Waiting for the Light

A lantern on a tree root up the beach. Wait for the signal. 

Merrit had thought of little else for the past 96 hours. They kept him sane and still in the small cave in the cliffside where he hid from the Tentacles. 

The lantern. The tree root. Wait for the signal. 

Wait. 

He stayed quiet even when the first brain-numbed people stumbled their way down the beach toward the sea. When the crowd grew larger, he still waited. When he saw his own beloved Moira, a Tentacle clinging to the base of her skull, straight up like an antenna, like the rest, he nearly broke. But he waited and remembered. 

The lantern on the tree root. That is the signal. 

The Tentacles showed up two months ago. Their Mother-Thing had fallen from the heavens to hang over the ocean off the coast and her Tentacles swarmed — swarmed? Oh. Oh, they did! — east. Everywhere they went, they brought madness, slavish servitude, then eventual death. They were so fast and no one was ready. No one, anywhere. Entire towns became food for the Mother-Thing. No one knew why.

Merrit and a few survivors had a plan: a missile strike at the Mother-thing. If he could get close enough. If he caught the Mother-Thing with her vast, beaked mouth open to feed, then perhaps there was a chance. Salvation. Vengeance. 

A bright light up the beach caught his attention. 

The lantern. At last!

For Moira, he thought and lit up the night.

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I guess you could see Merrit’s tale as particularly topic or you could say I had an affinity for alien invasion resistance stories. You might could do both. Or neither. I admit nothing except a small amount of pride in a good little story.

Play along with the prompt here!

(Photo Credit: Lars_Nissen on Pixabay)