By PJ
Hi, my name is Charlie, and I live in New Jersey. I’m on my way home, on my own, in my brand-new Buick, listening to the radio.
I look forward to this time of day. I get some me time. I like driving, even in New Jersey’s crowded streets.
It had been a long day at work, everybody shouting and creating what seemed at times like a controlled riot in the store. It was always like this at this time of year, what with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas just around the corner. Everybody seems a little tense.
It doesn’t help that there are rumours of a conflict in Europe. People were thinking that the world might come to an end next year.
I wasn’t too worried though. I didn’t think that it would affect us too much in the good ol’ USA. Europe was another world to us. We are too far away and too strong to get invaded.
So, I was just stuck in another traffic jam when some news reporter on the radio starts jabbering on about aliens landing in Cooper’s Field, New Jersey, just around the block from the housing estate where I live with my wife and five kids.
The kids range in age from five to ten, and to be honest, I was grateful when my wife suggested that I have a vasectomy after number five.
They were an increasing handful, and this time of year was a strain, particularly on Judith.
“Hey, what’s this guy going on about now?”
He’s saying that the aliens are from Mars and they are moving around in some kind of giant-sized machines with three legs.
Must be a hoax.
He says they’re attacking with laser beams, blowing up houses, and killing anything that moves.
Can’t be right, can it?
Jesus, it sounds real. The guy sounds terrified.
What the hell!
The broadcast finished, just like that. BANG!
Just static on the radio.
Is he dead?
Can’t be. Surely not. Worrying though.
Thank God I’ll soon be home.
Hope everything’s okay.
I can’t see any damage anywhere.
My house is still there anyway.
I’ll just pick up the tyre iron before I go in. Can’t be too careful. The guy on the radio was certain it was aliens.
The door is wide open, that’s strange.
Judith is usually very particular about such things.
I can hear her screaming at the kids to be careful.
She sounds very upset.
It was then that I saw the green and blue tentacles on the floor, just lying in the hall like they had been pulled off some alien body, but I still walked in.
It was my wife and kids. No aliens were going to hurt my family without a fight.
I opened the kitchen door and held the tyre iron out in front of me, ready to attack anything that wasn’t Judith or the kids.
Judith looked annoyed, and the kids were all crying.
“What’s going on, Judith?”
“Why the tyre iron, Charlie?”
“Didn’t you hear about the alien attack, Judith?” I asked. “It was on the radio as I was driving home. Have you seen them? Did they attack you?”
“What alien attack? Oh, you’ve seen the tentacles in the hall. The kids were fighting over who should have the octopus costume for Halloween, and the tentacles got pulled off. I’m just having a word with them about who pays for it now.”
“Aliens indeed, Charlie. What an imagination you have.”
“You ought to write scripts for Orson Welles.”
Ā© 2023 PJ
SEO Page Description
“The Drive Home” by PJ is a humorous and suspenseful short story that plays with paranoia and media influence. Set in New Jersey, it captures the classic War of the Worlds hysteria and cleverly turns an eerie buildup into a witty family moment.
