.1. Winter Falls 2300 hours
'So, when he came home, he found her with the pigs…in pieces.'
Philip Ceris looked across the campfire to his son. He stared back, a look of horror and joy on his twelve year old face.
'That's…so cool. Tell me another dad.'
Philip smiled and sat back on his haunches. He might have known that he wouldn't be able to scare the kid; he had posters of Freddy and Jason on his walls, and had taste for the hard rocking beats of Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie. He knew that he shouldn't encourage it but, truth be told, he liked it as well. Since his wife had died three years ago he and the boy had been inseparable. They went camping, fishing, all sorts of cool stuff.
Being in the US he had even taken the boy target shooting on the range a few times, he had shown real promise.
At home, in the cupboard, there was his next birthday present; a Ruger .22. He had picked it up for himself but it was small enough so that he could hold it comfortably now on his own. He had no idea that he had it coming and the look that would be on his face would be worth a thousand pictures.
'Not right now champ, I think it's about time that we thought about sacking out. You want to sleep in the tent, or out here again?'
The boy had already crawled over to his sleeping bag and was sitting cross-legged on it.
'Here, here, here,' he sang.
Philip laughed.
'Okay, okay, you got it.'
He moved around the other side of the fire and reached out to ruffle the boys hair.
'Dad. You think that mum would have liked it out here?'
His hand stopped jus short of the blonde, close-cropped hair.
'Yeah,' he said. 'I think she would have loved it. Get some sleep, I'll see you in the morning 'kay?'
'Kay dad, night.'
Philip stood and walked a few paces away to where his own bag lay on the smooth grass.
He sat down and ran his hands through his salt and pepper hair, pushing it out of his eyes.
He wasn't going to cry, by God he wouldn't.
He saw her in the boy every time that he looked at him; his smile, his hair…his eyes. It was almost too much sometimes.
He was forty now, had married very young, as soon as he had let school. She was a waitress he had met while trying to get a career going with his band. The music had fallen through, the love between the two had blossomed. There had been no talk of kids but the night thirteen years ago when she had told him had been the second happiest day in his life. They had lived and loved together and now, this child, this angel, had been given to them.
Then as cruelly as that, just when they thought that they would be together forever, the unthinkable had happened.
She had been driving home one night after visiting friends when, on a wet stretch of lonely motorway, an eighteen-wheeler had jumped the median and broadsided her car. The truck driver had been thrown through the windscreen…he had lived, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His wife had been strapped in her seat as the truck, all twenty-two laden tonnes, had rolled over the drivers and passenger seats.
He got the call from a friend in the local police force at three a.m. and had gone straight to the scene, leaving Thomas with his sister.
He had cried when he had arrived, the shock too much to bear. Soon after he had taken his son and moved to the mountains, away from the city.
He looked over to the sleeping form of his son, lost in good dreams. He wanted to be young again, to be without fear and pain.
He envied him that much.
He lay down on his bag and put his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and pointed his face at the stars, trying to lose himself in happy thoughts.
He felt a warm wind on his skin and opened an eye. He looked up.
Flaming wreckage shot over where he lay, the wind screeching in its wake. It fell to the earth like a flaming meteorite and disappeared from view over the close hill. Philip jumped up and tried to see where it had gone.
'Dad?'
He looked down at the half-awake boy on the ground nearby.
'I thought I heard something.'
As soon as the words were out of his mouth his head sank back to the pillow under his head. He was asleep before it hit.
Philip looked up again into the sky, his interest well and truly peeked. His body no where near tired anymore.
Motorway off-ramp - 2305 hours.
Officer Steve Finch sat in his patrol car, the night cool through the partly open window on his side. He had been there for over three hours and he still had another to go before he was due in.
He had been in the force for ten years and he loved the village, would do anything for it.
Crime stats were low; the youth defaced walls and such, but there was no drunken brawling and no violence. The streets were tidy and the local school was always bustling with the laughter of children.
Yes, he loved the village, wouldn't be anywhere else.
He looked through the windscreen at the stars and, like when he was a boy, started to count them. It belayed the boredom he felt when he was all alone.
He started from the left and then methodically moved his gaze to the left, starting to count again.
He leaned closer to the windscreen, looking in both directions.
The object flew over the car at no more than twenty feet above the ground.
The wind was so strong that it picked up the car and flipped it unto its side. It started to roll.
Steve held on for dear life, the heat from the thing finding its way into the car.
What the…!
The car came to rest on its roof, the seatbelt pulling against his chest and waist.
From where he was hanging he heard whatever it was, or had been, hit somewhere to the East, just a few scant miles from the place he called home.
He reached out and punched the seatbelt release, glad that it had become a habit to wear it. He fell heavily to the upturned roof and the wind was knocked out of him.
He caught his breath and crawled for the now smashed window.
Standing in the night he pulled the personal radio from where it hung on his belt.
'Mary, come in?'
The radio was silent for a few minutes then answered.
'Am I glad to hear you, we have reports from at least a hundred people, apparently people have been seeing meteorites over their homes. Can you believe that?'
Steve Finch pulled the mouth piece towards him.
'Mary…you won't believe the shit that I just saw.'
He dropped the mic and let it swing on the length of twisted cable.
He felt his legs go weak and sat down hard on the ground.
What the hell was that?
He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a shaky hand.
Parsons Farm 2320hours
Mick Parsons walked unsteadily from the big granite farmhouse. Trying to keep his dressing gown on with one hand while trying to load the double barrel that he carried with the other.
He abandoned the robe and concentrated on the shotgun, his thinking that he would rather be armed and naked than naked and not armed.
He ran to the corner of the building and poked his head around it.
The shotgun drooped in his hands and pointed to the ground.
There, in the middle of his field, was the mangled wreckage of, what looked like, a large plane.
There wasn't a whole hell of a lot left.
He started towards it.
The wreck was still burning, the metal giving off intense heat even from the distance he was at.
He had been awoken from his sleep by a huge boom and the sound of shattering glass as every window in his house exploded inwards.
He sat up in bed lifting his arms to protect his face, getting covered in shards of glass.
Grabbing the robe and the gun that he kept close by, he stumbled outside.
He stepped closer to the flames and then, strangely, began to cough.
He backed away, the coughing getting worse and worse until he was finding it hard to breath. The gun fell from his nerveless fingers.
He didn't see the figures as they stepped from the bushes on the other side of the field.
Didn't see one of the shadows lift something to its shoulder.
The green dot leapt from the object and travelled up the farmers body. Slowly it rose to a point just above his eyes.
Parsons became aware that something was wrong.
Through the coughing and tear-filled eyes he tried to wave at the figures standing in the dark.
The last thing he saw was a muted flash.
The bullet tore through his upraised fingers and hit him just off centre on his forehead.
His brains exploded from the back of his head and sprayed the area behind him crimson.
The figure lowered the rile and walked back into the bushes at its back.
Then they were gone.
Parsons was the first to die that night but he would be far from the last.
He was one of the lucky ones.