The Crawl Space
By J.F. Slade
I’ve been in this room for three days, not that you can really call it a room. It’s the dusty, sweaty crawl space in the back of my parents’ master closet. Air seeps in through the cracks in the floorboards above, but the relief is minimal at best. At its worst, it’s humid, sticky, and smells like rotting flesh, but it’s hard to identify the odor; I only have my imagination to guide me.
It’s been three days since I could see. Darkness surrounds me, consumes me in my terror, my anger, as I wait. I hate them. More than anything. They’ve taken so much, without any known purpose. If they wanted our land, why would they burn it? If they wanted our minerals, why would they bother to kill us one by one? If they wanted to enslave us, why would they murder so indiscriminately?
I lean back against my father’s long-forgotten winter coat and try to sleep, negotiating its lumpiness against my own will power. Sleep is always so fleeting now, never enough to satisfy, and certainly not enough to pass the time. I glance at my watch: the last bit of battery fading, the last bit of light in my darkness. Three days. It has been three days since I have seen another person. My water ran out hours earlier signaling that it won’t be much longer now.
Two weeks ago, I was normal. My mother picked me up from school on a warm June day, lamenting over my failure to pass the driving test yet again. She complained lividly over the inconvenience I was causing her, but I knew secretly she relished it. She feared for my safety in addition to my inevitable transition into adulthood. It seems so ironic now.
“You could have told me you needed to do a make up a lab after school.”
She gave me a disgruntled look as I climbed into the passenger seat, only 20 minutes after the bell. My teacher had assured me that it wouldn’t take long, but my mother didn’t know that. I found it so exhausting to communicate with her. I miss her.
“Sorry, Mom,” I managed eventually. “How was your day?”
“Crazy, if you must know. I certainly didn’t have time for this.”
She slammed on the brakes as the sky lit up so brightly we couldn’t see. I could hear the sound of cars crashing all around us before the seatbelt cut against me with a force I was not prepared for. The blinding light turned to blackness as I drifted out of consciousness, never to see my mother alive again.
After that, I became the new normal.
I can hear the sounds outside of the crawl space: loud and mechanical, but never human. I pray to hear voices, a language of some kind, but it’s always the same banging, crushing sound that frays my nerves and interrupts my sleep. My thirst and hunger are only supplanted by my fear of moving. My father’s voice permeates my mind: “Stay and hide. Don’t let them find you, no matter what.” He was always wise, but this wisdom was shortsighted, as was so often the case.
When we first convened after the attack, the aliens hadn’t started killing people off yet. Many died when their ship appeared, due to accidents and chance, but the murders took 36 hours to begin. We thought about running, but my father couldn’t decide where to go. I wanted to go to the hills, away from the city center and all population, but eventually, he settled on staying, where people could mount a defense. He was wrong.
Alien is really too nice of a word to describe our attackers. Vicious, heartless, cruel: those all more accurately depict the terror they’ve brought. For all of our hubris and all of our technology, we are powerless against them. We exhausted our armories, the president ordered nuclear strikes, and yet nothing seems to damage them or their ships. They just keep coming, relentless and without mercy, wiping us out as if we were ants to stomp on, a pest unworthy of a second thought.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded the day my father volunteered to fight. Part of me wanted to join him, but it was too pointless.
“I have to do something. We can’t just let them destroy us.”
“They already have!”
I cried, begging him to not leave me without anyone, too scared to take any action myself. Everyone who fought them failed, dying meaningless and painful deaths. Hiding was my chosen path, and it came with the blessing of my father. He didn’t want to see me die.
I waited in the house for a long time, slowly working my way through whatever food we had remaining. I knew they were coming when our water turned off. Our power had already been down for a week, with the blaze of the city lighting up the night sky. I could hear shouts and screams from outside, but I never left the building. Maybe I could have helped them, but probably not. Instead, I huddled in my bedroom: clutching my pillow and praying that the sounds would go away.
But they grew stronger, and soon enough, I heard the aliens moving through my street. I peeked outside at their long, almost mechanical bodies going from door to door, dragging people out and executing them at random. I grabbed a bottle of water and ran into my parents' room, through the closet, and down into the crawl space. The entrance was hidden behind their hanging clothes and almost invisible in the floor. I waited there against the boxes of old clothing and tried my hardest to not breathe.
They entered the house soon after, loudly rummaging through the living room, the kitchen, and my room. They didn’t say anything, but their feet pounded the ground with an intensity that made my heart beat even louder. Soon enough, I could hear them in my parents' room, searching the bathroom and the closet, but they did not find the crawl space.
That was three days ago. They left my parents bedroom, but our house remains occupied. I don’t hear screams anymore. The attackers live in our homes and steal our lives. I am alone. If I leave, I will surely be killed, but if I stay, I will die of thirst. I am paralyzed by my fear, unable to make a decision in a no-win situation. There is no hope: no way to fight them and no way to beat them. All that remains is me in my crawl space, clutching my father’s coat and wishing I could see him again. Wishing I could see my mother. Wishing I could see someone.
It’s silent above. They might be gone for now. It’s a temporary reprieve from a likely return. Even if they have left the house, they are probably just outside. I have no way of knowing. All I do know is that if I stay here, I’ll die. It’s a decision I don’t want to make, but I know I must.
I can’t sleep anymore. My throat aches from thirst and my arms begin to shake. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave. I want to pretend that none of this happened. I want to go back to school and finally get my driver’s license. I want to go to college and have a career, maybe get married and have kids. I want to have a life.
But that’s not going to happen. Not for me.
I pull myself up to my knees and make my way to the door. I don’t know if I will make it. I don’t know if I will be fast enough or if the hills will still be unoccupied, but I have to try. I take a deep breath, push the door open, and head out into the light.
It’s been three days since I could see. Darkness surrounds me, consumes me in my terror, my anger, as I wait. I hate them. More than anything. They’ve taken so much, without any known purpose. If they wanted our land, why would they burn it? If they wanted our minerals, why would they bother to kill us one by one? If they wanted to enslave us, why would they murder so indiscriminately?
I lean back against my father’s long-forgotten winter coat and try to sleep, negotiating its lumpiness against my own will power. Sleep is always so fleeting now, never enough to satisfy, and certainly not enough to pass the time. I glance at my watch: the last bit of battery fading, the last bit of light in my darkness. Three days. It has been three days since I have seen another person. My water ran out hours earlier signaling that it won’t be much longer now.
Two weeks ago, I was normal. My mother picked me up from school on a warm June day, lamenting over my failure to pass the driving test yet again. She complained lividly over the inconvenience I was causing her, but I knew secretly she relished it. She feared for my safety in addition to my inevitable transition into adulthood. It seems so ironic now.
“You could have told me you needed to do a make up a lab after school.”
She gave me a disgruntled look as I climbed into the passenger seat, only 20 minutes after the bell. My teacher had assured me that it wouldn’t take long, but my mother didn’t know that. I found it so exhausting to communicate with her. I miss her.
“Sorry, Mom,” I managed eventually. “How was your day?”
“Crazy, if you must know. I certainly didn’t have time for this.”
She slammed on the brakes as the sky lit up so brightly we couldn’t see. I could hear the sound of cars crashing all around us before the seatbelt cut against me with a force I was not prepared for. The blinding light turned to blackness as I drifted out of consciousness, never to see my mother alive again.
After that, I became the new normal.
I can hear the sounds outside of the crawl space: loud and mechanical, but never human. I pray to hear voices, a language of some kind, but it’s always the same banging, crushing sound that frays my nerves and interrupts my sleep. My thirst and hunger are only supplanted by my fear of moving. My father’s voice permeates my mind: “Stay and hide. Don’t let them find you, no matter what.” He was always wise, but this wisdom was shortsighted, as was so often the case.
When we first convened after the attack, the aliens hadn’t started killing people off yet. Many died when their ship appeared, due to accidents and chance, but the murders took 36 hours to begin. We thought about running, but my father couldn’t decide where to go. I wanted to go to the hills, away from the city center and all population, but eventually, he settled on staying, where people could mount a defense. He was wrong.
Alien is really too nice of a word to describe our attackers. Vicious, heartless, cruel: those all more accurately depict the terror they’ve brought. For all of our hubris and all of our technology, we are powerless against them. We exhausted our armories, the president ordered nuclear strikes, and yet nothing seems to damage them or their ships. They just keep coming, relentless and without mercy, wiping us out as if we were ants to stomp on, a pest unworthy of a second thought.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded the day my father volunteered to fight. Part of me wanted to join him, but it was too pointless.
“I have to do something. We can’t just let them destroy us.”
“They already have!”
I cried, begging him to not leave me without anyone, too scared to take any action myself. Everyone who fought them failed, dying meaningless and painful deaths. Hiding was my chosen path, and it came with the blessing of my father. He didn’t want to see me die.
I waited in the house for a long time, slowly working my way through whatever food we had remaining. I knew they were coming when our water turned off. Our power had already been down for a week, with the blaze of the city lighting up the night sky. I could hear shouts and screams from outside, but I never left the building. Maybe I could have helped them, but probably not. Instead, I huddled in my bedroom: clutching my pillow and praying that the sounds would go away.
But they grew stronger, and soon enough, I heard the aliens moving through my street. I peeked outside at their long, almost mechanical bodies going from door to door, dragging people out and executing them at random. I grabbed a bottle of water and ran into my parents' room, through the closet, and down into the crawl space. The entrance was hidden behind their hanging clothes and almost invisible in the floor. I waited there against the boxes of old clothing and tried my hardest to not breathe.
They entered the house soon after, loudly rummaging through the living room, the kitchen, and my room. They didn’t say anything, but their feet pounded the ground with an intensity that made my heart beat even louder. Soon enough, I could hear them in my parents' room, searching the bathroom and the closet, but they did not find the crawl space.
That was three days ago. They left my parents bedroom, but our house remains occupied. I don’t hear screams anymore. The attackers live in our homes and steal our lives. I am alone. If I leave, I will surely be killed, but if I stay, I will die of thirst. I am paralyzed by my fear, unable to make a decision in a no-win situation. There is no hope: no way to fight them and no way to beat them. All that remains is me in my crawl space, clutching my father’s coat and wishing I could see him again. Wishing I could see my mother. Wishing I could see someone.
It’s silent above. They might be gone for now. It’s a temporary reprieve from a likely return. Even if they have left the house, they are probably just outside. I have no way of knowing. All I do know is that if I stay here, I’ll die. It’s a decision I don’t want to make, but I know I must.
I can’t sleep anymore. My throat aches from thirst and my arms begin to shake. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave. I want to pretend that none of this happened. I want to go back to school and finally get my driver’s license. I want to go to college and have a career, maybe get married and have kids. I want to have a life.
But that’s not going to happen. Not for me.
I pull myself up to my knees and make my way to the door. I don’t know if I will make it. I don’t know if I will be fast enough or if the hills will still be unoccupied, but I have to try. I take a deep breath, push the door open, and head out into the light.