Invasion Day: An Oral History of the Veech War by Micah Gurley (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

out the story of alien invaders. We stopped and stared at him, then laughed. We laughed harder because he got all angry and serious. Finally, someone throws a ball at him and tells him to get off our court. We kept playing. Five minutes later, people start running around, yelling, crying, laughing. The news was spreading and it was getting crazy. I decided to head home and see my mom.

It was just her and me. I never had any brothers and sisters, and I'm not sure where my dad got to. I got home, and my mom had just beaten me there. She worked as a secretary at one of the law firms downtown, not too far from us. She ran over and hugged me. That's when I realized something wasn't right. Don't get me wrong; my mom is a loving woman, but not overly affectionate. More of an "I love you, so don't make me give you smack" kinda love. Anyway, she gave me a bear hug and kept saying, "Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus."

She told me about the aliens. Then we watched the news. We watched for about an hour, then saw the bombs drop in all those cities. Man, I was scared. Scared like I've never been before, and that's saying something, growing up near the projects in Memphis. I could handle that kind of danger, but this was something... alien. No pun intended. All these crazy thoughts started going through my head. Were they small? Did they have big heads? Were they going to do things to me? (Laughs.)

We stayed inside the rest of the night, just watching the news. We knew Memphis didn't get hit by the aliens because we were alive. However, we didn't know what happened to other cities because we never saw explosions. There was a lot of speculation about what the bombs meant. Different experts told different stories. At that point, we still didn't know about the sound weapon.

The next day was much the same. We locked the door, ate, and watched the news. They told us to stay inside. We did. We thought we might be safe from them, that we might be okay. We were wrong.

At first, the gunfire didn't bother us. I mean, that was a typical day for us. You'd hear a pop at least once a day from somewhere, but then it was two, then three, and well, you get the picture. By the second day, guns were going off all over the place.

Sometime on the second night, a man came to our door and asked my mother for help. There was a pregnant woman on another floor, and she was having some kind of problems. Mom looked back at me, then nodded and took off. The messenger, a buddy of mine, watched her leave and gave me a big old smile. I laughed, wrote out a short letter telling my mom I was with a friend, and then took off as well.

Me and my friend Nate went down to street level and worked our way through the projects. We already knew the safest routes, but even those were dicey. I remember thinking halfway there that maybe this wasn't the best idea, but I couldn't back out in front of my buddy. I should have.

We made it close to downtown, on the outskirts of midtown, when things got bad. A mob had formed—a big one. The crowd was walking down the middle of the street. Maybe a thousand or so, I'm not sure. They had guns. A lot of them. They weren't walking fast or anything, mostly looting and drinking.

Nate and I backed up into a store that had already been burglarized. We didn't want any trouble like that. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, the police showed up with their sirens leading the way. They didn't even get out of the cars before they were shot. Hundreds of shots. Those police officers didn't have a chance. That's really what started the battle for Memphis, as it's called now.

The mob that we were hiding from – there were dozens of those across the city – started burning the police cars with the officers still inside. By this time, the police had begun to show up in force a bit down the street. They didn't move in, not yet, but they gathered. An hour later, they moved forward, their riot shields in a straight line. It didn't help.

There were probably a hundred cops decked out in riot gear, but they were outmatched. The mob didn't care about getting caught anymore. They knew bigger things were happening, and this was their chance. They slaughtered the police for a second time. It wasn't as one-sided though. The police killed hundreds of the mob, but every cop either died or barely escaped. I have to hand it to them, they tried to deescalate the mob before the shooting started, but it was no use. The chains were off.

Me and Nate were scared shitless. We couldn't move. The mob moved on after a while, but that was just one mob. They were everywhere. Not only them, but crazy people on the streets who were just looking for trouble, looking for someone to hurt. We finally stop peeing our pants long enough to get up and get home.

When we got back to my place, our moms were waiting. (Laughs.) It wasn't pretty. They laid into us both good. I'm not sure who I was more scared of, the mobs or my mom. They told us straight up we wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, so get comfortable. That lasted two hours.

I'm not sure where the fires started, but soon almost all of downtown was burning. Our moms decided we needed to leave before our building caught on fire. People tried to organize, but it turned into an every man for themselves scenario. We got out of the building, but the fires were everywhere. We walked for hours, moving through spots that seemed safe,