Chapter One - Robbie

"Ray! Ray, Ray! Ray! Ray!"

Ray sprinted through the house, to where Harlan was stood at a gash-like window.

"Keep your voice down! Quiet!"

Harlan turned, his face smattered in blood, bulbous eyes wide. Ray stood at the window and watched as the Tripod lowered a man to the ground, settling above him. It extended a probe. There was a flicker of light and then a needle was present, and stabbed into the screaming man that was pinned to the floor. He watched, horrified, as it sucked blood from him.

Ray pulled away from the window. He took a second to look back but didn't want to linger. He thought he saw something moving from the corner of his eye but thought nothing of it. He turned to snap some sense into Harlan who was sat in his little corner with the disgusting peach drink, chanting: Not my blood, not my blood, like some sort of mantra

Rachel appeared, watching her Dad. Ray wiped his hands on the back of his dreams.

"Hey baby, you alright?"
She nods, watching his face. Ray sometimes wandered if that girl really was ten, her calculating look was more like a fully grown adult's.

Upstairs, there was the sound of clattering. The Tripods were moving outside. Ray froze. Rachel's look turned from calculating to scared within a second. Ray moved forward, wrapping his arms around Rachel. He hissed at Harlan, who was still chanting, "Quiet!"
Harlan didn't hear him. Upstairs, something was staggering about. A shadow flung itself down the stairs. Ray ducked quickly across the floor, holding tightly to Rachel, and hid in one of the small square rickshaw 'rooms' contained in the basement.

The thing at the top of the stairs stood still. Rachel was breathing faster. The shadow moved forward as the intruder took a step down the stairs. It tripped, fell, landing heavily on it's side. The shadow scattered about the walls as it fell right down the stairs, landing in the water at the bottom. It was a somebody, a person. Harlan was stood watching it with his mouth wide open. Ray crouched forward. There was something familiar about the jacket on this person. And the cap. The cap on the person's tousled, bleeding head.

"Ro-…Rob-…Robbie! Robbie!" Ray cried.

He ran to the foot of the stairs, pulling his son out of the water.

"Robbie! Robbie!"

The boy was unconscious, wet and bleeding. Ray lifted him. Rachel cried, "Robbie!"

Harlan looked even more surprised. Ray lay Robbie down on the sofa, Rachel at his side.
"Robbie! Robbie you're…you're alive Robbie!" she whispered. Ray could only watch. Only when the knowledge that the boy's head was bleeding embedded itself into his mind did he begin to move.

He ripped a section off the sofa, hoping it was clean enough, and dabbed at the blood on Robbie's head with it. He pulled off his cap, the Boston baseball cap falling to the grimy floor.

It took them a good half an hour to clean Robbie up as best they could. He still didn't wake, so Rachel lay next to him, keeping him warm, whilst Ray sat on the steps watching the both of them, a smile on his face. Robbie had made it. He'd found them. They had been incredibly lucky.

He drifted off into his own world, thinking of their next plans to get to Boston. Harlan, and the Tripods seemed temporarily pushed from his mind, plus the fact his house had been smashed to smithereens. He still imagined going back there, starting up his job again, having the kids spend more time with him, able to watch them grow. Rachel going to high school, seeing Robbie through college, into a job-

"Rachel?"

Ray peered down towards the sofa. Robbie was stirring, staring at Rachel.
"Rach?"

Outside, the Tripod call sounded. Rachel sat up, eyes going wide. Ray ran down the stairs, and crouched by the sofa.
"What, what's happened?" a disoriented Robbie asked. Ray held him down as he tried to get up.

"Sh, it's OK," he said, listening.

The air outside seemed very quiet. Harlan loaded his gun. Rachel's breathing quickened.

"I can't…my arm," Robbie whimpered, too concussed to realised this wasn't the best time to be expressing every pain in his body.
"Sh Robbie," Rachel said. When he did, she put her hand over his mouth and lay down next to him to talk into his ear. Ray listened out of the Tripods. There was no movement. He was sure they had gone away.
The Boston baseball cap on the floor began to shudder violently. The Tripod call sounded again.