Story by Abigail Hand

It’s freezing cold in the bus shelter, and there’s only just enough light from the streetlamps to see Rachel’s face. She’s squinting past me, biting her lip.

‘I’ve had enough,’ I say. ‘My Mum’ll kill me if she notices I’m not in bed.’

Rachel frowns and ignores me.

‘I can’t believe I agreed to come,’ I say. ‘Nothing is going to happen. This is so stu—’

‘Shut up!’ She shoves an elbow into my ribs and leans forward, staring. From the note in her voice I can tell she’s seen something. I follow her gaze, but all I can see is shadows.

Rachel looks round at me. ‘Ready?’

I take a deep breath. Suddenly my heart is beating too fast.

‘Ready,’ I say.

“Brace yourself Olly,” Rachel said as she and I took up the same positions. Arms stretched out wide in front, legs far apart and standing in the middle of the road.

“Get ready,“ I told Rachel as I rolled up my sleeves and stood firm.

“Yeah, this is gonna be good,” Rachel chuckled as she spoke. Then we heard it, we could always hear them before we saw them. I guess our hearing is just so much better than our eye sight. I jumped at the sound of the tyres screaming in protest against the moist tarmac. I laughed to myself- this part always made me jump! Then we saw it, a bulky, black van screeched around the corner at full speed. Its tyres locked in place as it neared us.

“Why do they always try to stop?” I laughed as I spoke to Rachel; she let out a low laugh too.

“I guess they think they’re going to hurt us!” Rachel laughed.

“Yeah but they don’t know how solid we are!” I pointed at my bicep and we both giggled.

The driver was still frantically pushing down on the brake as he grew nearer on the long stretch of road. He was almost upon us and Rachel and I were ready. There was one thing we were certain of.

> The driver was in for a shock.

And then the van was upon us, I spread my hands wide and waited for the oncoming van. Finally it hit, Rachel and I stood firm and held the van. Ripples of strength shot my arms as I held tight. My nose flared and my legs became rock solid. The driver looked to be in complete shock. Who wouldn’t be, two bright blond haired teenagers with orange eyes manage to stop your van with nothing but their hands!

I let out a sly smile as the van driver gingerly managed to climb out the van door and stand staring at us.

“Hey, w-w-what do y-y-you think you’re doing?” The gangly bald man stuttered over his words. They always stutter I thought to myself.

“W-w-who are you?” The man continued to stutter.

“Always the same aren’t they Rach!” I smiled at Rachel.

She let out a small smile and replied, “Always ask the same questions!”

“It’s so funny when they do that!” Then I couldn’t help but laugh, I tried to stop myself but I failed. My whole body shook as I roared with laughter!

“Olly!” Rachel gave me a scolding look. She had always been better at the whole, “don’t laugh” thing!

“Okay, okay, you’re the boss!” I shot my best, “I’ll do whatever you say” look at her!

The van driver look as confused as ever although he was probably wondering if he would be able to take us both down, I mean we were only teenagers.

“Okay look, my friend and I are very hungry and we were wondering...”

Rachel looked at the man as she spoke.

“Oh, well Ummmm,” it seemed to take the man a while to think of something to say! “I have some sandwiches in the van if you kids want to...” the man trailed off as he pointed towards the van.

“No, I’m so very sorry but that’s really not what we meant!” Rachel rolled back her sleeves and signalled to me. We both clenched our jaw and curled back our upper lip to let out a low snarl.

“We have chosen you for our dinner!” I laughed as I spoke the words. I wasn’t sure if the man really knew what was happening but it didn’t matter. His time was up and there was nothing he could do about it.

We crouched into a fighting stance and leaped forward. A low hiss came from the back of my throat as we lunged towards him. The man looked utterly shocked, that was the last emotion I saw cross his greasy, haggard face.

Rachel ripped off the poor guys arms and made a start on them. I went for the thigh. I hadn’t eaten in days so I didn’t bother being neat.

Rachel and I ripped away at the body for a while. We only stopped when all the flesh had been eaten. I laughed again, this time I nearly doubled over.

“Now what are you laughing at,” Rachel stood up and began straightening her hair and clothes; they had become tattered whilst we ferociously ate.

“Nothing, it’s just well, humans are so funny!” I giggled as I too stood up and straightened my shirt.

“I know, they never know what to do when a couple of average looking kids manage to stop their vehicle with their hands!” Rachel began tying her hair back with a scrunchy.

“It’s not really a fair match; a child of the Petolians against a measly human. But it’s still fun!” I had managed to regain my self control and stop laughing. We had both straightened our clothes so we would look normal and fit in, apart from the smouldering, bright orange eyes that sat perfectly on our pale faces! What the humans didn’t know was that we weren’t really from this god forsaken planet, we had our own. But it had always been fun to sit back and watch the stupid, bumbling humans destroy their world through greed and idiocy!

“Come on Olly lets go,” Rachel began moving the remains of the man into his van. I climbed into the van and turned the key in the ignition. Rachel had propped the crooked old man up in his seat and laid his fleshless arms across the steering wheel. She found a brick on the floor and tossed it to me; I flicked my hand backwards in one swift movement and caught the brick. I placed it on the gas pedal and leapt from the car. We watched as the old van gathered up speed as it drove along the freeway. It barrelled straight into a two story barn causing orange flames to lick the sides of the van as it disappeared.

The evidence was destroyed.

“Come on Olly lets find another measly human for breakfast!” We both laughed as we sprinted at full speed down the steep hill, our hair whipping behind our backs and our arms flailing behind.

Abigail Hand, age 14