The Mind Invaders

The Mind Invaders
 
The man in the dark coat walked up to the car.
“Excuse me professor,” he said.
The academic lowered the window.
“What can I do for yo-”
He didn’t’ get a chance to finish.
 

#

Two Days Earlier

Jane’s eyes snapped open. Then she realized what had awoken her.
My mobile!
She answered it through bleary and barely awake eyes. It was a number she didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Jane, its Daniel.”
Daniel was the hot shot reporter who worked at the same news firm as her? Why’s he calling me? We work at the same news firm but we have never really spoken.
“Yes, Daniel?” She asked coming fully alert and awake in an instant.
“This is very important.” Daniel replied.
“It must be for you to call me at this hour of the night.”
“Meet me at the all night café on King’s street in 15 minutes.”
”What?”
“I don’t have time to explain, meet me in 15 minutes at King Street café. Tell no one.”
The phone went dead.
Fifteen to twenty minute later, Jane walked into the all night café. She saw Daniel sitting in the far corner, a cup in his hand and his shoulders hunched forward; his dark coat and hat covering most of his body.
He looked up as she approached.  She sat opposite.
“Daniel whatever story you on now must be important. You haven’t been seen in the office for the last two weeks.”
Without any pleasantries she asked, “How big is this story you are working on?”
“Big, very big. I don’t know whether to ring the pentagon or CNN.”
Suddenly he grabbed her face in his hands.
“Look straight at me.”
“What?” She barely managed to ask through the pain and shock of having her head gripped so tightly.
He stared at her intensely for a few seconds, then let go.
“Sorry. I had to make sure.”
“Sure..?”
“Doesn’t matter I don’t’ have time to explain.”
He looked around nervously for a second. His breath coming in short gasps.
He’s scared, really scared.
“Come with me.” He said getting up abruptly.
She followed.
Outside the night was silent apart from the whistle of the cold wind which bit into her remorselessly. She looked up briefly for a second and saw a billion stars.
They got into Daniel’s car; it started with a shaky coughing sound.
“Where are we going?”
“I will show you, we will be there in a short while.”
“So what’s so important that you have to wake me up in the middle of the night?”
“You know I been investigating missing persons for a while now?”
He looked in the rear-view mirror nervously as if he was expecting someone to be following them.
She didn’t but she said.
“Yes?”
“Well I’ve noticed that over the last few weeks more people than average were going missing.”
“OK?”
“I found a link.”
Jane saw him look in the rear-view mirror again.
“The people recently going missing were all highly educated, many of them researchers in various topics such as neuroscience or advanced astro physics.”
He looked in the rear-view mirror again.
Jane saw his knuckles had turned white and his breathing was rapid.
Soon they were on the highway heading out of town into the countryside.
“So I had a hunch, I started tailing one of the researchers at the local university, and I got lucky.”
Again Jane saw him look in the rear-view mirror.
“I got lucky. I was tailing Jim Morgan a professor and researcher in the field of advanced quantum physics.”
Then Jane saw lights behind her and the color drained form Daniel’s face.
“Any way,” he continued shakily “I tailed the professor to his house and saw him get out of his car. There was a van parked in front of his driveway. He must have seen someone sitting in the driver’s seat as he knocked on the van. I heard him ask the driver to move. The driver got out of the van slowly, he seemed to move oddly.”
Daniel put his foot down on the pedal. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight they had turned white.
“Oh God! I hope they haven’t found me!”
Jane was pushed back in her seat by the G-force as Daniel went from 40 MPH to 70 MPH in just a few seconds.
“Anyway, this guy grabbed the professor by his arms and looked straight into his eyes. I was fairly close and I thought I saw something white and snake like leap out of the strange man’s eyes and enter the professors. I jumped out of my car and pulled out my gun.  I told the person to freeze but he rushed towards me and I instinctually opened fire. The man went down, I ran to the professor but there was something wrong with his eyes, the pupils were red. I pulled him of the ground. As I pulled him up he said ‘it’s too late’ and he grabbed me around the throat. He stared straight into my eyes and I saw something flash towards me, it hit my glasses. The glass smashed, that gave me a second to run, and I got to my car, my head spinning.”
He took a deep breath.
The car behind had sped up.
“I ran to my car and drove away. My head was spinning and was I about to pass out. A short while later I drove into a side street and did. The nightmares were like nothing I had ever experienced before.
I saw a planet with strange alien tall spindly like creatures walking amongst it. I felt more then saw their minds, minds as cold as a reptilian snake, not a trace of humanity or compassion.”
The he said it softly and without emotion and Jane felt her blood turn ice cold.
“We are being invaded.”
Jane saw a sharp bend in the road.
We are going too fast!
Daniel lost control on the bend and the car went flying into the underbrush.
 

#

A few minutes later Daniel awoke. 
I can smell petrol!
He heard a painful moan and looked to his right.
She’s bleeding!
He suddenly found new strength and kicked open the car door, the car had landed on its side. He climbed out and grabbed Jane, dragging her out of the car as he pulled himself free.
He dragged her with the last vestiges of his strength, the smell of petrol hanging in the air. Then he heard a massive roar from behind him as the car exploded. He collapsed and blackness assailed him. He passed out.
 
 
 

#

Daniel awoke. Pain flashed through his face.
Jane was slapping him on his face.
“Wake up! Wake up!” He heard her scream.
He awoke, suddenly grateful to be alive.
“I’m alive! I’m alive!” he screamed.
Then his blood ran cold and his heart grew weak.
“We have been hunting for you for some time.”
“What?
“You know too much.”
The memory of the nightmares returned.
Daniel in that second that he had connected with the strange man creature, he had seen the alien’s whole civilization and pure terror had ran through his veins.
“Jane? What are you saying?”
“I’m one of them.”
“But your eyes? I checked your eyes!”
She reached up and pulled off a plastic lens.
Oh God no!
“Contacts!”

#

Present Day

The academic looked into his eyes and something white and snake like flashed out of them.
Daniel saw the man’s eyes turn red.
He‘s one of us now.

The End