I have watched the sun come up more times than I can count. Whether it was heading back from a night mission or a long boring guard shift, it was always a welcome sight. Now the dim blue feels even more like a blessing.

I’ve had to reload my mags, after going around the house recovering them. Most of the windows have been blasted out. For our efforts, the enemy has been left battered, their armor cracked and dented. With enough time, we may be able to break through and kill the things that are encased in those metal suits.

“Is it over?” Jerry wonders.

“I think so, but we can’t let our guard down,” Daniel says.

“I agree, we should still keep ready. But what makes you think that it is over?”

“We talked about how they are probably nocturnal. I think that we can be pretty sure of that now. Their eyes and all. And besides, paranormal things tend to happen at night.”

“That is less than reassuring.”

“We aren’t exactly in known territory, here.”

“Has anything like this happened before? People actually fighting aliens?” he pauses briefly, “Or whatever those things are.”

“There was one incident. The Kelly–Hopkinsville goblin encounter”

“Goblins?” Jerry says.

“Well, that is what they were called. But most people think that they were aliens, that is, unless they believe that it is a hoax.”

“Well, what happened?”

“They laid siege to a farmhouse. The residents fought with them but couldn’t seem to kill them. It was as if they were armored. The attackers eventually left. The cops came, found little evidence. The academics mocked them, called them stupid rednecks. You know, the usual.

In the absence of adrenaline and with the burden of a long night aiding it, the weight of the vest has appeared. The blood loss can’t be helping, either.

“How many of them do you think that there are?” Daniel asks.

I ponder it for a second, “At least four.”

Jerry thinks it over, “By the end, I never saw one that wasn’t hurt, or its suit damaged. I think that it is four or so.”

I find myself looking at the floor, “We can’t escape. Can’t call for help. We are on our own.”

“Come on,” Jerry shouts, “it’s not like we are on the surface of the moon out here!”

“We are at least twenty miles from a city. Anyone that is closer will just as soon shoot us for jumping their gate if we try to get help from them. Even if it is daytime, if you think that those things aren’t watching us, aren’t ready to pounce when we start down the road, then you are crazy.”

This statement causes his face to sour. He rests his hands on the back of the sofa, stares downward. Daniel goes to the backdoor, stares out the window.

“Do you think that she will get worried when I don’t call her, come back here?”

“She will definitely get worried, but I doubt that she will come back here. Do you ever lose cell coverage?”

“Sometimes.”

“She may chalk it up to that. Who would she call to help?”

“Maybe send the cops to do a welfare check. Tell them the truth, with the important parts left out.”

“The best kind of lie.”

“If that happens, what do we tell them?”

“The truth backed up by evidence. Remember, our new friend set up those cameras.”

“Good point,” he gets up, “I’m going to our bedroom, try to find my old cellphone, just in case it still works.”

All at once, the lack of sleep catches up with me. I plop down on the sofa, my head rests on the back. Cold rushes up my body. I sit there in some kind of strange state. My eye lids weigh an unreasonable amount. The lenses burn steady and strong. All I can do is stare at the ceiling and listen.

No birds. Not one chirp or caw.

It’s just dead quiet. Yet, I know that I will hear one of them on the roof or its footsteps as it sneaks into the house to slit our throats. I wonder where the pack of coyotes from last night went. Have they fled the area, picking up the peculiar scents of the ETs? Is that why the birds are silent? Can they sense the presence of the enemy, the same as they can sense a coming earthquake?

For the millionth time I question the reality of the situation. Am I asleep? Am I hallucinating? Did I even make it back from Iraq? Did I take something for the pain, go too far? A new prospect rears its ugly head, this one worse than alien attacks. Did I finally do it, put the gun to my head? Am I in some kind of purgatory or Hell?

The silence is broken by a rattling in the kitchen. I jump, start to bolt up off the couch, but stop myself when I realize that it is just my brother digging around in the cabinets. This draws us into the room. We down sodas, eat PB&J sandwiches. My eyes keep going to the window. Then to Jerry’s face as he watches the door behind me.

I feel better, more awake.

“We should go check the trail cams,” Daniel suggests in a matter of fact tone.

My blood goes cold again, mind reels. This is unthinkable.

“Are you serious? This isn’t a game; this isn’t a paranormal TV show. This is a dangerous situation!”

“We need intel, information on what we are dealing with. I checked the cameras that I put in the windows,” he looks away, “They peeked in a few times, but I didn’t see anything new, anything that could help us.”

I’m torn on whether or not I want to see the footage. The curious need to see such a bizarre creature struggles against the fear of those damn eyes.

“I’m not saying that we head deep into the forest, just get the closer ones,” the investigator clarifies.

He’s right. Every glimpse that we have gotten of them was over quick, shrouded in darkness, while under the influence of fear and adrenaline. If we can get a better look at them, maybe we can find some sort of weakness. Or at least get a heads up on some aspect of them that we missed.

“Alright, fine, let me go wash up first.”

I head down the hall, enter the bathroom. The cold water doesn’t hit as hard as I had thought.

I look away from the mirror, notice the little blurry window.

I imagine one of those faces, those massive void black eyes staring at me. Shaking the picture away, I go to meet with the others.

The second that I step out from under the carport the feeling invades my mind, that sickening sensation that I am being watched. I scan the area, looking for pale forms, dead black eyes.

Daniel starts toward the shed. I hadn’t noticed the surveillance camera resting on the rusted pail that sits beside the door. It is pointed so that it covers the front of the house.

I walk ahead of the others, lean in to make sure that nothing is hiding in the little metal building. It is organized clutter. Random junk, rusted tools, and old containers are stacked haphazardly on shelfs and in racks. Daniel grabs the camera, stuffs it into the backpack that he brought along.

Now we head to the backyard. The old barn sits there, oddly sinister. My eyes move from the dusty darkness of the door to that of the hay loft. The only light in there is from the holes and missing boards. Beams of sunlight slice the discarded black. The question of what might be hiding in that darkness keeps my eyes turning back toward the dilapidated structure, as we finish the journey to the tree and retrieve the cam.

Daniel takes the cam down, places it in the backpack. Then he goes around to the other side of the trunk and lets out a gasp. We follow him, giving the distant trees a quick once over. He is staring at the ground, at a scattering of OD green plastic hunks. I quickly realize that it was one of the cameras, this one placed on the opposite side of the big tree.

Knocked off the tree by one of them? Broke apart when it hit the ground? No, it would have stayed intact.

Daniel bends down, sifts through the pieces. After a long couple of minutes, he finds what he is looking for, the SD card. He pockets it, says that we should go. I eye the barn again, then the tree line, before turning to follow him.

A nervous walk back. Daniel turns on his laptop, each of us keenly aware that it can only stay on for so long with the power out. Excited, he plugs the SD card from the broken camera in.

The abyss of those eyes. No antennas on this one. It seems to be wearing a black bodysuit. Spindly, unnaturally long fingers wrap around the plastic case that holds the camera system.

“This thing is different, another type of creature,” Daniel observes.

The camera shakes violently, turns in random directions.

The realization seems to hit the three of us at once. The trail cam wasn’t broken by accident. Not smashed to bits, disassembled, as the pieces look uniform. It was intentionally taken apart. The thing was trying to figure out what it was, how it functioned.

My eyes keep turning toward the window. The water from the damaged pool has soaked into the ground.

Then I notice pink reflected on a cloud. Two questions force their way past the sudden flash of horror. How is it that such a thing now fills me with so much dread? How had the safety of daylight faded so quick?