Tom looked around nervously.  The storm beginning to form overhead, the occasional lighting strikes in the distance, the crack of thunder, all this added to his sense of fear, as well as frustration.  As he made his way thought the tick of woods that was the outer sections of his family farm, he fingered the trigger of his old shotgun.  If any of those things sprang out at me, he though to himself, I’d know what to do.

    Slowly, he made his way through a tick of bushes as another flash of lighting streaked overhead.  The eerie red glow in the distance reminded him that this was no ordinary Halloween night.  The radio had said that America had been invaded, and that the…aliens, or whatever the radio announcer called them, were killing everything in sight.  Another crack of thunder and Tom almost dropped the shotgun.  He had seen strange things going on around his farm for days now.  The corn on the outer acres refused to grow, the cows had all gone dry, the chickens stopped laying.  His neighbors kept telling him it was because Tom was a bad farmer.  Not that he didn’t understand how to farm, he had learned it from his father and his grandfather, but of all the MacRories of Hanson County, Tom was, well…towns foke just said that Tom was not blessed in the brains department.  “Well now I’ll shows them,” he said to himself.  “Not bein a good farmer, when it’s these aliens running about.”  He though how they laughed at him when he reported the strange lights he had seen out in his fields, but now the truth was known.

    Another flash of lighting cut across the sky and as it lighted the horizon Tom froze in horror.  Their, silhouetted against the night sky was one of them alien machines, standing tall and menacing, looking over the town ahead.  No you don’t, Tom though to himself, you not gonna get this town.  And he opened up both barrels of the shotgun on the titan…

    The next morning, Sheriff Bill Thompson, along with two farm hands, Larry Fillmore and Bill Watson, stood around the remains of Tom’s charred body.  The two electrical cables from the high-tension tower directly overhead were still wrapped around his body.
    “Dam fool,” said Bill Watson, “what do you think he was doin?’
Sheriff Thompson just shook his head.  “Looks like he was shooting at the power cables, but why?”
    “Never can tell when it came ta old Tom,” Larry Fillmore chimed in.
    “Well the M.E. should be here any time now, so I guess all we can do is sit and wait,” the Sheriff added.
As the three men stood there a squad car from the towns sheriff’s office drove up and the Sheriff’s deputy stepped out.
    “I just got back from Martha’s.  Said that Tom here though we were being invaded by Martians.”
    “That old fool!” said Bill Watson.  “Everybody know that was just some radio show from New York.”
    “Stupid to the end,” Larry Fillmore added.  “Must have though this tower was one of those Martian machines.”
    “He must of fired off at the top of it,” the Sheriff’s deputy added, “hit the power cables and electrocuted himself.”
Sheriff Thompson just scratched his head, giving a little laugh.  “That’s old Tom for ya.”

    Suddenly, and to the small group of men’s astonishment, a bright green meteorite, with a bright green tail of mist following behind it, tour across the morning sky.

    The invasion had begun…