Attack of the
Space Nazis
from Mars
By Kelly Harrass
Copyright 2012 Kelly Harrass
Cover design by Jason Knize.
New York City. April 30th, 1955.
It’s Saturday in the city of tomorrow. New York City; the bright and shiny capital of the future. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and business is booming. New York is the place to be if you’re looking for success and innovation. Just the other day the first ever flying car was unveiled by the Ford Motor company outside of Radio City Music Hall.
The industrious spirit of the American people has only been on the rise since the second World War. With industry, comes innovation. The increase of new technology was a great help to the spread of the television. What was formerly an idea out of a science fiction novel has become something found in the home of almost every American. Sadly, this also means a decrease in popularity of the printed word.
One person who turned his lemons into lemonade and found success is Kent Sullivan, star writer for the Daily Posting. The tall, handsome Kent and his strong connection with his readers have helped keep the Posting afloat. He walks down the street with his girlfriend, Sally Wells. She stands not much shorter than Kent. A pretty face with slightly curled red hair framing it. More often than not, she’s the smartest person in the room. They work together at the Posting and most of their coworkers haven’t noticed their relationship yet. Kent wants to tell their coworkers, but Sally, not wanting to become the topic of office gossip, wants to leave her personal life out of her professional life. After a lovely lunch at a family run diner down the street from the office, Kent and Sally head back to work.
“I’m not saying you couldn’t be editor in chief, I’m wondering why you would want to be.” says Kent.
“Why wouldn’t I want to be?” responds Sally with a twinge of annoyance.
“Have you ever seen Rodger leave the office?”
“No.”
“I haven’t either. I don’t know about you, but I enjoy leaving the office.”
“It doesn’t help that Rodger has a wife he never wants to go home to or that he takes four hour naps in the middle of the day. With as productive as I am, I could be out of the office by five every night.”
“You can say that now, but you have no idea how it really is. What if I’m never able to see you anymore?”
“Then I’ll just make you work more and call you into my office every chance I get.”
She kisses him on the cheek.
“Did you notice the birds while we were eating?” asks Kent.
“What about the birds?”
“There was a bunch of them sitting on the sidewalk.”
“Yeah, birds do that.”
“But they usually move around and fly away when people come near them. These birds were just sitting there.”
“Now that you mention it, yeah, that was strange. I wonder why they were doing that.”
Suddenly, a thunderous boom vibrates over the city. Kent, Sally, and everybody else in the city look at the sky above and see what appear to be spaceships flying toward them. The city asks if these invaders are peaceful and as the ships get closer to the Earth they know that this invasion will be everything other than peaceful.
The ships look like subway cars with wings. Big and bulky, but surprisingly graceful in the air. A large gun rests on each wing and an all too familiar red, white, and black symbol is painted on each side of the ships. The swastika.
The Nazis have returned.
Kent, Sally, and everybody else in New York stare up, waiting for something to happen. The loudest city in the world is silent for a split second before fire begins to rain down upon it. The spaceships don’t shoot bullets or drop bombs on the city. Their guns shoot destructive rays of light that cause whatever they touch to explode. These are war machines never seen before by the planet Earth and they’ve fallen into the hands of the ultimate evil.
Everything slows down for Kent. He was in the war. He’d seen Nazis. He fought and killed Nazis, but these Nazis aren’t like anything he’s ever seen before. A blast of light strikes the building he and Sally are standing in front of. The sky above them explodes in a flash and debris of what used to be the top ten floors of the struck building begin to fall into the street. Kent sees a large corner office falling straight toward Sally, who, like so many others standing in the street, is in a state of shock. Kent grabs her by the wrist and pulls her away just in time. The building smacks into the ground, burying cars and people alike.
“We need to run!” Kent yells at Sally, who snaps back into reality. She nods and they begin to run away from the carnage, trying to find cover.
“What’s going on?”
“I know as much as you do. Those things came out of the sky and they aren’t angels.”
Kent and Sally run several blocks. In front of them is what used to be a restaurant that exploded from the inside out. Kent sees an alley and pulls Sally into it.
“It looks like they hit this area already so I think we should be safe in here for the time being.”
“You weren’t the only person with that idea.”
Sally points down the alley where ten other people, eight men and two women, are huddled.
“What’s goin’ on out there?” asks a homeless looking man sitting on the ground.
“Nazis from space are attacking.’ Kent responds. Another man, about Kent’s age says;
“So you saw that too? I wasn’t crazy.”
“I barely believe what I’m seeing, we all might be crazy.”
Kent sticks his head out of the alley to take a look at the mayhem. Booms echo all across the city, but it appears that the Nazis are focusing on other parts of the city. Kent turns back to the people in the alley.
“It looks like, for now, this will be a good place to hide out. We’re going to need to act eventually, so we’ll need a plan.”
A girl, maybe eighteen years old, in the back of the group breaks free from the embrace of her boyfriend.
“And what are we gonna do? Huh? Aliens or Nazis or both, I don’t know what they are, but we’re under attack! So, let’s make a plan. Sure, let’s make a plan! Just want kind of plan do you think we need to make? If we do anything, but sit here, we’re gonna get killed. We’ll probably get killed here to, but sure make your plan-”
Sally grabs the girl by the shoulders and looks right into her eyes.
“I know you’re scared, but that doesn’t mean you should panic. If we are going to make it out of this alive, we are going to need some kind of plan. A hysterical girl doesn’t help anything. Now breathe in and out and do your best to calm down. Okay?”
“Okay.” the girl responds after taking a deep breath. Sally turns to Kent.
“So, do you have anything in mind?”
“Honestly, no.”
“Some help you are.”
The homeless man rises to his feet and lets out a loud; “I say we kill the bastards!”
“You’re welcome to try, but they’re flying around up there shooting buildings.” Kent says through a chuckle. “I was thinking we could come up with something more realistic. How can we get out of here without them seeing us?”
The homeless man interjects again; “You just want us to run away? These monsters are trying to take our country away from us!”
“They flew out of the sky with lasers that blow up whatever they touch! We can’t fight them and expect to win.” says the now frustrated Kent.
Another man speaks up, “Hey, we’ll never know if we don’t try.”
Sally speaks up, “What you’re talking about is suicide. What we need t
o do is escape.”
“This is our country we need to protect it!”
“Hey… guys.”
“We need to act reasonably.”
“Do you hear that?”
“Do you want us to walk through the sewers?”
“If that’s what it takes for us to survive, then so be it.”
“What a coward’s way out.”
“EVERYBODY BE QUIET!”
Everyone stops their arguing and turns to look at the bespectacled man who just told them to be quiet.
“Just be quiet and listen.”
And then they all hear it; a low pitch whirring noise. Kent walks over to the opening of the alley and peeks his head out. What he sees is a spaceship, the size of a large truck, landing in the middle of the street. This was smaller than the ships he had seen minutes earlier, but it was no less terrifying.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” Sally asks.
Kent grimly nods his head. He looks back out onto the street and sees the ship’s door open. Three men emerge from the ship and walk onto the street. They all appear human, carrying large guns and wearing black armored suits emblazoned with the swastika, but one