The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [58]
They were indeed. The aliens had got inside their rocket and the army were herding the press pack and the rubberneckers away. A green glow erupted from the base of the silver spaceship and the camera shook and wobbled. Then it was gone, soaring up into the night sky. The camera tracked it until it was swallowed by the black clouds.
There was a hush over the pub, and the field in Cornwall, until the reporter said in reverent tones: "And there we have it: an historic, epoch-making event. I have been proud and honoured to witness the first open contact between humanity and extra-terrestrial intelligences ..."
"Proud and honoured to witness them buggering off," said Bob, lighting up again.
"I wonder why they've gone, really?" said Alan.
"I wonder whose round it is, really?" said Bob.
Later, pissed, I phoned Katy, against my better judgment.
"Did you see the aliens?" I burbled.
"Of course I did," she said flatly. "I'd imagine everyone on earth saw them. Why are you calling me?"
"I still love you," I whispered.
The phone went dead.
I lay in bed for a bit but couldn't sleep. I tried to have a wank but could only summon up images of flabby green aliens in black suits, so gave up and went to sit by the window, staring up at the night sky and wondering what it was all about, until Wayne and Stu drove past in their dad's Ford Focus, beeping their horn all along the road. They'd painted TAKE US WITH U on the roof of the car. Alan wasn't going to be best pleased.
On the sixth day before the end, we found out why the aliens had left. There was an asteroid the size of Milton Keynes heading towards earth. It was due to hit in a little under a week. The breakfast news was full of it. Someone at the Government had leaked the information. The authorities had known about it for months. The aliens had been trying to help us find a solution but, given the size of the rock, there wasn't much they could suggest. That was why they had gone.
I didn't go into work. Didn't really see the point. I did phone, though. The secretary said: "Are you ill?"
"Haven't you seen the news this morning?"
She paused. "No. Why?"
"Nothing," I said. Anne was a skittish sort and I didn't want to panic her unduly. "I've got a touch of flu."
I turned back to the telly. The asteroid was somewhere out past Venus at the moment, but it was going at a fair lick. The experts said it would probably break up a little in the atmosphere. There was apparently a big plan to fly a load of nuclear bombs up into orbit in the space shuttle and blow the rock to smithereens, or at least knock it off course. Failing that - and the scientist being interviewed assured us it would work - the asteroid would probably hit Australia some time on Sunday.
"At least it's only Australia," said Alan when I went round to his to return the hedge trimmer I'd borrowed off him five months previously.
He gazed at the trimmer with a curious look in his eye, probably wondering whether it was worth cutting back his leylandii before the weekend, as I said: "Well, according to the telly, the size and speed of the thing means it'll probably wipe out all life on earth anyway."
Alan sniffed, just as Margery pulled up on to the drive in the Focus. They'd tried to rub the TAKE US WITH U message off the roof without much success. Margery, a handsome woman if a little highly-strung, struggled out of the car weighed down with Sains-bury's carrier bags. She looked a little harassed.
"It's chaos out there!" she trilled. "I nearly had to fight my way out of the supermarket. There were people punching each other at the checkout."
"Did you get any of that pate I like?" asked Alan mildly as Margery elbowed her way past me.
"No I did not!" she squeaked. "I got bottles of water and tins of beans. You can get the other bags out of the car. And why haven't you barricaded the windows yet?"
Alan looked at me and gave a tiny, what-can-you-do? shrug. "I thought I'd trim the hedge, first," he said.
I left Margery blustering and went back home. Halfway there I took a detour towards the corner shop. Perhaps