Honorable mention
Everybody Needs a Vanagon
Juli Martin
Honorable mention
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"Stop it, you dummy!" Grant shouted exasperatedly at the other man climbing the cliff ahead of him. "You're kicking rocks and dirt in my face!"Ben stopped moving up the slope and peered down through a thick tangle of brown hair. "You ought to keep your eyes down and your trap shut, grandpa," he sneered.
"If you don't watch your step, you're going to end up in the bottom of that gorge." What was Ben's problem, he wondered? He was such an impudent know-it-all and a big baby.
The two men had been walking for two days. Supplies were running low in their tiny settlement and their group had drawn lots to see who would go looking for goods. Grant didn't mind helping out but he did not like the company he was being forced to keep. Ben had done nothing but complain every step of the way.
Grant grunted as he finally pulled himself up on the ridge.
"Whew! My muscles feel like Jell-O", Grant muttered.
Ben grinned, "Yeah, must be tough on you. I'll bounce back a lot faster than you will!"
The older man glared at Ben. "I'm not too old to teach you a lesson if you don't watch your mouth. I've had about enough of your company and your comments about my age. What we need to do right now is make camp before I lose my temper. Hey! Look through those trees there."
"Looks like a town. Come on, Grant! We can make it by sundown if we hurry."
"I'm not sure I want to chance an expedition this late in the day. You know those creatures could be there and I don't want to be there after dark. They seem to be everywhere we turn these days."
Grant shuddered. Ever since the invasion, the entire countryside was crawling with little light blue humanoid creatures that carried some type of nerve-weapon. After the Earth's nuclear war, ships began to appear as if they were attracted by the disaster that had claimed Earth. His friend had gotten blasted by one of those things and three of those aliens-from-hell had grabbed Henry up and turned on some kind of beaming system. The three things had just vanished into thin air...along with Henry!
The biggest problem wasn't that there were so many of them, it was how to kill them. They could be harmed but it took quite a bit of firepower and no one had bullets to spare these days. Then, if you did manage to maim one, they pushed some kind of little button on the badge of their purple suits and vanished into one of their ships.
"Let's chance it, Grant. We need to get back to camp as soon as we can. Maria didn't want me to leave as it was but I chose the long straw and ended up on this goose-chase with you. Lemme see that list of supplies again."
Grant rummaged in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a stained, folded piece of notepad paper. After Ben had snatched the paper away, the older man hoisted his pack over his shoulder and took his rifle in his hand. Ben stared at the note before thrusting it back at him.
"Let's look for a hospital first, then we'll check any hardware stores for rope, axes and small engine oil. Maybe we can pick up a chainsaw, if we can carry it."
The town was quiet. They carefully crept along the sides of the streets, alert for anything moving or out-of-place. The houses were those of any old Southern town, some with big wide porches and ornately cut Victorian woodwork. As they drew nearer to the town-square, they saw a blue sign with a big white "H" with an arrow that pointed down a street to the right.
"The hospital's that way, but let's check out this garage first," Ben said. Grant nodded in agreement
A few houses here had neat front yards even though the grass and weeds were threatening to take over. Grant led the way toward a garage in the back of one of the houses. When the two men reached the double garage doors of the building, they both glanced back as if sensing someone on their tail. Nothing appeared to be following them, but they couldn't take any chances. Grant motioned for Ben to open the garage door as he semi-crouched, keeping his gun ready in front of him. At first it looked as if Ben couldn't budge the door and Grant felt that any second they might be hit by laser-rays. Grant watched Ben's muscles straining with the effort before the door finally gave way and swung up.
The light inside was dim, but the afternoon rays fell through the open door. Dust motes swirled in the air as they let their eyes adjust to the difference in the lighting. "Wow. I don't believe this!"
"Grant, what is that hunk of rust?"
"I haven't seen one of these things in years! It's an old Volkswagen Vanagon. Looks like one of the earliest...an '81!"
Dimly illuminated by the small amount of light passing through the doorway, its worn, blue paint looked dull in the gloom, Grant noticed the rocker panels had large rust spots as did the areas around most of the windows. "Too bad it's in such terrible shape. I always liked these things." He pushed down the handle of the sliding door and it glided open.
"Wow! Look at this! This is a camper!" he said as Ben came around to peer over his shoulder. Grant flipped on the light over the table and began to explore the closets and check out the refrigerator which smelled as moldy as it looked.
Ben hopped in and slid into the driver's seat. "Hey, how lucky can you get! The key is in the ignition. Wonder if it'll crank." Before Grant could stop him, Ben tried the key.
The engine turned over and it chugged and ground as it fought to come alive. Finally with a bang of exhaust the engine caught.
"Listen to that! Sounds neat, doesn't it?" Ben grinned.
"What are you trying to do, Ben! Get every blue monster for miles around here in the garage with us?" Grant reached over to turn off the key. As he did, something caught his eye. An alien! It was just turning the corner of the house next door.
"Did you see that? We're gonna be trapped if we don't get out of here NOW! Get in the other seat."
As soon as Ben was in the passenger seat, he hopped behind the wheel, lowered the clutch and put it into first gear. The engine still purred and putted in fairly good timing and the clutch worked smoothly as Grant let it out and drove the van out of the enclosure.
Both men had their eyes scanning for any more of the creatures as the van pulled around the house and out onto the narrow one way street.
"See anything?" Ben asked breathing fast.
"Not yet. Hey wait! Look over there! It's aiming at us!" Three of the blue men had stepped out from beside a parked van into the road and one had raised a small silver object shaped like an empty toilet paper tube.
Taking evasive action, Grant spun the wheel to the left. The beat-up Volkswagen never paused but leapt up like a thing alive, bouncing over a curb and through the Methodist churchyard. Ben rolled down the window and leaned out to see what the aliens were doing. They had scattered in three directions and were running at a terrific speed to head them off.
"Watch out Grant! There's one right in front...." Ben said too late. Grant had already plowed over the little man and it lay behind them squirming in the grass. The van kept going toward the street on the other side of the block. In the rear-view mirror Grant watched as another of the creatures ran to the injured one, picked him up and slapped its long-fingered hand over it's breast insignia. Both disappeared.
"Two down! Would be easy to run them all down and save bullets, eh? A few more dents in this van couldn't hurt it. It may be thirty years old but they built these things like tanks!"
The van skidded over the sidewalk and back onto the main road through the town and before Grant floored it again. They were running sixty miles an hour by the time they passed the courthouse and veered down the road in the direction of their settlement.
"I think we lost 'em!" Ben appeared hugely relieved and reached to the dash and gave it a pat. "Good thing we chanced up on this thing."
"Yeah," sighed Grant. "It was lucky that someone had kept this old relic."
"Uh, oh. We spoke too soon. Look behind us!"
Soaring over the town and toward them flew a ship of massive size. Nearly the length of two football fields, it shone in the red sunset rays like a ruby. Frantically, Grant pushed his foot down on the accelerator as hard as he could, but the pedal gave way with a sickening crunch and the engine lost power.
"The floor to this thing is rusted through! Get out and run for those trees!" Grant began braking and getting ready to throw himself out of the vehicle as soon as it slowed enough.
It was too late. The ship was directly above them now and a beam of violet light shone down on the Vanagon making Ben look strangely ill. Grant didn't know what would happen to him in the van, but he surely wanted out of there! He opened the door and fell out on to the pavement and hoped that Ben was exiting from the other side.
Looking up, he struggled to stand, then froze as he watched the Vanagon begin to transform right before his eyes.
It began at the nose of the vehicle, as if a molten liquid flowed across the body toward the tail end. As the flow passed over the paint, chrome, and pop-top, it appeared as if the Vanagon had just rolled off the assembly line! The violet light abruptly shut off and Grant stood in awe at the sight of the beautiful Vanagon before him.
Did he hear a cry coming from inside of the van? A baby's cry? Where had that come from?
Grant raced around to the other side of the van and opened the door. On the seat, a naked infant lay on a pile of Ben's clothing. Had the strange light had also taken thirty years off their ages, too? Grant reached up and felt his smooth face then looked down at his unlined hands. He must look twenty again!
He grabbed Ben from the pile of clothing and began backing away from the hovering ship and the Vanagon. The ship whirred with an almost imperceptible sound as he gained ground toward the forest to his right. And as he watched, a tractor beam fell from the craft and began to draw the shiny blue Vanagon up off the ground, toward it and into an open section underneath. Once the van was in, the hatch slid silently shut.
And then, it was all over. The ship tipped on its side and slipped through the atmosphere with a magnetic whoosh that left Grant's hair standing on end. It was gone.
Grant looked down at the baby in his arms and grinned. He had promised Ben's pretty girlfriend that he would watch out for him, and he couldn't wait to see the look in her eyes when he handed her Ben. Daydreaming of pretty Maria and new Vanagons, he turned and carried the baby into the woods.
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