Early Warning
Tom was visiting his Uncle Roy in the small farming community of Jamesville. His uncle handed him two foam pellets.
"Get ready to stick these in your ears, Tommy. At seven sharp every evening we test the Alien Attack Early Warning System sirens. Don't want to get caught with our pants down like those poor folks over in Danstown, Lord save 'em.
If we detect an attack, the sirens tell everybody they got ten minutes to go charge up their plasma cannons. Those things'll take down an alien in seconds and turn 'em to mush."
Enjoying this story? Don't miss the next one!
SUBSCRIBE TO DSF
A couple minutes later Tom removed his ear plugs. "Man, that was loud. Good thing, huh? How come nobody went for their guns, though?"
"That was just a test. Everybody knows the seven o'clock siren is a test," Uncle Roy said.
Tom scratched his chin. "But what if the aliens wait till exactly seven to attack?"
There was a sound outside like thunder crashing in the midst of a vast avalanche and Uncle Roy never had a chance to answer.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, April 25th, 2019
We hope you're enjoying
Early Warning by
Jay B Cutts.
Please support Daily Science Fiction by becoming a member.
Daily Science Fiction does not have a paywall, but we do have expenses—more than 95% of which are direct payments to authors for their stories. With your $15 membership, less than 6 cents per story, we can continue to provide genre fiction every weekday by email and on the website to thousands of readers for many years to come.
Tell me more!
Support Daily Science Fiction
Please click to rate this story from 1 (ho-hum) to 7 (excellent!):
Please don't read too much into these ratings. For many reasons, a superior story may not get a superior score.
4.7 Rocket Dragons Average
Please join our mailing list and
receive free daily sci-fi (your email address will be kept
100% private):
