In the After

along. I joked with Sabrina about being the old spinster in a nineteenth-century novel. “No secret love child for you two,” I’d tell her with a wink. “Not while Matron Amy is on duty.”
    I didn’t really mind being their chaperone; they never made me feel awkward or like a third wheel. Sabrina hadn’t even decided if she was all that into Tim. I’d been friends with her since fifth grade, when I was the weirdo who skipped a grade and she was the nice girl who didn’t treat me like I had the plague. Pretty soon we were friends and stayed besties through middle school and into high school.
    I tossed my phone on the coffee table and kicked up my feet, giving my full attention to the TV screen for the first time. But I noticed that even when I changed the channel, the picture stayed the same. I paused, curious. The president was making a speech. Boring. I ate my snack, only half listening.
    “It has come to our attention,” the president droned, “that we are not isolated in this attack.”
    I sat up, my bite half chewed. Attack? I was too young to remember the string of terrorist attacks at the beginning of the century, but my mother worked for the government and was constantly talking about our “lack of counterterrorist mechanisms.”
    I turned up the volume. The president looked exhausted, bags under his eyes, makeup caked on for the cameras. “The structure landed in Central Park early this morning,” he said into twenty microphones. “As of now, the fate of anyone residing in New York City and the surrounding suburbs is unknown. We are working to find the cause of this interruption in communication as soon as—” He was cut short. The breaking news logo flashed across the screen.
    I took a swig of soda. It was strange that the network had interrupted the president. I didn’t understand what they were talking about, didn’t know what it all meant yet. I glanced at the screen and what I saw nearly made me choke on my soda. They had footage of the “structure” in the park. Something emerged, turned toward the camera, stared. Still coughing, I pressed PAUSE on the DVR remote and stood.
    That was the first time I saw an alien.

CHAPTER THREE
    After They came, I did not leave my house for three weeks. The broadcasts stopped after the first few days, but they were not helpful anyway. They kept repeating the same things. Aliens had landed, they were not friendly, half of the planet was dead.
    They were horrifyingly fast, traveling across the globe at an alarming pace. They didn’t destroy buildings or attack our resources, like in so many crappy Hollywood movies. They wanted us. They hungered for us.
    That first day, I was slow to understand what was happening.
    My hands shook as I desperately tried to call my friends and family. My father didn’t carry a cell phone. He didn’t believe in them, said they gave people brain cancer. My mom had one of those fancy touch-screen phones that her job paid for, but she never answered, and her office line went straight to voice mail. Sabrina’s phone just rang and rang. So did Tim’s. I tried my cousin in Virginia and my mom’s parents in Miami. No one answered. I went through the phone book on my cell, furiously calling one number after another. Eventually I could no longer dial out. I kept getting a recorded message. “All circuits are busy. Please hang up and try your call again at a later time.” Soon I couldn’t even get service. I stared at the screen for a minute, then, frustrated, threw the phone against the wall.
    I curled into a ball on the couch and tried not to cry, but I couldn’t hold back the tears for long. When my father didn’t come back after a few hours, I had to admit to myself that he was dead. He had camping skills, but I could not imagine him holding his own against an alien attack. My mother might be okay, her government offices were high security, surrounded by soldiers. But I had no idea how to reach her, and could soldiers really protect her from those repulsive creatures? I had to face the reality that my parents could both be gone.
    I stayed on the sofa and cried until I had no tears left and not enough energy to sob. I eventually crawled to the fridge and grabbed my dad’s Ben and Jerry’s from the freezer. It was the one junk food he allowed himself. He said life wasn’t worth living without Cherry Garcia. I gorged myself on ice cream and ended up vomiting purple-pink onto the floor. I fell asleep there,