen?"
        "I don't know. Where are the guns?"
        "The rifle's on a chair," she said. "The pistol's still on the table unless you have it."
        "I don't."
        "I've got the shotgun," she said.
        "Here's the rifle," Toby said.
        I stumbled toward him.
        "Don't touch that!"
        "I just have my hand on the butt," he said. "I won't pick it up, Dad."
        I found the table and then the pistol and then Toby. I picked up the loaded rifle.
        "I'll find some candles," Connie said.
        I said, "Maybe we should wait for them in the dark."
        "I can't," she said. "I can't see anything, not anything at all-and I keep thinking they're already in the house, already in this room. I have to have light."
        For