Untaken by J.E. Anckorn

trickle, and then the streets were empty again.
    The light was gone in an instant, like someone had flipped a switch, and I was left blinking and rubbing my eyes, staring blindly into the dark. The engines of the spacecraft roared to life, and a great downdraft of sweet, hot air knocked me flat.
    When I could see again, I was all alone in the yard.

    I woke up with a start, banging my head on the kitchen table, which, for some reason, I’d fallen asleep underneath. A loud engine—a bus?—rumbled out in the street, accompanied by a booming voice.
    “Newton Police department. Come on out of your houses. You will be transported somewhere safer. If you can hear me, come on out. Hurry it up, folks.”
    My heart hammered, but it couldn’t be an alien trap. Surely aliens would have better tech than some squealing old megaphone? I chanced a look out the window and, sure enough, a yellow school bus cruised slowly down the street. A tired looking lady in a police uniform hung out the open door. She hefted her megaphone and hollered through it again. “This is an evacuation. For your own safety, please show yourselves.”
    I wasn’t too sure there could
be
anywhere safe, but if that bus was heading to the emergency center in Needham, then I had to be on it.
    I scrambled around the house, frantically shoving necessary things into my backpack, and almost broke my neck flying down the front steps.
    “Hey, wait for me!” The zipper on my backpack was stuck, and I had to run holding it cradled in my arms like an uncooperative baby. So long as my tablet stayed inside, I didn’t care about the socks and sweaters that fluttered to the ground as I ran.
    The bus pulled to a stop halfway down the next street. The cop leaned out the bus doors to yell into her megaphone again, but stopped when she saw me pelting toward her. She stared at me in a not-friendly way as I skidded to a stop, panting at the bus doors.
    “Anyone else on that street?”
    “Just me,” I gasped, in between big gulps of air “I was waiting for my mom and dad and—”
    “They be anywhere, they be at the center. Take a seat and fill out a form. You got any ID?”
    “No,” I began, “I don’t know—”
    She sighed, cutting me off again. “Never mind. Just fill it out best you can.”
    Each seat had a clipboard, complete with a pen on a springy cord thing and a form for filling out your name and address and stuff.
    The cop was a real grouch, but it still felt nice to relax and let someone else be in charge for a while.
    There were ten other people on the bus. Some of them filled out their forms, pens skittering over the paper when the bus bumped and juddered over the broken roads, while some just stared out the window with expressionless faces. The bus drove all through Auburndale, Lower Falls, and out toward Needham, but only a few more folks joined us. Some were in small groups, but most were loners like me.
    A woman came running out of a grubby two-family on King Street. She dragged a girl who looked about my age along by the arm.
    “Boy is it a relief to see you guys! I thought no-one was ever coming. You sure took your time!” The cop didn’t smile back, just rolled her eyes and flapped a hand at the seats. The mom plopped herself down in the seat across the aisle from mine, yanking her girl in next to her.
    “Stephie, hon, you’re sitting right on your form. Can’t you be a little bit cooperative?”
    The girl sighed. “Didn’t see it.”
    “Make sure to write neatly. If they have our names in the system, then Dad will be able to find us… Stephanie Craig, I can hardly read a word of that. Do it over.”
    “You write it,” muttered the girl. “Wanna sleep.”
    She did look pretty bushed. Her face was pale and kind of slack, and she held the pen awkwardly in her fist like she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. The mom took the form away from her and started filling it in, and the daughter—Stephie—slumped over and began to