Author's Note: So! I was thinking about why Super 8 affected me so much, and I think there's one main reason (which is a bit wanky, so bear with me :-). Basically, I watched it at the perfect time of my life, when I was starting university and first having to deal with being an adult and having (ugh) responsibilities. I realised that having a group of friends like Joe's and just mucking around wasn't something I could really do anymore, and… I like all that stuff! Everyone likes being a kid. Now, obviously you CAN still have friends when you're older, but it's not the same as when you're young, with a huge imagination and not a care in the world. It's different.

I guess the movie made me think about recapturing that, and what friends mean. Though I'm kind of a loner in reality, the best times of my life were all spent with my friends – laughing, talking, going on adventures like Joe and his friends in the movie. Ultimately, it made me realise that what I value most in the world is friendship.

TL;DR – friends are awesome! And that's why I like Super 8.

EDIT: The amazing speedy3708 sent some info which could lead to some cool additions. And please leave a review if you've enjoyed the story so far, because seriously, it'll BRIGHTEN MY DAY. Thanks!

EDIT 12/2015: After some vigorous huffing and puffing the edit train stops here, because I'm starting a new chapter next week. I'd like to revise up to Chapter 24, though, so stay tuned.

Alice

Tap tap tap.

That was the noise it made in his dream. A tinny, metallic tapping sound, coming from inside the train carriage. The grass was on fire. The the sky was full of smoke. He was alone, and he was scared, and he wanted to run and run but an awful, powerful curiosity kept drawing him forwards. There was somebody inside. Some-thing inside. He leaned closer, reaching out to touch the metal…

Tap tap tap.

His eyes flicked open.

It took Joe a second to remember where he was – curled up in bed, surrounded by his models and messy bedroom, trying to catch a decent night's sleep and forget the previous afternoon. He wondered why he'd woken up. It was still dark outside, the barest hint of moonlight coming in through the windows.

Tap tap tap tap tap.

Joe frowned and propped himself up, blinked a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes. There was that noise again, as if someone was—

Alice was standing outside his window.

She totally was. Standing outside the window above his desk, tapping like a friendly ghost. They locked eyes. She grinned at him from behind the glass. Tap tap tap!

Joe kicked off his sheets quickly, suddenly awake. He — CLUNK! — winced as he tripped on a box in the darkness, limped over to the window and fumbled at the lock.

Alice stuck her head through, still smiling. "Are you – were you sleeping?" she asked quietly.

"Before. Earlier… no." He paused. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

Awkward silence.

"…You wanna come in?"

"Yeah."

"O-kay." Joe moved the set of models on the windowsill and pushed the window all the way open. Alice levered herself up and swung her legs through the gap, stepping gingerly onto his desk. Joe took her hand and she hopped down to the floor.

He flicked the light switch a few times but it stayed dark. Click-click. Click-click.

"Power's still out," Alice murmured.

Joe glanced around and smiled. "Room's still messy."

Alice sat against the end of his bed, knees drawn to her chest, wearing jeans and a dusty green jacket. Joe sat across from her in his thin grey pyjama top, cross-legged against the opposite wall. He'd cleared away most of the clothes and junk on the floor – except for the old projector, which lay half-way between them.

"I couldn't sleep," Alice said, looking at him.

"Why?"

"Just – I was thinking. I wanted to tell you something before tomorrow…" She trailed off and shook her head, hair falling around her shoulders. "Don't let Charles blow up your train. I don't think it's right. I know it's for the movie, and I know he's your friend, but he's so bossy—"

"He can be sorta like that. But I've known him since kindergarten," Joe reassured her. "He's – really nice."

"He shouldn't always get what he wants." Her eyes flashed. "I mean, who always gets what they want."

She looked down. For a moment, it was quiet. Crickets chirped in the warm summer's night.

"I know… I don't know you at all," Alice began. "Even though it – sort of feels like I do…"

She smiled nervously. Joe swallowed, but didn't answer.

"…Do you not – feel like that?"

"No. No, I totally do," he replied quickly. "I'm just kind of… in shock, at this entire conversation."

And then the power came back.

Clunk.

The projector suddenly flickered to life, as did the alarm clock on his desk. Joe and Alice turned to look, surprised. Bluish light splashed against the wall as the film started spinning.

It was his mother. She held him in her arms, only a baby, smiling as he played with the silver locket that hung around her neck.

"Power's back," Joe muttered. He scooted along the floor to the projector, was about to switch it off when Alice interrupted him.

"No, no – keep it."

Joe paused, not really sure if he should. Unsure if he wanted her to see. Alice turned back to the movie, leaning forwards as if she was drawn to it. She crawled a little closer to the screen. "Is that her?" she asked.

"Yeah." After a moment, he took a seat on the carpet behind her and started watching too.

Elizabeth Lamb glanced at the camera, then at Joe in her arms. He was sucking on the silver locket, holding it in his pudgy little hands, content. She kissed his cheek, tried to take it off him. 'No,' she mouthed silently. 'We don't eat that.'

Cut to his first birthday party: Joe sitting in a high chair, a party hat upon his head, a birthday cupcake and single candle resting on the table. His mother stood by his shoulder, and blew it with a single quick puff as his father clapped beside him.

Suddenly, he was crying. His mother picked him up and held him to her chest.

Silence, except for the soft whirr of the projector. Alice watched the screen intently, couldn't take her eyes away. Joe stared at her back; wondered what she was thinking.

Now he was four or five years old, standing by the bathroom wall. His mother straightened his shoulders, then took a pencil and marked his height on the paint. It was an inch or two above the last one.

Cut to the garden. Joe held out his arm, pointed at a scratch on his wrist, face screwed up in pain. Elizabeth knelt down and kissed it better as his father held the camera, same as always.

Then, Christmas morning: a pile of presents, ready to be opened, a tree in the corner adorned with ornaments and tinsel. Joe was sitting on the floor, unwrapping things gleefully, while his mother had already opened one of hers – a pendant, which she slipped around her neck.

'It's beautiful,' she mouthed. Then she looked up, and suddenly it was like she was looking out of the screen, out of the past. At him.

"It's… it's so weird," Joe said, almost whispering. "Watching her like this. Like she's still here."

He lifted his present into the air, a Tinkertoy wooden plane. Elizabeth glanced at the camera with a signature knowing smile.

"She used to look at me… this way, like really look. And… I just knew that I was there. That I existed."

Alice swallowed. Kept watching the screen. If she'd turned around, Joe would've seen the tears begin to form in her eyes.

Christmas passed. They played outside in the sunshine, lying on the thick green grass. Spinning. The camera zoomed close, taking in windswept hair and wide smiles.

"He drank that morning," Alice said, quivering a little. Still gazing at the film. Forcing herself to. "My dad. He missed his shift."

Standing in the trees, in the cool shade. His mother holding him high in the sky so he could flap his arms and pretend that he was flying.

"Your mom took it for him. The day of the accident." Alice sniffed, biting her lip – trying to go on, even as the tears crawled down her cheeks. Just the two of them, sitting in the dark with the eerie light of the projector.

A long pause. Joe sat, waited, quietly stunned.

Alice took a breath. "He… he, um… he wishes… I know he wishes it was him instead of her," she said slowly. "And…" She closed her eyes. "And… sometimes I do, too."

The movie flickered onwards.

"Don't – don't say that. He's your dad," Joe said, as if that fixed everything.

Alice stayed quiet.

Maybe it did.

Standing in the sand, pushing him on the swing. Higher and higher, full of joy, reaching out to touch the sky. And as he reached the top of his swing—

The wall went blank. The film reel spun to a stop, finished.

In the silence, something rattled on Joe's desk – a low, buzzing hum. They spun towards the sound on reflex, Alice with her tear-streaked face, Joe still searching for the right thing to say.

Bzz-bzz. Bzz-bzz.

It was the cube. The small white cube Joe had recovered from the train crash. He'd almost forgotten it was there with the events of the last few days. It was vibrating, nearly imperceptibly, dancing on the wood.

They shuffled over to the desk and knelt down, peering at the strange object. Alice sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Is… is this normal?" she asked curiously.

He shook his head. "No. This is new."

The cube rattled from side-to-side, making a staccato hum on the wood. Joe grabbed a pencil and poked it cautiously. The cube made a kind of warbling sound and shuddered away, jittering onto a piece of paper.

He glanced at Alice. What the hell? The cube didn't appear to have changed from before; it was still the same dirty-white colour, the same jagged, pointy shape. Except…

He leaned closer. Immediately, the shuddering got louder, higher, increasing in pitch and the cube suddenly blurred – Alice let out a scream and they leapt backwards, falling to the floor – as it left the table and whizzed across the room, blasting through the far wall with an explosive CRUNCH.

Joe lay there, stunned, heart pounding. There was now a five-inch hole in his bedroom, right through the middle of his space shuttle poster. A model TIE fighter swung merrily on its string, knocked aside by the cube's passing.

Alice was shocked. Speechless. So was he, for that matter. Joe got to his feet, stumbling over to the wall. Cautiously, he lowered his eyes to the hole it'd left, still trickling dust and splintered brick; peered through it and saw… the old water tower. Standing on the hills on the far side of town.

It was almost hidden by the trees and the distance, but he could see the red warning light blinking on top of the tank, could see the metal underside illuminated by a couple of streetlights. It was maybe forty meters in height, perching on three metal legs and looked… the same as always. A bulbous tower of shadowy, rusting steel.

He glanced at Alice, then through the hole again, wondering about that little white cube. Wondering what had happened to the thousands of others which had scattered from the broken train.

It was a cool night. Dark, quiet, except for the sodium glare of streetlights. As he walked her to the end of the road, Joe thought about what Alice had said.

There was a lot to think about.

But he didn't say anything. They simply wandered together down the hill, past the rows of sleeping houses. Alice's bike clicked and squeaked as she pushed it along beside her. Joe wore his rumpled red dressing gown, the hem dragging along the grass. He held a pair of walkie-talkies in his hands. It was a weird, companionable sort of silence; it felt like saying something would… break it.

They reached the corner, and stopped.

"You can't not tell anyone," Alice said eventually. Her voice was soft, almost swallowed by the air. "You have to tell someone. About the crash. About the cubes."

"I know. I know, I know. I just… don't want you to get in trouble with your dad," Joe replied.

"Don't worry about that. It's fine."

He wondered about that. People usually said 'it's fine' when it really, really wouldn't be. Then he remembered what he'd overheard a few nights ago; something his dad had said.

"Um. Sorry I didn't tell you before, but… I think they're looking for your dad's car," he said uncertainly.

"Oh?"

"They know someone was there that night and, I don't know… I – I didn't want you to get scared."

It sounded stupid as he said it, but Alice only smiled, like she always did. "It's okay. But tomorrow morning…" She looked him right in the eye."…you have to tell your dad tomorrow morning."

Joe nodded. Swallowed. Then he took one of the walkie-talkies he'd been carrying, held it out to her. "Probably won't work all the way to your house, but – we can try," he said brightly.

He grinned. Alice grinned back. She took the radio and clipped it to her jeans, was about to get on the bike when she… stopped.

Suddenly, Joe became aware of how close they were. Standing on the street corner in the early morning air. Looking at each other. Him with his dressing gown and mussed-up hair, her still holding the bike, silhouetted by the streetlights.

She… leaned towards him a little. Bit her lip, uncertain. Joe couldn't move and just kept looking into her eyes, sparkling blue in the darkness.

Close.

The moment seemed to last forever.

Then her eyes went blank. She tilted her head, half-opened her mouth and bared her teeth, twitching and staring at his neck.

Zombie Alice was the best Alice.

She stepped back, laughing softly, and gave him one last smile. Then she jumped on her bike and started rolling down the hill, pedalling faster and faster, getting up to speed. Joe watched her ride, her hair flying out behind her. Not looking back.

He kept watching until she disappeared round the corner.

Joe took a deep, calm breath. Exhaled slowly. Then he wrapped the dressing gown around himself and started the journey back up the hill, heart thumping in his chest.

She rode like the wind, as fast as she dared. Banked close to the corner under the shadows of old, sprawling oak trees, skirted past empty cars and neatly-trimmed curbs, riding up the next hill towards home. The road was a pale grey blur beneath her wheels, glinting in the moonlight. Perhaps it was a reflection of her thoughts; thoughts about a train, and a movie, and little white cubes. About the military, searching for that old beat-up Buick. About Joe, and his mother, and a series of flickering images. About her own mom. About her dad.

Of those things, she only understood two: Joe, and her dad. Of those two, she only cared about one.

A boy, standing on a street corner in his pyjamas. Smiling, and – knowing.

Alice slid the key into the lock as softly as she could. Turned it; heard the click. The door swung open and she slipped inside, then carefully shut it behind her.

A lamp was still glowing in the corner, yellow and dim, casting the front room in shadow. She put the keys in the bowl by the door and tiptoed to the stairs, doing her best to avoid any creaking on the dark wooden floorboards. At least there was nobody awake. She grabbed the banister with one hand and began to climb—

"Morning."

Alice froze. The last voice in the world she wanted to hear.

"Want to tell me where you were?" her father asked. He must've been sitting in the dark, in an armchair in the lounge. Probably drunk. "…Or should I tell you?"

She climbed back down the staircase, tense, mind racing. Breathe, Alice. Just breathe. But his voice had that ignorant, bullish tone in it which she hated so much— She stopped in the doorway and casually leaned leaned against the wood. Tried to keep her face unimpressed. Unafraid.

Louis Dainard was sprawled in his favourite recliner, white shirt unbuttoned at the waist, a lit cigarette in hand. There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the armrest plus a beer on the nearby table, amidst the piles of newspapers and old magazines.

"Sit down," he said, gesturing at the closest seat.

Alice shook her head. "I should go to bed."

"I wanna talk to you, I said sit down."

"I don't want to sit down."

"Ally, I'm warning you."

"No."

A puff of smoke curled towards the ceiling.

"Then go," Louis said dismissively. "Be just like your mother, and LEAVE."

He was looking right at her when he said it. He wanted it to hurt her.

And it did. It killed her. "Dad…"

"Go ahead! Go!" He spread his arms, and when she didn't move he only yelled it louder. "GO!"

So she did.

She ran to the front door and burst through, crying for the second time that night even as she tried desperately not to. Her feet skidded across the porch and she went to her bike, pulled it upright and leaped onto the pedals, wobbling, clutching the handlebars as she bounced along the footpath.

"Alice!" Louis came crashing after her, stumbling down the steps, bellowing with sudden, miserable remorse. "ALICE! Alice, wait!" His shirt flew out behind him as he sprinted to the road. But his daughter was already long gone, disappearing down the street and into the dark, cold night.

She rode like wind, as fast as she dared. Half-breathing, half-sobbing, pedalling with all her might. She swung around the corner and sucked in air, bicycle chain rattling, while on the horizon there was the faintest hint of orange, heralding the coming dawn.

Tires screeched behind her. She checked over her shoulder, saw headlights flash at the far end of the road, getting closer. She pedalled faster, faster, trying to escape everything. Trying to escape the whole world.

Houses flashed past on either side. She rounded another corner. There were no cars on the street, no people. Just the bike, the trees – and the car coming up behind her. The yellow Buick screamed round the bend, suspension bouncing, body scraping the asphalt and kicking up sparks. Alice glanced over her shoulder again, hyperventilating, saw the car only thirty yards behind – and suddenly braked, hard. The handlebars shuddered. She turned the bike around as she slowed and started riding back up the hill, passing the car coming in the other direction.

Louis saw her flash by from the driver's seat. He gripped the wheel tightly, looked back and yelled after her. "ALLY, I'M SORRY!"

The thing was, Louis Dainard was drunk. And he wasn't looking where he was going. Which meant, as he watched his daughter fly past, that the car was veering a little to the side…

The car slammed nose-first into the back of a red Ford, parked on the side of the road.

CRASH!

It was a sharp, ugly sound, startling in the pre-dawn air. Metal crunched against metal, the hood crumpling and popping open as the two cars slammed together. Glass exploded from the windshield. The Buick bounced up, then down with shrieking rubber as the Ford's brakes and sheer weight stopped it violently in its tracks. Smoke erupted from the engine, hissing and steaming.

Alice skidded to a stop half-way along the street. She looked over her shoulder.

And stood there, one foot on the asphalt, staring at the wrecked car with terrified eyes. Disbelieving. Watching the smoke pour into the air. Unsure if she should go back and check or just…

The echoes faded. It was suddenly quiet.

She scrunched up her eyes, holding back the tears – then opened them, taking ragged breaths, still not moving even though she hated herself for it. Wondering what to do.

It's the decisions we make that define who we are.

Inside the Buick, Louis Dainard twitched.

The driver's side window was shattered. His head had slammed forward, smashing into the windshield. His face and neck were streaked with blood from ragged, deep cuts. He adjusted himself painfully, straightening his back, then collapsed into the torn-up seat. The seatbelt lay slack against the door.

He squinted, searching for his daughter.

Ally?

Alice saw his head moving through the car's rear window. Saw it look from side to side.

That was enough to make her decide. I'm… I'm not going back.

And then, there was a sound behind her. A terrible, alien sound – a high-pitched whine interspersed with rhythmic clicking, like nothing she'd ever heard before.

She turned, and saw… it.

Alice stood there, staring up at it for the briefest of seconds before her mouth let loose a piercing, terrified scream—

Louis heard his daughter scream. The sound was like a knife through the blankets of alcohol and shock and he shuffled around frantically, eyes flicking left and right, until they settled on the rear-view mirror, where there was…

He wasn't sure what it was – a smooth grey shape with too many legs that made his eyes go wide. It was an animal, it had to be, four metres tall and half in shadow as it reared up, clutching his daughter in impossibly long arms. Alice kept screaming, mixing with the clicking and hissing of the creature and the clang of her bike falling to the ground—

"ALICE!" He shouted in desperation, his own screams lost in hers. He tried to open the car door but it was jammed shut, wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried. He glanced behind him, saw a spiderlike grey blur scrabbling across the grass.

His daughter wasn't screaming anymore.

He went for the passenger door, kicking it with brute strength, fell out of the car onto the side of the road. "Alice!" He pushed himself to his feet and started running up the hill, drunken and bleeding, swaying, calling out her name. "ALLY!"

All that was left was her mangled blue bike, discarded on the sidewalk. Louis tripped over it as he stumbled past; hit the pavement hard, a battered, crying mess.

All that was left. He got up in the middle of the empty street, spinning around in shock and disbelief. Hair slicked with sweat and grime, face covered in blood. Vocal cords shredded as he shouted her name, again and again and again, as if it would bring his daughter back.

"ALLYYYY!"