Arrival

by Morgan Rice

  Kevin found himself laughing. Nothing was funny, but he was laughing anyway. “Deserve it?” Kevin said. “What’s your name?”

  “Ty,” the kid said.

  “Well, Ty,” Kevin said. “You know how all this started? A doctor told me that I was dying. I still am, but I’m traveling across the country to try to stop the aliens because someone has to. They tricked me. They tricked everyone. Yes, you could kill me, but do you know what else you could do? You could help me. You say your brother’s gone, so why not help me get revenge on the aliens that did it?” Kevin took out the vial the held the virus. “If we deliver this to the alien ship, this is over. You could help us do that, Ty.”

  “Or I could kill you, take it, and do it myself,” the other boy said. “That way, you’re dead, and they’re dead. Think I’ll do that.”

  He kept coming forward, and Kevin looked around for somewhere else to run, but there wasn’t anywhere. He was trapped back against the barrier, and if he ran that way, then Ty would only catch him before he even made it past. Kevin put the vial away, hoping it would be safe, and got ready to at least try pushing Ty away again.

  Then he saw a big, furry form bound into view, and Kevin couldn’t help smiling as Luna and Chloe both followed.

  Bobby barked, then slammed into Ty from the side, snapping at him and bowling him over through sheer size. Luna and Chloe rushed in behind him, grabbing Ty’s arms and holding on so he couldn’t stab at the dog. Luna trod on Ty’s knife hand in a way that looked very painful to Kevin, before looking over at Kevin with annoyance.

  “You don’t get to run off and get yourself killed like that,” Luna said. “You don’t trick us. Friends don’t do that.”

  “I thought I was protecting you,” Kevin said.

  “You don’t get to decide that for us,” Chloe put in. She let go of Ty and stood up. Bobby and Luna were still more than enough to hold him down. “I’m really angry with you running off like that, Kevin. You scared me. I thought—”

  “Chloe,” Luna said. “We need to get out of here before the others come.”

  “Okay, okay,” Chloe said. “Kevin, help me move some of the barriers.”

  Kevin went over with her to the collection of stuff that made up the barricade, trying to find pieces of it that they would be able to move. Not the cars, obviously, but maybe some of the pieces of wood, or the furniture, or…

  “Help,” Ty started to call out. “Help! They’re over here!”

  Kevin saw Luna clamp a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Kevin felt fear rising in him as he started to drag pieces out of the barricade again, even as he guessed that it wouldn’t be quick enough.

  They came out onto the street, advancing on the three of them, and this time Kevin guessed that there wouldn’t be any getting away. All of the gang members looked determined now, their assortment of weapons up and ready to use.

  “Stay back!” Luna ordered them. “Stay back or I’ll tell my dog that your friend is his lunch.”

  “Think that makes a difference to us?” another member of the gang demanded, continuing to move forward.

  Kevin searched in the barricade, coming out with a length of wood that he brandished before him. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than standing there with no way to protect himself or the others. Chloe seemed to have the same idea, since she grabbed a sharp-looking piece of plastic, holding it like a knife. Luna just reached into her backpack and pulled out a penknife.

  It didn’t feel like enough. It wouldn’t be enough, Kevin knew. Okay, so they had weapons now, and Luna was always ready to fight anything, and maybe Chloe knew a thing or two about surviving from her time on the street, but the fact was that there were half as many of them, they were smaller than the other kids, their weapons weren’t any good really, and Kevin suspected that the kind of kids who hung around in gangs probably knew more about fighting anyway. They were going to die.

  By now, Kevin guessed that he should have been used to that feeling, and not just because he’d been threatened with a knife just a few minutes ago. From the moment the doctor had told him about his condition, he’d known that he would be dead soon. Everything that had happened since had only showed him just how fragile everything in his life was, and just how quickly it could all be taken away.

  He should have been used to it, but it still scared him. What scared him even more was that Luna and Chloe were going to die too. He’d brought them here with him, and now he was going to have to watch while—

  The sound of engines in the distance cut through Kevin’s thoughts.

  “It’s the Dustside crew,” one of the gang said, looking round nervously. The gang members didn’t look quite so tough now, and Kevin didn’t know if it was a good thing or not that they seemed so worried. On the one hand, anything that made them hesitate about finishing what they’d begun had to be a good thing. On the other, something that scared them wasn’t necessarily a good thing for Kevin, Luna, and Chloe.

  Motorcycles came into view, and where the Survivors’ bikes had been a collection of different styles and sizes, these were almost exclusively old-style bikes with long, swept-back handlebars for cruising along rather than going fast. The men and women on them wore leathers, and those had patches on them depicting a dust cloud sweeping up buffalo horns. Some of them were adults, some of them were younger, but all of them looked tough and ready to fight whoever they met. There were plenty of them too; easily as many as were in Ty’s gang.

  They came closer, and the bikes rumbled to a halt near the barricade. “Rumbled” was the right word too, because to Kevin, it seemed that the vibration of their engines rattled all the way through his bones.

  A bearded bear of a man stepped down from the first bike, muscled arms folding as he stared at the scene Kevin and the others presented. Kevin couldn’t see his eyes thanks to dark aviator glasses, but he had the sense of the man taking in every detail of the situation in those first couple of seconds.

  “Well, Ty,” he said. “I guess you and your friends have a bit of explaining to do.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kevin found himself staring at the bikers, grateful that their arrival had interrupted the gang before they could attack, yet just as nervous about their presence. They looked far tougher and more violent than the kids in Ty’s gang, so why would they do anything other than join in the killing?

  “I think you’d better let Ty up so he can answer for himself, little lady,” the man said to Luna, and Kevin winced at that. It had been going kind of okay up until then.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Luna said.

  To Kevin’s surprise, the big man smiled. “No, I don’t believe you are. Even so, I’d like to hear what Ty has to say, so let him up, please.”

  Luna stepped back, and Kevin held out his hand to Bobby. “Come on, Bobby.”

  The dog ran over to be petted, while Ty scrambled to his feet.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Bear,” he said. “This is between me and them.”

  “If it were just you and them, I’d say you were in trouble, Ty,” the big man said. He did look kind of like a bear, between his beard and the sheer bulk of him. “They had you down. Way I see it, if you get to call in all your boys to help you, I get to ask what’s going on.”

  He took off his glasses then, and there was a hardness in his eyes that made Kevin want to take a step back. Only the presence of the barricade stopped him.

  “You know who they are?” Ty demanded.

  “We haven’t been introduced yet,” the big man said. He looked over. “I’m Bear. These,” he said, pointing to the large group of bikers, “are my people, the Dustside Motorcycle Club. Who are you?”

  “I’m Kevin,” Kevin said. “This is Luna and Chloe.”

  “But do you know who they are?” Ty demanded again. He pointed at Kevin. “He did this. He’s the kid from the TV, the one who started all this by telling us about the aliens.”

  “I can see that,” Bear
said.

  “We’re trying to stop the aliens,” Kevin said. “We have a virus we think can kill them.”

  The big biker raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? You contagious?”

  Kevin took out the vial containing the virus. “It’s here. I got a message from other aliens, ones who tried to warn us about the first ones. If we can get this onto the big alien ship it might save us all.”

  “Don’t believe him,” Ty said. “If he’s going to the alien ship, it’s to help them! We have to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”

  “Is that so?” Bear said again. He looked over his shoulder. “Cub, what do you think?”

  A boy came forward from the mass of bikers, looking like a miniature version of the bikers’ leader. He couldn’t have been much older than Kevin and the others, dressed in jeans and biker leathers. He looked tough as he stepped down off of his own bike.

  He looked at Kevin, then at the others.

  “I think Ty hasn’t done anything but lie to us since we met him, Dad,” he said.

  “Good point,” Bear said.

  “I think, if there’s a chance to stop this, we should take it,” Cub went on. “Besides, I like the look of them. They ride, so they can’t be all bad.”

  Kevin saw Bear nod.

  “You heard my son, Ty, and I agree. You and your boys back off.”

  “You think I’m letting them go?” Ty demanded. He grabbed his knife from where it had fallen on the ground. “What he did means my brother is one of them. I’ll—”

  Kevin saw Bear nod slightly to his son, and Cub moved forward, hitting Ty hard. He went down, unconscious before he hit the ground. It was only as Kevin looked again that he saw the gleam of brass knuckle dusters on Cub’s hand. A few of Ty’s gang members started forward, and in an instant, the other bikers were on them punching and kicking, lashing out with chains and short clubs. They piled in together, whooping as they did it, as if there were nothing better than a good fight.

  Kevin wasn’t surprised to see Luna dart forward, kicking one of the gang members in the back of the knee to bring him down to a level where another of the bikers could punch him and knock him out.

  “Impressive,” Cub said, looking over at her.

  Kevin felt a wave of something he didn’t quite understand. There was something about the way Cub looked at Luna that made him uncomfortable, almost angry. He wanted to say that Luna was his friend, and that someone like the boy biker shouldn’t be looking at her like that.

  Was he jealous? No, he couldn’t be. Luna was Luna; she and Kevin weren’t… well, they were all kinds of things, but they weren’t that.

  It didn’t take long before the whole of Ty’s gang was down, either unconscious or groaning on the ground. None of the bikers appeared to be hurt beyond a couple of bruises.

  “You’re really called Cub?” Kevin said. “And your dad’s Bear?”

  “His real name’s Jim,” Cub said. “Don’t call him it. And yeah, my name’s Cub. Mom and Dad thought it might be cool, I guess.”

  He didn’t sound as though he completely agreed with that, to Kevin.

  “You really think you can stop the aliens?” Cub asked.

  Kevin thought about lying and telling him that it was a sure thing, but something told him that these weren’t the kind of people you lied to.

  “We think so,” he said. “Honestly, we don’t know. The message suggested a really old virus, and we found one at the tar pits, so…”

  “So it’s our best chance,” Cub said.

  “Probably our only chance,” Chloe said. She looked over in the direction of the ship hanging over Sedona, than up at the giant world ship hanging above the Earth.

  “Talk to my dad then,” Cub said. “If you’re going to do this, you need all the help you can get. Besides,” he said with another glance across at Luna, “it looks like it could be interesting, traveling with you.”

  Kevin went over to Bear, standing in front of him and looking up, then further up.

  “Um…”

  “You want to ask us for help getting to this alien spacecraft of yours?”

  “It’s not mine,” Kevin said. “But…” He thought of all the controlled people who might lie between them and the ship. “Yes, we need all the help we can get.”

  “And will there be people trying to stop you?” Bear said.

  Kevin shook his head. “Not people.”

  “Yeah, we’ve run into those things. Stopping them is hard, even if you remember to wear a mask.”

  Kevin wondered how many members of his club the big man had lost to the aliens, but he didn’t dare to ask.

  “So you’re asking me to risk all my friends, everything that’s left of my club, and my own son for a plan even you don’t sound too sure of?”

  “It has to work,” Kevin said. “If it doesn’t, the world is dead. The aliens will just keep converting people, and when they’re done, they’ll blow up the world.”

  Bear nodded. “So what will you do if I turn my people around and ride back in the other direction?”

  Kevin did his best to hide the pain he felt hearing that. They couldn’t turn back, could they? The problem was that of course they could. Kevin had seen what they’d done to the gang. It wasn’t as if he could make them do anything.

  “What do you think?” Bear called to the others there. “Should we help these three?”

  “Against the controlled?” a woman said. “It wouldn’t be easy.”

  “Could get us all killed,” a man toward the back said.

  “Might be a good fight,” another biker called out.

  “The world is full of good fights,” the woman shot back.

  Kevin could see which way this was going.

  “Will you at least help us move the barricade?” Kevin said. “That way we can keep riding.”

  “So you’d go on anyway?” Bear nodded to himself. “We can do that.”

  He started to pull apart the barricade himself, and he was big enough to move some of the cars. The other bikers joined in, pulling aside plastic and wood, metal and furniture to clear the road.

  “I’ve wanted to do that almost since these idiots built their stupid barricade,” Bear said.

  He went over to his people. They went into a huddle, and Kevin caught snatches of it.

  “…still don’t know if this is a good idea…”

  “…would be a big fight. We could all be…”

  “…lot of them in the way…”

  Bear stepped back. He looked around at his people. “We’re agreed? Mount up, everyone. We’ve got riding to do.”

  Kevin felt a wave of disappointment flood through him. He’d thought that maybe the bikers might help, but now it seemed that they were getting ready to leave. In just a matter of seconds, they were all back in place on their bikes, ready to go.

  It took Kevin a moment to realize that Bear and Cub were staring over at him from the lead of their column, not riding away.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Bear asked.

  “You’re coming with us?” Kevin said.

  “Of course we are,” Cub replied. “You think we’re going to miss out on a fight as good as this one?”

  “The way I see it,” his father said, “we can either ride off and wait for the world to end, or we can fight back and go out with a bang. Me, I want to make the biggest bang I can. Cub, you stay behind.”

  “No, Dad,” Cub said.

  “I’m still the head of this club,” Bear said. “And I want my son safe.”

  Kevin saw Cub gesture to the world around them. “Show me where it’s safe then. Unless we make it safe.”

  Bear looked as though he might argue, but then sighed. “All right. I’m not going to go into a fight without everyone tough enough to get through it. Now, mount up, and let’s go.”

  Kevin went back to the motorbikes, getting on one with Bobby in the sidecar. Luna and Chloe stared at one another for a second or two before starting a quick game of paper-ro
ck-scissors. Luna whooped when she won, while Chloe scowled when she got into the sidecar. Kevin thought about swapping with her, but the two of them needed to get along sometime.

  Their convoy sprang to life with a deep-throated roar of engines, and soon they were rolling down the road in the direction of Sedona, cruising along steadily. The ship ahead was so large that it made it easy to believe it was closer than it was, the way a mountain might have against an open plain. It was huge enough to blot out the sky over the city, smaller ships darting down to Sedona and heading back up as it continued about its grim work.

  Bear rode out in front of their convoy, while Kevin, Luna, and Cub all rode together in the next rank, with the rest of the group behind them. Kevin wasn’t sure if it was some kind of mark of respect for them, or just because Cub wanted to talk.

  “How did you three meet?” he asked.

  “Luna and I have been friends forever,” Kevin explained. “We met Chloe when she came to the bunker we were hiding in.”

  “You made it to a bunker when everyone changed?” Cub said.

  Kevin nodded. “What about you? How did all of you survive the vapor?”

  Cub lifted a facemask by way of answer. “We use them to keep out dust when we’re riding. Turns out they also keep out alien vapors.”

  “Sounds like a useful thing to have,” Chloe said. “I had to hide in a freezer.”

  “The main thing is that we all made it,” Cub said. “Hey, Luna, nice jacket. If we come through this in one piece, maybe we’ll have to get you a patch for it.”

  “That sounds pretty cool,” Luna called back.

  “I thought that meant something to bikers,” Chloe said. “I thought it meant you were a member, or going out with a member, or something.”

  Was this Cub’s way of asking Luna to go out with him? Kevin felt the same feelings of jealousy as before spring up in him. It wasn’t that he wanted to ask Luna out instead, because that wasn’t what they were. It wasn’t that. He just thought maybe there were better things for Cub to focus on when they were all trying to stop the end of the world.

  “The way I see it, if you save the world, that’s probably enough to be a member,” Cub said. “I’m sure my dad would agree, and you’re a natural on that bike.”