"This real?" Lyle sounds skeptical.
"'The continent?'" Pete asks. "What's that supposed to mean? Where's it comin' from? Is it a nu—"
"Storm cellar," Daddy says, shepherding Felicity and me toward the kitchen. When no one else moves, he yells, "NOW!"
Everyone is grabbing their coats, ramming on their boots; I am still in a daze, staring at the sock of pills in Dan's fist, at the tantum frozen by the foot of the stairs, at the coffee dripping off the edge of the table. Someone pulls a hat over my head and the wool feels scratchy against my ears.
"Jack," Allie says, a hand on his chest. "Your comp suit."
He blinks, turns, sprints up the stairs, Allie hot on his heels. Lyle holds the front door open with his shoulder. Gil drags Mama away from the kitchen where she's wrapping the half-eaten turkey in tin foil and shoving it in the fridge—"I ain't havin' my bird spoil on account of bein' stuck in the cellar all night! Ain't this a merry Christmas!"
"AL!" Daddy roars up the stairs.
"We can't find it!"
"I'll help." I'm unsure of what makes me say it. Daddy tries to grab my arm, but I'm past him, flying up the stairs two at a time.
I enter my bedroom and—cheap shot, I know—it looks as though a bomb has gone off inside. Clothes are strewn across the floor, the desk, the bed. The mattress is askew, the side of it slashed open and leaking foam. My dresser drawers have been pulled out and rifled through, their contents mixed with those of the suitcases, which have also been mangled. Allie and the tantum are clawing through the mess; I get on my hands and knees to help them, but I have no idea what we're searching for.
"What's it look like?"
"Black canister," the tantum pants. "About the size of a Fiji Water."
Blue jeans, hairbrushes, underwear, a leaking shampoo bottle. Tampons, a shredded pillowcase, a Kindle with a cracked screen. So many socks, so many tangling sleeves. I keep digging; beside me, Allie's breaths are coming in sharp squeaks. The tantum stops.
"Can't find it," he says.
"It's here, I know it is, you just had it last night—"
"You two need to go."
Allie hisses a stream of curses as he wrenches her from the floor. I can't meet his eye. I grab my sister's arm and start pulling her toward the stairs, but she bucks against me.
"Leave now, Allison!" he bellows, but it is partially garbled. I realize he has said two things at once.
Out of nowhere Daddy's body imposes itself, broad as a bull, his hands closing around his daughter's wrists. We try to force her down the stairs, but she is manic, limbs thrashing, kicking the railing so hard a rung splinters. Her elbow knocks a picture off the wall and the glass shatters.
"JACK!"
"I'm here!" he gasps behind us. "I found it."
YOU ARE READING
The Floating Cradle
Science FictionSixteen-year-old Sarah hasn't seen her sister Allie in nearly a decade thanks to a family feud she can hardly remember. But the world waits for no grudge; around the time of Sarah's birth, a race of aliens known as the tanta made first contact with...
