Page 14 of Alien in the Attic

“Here goes nothing,” Elena said. She punched the spacebars and all the lights went out, even the laptop. They were surrounded by pitch darkness, as if someone had flipped a switch on reality.

“Where’d the lights go?” Sofia called from another room down the hall. Her swift footsteps followed quickly.

“I said it might flicker,” Elena said into the void.

“This isn’t a flicker.” Sofia was in the room now. “This is a total blackout. You may have shut down the entire power grid.”

Arccoo started to move so he could help, but Carmen gripped his hand and pulled him close. Her other hand slid up his arm. He leaned in the direction of her breathing. Like their hands, their lips found each other without the aid of light. They wasted no time, kissing long and deep while the oblivious Elena and Sofia tried to fix the problem with their setup.

There was a groan in the darkness. For less than a second, Arccoo thought it might be Carmen reacting to the intensity of their kissing. He almost panicked and pulled away. Then there was another groan and he understood that the sound wasn’t coming from any of them.

“What the hell is that?” Sofia asked. “If that’s a ghost and we have nothing to record it with, I swear to God…”

There was another groan, closer this time.

“Give me a second,” Elena muttered.

The groan became a hideous howl bellowing from the tortured throat of an undead thing, confused, angry, and hungry. It might have sent shivers down Arccoo’s back if Carmen wasn’t already doing that by running her fingernails through his hair as they continued their embrace.

“Got it!” Elena cheered.

The lights came back on. Carmen and Arccoo separated. Sofia gasped.

Standing in the doorway was a reanimated corpse, its flesh hanging from bones like the tattered ribbons of a decaying shirt. Half of its face was bone, with hollow sockets glaring at them with mortal longing. One skeletal hand outstretched in their direction. Whether it was looking for help or trying to grab one of them was impossible to say.

“That… is… amazing!” Carmen squealed. “It worked!” She clapped her hands giddily.

Elena hit a key on the computer, and the zombie faded in a cloud of silver ones and zeroes. “I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to have the best decor on the block,” she said, folding her arms across her chest with pride.

“And that’s not all,” Arccoo said. He reached over and punched in a short code. Bats appeared, dangling from the ceiling.

“Whoa,” Sofia marveled. She reached up to one. “Can I touch it?” she asked, well on her way to doing just that.

Before her finger could make contact, the bat spread its wings and shrieked in her face. She yelped. Her reaction set off a chain reaction with all the other bats who cried and snarled with ear-splitting intensity.

Cowering, Sofia begged them to stop.

Elena did her thing and all the winged mammals vanished in a puff of code. “With my know-how and Thryal power, there’s nothing our holograms can’t create.”

“I need a drink,” Sofia said, charging out of the room.

Carmen looked at Arccoo with awe radiating from her face. “How is this even possible?” she asked. “It’s like magic.”

Elena scoffed. “No such thing!” she said.

As she turned around to speak to them, both Arccoo and Carmen took half a step apart. Again, this was instinctual. No words had to pass between them. This fact thrilled and worried the wayward prince. His elder mother loved to extol on how true love manifests silently.

You become of one mind, she would say.Your bodies operate in unison. Your spirits entwine. When your heart knows the truth of another without a single word, then you know the love is real.

“It’s all technology,” Elena said. “An out of this world AI system.”

Arccoo nodded. “I uploaded centuries of your myths surrounding this holiday. The AI interpreted it and created holographic code to represent the various creatures and entities associated with it.”

“By blending our two technologies together, we were able to make something no one has ever seen!” Elena went back to typing a billion words per second. “Arccoo, thank you for helping. You’re amazing!”

Carmen winked at the prince. “She’s right. You are amazing.”

He bowed his head and touched his heart, a sign of thanks that royal men only expressed to their closest companions. He didn’t realize he’d done it until after his hand was back at his side. Things were progressing faster than he thought possible. If the connection grew any stronger, he may have to consider—

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