The Shape of a Man
They taught us in school that the aliens could look like anybody.
Mrs. Toller reminded us every morning before the pledge.
TRUST YOUR GUT!
That was what the posters said.
So I did.
I was nine that year. The war had ended three years before I was born.
My small town of Chickasaw sat under missile towers that never stopped watching the sky.
Everybody knew the signs. Too much eye contact. Not enough eye contact. Walking at night. Closing the curtains in the daytime. Asking questions about the power grid. Not saying “sir” or “ma’am.”
Every week, somebody got taken in for testing. Most came back. Some didn’t.
Daddy said you can never be sure because the Things adapted quickly.
Daddy knew because he'd fought them in the Incursion, when Birmingham burned. He was missing his left ear and two fingers on his right hand. His leg dragged when he walked.
We had a neighbor named Mr. Bell. He lived alone in the house by the dead pecan tree. Mama said his wife had died in the evacuation from Mobile. Daddy said that was what he claimed.
He fixed radios and old fans. He always waved at passersby from his porch.
I watched Mr. Bell like a good citizen should.
On the morning of July 3rd, I saw him behind his shed with a little radio. It was an old silver one with a bent antenna. He turned the dial slowly and looked up at the sky. Then he wrote something in a notebook.
At dinner I told Mama and Daddy.
Daddy stared at me for a long time. Then he asked, “You sure, Clay?”
“Yes, sir.”
He got up without finishing his food. Mama called the hotline. Daddy opened the gun safe.
The black vans came before bedtime.
Men in gray uniforms broke down Mr. Bell’s door. They brought him out in his underwear. He was crying.
“They're weather numbers,” he said. “For the garden. I swear to God.”
He turned to face Daddy.
“Hollis?” Mr. Bell shouted. “Tell them. You know me.”
Daddy just stood there silent on the porch with his rifle.
One of the officers hit Mr. Bell in the stomach and he folded over. They put a hood on him and pushed him into a van.
The next morning was Independence Day.
Flags hung from every deck. The church parking lot had grills going by noon. There were pulled pork, hot dogs, sweet tea, and red-white-and-blue cupcakes. People hardly ever celebrated the Fourth much after the invasion. But this year was an exception. We'd caught one.
By afternoon people were gathered outside the county jail. Somebody said the authorities were taking too long. Somebody else said the Things had infiltrated the government.
Daddy drove us there to 'bare witness.'
The crowd was hot and loud. Men carried flags. Some carried guns. One man had painted REMEMBER BIRMINGHAM on a piece of plywood.
There were officers with AR-15s on the roof of the jailhouse, but they were local men, and their own families were in the crowd.
The sheriff came out and told everyone to go home.
A brick hit him in the face.
After that, it happened fast.
They broke the jail windows. They pulled the doors open with chains hooked to pickup trucks. People cheered when the hinges snapped.
Mr. Bell came out without shoes.
His face was swollen. His hands were tied. He tried to speak, but the crowd drowned him out.
“Show us your true form,” someone yelled.
Daddy pushed forward. Mama pulled me back. But I wanted to see.
The first punch knocked Mr. Bell down. Then everybody seemed to move at once. Boots hit him. Fists hit him. A woman from church struck him with a flagpole. Daddy kicked him hard with his good leg and almost fell. He laughed when another man caught him.
Someone brought out a length of rope tied into a noose.
Mr. Bell was not crying anymore. He made a sound like he could not breathe. His eyes were open and rolling.
They threw the rope over the old traffic light frame where the signal had not worked since the EMP. The crowd lifted him. His body jerked. People screamed with joy.
I waited for him to change.
Everybody said they changed when they died. The human skin split. The gray underneath came out slick and shining. That was how you knew. That was how you could be sure.
Mr. Bell just hung there.
His undershirt rode up. His stomach was pale and hairy. Blood ran down his chin. One of his feet twitched, then stopped.
Still human.
Maybe it took time.
They cut him down after a while. Some men dragged him behind a truck. Others followed, laughing and filming. Daddy went with them.
I saw Daddy take out his knife.
"Look away!" Mama cried, pulling me close to her.
But Daddy said, “No, Sadie, don’t. The boy needs to see how the human race survives.”
So I watched.
They cut off fingers and toes as souvenirs. They poured fuel over what was left. Somebody set him on fire with a sparkler. The flames caught fast. People stepped back from the heat and livestreamed it.
A girl from my class smiled beside the burning body while her mother took a picture.
The fireworks started at dark.
Red and blue bursts opened over the courthouse roof. The crowd sang "Sweet Home Alabama." People drank beer. Children chased each other with glow sticks. Plates of barbecue passed from hand to hand.
Daddy came back smelling like smoke.
He had blood on his shirt and a black smear across his cheek. People clapped him on the back.
“You did good, son,” he told me.
I nodded because I knew I was supposed to.
Across the square, Mr. Bell’s charred corpse smoldered.
No gray skin. No claws. No second mouth. No alien bones.
Just a man-shaped thing becoming ash.
Above us, the fireworks cracked.