“What? So what are we going to do? Over.”
“Give me a second.” I shut my door and motioned to Kate. “Pass me the maps.”
She handed them over, and I spent a minute looking for alternatives to our highlighted route. In order to go around the interstates we’d have to take a path that was much less direct, and consequently a lot longer. That would eat through our fuel supply in no time. It might not be a problem if we could find fuel along the way, but somehow I doubted the pumps would be flowing. We had what we had for fuel, and that meant we couldn’t take anything but the most direct route to Memphis. But if things were bumper to bumper on the interstates, even that might not be good enough.
Another burst of static issued from my handset. “Well?” Squawk.
I slowly shook my head, feeling suddenly cold all over even though heat from the engine was blasting us through the vents.
“Logan? Did you copy? Over.”
I held the transmit button. “I copy. Listen, the only way around the interstates is to take country roads, but that means two things: one, we could get lost really easily. And two, we’ll add days to our trip and run out of gas along the way. Over.”
A hiss of static that might have been a sigh reached my ears. “I told you we should have stayed in the shelter.”
“It’s not too late to go back,” I said, daring him to do just that.
“All right, let’s turn around. Over.”
“Wait.” It was my turn to sigh. “The trucker said the Screechers are driving people North.”
I paused to gather my thoughts, and Harry was quick to interject. “So what?”
“So, they’re not killing people, Harry. They’re escorting them out of their territory. We could join the exodus. We have to go North anyway. Over.”
“You don’t know that they’re not killing people.” Another squawk signaled that Harry had released the transmit button.
“If they just wanted to kill us, the military would still be fighting them,” I reasoned. “If the Screechers weren’t honoring the surrender, we’d know about it. Over.”
“How? Have you been listening to the radio? Over.”
“No,” I admitted. “But that trucker has.”
“So have I,” Alex put in, and I glanced over my shoulder at him. He held up the phone in his hand and waggled it around. He had one ear bud in, and was clearly listening to something. “Dad’s right. They’re not killing us.”
I’d been holding the transmit button while Alex spoke. Turning my head to speak into the handset, I said, “Did you hear that? Over.”
“Yeah, okay. Fine. Keep the radio on, and let’s go join the rest of the cattle. Over.”
I nodded and passed the maps back to Kate. I felt a lot less intrepid and optimistic as I pulled out onto the road. Rumors were one thing, but I was putting my family’s lives on the line. Until I saw for myself what was actually happening, I wouldn’t be able to relax.
Chapter 40
The ramp leading to the I-10 was right up ahead, but I could see that there was something blocking the way. Silvery metal gleamed in the midday sun, and six spidery arms tracked us with bright green lasers. Two hovering discs flanked the four-legged Screecher, tracking us with more lasers. The inside of our truck took on an eerie emerald glow from the combined focus of those beams.
Kate’s nails bit into my thigh. “Logan, maybe we should turn back,”
“They might shoot if we try to turn around now. We’re going to have to go straight.”
My radio crackled to life. “I don’t like the look of this. Over.”
I grabbed the walkie as we rumbled past the Screechers. “Relax. You don’t see them shooting, do you?”
“The Nazis didn’t shoot all the people they rounded up on trains, but that doesn’t change the fact that they gassed them later.” A radio squawk punctuated Harry’s concerns.
My heart jumped, and an acid burn began creeping into my throat as I thought about what he’d just said. He could be right. What if we were heading straight into a trap? We were armed, but that wasn’t much comfort. How much would our guns do against alien war machines? Harry had shot OneZero twice at point-blank with a shotgun and caused only minor damage.
We continued down the road, heading North to the I-35. No Screechers tried to stop us, but all the subsequent turns that appeared to our right were similarly guarded. Farmland and pasture for cattle blurred by us in orderly squares of green and brown, hedged with bare, skeletal trees. Black smoke roiled on the horizon. We were heading toward San Antonio.
“This is a bad idea, Logan,” Kate said, her nails digging into my thigh again.
I glanced at her, but said nothing. The Screechers weren’t giving us a choice.
We drove on a while longer, and the smoke grew thicker. We began to smell the acrid stench of it through the vents, even though I had the car’s climate controls set to circulate the air inside the truck. My eyes burned. Fat black flakes of ash came twirling out of the sky like snow, sticking to our window. I turned on the wipers and made a smeary black mess. As the visibility worsened, we had to drop our speed. We passed suburban neighborhoods and broken-down cars on the sides of the road. People waved and yelled for us to stop as we drove by. I glimpsed a green road sign indicating a right turn to Randolph AFB.
An Air Force base, I thought, and glanced right, trying to see through the swirling gloom. No wonder there was so much smoke. This must have been where those jet fighters had come from.
As we reached the exit to the Air Force base, I saw more Screechers guarding it. A pair of blackened shells that looked like they might have been Humvees were pushed to the side of the road, one of them overturned. An equally blackened tank came swirling out of the darkness just beyond that, also sitting at an odd angle beside the road. We hit a section of buckled street leading to the tank in two parallel lines that looked suspiciously like they’d been torn as the tank had been pushed or dragged off the road. Then we raced up onto a bridge that crossed the highway below.
Red tail lights came swirling out of the darkness. My brain made the connection a second too late.
“Logan!”
I slammed on the brakes. Rachel screamed, and our chain-bound tires skidded with a horrible grinding noise.
We hit the vehicle ahead of us with a sickening crunch that sent our heads whipping forward and clacked my teeth together. I heard fuel containers thumping around, followed by a metallic clattering that might have been OneZero.
I sat there, stunned and blinking at the never-ending line of cars ahead of us. The line was moving, but slowly. Meanwhile, the car we’d run into had stopped, and the driver was busy getting out. I glanced in my rear-view to see Harry had stopped safely behind us. He had his hazards on—probably smart considering I hadn’t been able to see the car ahead of me until its brake lights came on.
A man appeared at my window. Knuckles rapped on the glass. “Hey!”
I reached for my rifle, but the stranger produced a pistol from behind his back before I could. Not again, was all I could think as he aimed it at my head.
Chapter 41
“What have you got?” the man asked as soon as I lowered my window. Acrid smoke poured in, making my nose and eyes burn. This guy had his mouth buried in a scarf to filter out the smoke, but I could still see how young he was. Despite that, his eyes were cold and dark. His head was shaved on both sides and long on the top, hanging over one side of his head like a mop. I glanced at the crumpled back of his car. It looked like a seven-seater. The bumper sticker on the back depicted a couple with three kids and a dog. That hit me with a jolt. This kid didn’t fit in that picture. He’d stolen the car. I wondered what had happened to the family who had owned it.
“Hey, dipshit! I’m talking to you.” The slide on the pistol rattled as he shook it in my face.
I grimaced and looked back at him. “What do you want?” I asked.
“You fucked up my car, dipshit. Insurance sure as hell isn’t going
to pay, so you’re going to have to figure it out with me. What have you got to compensate me for my loss?”
“That’s not your car,” I said.
“Logan,” the warning tone in Kate’s voice was enough to send a chill down my spine. I cringed, waiting for a bullet to go through my head. Cars were driving by on the other side of us, none of them stopping or seeming to care that we were being held up at gunpoint.
“Not my car? Well, shit, Sherlock! I guess I should go look for the owner then. Don’t worry. I’ll get right on that after you pay up.”
“I’ve got some money here,” I said, reaching for the roll of bills in the back pocket of my jeans. My mind flashed back to the twenty thousand dollars I had stashed under the lining on the floor beneath my seat, but there was no way he would know about that unless I told him.
“Hey, hands where I can see them! Money’s gonna be useless soon if it ain’t already.” The boy’s eyes flicked to the back of the truck. “What you got under that tarp? Supplies?”
I shrugged, but a flicker of hope swelled in my chest. The kid snapped his fingers at me. “Hand me that rifle—slowly!” I turned to Kate and she did as she was asked. The barrel of the gun came out facing the kid. As I passed it over my lap, I heard a click as Kate tried to pull the trigger. I winced. The safety was on.
“Oh you’re gonna wish you didn’t do that!” the kid said, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and yanking it out of my hands. It clattered to the asphalt beside him, and he aimed his pistol at my wife’s chest. “Cover your eyes kiddies! Mommy’s goin’ to a better place.”
I leaned in front of her, blocking his aim.
“You want to die, too? Fine, eat—”
Clink!
He never got to finish that sentiment. The pistol flew out of his hand. He gripped his wrist in a white-knuckled fist and screamed as blood spurted from a missing trigger finger.
Plip, plip, plip! His body jerked three times in quick succession. Stumbling backward, the kid’s eyes slid to me, and the scarf fell away from his mouth. I was wrong about his age. This kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Old eyes, young face.
He fell over, stiff as a board. I caught a glimpse in my side mirror of OneZero’s gleaming arm retreating into the tarp at the back. I got out and grabbed my M16. Checking the safety, I passed it to Kate, and then hopped back inside. I shut the door and locked it. Just as I was about to put the window up, my radio crackled.
“Shit, Logan! Are you guys okay?”
I glared at the handset, then answered, “No thanks to you.”
“I was about to get out and do something,” Harry said. “Debs stopped me.”
Sure, blame your wife, I thought. Maybe it was true, but I was beginning to think the Hartfords might be dead weight.
“Let’s go check his car,” Harry suggested when I didn’t reply.
“Yeah. How about you do that? I’ll stay and guard the vehicles with OneZero. Over.” It was a test.
“I’m not sure he needs your help. Over.”
“All the same. You go. I’ll stay and watch your back. Just like you were watching mine a minute ago. Over.”
“Logan, I swear I wouldn’t have let him do anything. Over.”
“He was just about to shoot Kate in the head! If it weren’t for OneZero, she’d be dead right now.”
A hiss of static burst over the handset and I saw Harry climb out with a semi-automatic shotgun. As he reached my door, he leaned in and said. “Let’s not turn on each other, okay? It was a bad situation, and it happened fast. There was no way for me to judge the right moment to intervene.”
“The right moment to intervene was when you saw him pull a gun.”
Harry grimaced. “All right, fine. You win. I’ll do better next time. I promise.”
“I hope so.” I frowned and raised my window as he turned and walked over to the dead kid’s stolen car. Right now everything was a bad situation. We were fresh out of good ones, and I had a bad feeling that Harry was only in this for himself. If I wasn’t careful, he was going to get us killed. But at least I had OneZero. I’d have to find a way to thank him when I got the chance.
Cars were still rolling by us, none of them stopping. Up ahead traffic was moving, except for the crumpled SUV blocking the way in front of us. I watched Harry rummage around inside the vehicle, pulling out sleeping bags and luggage. Before he even got around to the trunk, I saw a giant, gleaming metal disc come flying over the smoke-clogged horizon.
I pushed the button on my handset. “Harry, look out!” He looked up sharply, and spun around with his shotgun up and tracking.
The disc stopped right above Harry and dropped a pair of bipedal Screechers in front of him. They looked just like OneZero. Bright green lasers snapped out from their arms, and he raised his hands in surrender.
One of the Screechers lowered its arms and walked around Harry. It went right up to the SUV, bent its legs, and lifted. To my amazement, the vehicle tipped up on one side. The Screecher heaved and it went over with a crash. It did the same thing once more, this time rolling it over the concrete wall along the side of the bridge. The SUV landed with a distant crash, and then both Screechers turned and stalked away. The one still aiming its guns at Harry kept him in its sights, backing away slowly until the hovering disc above them deployed metal clamps on retractable lines and yanked them back into the sky. The big hovering disc drifted off, carrying them away.
I slowly raised my walkie-talkie and pressed the transmit button. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about towing cars out of the way.”
Harry didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. It was clear that the Screechers were eager to keep traffic flowing North. The most direct way to travel North would be to stay on the I-35 as soon as we reached it, but that meant crossing through several major cities along the way. That thought gave me pause.
If we’d already run into an armed confrontation on the outskirts of San Antonio, what else were we going to come up against along the way? And even after we left occupied territory, we’d still have to head East to reach Memphis. At that point the Screechers wouldn’t be there to help keep order, and the situation would devolve into a total human free-for-all.
Harry ran by my door, banging on it with his hands. “Let’s go!” he shouted into his radio.
I caught a glimpse of a dark shadow above us, and leaned over my steering wheel for a better look. Another one of those big discs was hovering above us, and this time we were the ones blocking the road.
Visions of us being thrown over the side of the bridge raced through my head, and I hit the gas. Maybe a human free-for-all wouldn’t be so bad.
Part 3 - Finding Haven
Chapter 42
The I-35 was packed with cars, but they were all moving steadily at thirty miles an hour. The Screechers quickly dealt with the ones that broke down, stopped, or ran out of gas. Five minutes seemed to be about the limit for a car to stay in one spot before the Screechers took action and pushed it out of the way. The displaced occupants of those vehicles were left to join the flow of traffic on foot. It seemed like the pedestrians were allowed to stop for longer breaks, which told me that the Screechers understood the limits of our biology versus our technology. The pedestrians were left alone just as long as they didn’t try to leave the interstate. We’d seen an unlucky group make a run for a stand of trees only to get shot in the back by the hovering discs. The message was clear. Keep going North, or else.
As we rolled along, the crackle and hiss of the car radio kept us company. We had to keep scanning as we went, but a few of the FM frequencies had emergency government broadcasts on them, as well as the occasional update from civilian broadcasters. What we’d gleaned so far was that the Screechers had set up a border just below thirty-five degrees latitude. I’d already figured out from the map that the first major city due North of us at that latitude was Oklahoma City, but before we reached it we would cross Austin and Fort Worth. Signs for Austin kept popping up, and I
saw another black cloud of smoke like the one we’d seen over San Antonio hovering in the distance. Traffic started to slow down, and Harry’s voice crackled through my walkie-talkie: “Keep your guns close. We could run into some trouble from pedestrians trying to steal our vehicles if traffic stops. Over.”
“Copy that,” I said.
“I’m thirsty!” Rachel whined. “And hungry!” She’d been stuck on a loop, repeating that like a mantra for the last ten miles.
We had a cooler full of drinks and snacks on the back seat, sitting between her and Alex, but drinking meant peeing, and we couldn’t risk a pit stop.
“Not yet, honey. You’ll have to wait.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Kate intoned.
She and I traded worried glances. We had already estimated the distance from Austin to Oklahoma City using the scale on our maps. It was about four hundred miles, and at thirty miles per hour, that meant we had more than twelve hours of driving ahead of us. There was no way we’d be able to avoid stopping between now and then. At an estimated 10 miles per gallon, our 48 gallon tank would get us to Oklahoma City without the need to refuel—but only if we didn’t run into too much traffic along the way.
I wondered if my kids could pee out the windows. Alex could, but how would Rachel manage? Or Kate? A five minute stop would be enough to pee, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk drawing attention from the Screechers—let alone the desperate and weary-looking pedestrians stumbling along the sides of the interstate. Seeing the covered back of our truck, they were already shouting for us to stop and pick them up as we drove by. Some of them threw rocks. Rachel’s window was spidered with cracks, and so was the windshield.
I shook my head and clenched my teeth. It was too dangerous to stop. The logistics of this trip were fast becoming a nightmare, and it was only going to get more crowded and more dangerous when we reached Austin. There had to be a way to keep moving North safely. Our fuel should last. Bathroom breaks were the problem.
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