“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, Grandma!” Tyler and Becky were pleading with excitement. I looked at them with fear in my eyes and nervousness in my voice. “Next time,” I said abruptly, hoping to change the subject. “We’re never going to find out,” Becky murmured to Tyler. “Alright, Alright kids. But just remember that this is not real so don’t go telling your mother that I told you two a scary ghost story right before I put you to sleep. I enjoy babysitting my favorite grandkids and don’t wanna lose my job!” I said to them with a smile on my face. “We know! Tell us, please!” They both said in unison. “Sit down,” I told them, “and leave the questions for the end.”
“October 30, 1938 is when it happened. It was a Sunday. I was just 16 years old and I was eating dinner with my momma, poppa, and Great Uncle Bert. On Sundays, momma always let us listen to the radio when we were eating our meals; it was our treat for being so good during the week. Well on this particular day, the news alerts released something different than we were used to hearing. We were told that ferocious Martians were coming and taking over the earth. We all froze, forks in hand, and listened quietly for a little longer until poppa jumped up and changed the radio dial. Momma and Poppa glared at each other and me and Bert saw the terrified look in their eyes. But they didn’t wanna let on that they were scared ‘cause then they’d thought it’d scare us even more. Well it did! My hands were trembling so much that I couldn’t even finish my dinner. No one spoke for the rest of the meal. Awkward, thick silence surrounded us. After dinner I helped momma clear the table and she must’ve been nervous ‘cause she dropped a plate on the floor when she was bringin’ it to the sink. I looked at her and she looked at me and I broke the silence; I couldn’t help myself! ‘What are we gonna do?!’ I bawled. Momma started crying and Bert, only being 7 at the time, was too scared to even get up from the table. I saw poppa in the corner of my eye start packin’ some clothes and food into bags. ‘Cut that out,’ momma said to pa, ‘no ones goin’ anywhere.’ ‘We need to get out! You know what will-‘ but ma cuts him short, ‘Where we gon’ hide? You can’t hide from Earth,’ momma says. Poppa looked at her and knew she was right. All of a sudden, a sense of panic filled the air. We heard the neighbors get into their car and speed away. But they knew just as well as we did that there was no escapin’ the alien invasion that was heading for us. Poppa grabbed his coat and headed for the door. Ma begged him not to leave us alone but he said he needed to run to the store to stock up on the essentials- food, water, medicine, etc. He said there was no tellin’ how long we were gonna be trapped in the house for. Momma’s eyes filled up with tears again but knew she had to be strong for me and Bert. While pa was at the store, momma gathered up food and clothes and put everything in the back room. We didn’t have a basement or attic to hide in, so ma figured the back room, which had only one little window, was the best place to be. I tried to calm Bert but it was hard to convince him that everything was going to be okay when he saw the terror in my eyes and heard the fear in my voice. ‘What do ya think they look like?’ He asked me, not sounding alarmed in the least. I looked at him like he was crazy for even picturing them. ‘I think they’re short and olive green,’ he said. ‘They probably have at least three eyes and some sort of antennae on the tops of their heads. Their legs are probably so skinny that you can see their bones through their rough skin.’ Momma over heard Bret talkin’ and gave him a slap on his hand. ‘Stop that nonsense right now,’ she says, ‘it don’t matter what they look like or what their names are.’ But Bret’s question really got my mind wandering. Were they green? Or were they brown? Or purple? I think they were tall with longs arms and legs that reach out really far. I think they had some kind of Martian language that were just sounds that we humans would never understand. My mind wouldn’t stop and I started to scare myself. About two hours went by and momma was still running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off and pa was still at the store. Finally, even though Bert was so young, I think he finally understood what was going on. He comes up to me crying. I didn’t even know what to say. Ma sees him and runs over to us and puts her arms around us. We were all sobbing now. Just as momma was about to speak, poppa comes in laughing. I’ve never been more confused in my life. ‘Laughing?’ I thought, ‘at a time like this?’ Poppa comes over to us and hugs the three of us tight, still chuckling. That is when he explained to us that what we had heard was all a misunderstanding. The broadcast on the radio was nothing more than a portion of Orson Welle’s variation of the well-known book, War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. I couldn’t believe how frantic we got over something so silly. We all burst out into a fit of laughter. I remember that day as if it had happened yesterday; for those couple of hours, I was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. And when you two get a bit older, just remember that everything you hear in the media is not always what it really is.”
I look over to see Tyler and Becky yawning. “Good story, Grandma,” Tyler says in between yawns. Not even a minute later, both of them are sleeping like babies. I never thought that something so frightening to me would be such a good bedtime story for my grandkids.
No comments:
Post a Comment