Alien Invasion (Book 1): Invasion

by Platt, Sean

  Day Four, Early Evening

  Rural Iowa

  Piper didn’t want to breathe a word, but she knew something was wrong, or about to be.

  They’d been too lucky. Things had gone entirely too well. They’d found themselves stuck in a highway riot, in the middle of an apparent alien invasion, and they were still alive and together. They were still on their way. They still had a fair amount of supplies, including not-terrible food and clean water. They’d managed to steal a good car without so much as getting shot, and were only a dozen or so miles away from living out the coming apocalypse in opulence.

  It bothered Piper that they were cut off from the world. The Internet had still been up and running as of twenty-four hours ago, but they hadn’t been able to access it since. The JetVan had a private network fed from the satellite, but without the van they were subject to the whims and traffic limits of ground-based towers like everyone else. That meant no service, no access, and no news beyond what local radio (not even the satellite network, which didn’t have an active subscription in the Land Cruiser) provided.

  The same was true of voice coverage on the phones. She and Meyer both kept turning their seats around, to check on the kids’ mood and to pass the time with conversation. Several times, she’d seen Trevor and Lila listening to their phones like kids hoping to hear the ocean in a conch shell. They’d dropped the phones guiltily into their laps as soon as Piper looked back — and Piper, sensing she should allow them their dignity, hope, or both, allowed them to think she’d seen nothing.

  But she knew what they were doing: trying to contact their mother. Trying to call Raj’s parents. Trying to call friends they’d had back when the world was still a more innocent place.

  Not that the adults were immune to hope. She’d tried her parents several times, and she kept seeing Meyer listen to his phone from the corner of her eye. Sometimes she let him have his privacy and sometimes she raised an eyebrow as he hung up, silently asking if he’d had any luck. But of course he hadn’t, same as her. No one could answer without a connection.

  Trevor and Lila’s mother might be dead. They might never know for sure, but privately Piper thought it was a safe bet, given the last they’d heard of her.

  Raj’s parents might be dead too. That one seemed less likely as an isolated event, but it raised a troubling uncertainty for Piper: the fate of New York as a whole. Piper was just twenty-nine, and felt herself still just a child these past few days. She’d grown up in a connected world, where you could learn just about anything about anywhere at any time. Having no news of New York — or anywhere — for long stretches of time unsettled her to the core.

  They’d been sticking to back roads, with Meyer always watching the map for a way out in case they ran into another traffic jam. There was always a way around, but that precaution meant sticking to farm roads big enough to be on the map but not large enough to risk congestion. It meant a lot of driving through nothingness, and sometimes all that prickled the radio dial were low-wattage religious broadcasts: preachers who thought the aliens were Jesus coming home, or that they carried the wrath of God in their round ships’ bellies.

  When they could get news, it felt to Piper like surfacing for air in a vast expanse of water. Each time she heard a broadcast, it felt like Genesis, with the world created anew rather than simply reported upon.

  Chicago was back! It hadn’t been destroyed!

  New York was back! Nobody had burned it to the ground!

  But between strong signals, both cities might have perished. Anything could have happened. Nobody could contact anyone, and no responsible souls had taken to available airways to trumpet the good news of America’s survival.

  Piper found herself pondering the sky’s edge as dusk slowly turned it from dim to dark. How far away was the horizon in flat land? She had no idea — and, being a child of the Internet, felt helpless with no way to Google the answer. Maybe fifty miles? Maybe less?

  It meant she knew that for fifty miles (maybe less) in every direction, the world still existed.

  Beyond that was anyone’s guess.

  The thought made Piper feel cold and lonely, so she unlocked the seat and slid it closer to Meyer’s, then lay down with her head in his lap. He looked down, brushed dark bangs from her eyes, and smiled. Piper suspected he knew what she was thinking — at least her thoughts’ vague color. He always did. Meyer seemed to know everything in advance, same as he’d known to build a bunker and make plans bent on getting them to it. Same as he claimed, through visions brought by the drug Piper feared and didn’t understand (and partaken with Heather, her mind added bitterly), that Meyer knew they’d better be in their shelter when the clock ran out.

  She’d asked him, in a whisper, what he suspected.

  What will happen, Meyer? What will happen when those ships arrive?

  But he wouldn’t even answer. He’d shaken his head as if he didn’t know, and maybe at the top level of his mind, he didn’t. But something in Meyer knew. Something had them running scared, thankful that they were a night’s drive from Vail, afraid that something might yet stand in their way.

  Now she lay with her head in his lap, his reassuring fingers stroking her hair as if she were a pet. Just another child for him to shepherd, another mouth to feed.

  She must have fallen asleep, because by the time Piper looked up again, she saw a dark pall behind Meyer’s head, the cut of his strong jawline above.

  She straightened.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Outside Des Moines.”

  She looked around. By their new definitions, being “outside” a city meant a horizon at least. She was reminded of her earlier solipsistic thoughts and considered asking Meyer how he could be sure Des Moines was even still there. But it was a silly thought by a silly, frightened little girl. She let it go.

  “What time is it?”

  He apparently didn’t know, because he looked at the dash before answering.

  “Almost eight.”

  “From Chicago. Is that good time?”

  Meyer shrugged. He was fourteen years older than her, but no less used to GPS and the Internet. They could unfold the map and see if it looked like good time, but it hardly mattered. They were where they were, and they had to go where they needed to go.

  She looked through the windshield, feeling the car slow around her. A gas station was ahead, in the middle of a dark crossroads spotted only by a few yellowish streetlights. There were houses in the distance, but they were mute, with only scant illumination in the windows. She looked back at the kids to gauge the vehicle’s mood (or to assure herself that there were still people in the world, seeing as she couldn’t count on more than fifty miles of America), and found Lila looking uneasy. She was about to ask what was troubling her, but Meyer nodded at the station and spoke first.

  “I want to stop here. It looks automated, so the pumps might still be unlocked.”

  “Do we need gas?”

  “We always kind of need gas. Maybe they’ll have cans.”

  Maybe. But they’d passed a few stations along the way so far, always on these quiet back roads where it seemed that only horses and buggies truly belonged (not really, of course, but Piper had grown used to the hurly burly of a city), and this was the first in a while that still looked up and running. Just one more thing for Piper to worry about. Had the other stations been down because the attendants had shuttered them up before running home to hide? Or had the grid finally failed? But even the dead stations had been devoid of gas cans, just as they’d been stripped of food and water. There wasn’t much out here in the boonies, and the locals seemed to have divvied it up well before the city mice showed up.

  “Sure,” Piper said. But she wasn’t sure at all. That creeping feeling of luck running thin was like a splinter in her spine. She wouldn’t say anything to Meyer because he’d only laugh (or not, but she tended to flinch from his mockery the same as she flinched from his judgments about her religion — or
would, if she told him she still had any), but Piper felt it just the same. They’d taken this trip on Meyer’s hunches and foreknowledge, but still she felt her own wasn’t worth saying. She was being chicken. Immature. A fool, with her head in the clouds.

  But Meyer was studying her. The roads had been plenty clear for autodrive using the banked (but apparently undisplayable) maps, and he only took over manually when he wanted to stop. So far, he’d just told it to slow. He’d take the wheel soon, but for now he still had his eyes free. And you couldn’t hide much from Meyer Dempsey’s careful eyes when he decided to look.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Piper.” More earnest, more firm. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  She laughed, and the sound was too loud. She should have left the radio on. They should be able to get Des Moines by now, and probably had been able to for a while. If it was still there, of course.

  “I’m just a little freaked out. I know it’s ridiculous.”

  He gave her a small, bittersweet smile. “It’s not ridiculous to be freaked out right now. Not even a little.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  That was sensible advice, but Piper kept thinking of all she didn’t know.

  Were the ships closer to Earth?

  Had they sped up or slowed down?

  Had they annihilated Shanghai?

  Was the president promising a quick response or urging a nationwide evacuation?

  Strictly speaking, they should have kept the radio on at all times, scanning for new information. But they could only take so much, even when the signal was strong, and the outside world brought comfort with its voice — even when its news was grim. Music was better than terror’s unending drumbeat of terror. And when there was no music, silence was a strain of solace.

  She reached for the radio, suddenly eager to split the moment. But Meyer held up a hand to stop her.

  “I want to be able to listen,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “It just … ” He looked like he’d said too much. His eyes flicked to the kids as he turned the Cruiser to manual and settled his foot on the pedal. “It pays to know what’s going on around you.”

  Piper looked at the approaching gas station. She was suddenly very, very sure that stopping was an awful idea. They were in the middle of nowhere. The station was deserted, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If something went wrong, there would be no witnesses.

  “You don’t really want to stop,” she said, watching him.

  “We have to. We’re down to a third of a tank, and this is the first station we’ve seen with lights on. Probably all computerized. Might be our last chance for gas.”

  They were coming closer. The parking lot was empty, the pumps lit but quiet. There was nothing wrong with the place, and yet something was wrong just the same. Something she couldn’t see. Something she could feel.

  “Let’s keep going. A third of a tank? That’s plenty.”

  He looked over.

  “Let’s wait until it’s light.”

  Now his look turned almost pitying. It was exactly what she’d been afraid of — both for his reaction and her worry. Was it the dark that bothered her? Why not just stand on a chair and squeal for the big, strong man to come save her? Piper hated herself a little, but couldn’t ignore the press of fear.

  “We can’t drive until light.”

  “Then let’s stop and rest.”

  He shook his head. “We drive through the night.”

  “Meyer … ”

  He gave her arm a pat. Piper wanted to shake the gesture away, insulted. The pumps were closer. The Cruiser was slowing. He stopped it short of the drive, paused in the middle of the street.

  “We don’t know if we’ll find another station, Piper. Not one with working pumps, and I don’t really want to break into a Walmart for a generator and a sump pump. You heard about the blackouts.”

  Piper said nothing. No, she hadn’t heard that; he must have turned on the radio while she’d been sleeping.

  “Look,” he said. “I figure it’s somewhere between another seven, eight hundred miles. We might be able to get that far on a tank if we don’t stop and start a lot and if I let it autodrive. Look, there in the window: insurance.”

  She looked and saw several big red plastic gas tanks just inside the station, a row of five-gallon cans.

  “We fill the gas tank. We fill two or three of those and carry them with us.”

  “In the back seat?” said Trevor. “They’ll stink!”

  Meyer ignored him and continued talking to Piper. “That might be enough, and we won’t have to stop again.” He flashed a smile. “Besides — I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Me too,” said Lila. Piper had noticed that Lila had to go a lot recently. Maybe she had a nervous bladder. Maybe she was developing diabetes.

  “You can pee at the side of the road,” Piper said.

  Meyer put his hand on Piper’s arm, then steered the car forward again with one hand on the wheel. The thing wouldn’t stop on auto without the GPS, but Meyer actually liked to drive. Probably because he liked the control.

  “We need new maps anyway,” he told her.

  Piper felt her heart flutter, then pushed the feeling down. She tried on a smile, knowing she was being stupid, and managed to hold it until the engine was off and Meyer had entered the unlocked store to retrieve the gas cans.

  He realized the tanks were empty a moment before the locals arrived.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Day Four, Evening

  Rural Iowa

  Trevor was reminded of The Children of the Corn.

  He’d never seen the movie nor read the story, but his father had told him the basic storyline the same as he’d given him the gist of the other classics he suspected modern kids were too cool to know. There were just some things that were part of culture, Trevor’s father seemed to think — references that had become vernacular even to those who didn’t know their source. Things like “using the Force,” “entering the Matrix,” or (and this one was particularly apt), “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  All Trevor knew about The Children of the Corn was that it was somehow about farmlands and cults. Old gods and sacrifice. But most of all, creepy country people who surrounded outsiders like zombies.

  They’d come out of houses. Out from behind the gas station. From a leaning shack that might have been a post office or another government building. They were in the middle of the streets.

  Men. Women. Even — and yes, there was that old cinematic reference again — children.

  It was dark. Trevor tried to remind himself that he wasn’t used to such darkness, having been raised in New York City. He wasn’t used to quiet or the sough of the wind through wheat and corn. He wasn’t used to the peculiar subaural echo that lived between buildings in the open air when nobody was speaking and no engines were running. It was a kind of hum, too low to be heard and more there to be felt — or sensed.

  To Trevor, fifteen years old and unused to the country, simply being here was creepy no matter what happened. There might be nothing wrong. Nothing unusual. No reason to fear.

  But clearly, his father felt something was amiss as well. Trevor could see it in the way he carefully racked the pump, now finished swearing over its spitting and gurgles. He’d seen it in Piper before they’d stopped, and in the way she hadn’t even wanted to stop in the first place.

  It wasn’t just Trevor. Something was wrong.

  “Hi there,” said Meyer, nodding toward the man in the lead as he approached from the front. He seemed to be trying hard not to look around. This was all very normal. Just a welcoming party of two dozen people who’d chosen to slowly approach from all sides at once.

  This is how we say hello ‘round these parts. Jest have a sit, and we’ll talk about the crops and the weather.

  The man was wearing a green hat with a brim entirely too stiff f
or something so filthy and battered. He nodded and gave it a tug.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  “Looks like your station is out of gas.” Meyer tried to affect a laugh, but the sound came out hollow. Several eyes moved to Piper, Trevor, Lila, and Raj. More hollow laughs abounded in the quiet darkness.

  “Ayuh, we noticed the same.” The man stopped walking. Now they were in a rough circle around the Land Cruiser, maybe thirty paces out. The feeling of being in a creepy movie he’d never seen reasserted itself on Trevor, and he felt his pulse quicken.

  “I’m Meyer Dempsey,” said Meyer. “And this is my family. Piper, Trevor, Lila, and her boyfriend, Raj.” He looked back, his voice too even to be natural. “Say hi, everyone.”

  Muttered hellos.

  “Hey, I know you,” said a woman behind the man. “You’re that movie guy.”

  The man beside her — slightly rotund, balding, with three days’ stubble — cocked his head. To the woman, he said, “He’s in movies?”

  “No, he’s a movie maker. I seen him on the web before. And on TV, too.”

  “That right, friend?” said the man with the green cap. He was probably in his late forties with slightly saggy jowls and tired eyes, like an old hound dog’s. “You in Hollywood?”

  “His wife’s that comedian,” said the woman. “Heather Hawthorne.” She looked pleased at having remembered.

  “I know her,” said the man. “She does that filthy show. About panties or whatnot.”

  Trevor felt himself tense. The man didn’t sound approving. Trevor didn’t want to stereotype, but it seemed that Midwestern values may have trumped his mother’s rather outrageous West Coast comedy routine. He’d only been allowed to see his mother’s act this past year, and even then the most colorful bits had been censored. He’d had to watch the rest online, off a pirate site.

  “I heard she’s with that other comedian,” said the woman. “It was in People.”

  This seemed to be the final word. The woman seemed to be waiting for Meyer to elaborate, and the others were following her lead. Trevor found himself inching back to touch the Land Cruiser’s cool security. He didn’t like this at all.