Maine

I was on an expedition into the wilds of Maine when I saw them. I'm a backwoodsman, by trade: rejecting the comforts and corruption of civilization for the purity of the wilds. Some people would consider me strange - with my two shotguns, strange-smelling bait pouches, and full camo gear - but they're just the sort of people I moved to the woods of Maine to get away from.

The men were strange, looking completely different from anyone I'd ever seen. They were wearing camo, too - and were heavily armed, to boot. But there was a subtle difference about them - something about their eyes, their skin color (so dark - yet not black!), their builds. And what's more, I could hear them talking as they stood in the brush, casually batting away flies. And they weren't speaking English.

Now, I'm an individualist - always have been, I suppose. It's not in me to go screamin' to Uncle Sam every time some little problem pops up. If it were, I wouldn't have lasted two days in the woods of Maine. So I thought to myself, I'll just head on up to the beach - maybe twenty minutes walk from where I was crouched - I'll just head on up to that beach, and maybe see what's there to see. It was easy to get past the guards, sentries I guess - they didn't know anything about Maine. But what surprised me was that, when I got to the beach, there was a whole bunch more of those men - they'd set up a camp, with tents and all, and boats were going in and out landing more. This wasn't some sort of fancy co-man-do expedition. This was a full out invasion.

Already, I figured I could see maybe over a thousand men down there - more than I'd ever seen in my life, except on the TV. All of them were rushing about, setting up tents and saluting (saluting!) and shouting at each other in their weird gobblygook. (All si, sir and levar esso and por favor... have you ever heard of such a thing?) I knew I had to do something... sure, I wasn't too fond of the government, but this didn't have a thing to do with that: these guys were attacking America. I knew they'd spot me if I just walked in there - every one of them looked just like those sentries, all with the yellowy skin and the funny talking. So I took some bait, some of my strongest smelling stuff, and threw it straight into their camp. The raccoons and deer and bears that came charging into their camp not five minutes afterwards gave those guys quite a shock, let me tell you.


While everyone was all confused and shooting at bears and shooting at each other, I ran into the camp, quick as I could. Only one guy even noticed me, in the confusion, and it was easy as anything to shoot him straight in the chest. Gave me a good feeling, when he went down. I wasn't quite certain what I was looking for - just opening tent flaps mostly, only cots in most of them - but when I looked in a really big tent, I knew I'd hit the jackpot. Inside were these great piles of food, rations and milk and stuff - and if I've learned one thing living in the woods, its that no one can survive in there very long unless they're very good at hunting - or brought food with them. (I'm generally in the latter category, though I'm getting better.)

I knew what I had to do. I did as much damage to their stuff as I could, ripping open rations and spilling milk everywhere - shot the pile a couple times to loosen things up. I could hear the chaos outside the tent, but I knew that it would only be so long until they got all the animals scared away and came looking for the guy who started the mess. I finished up - got most of their food destroyed, no time to finish the job - and ran for it, hoping like heck that no one would think to shoot me in the back. Only stopped when I was a half-mile away.

I guess I succeeded - you haven't heard of an army of guys like that charging through Maine, have you? Now, I did a little looking when I got back to town - asked a librarian, smart people like that - and I think those weird guys were from Mexico, or someplace around there. Now, I think that what they were doing was sneak attacking the old USA - they were angry at how we were treating their immigrants or something, so they snuck up all around the coast past Flor-e-da and so on and attacked the last place someone'd expect them. Sneaky little guys - not an honorable thing to do. Guess I can chalk up their defeat to good-old American know-how.

(Author's Note: I had to restrain my vocabulary for this one. If the narration sounds especially strained, that's why.

Plus, I don't really know how to write a story in first person.)