You have seen the theater ripped in half, a makeshift tent where city hall used to be, all that's left of the Historic Courthouse in Halifax is the bell tower **.

Posters have been put up in search of the abducted and missing. Families are scouring through the wreckage of their homes, searching for the things most prized, photographs, family heirlooms, semblances of normalcy before they invaded.

Makeshift memorials have been erected in Centennial Park to honor the victims.

As I try to update in a room powered by a small generator where the Internet keeps going in and out, I can only say I am fortunate. I am scarred from the shrapnel of nearby laser blasts but otherwise, aside from the nightmares I'm sure I will have, OK.

If you are reading this then count yourself fortunate, collect your loved ones and cling to them because what they're saying is it will happen again.

After the happenings last night we are all lucky to be here. Some didn't make it, others are hanging onto life at hospitals throughout the region.

For some reason, we were spared significant power outages but it is a hollow victory for the toll it has taken and lives lost.

If you're just reading this, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Much of Roanoke Rapids lies in utter shambles from what is being called an alien attack of near-apocalyptic proportions. It is the same, we are told, throughout the state and pockets up and down the East Coast.

My first knowledge came last night after leaving a county commissioners meeting where, in a surprise move, the governing panel unanimously approved merging the three school systems ***.

At this time, however, it is a moot point, as most schools were reduced to rubble.

Upon getting back to Roanoke Rapids I began receiving a flurry of text messages, phone calls and Facebook messages about some strange lights being seen over the theater. In many ways I wish I had never received those messages because of the sheer terror they would come to represent.

That I am here to tell you about what happened is a miracle as the patrol car I was in narrowly escaped one of those hideous beams fired from the edges of the heavens from spacecraft resembling huge spiders.

It seems it all happened just after the commissioners meeting, me thinking after I tweeted the strange merger decision a revolt of some sort was commencing. I wish that were the case, dear readers, as that would be simple to resolve.

Foregoing completion of the merger story as the messages I was receiving were just too credible to ignore, I could see the army of lights flickering above as I made my way to the theater, watching in horror as a ball of flame came down from the sky and hit over by the old Carolina Crossroads concert area, making memories of Rapids Jam and Boston and Willie Nelson performances a blur.

“It's just too much to bear. I have no words,” a resident, who lost his house, told me. “And those disgusting sons of (expletive deleted) that came out of that one ship. I don't think my kids will ever forget their faces.”

Police are reporting many abductees in the wake of the siege, young and old alike swept up like mere cattle headed for slaughter.

No communiques were received from the beings, officers reported, no warning of any kind. “An unprovoked attack of the worst kind,” one officer, whose patrol car imploded as he was checking on the safety of a child, said. “No warning at all. It was like the War of the Worlds except this wasn't fiction.”

City and county officials are still trying to get a handle on the damages. Walmart, which was spared, was gutted of all food and water, milk and bread going first, then infant formula and diapers and lastly beer and wine.

Other businesses on Premier Boulevard are mere shells, if not completely disintegrated. Roanoke Avenue and Tenth Street look like war zones.

Stalwart citizens stood outside their houses, shotguns in hand, waiting for a chance to fire, only to see their weapons melted by the powerful ray guns these ghastly creatures, something looking like a cross between 8-feet tall hissing grasshoppers and humans, carried. “They might as well come take my guns,” one man said. “They ain't no use against these things.”

As of a 5 a.m. press conference, police said three aliens were in custody, six killed and 10 injured. “We found their vulnerable spots not to be the head, but what I can only describe as the thorax,” a sheriff's office spokesman said. “Unfortunately, we found out too late.”

The district attorney's office said the creatures, who are being held at Central Prison in Raleigh, refuse to communicate.

State emergency management officials say the worst appears to be over, but NASA officials told national newspapers they fear it could only be the beginning as images from the Mars Rover show abnormal activity from the Red Planet.

As of a 10 a.m. press conference, three more beings were in custody, one finally breaking the silence to tell law enforcement to expect more of the same this Halloween evening.

The only thing I can say, until we get further information, is to collect your loved ones and cling to them.

After the happenings last night we are all lucky to be here — Lance Martin

Footnotes:

*This column is merely a tribute and written with many apologies to Orson Welles for his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

**Everything in Roanoke Rapids and Halifax County is OK.

***There was no commissioners meeting Wednesday night. They typically meet on Mondays.