Read Invaders From Mars for Free Online

They went around to the side of the house that was darkest and looked upward.
    The night sky was filled with Christmas; the stars sparkled like silver glitter scattered by God and the moon hovered among them like a great radiant snowball.
    Hidden by the cover of night, crickets chirped and frogs croaked.
    Dad touched David’s shoulder. “C’mon,” he whispered. It was a night for whispers.
    They moved over to the bench that Dad had built for just such occasions—they called it their “night bench”—and lay on it like stacked wood, their heads together, gazing upward.
    “There!” David exclaimed, pointing at a bright spot of light shooting across the sky. “Wow, a fireball!”
    “Bright one, too.”
    It arced gracefully, then disappeared, as if it had never been.
    David snuggled closer to his dad. “Look,” he said quietly, “there’s Mars. See? Right over there.”
    Dad followed the direction of David’s finger and spotted the planet, shining brightly against the black velvet of night.
    “It’s pretty close,” he said.
    “Yeah, it’s at the perihelion right now. It’s only 30 million miles from Earth.”
    “Only 30 million,” Dad said. “No wonder it looks so close.”
    David turned to see Dad smirking at him. “Cut it out, Dad.” He laughed, punching him lovingly on the shoulder.
    An owl hooted from the trees on the hill and from the distance, the lonely call of a whippoorwill sounded.
    Three meteorites cut across the sky like missiles, almost as fast as a blink.
    “Here they come,” David said, almost reverently.
    After a few moments, they began coming in heavily, one every few seconds, a silent, graceful ballet of light. The meteorites arced before the still, watchful stars, shooting downward to the earth to meet a fiery end.
    “There’s more this year than last,” David said, never turning his eyes from the sky.
    “Looks like the heaviest shower of the year.”
    The owl hooted again as more meteorites burned through the night.
    “Mom’s missing a good show,” David said with a smile. They’d left her in the house on the phone, talking to one of her classmates about the day’s test.
    For a few moments, the sky was inactive. The stars continued to glimmer, as if waiting, along with David and his dad, for more. The peace was broken by what began as a tiny flicker. It quickly grew brighter and brighter, grew bigger as it plummeted out of the sky. Its light became so bright that it illuminated the whole back yard like a floodlight.
    “Holy shit!” David shouted, jumping to his feet.
    Dad got up beside him, gawking upward with his jaw slack. “Jesus, that’s bright!” he breathed.
    The huge meteorite moved like a living thing across the sky, pulling its long, diminishing tail behind as it flew. It brought with it a faint, distant rumbling sound, like thunder, but more intense, more explosive.
    “Hear it?” Dad asked.
    “Yeah!” David gasped, his face glowing in the light from the sky. “That one’s not gonna vaporize! It’s gonna make it through the atmosphere!”
    “It’s got a hell of a tail!”
    Its brightness grew into a cool, shimmering ball of white. The sound rumbled louder, building to a crescendo. Then it faded and was gone. The back yard was dark once again. The sky was still. A few small pinpoints of light shot from one end of the sky to the other, hardly visible compared to the monstrous meteorite that had just disappeared.
    David and his dad remained still as stone for a moment, their eyes glued to the sky, their mouths open in awe, their arms held tensely a few inches out from their sides. Then they lowered their eyes and looked at one another, smiling, enchanted, silently sharing the magic of what they’d just seen.

    Ellen Gardiner stood at the back door and watched her husband and son through the screen, her arms folded over her breasts, a loving smile playing on her lips. After hanging up the phone, she’d intended to go outside and watch the shower with