The Long Way To Reno

by Mix, Michelle

  “You don’t have to yell at me,” I then muttered.

  “All I can see around me are these things waiting to hatch. I want to get out from this place, away from the city, and be safe somewhere where there isn’t a rotting body to worry about. But I don’t want to move on without you, Ed. I want you to come with me. I don’t want to stay here. There’s no chance here.”

  I needed to find my parents. I couldn’t make any huge decisions until I did. I thought of them now, wondering what they would think about us living in the mountains with Harley and his family. Could they do that? Would they, with me? Could I make myself go with him if dad didn’t want to?

  I doubted dad would agree to this so easily, trying to imagine what he’d think of this guy, who was so opposite of what we were used to. My family and I are city people. We don’t venture out beyond city limits to explore the sagebrush. We like paved roads and convenient twenty-four hour choices.

  He watched me for a few moments, and I really had to wonder what this guy saw in me. I just didn’t get it. I treated him like shit, I was obviously above his standards, yet he looked at me completely. When did that happen? Why? After all the shit I gave him, when did he start putting me in front of his own needs? Was this normal in survival situations?

  I still wasn’t sure how to handle it, so I looked down at my feet instead. "I don't get you," I managed to eke out. "When did this happen?"

  Harley reddened before responding awkwardly. "Uh, well…things make sense, sometimes, in – in weird situations. I don't even…like…know. Stuff."

  "You must like being treated like shit," I said.

  He rolled his eyes. "To be honest, I liked you until you opened your mouth."

  I gave him an accusatory scowl. "You have an Asian fetish."

  He cleared his throat again, squinting at his shoes. "Not at all. But it was just…when were separated that first time, it was…weird not arguing with somebody that made me lose my train of thought."

  I think that was one of the most flattering things I'd ever heard from a guy. A compliment on my character, and not on my physical attributes. This was the first time I truly didn't know what to say, or even knew how to accept it. I stared at him with my mouth open, unable to say anything because my mind was a blank.

  "I don't even know what that means," he then said hastily, ruffling his boring brown hair. "It's just…so annoying, really. It's like an obstacle course with you. Women are supposed to be easy, and you're the most difficult one of them all. I could almost hate you at the same time for being such a…such a bitch."

  I managed to get my wits back, swallowing tightly. I even felt myself blushing.

  "And of course, you take it as a compliment," he said, almost a complaint. I couldn't help but chuckle.

  "I am flattered beyond all words," I said over someone’s rising shouts from down the hall. I was too focused on the man in front of me to even bother looking for the reasons behind those building voices. "I don't even know what to say."

  "Please consider leaving the city," he then said. “It’d be easier than trying to survive with those things out here. Up there, there’s not many bodies. We can handle the elements, we know how to protect ourselves. There’s plenty of food, and uncontaminated water. These things would have to travel rough terrain to get to us, and there’s no guarantee that they would. Why would they focus on small groups of people when they have more to ambush down here?”

  He made sense, I guess.

  “I don’t know why you would try so hard for me, Harley, I really don’t. It kind of freaks me out,” I muttered.

  “I guess…I guess I don’t want to live with regrets, anymore,” he said with a shrug. “Not when things can happen so quickly. I think it’s appropriate to just…get things out there, before it’s lost and…and then always looking back and wishing…”

  Things did happen quickly. Things had changed significantly since that First Night. Life wasn’t what it was a year ago. I would have never imagined myself surviving like this – hadn’t ever pictured myself even making it past an opening cut scene. But here I was.

  Before I could say anything, those shouts I’d heard earlier grew louder, with alarm laced through words. Both of us looked down the hall to see what the hell was going on, and that’s when the gunshots rang out. People were suddenly running and screaming, and the halls were filled with panic.

  This long, ghostly howl lifted above people’s screams. It clearly wasn’t human. It made my blood run cold. It did not have a Rabid tone to it – it was something new. Similar howls began to rise up within various areas of the school. The men with guns panicked, eyes wide and guns swinging around as they started running for the door, caught up in the chaos of the other survivors. Everyone moved as a startled flock, almost shoving and pushing each other in order to escape the confines of the building. Amid the startling alien screams were those of humans, being slaughtered by unseen things.

  Slamming into us, Sandy grabbed my arm and shoved Harley, Emmy latching onto me. I hadn’t even seen them approach, having been overwhelmed by the noises and chaos. All I saw were slivers of the First Night, utterly terrorized by how fast paced the attack had been. Almost like I’d lost myself in that memory, frozen by how vivid the pictures, smells and sounds were. Good thing Sandy was there, shouting words I couldn’t translate because I was such a startled mess. She guided us into the office we’d been in minutes earlier, and took cover behind the desk there. Shutting the door and locking it, she caught her breath while Emmy and I crouched low to the floor, holding onto each other with superstrength caused by fear. Harley fiddled with his jacket, hastily adjusted his rifle strap so that he could check the chamber.

  Through the windows, we watched survivors flee the incoming creatures, Sandy lowering herself to a crouch within the door’s only solid panel. Above and around her, solid black humanoid creatures crawled the walls, pounced through the air with chilling shrieks, taking down people with ease. People were being killed beyond that glass, screaming in horror and fear before dying at the claws of these things. They moved so fast that I couldn’t quite make out their features – plus I ducked my head so they couldn’t see me, either, and I shook uncontrollably as I listened to people die.

  A set of doors opened from our right, revealing Benson as he hissed at us to stay low and follow him. I pushed Emmy ahead of me, needing something to do. Otherwise I’d have stayed clutching that desk leg forever, and knowing that the teen needed guidance helped me. Sandy crawled along behind me, and Harley followed. Benson prompted us to our feet and gestured at another doorway, this one leading into the medical offices. It was dark and we couldn’t see a thing, so Emmy and I waited near the doorway for the others.

  Once he returned, Benson used a flashlight to lead the way through some overturned tables and supplies. I reached out, fumbling with shaking hands, to grab what I could, stuffing them into my hoodie pockets. Sandy grew annoyed with my task and pushed me to keep me moving. At the other end of the room, Chloe propped a door open and hissed at us to hurry up.

  “Did you see dad anywhere?” I heard Harley ask her in a low whisper, as Sandy pushed me and Emmy through the doorway and guided us towards the outside. It was stark cold, the school grounds were seemingly empty – but the night air echoed with alien shrieks and the screams of the living. It was not a comforting sound. It made me want to cram myself back through that doorway and find a place to hide.

  Before I could look to Sandy for more guidance, she was up on her feet and hissing at me and Emmy to follow. We did, Emmy holding onto my hand with the strength of a man, almost making me cry out. Benson came up behind us, shielding us as he encouraged us to run. The other two brought up the rear, and we were racing across the empty school grounds for the perimeter fence.

  In the neighborhood nearby, some survivors were loading their vehicles quickly, gunshots sounding off in panicked succession. The earth rumbled at that point, rising up and collapsing with a massive drum of sound that nearly
drowned out the screams. We had to stop as the ground shook violently, hollow cracking noises exploding all around us. Glass shattered noisily, raining down onto shifting pavement, and aliens howled viciously as they raced out from the shadows.

  The chaos was fast-paced, nothing standing out as a single threat. The ground shifted with another rumbling groan. Streetlights crashed to the cracking pavement with metallic shudders. Upward, the stars seemed to move. We were separated as things happened so fast, all of us scrambling to get out of the way of falling things that we couldn’t really identify in the darkness. It was all loud sounds, shaking ground and chaos. Just pure chaos.

  “It’s another onslaught,” I heard Sandy exclaim. She was to my right – I fell because the ground seemed to heave upward, like I was on a damn trampoline. I hit the dirt as she fired several times at something that screeched viciously. “They’re trying to finish us off!”

  “Run, run, run!” I heard Harley shout, and I was suddenly being pushed forward. He took a couple of shots at the aliens wearing human skins, then cursed as the empty clicks told him he was out. I ran ahead, maneuvering clumsily through fallen debris as the ground continued to shudder. Power lines danced briefly before collapsing, vehicles rocked in place, and houses creaked under the pressure.

  I then stopped, yelping as I covered my head. Harley tripped over me, Sandy catching herself. She looked up in time to see one of the power lines surging forward, swinging widely through the air. She ducked in time, dropping to the pavement as the poles crashed down around us. At the same time, one of the alien creatures pounced on her, snarling. She managed to fight off the bite that had been aimed for her throat, her forearm being ensnared within that toothless maw.

  Quickly, the woman ensnared the alien body close to hers, rolled both of them so that she had the alien on the ground, and wiggled away, reloading quickly. Before the alien could get up for another attack, Sandy killed the thing. Damn, I wish I was like her. She looked so cool.

  The ground heaved mightily at this point, bursting upwards in a shower of noise and pavement. A trumpeting sound deafened us, debris raining around us as a single vehicle flipped end over end before slamming into the sidewalk beside me. The ground continued to shake, making it impossible to stand. I felt an ensnaring force on my arm, and saw Sandy holding tightly onto me, using her body to shield mine. I didn’t see Harley anywhere, but things were happening so fast that I couldn’t even look for him before she pushed me to move. Both of us struggled, but were so disoriented that our steps took us further into danger. The sound blared outward once more, vibrating the very air around them.

  It was hard to see what was happening, dust and smoke swirling in thick curtains around them. Things smashed into the streets, glass shattered. Vehicles crumbled, and I saw the pillar to our left lift upward. Through the intense thickness of the dust cloud, I saw what looked like a giant robot moving away from the scene. It made me gape, confused as to whether this thing came from the streets below us, or was just passing through. It was hard to see details, with all the explosions, dust clouds exploding all around us. All I could see was a robot as tall as a building walking casually through the neighborhood.

  The school crumbled immediately under one of its steps, and it lifted a pair of overly long arms to the sky – as I followed the action with awestruck eyes, I realized it was gesturing at the massive rectangle with glowing lights high above us. It was soundless – it took up much of the sky. It moved slowly from the east, over the mountains Harley had wanted us to escape to. With how noiseless it was, I would’ve never noticed it up there – I had to wonder just how long it had been there. Was it responsible for the pulsing noises?

  I felt shaking upon my arm, and looked over to seeing Sandy gesturing wildly – we had only seconds before another massive foot fell over us. Aliens danced around the moving pillar with startled screeches, seemingly abandoning their efforts in decimating the humans below. Like ants, they swarmed the legs of the robot with noises that echoed high above them. As we ran from as much as the chaos as we could, I glanced upward. There were more alien spaceships moving through the skies, zipping around the massive rectangle already sliding through the night.

  The two robots that were walking through Sparks were loping casually through the neighborhoods – two indistinguishable shapes that didn’t bother looking back. I looked back up at the alien ship that continued to twinkle noiselessly. Looked to the two robots that were waving at a smaller ship gliding down to them. After a few moments of watching, I saw that the ship was landing near them – from our distance, the two robots crumbled into pieces. They shot upward in fluid motion, loading themselves into open areas of the ship. After a few moments, the aircraft began lifting back towards the larger ship in the sky – its form was dwarfed by it, disappearing within the blinking lights and expanding shadows.

  I continued to gape because this was significant – I was seeing something significant, and I wanted to try and understand it at that very moment. Yet everything was against me – Sandy was jerking me around, things were trying to kill us, and Harley was no where in sight. An explosion from nearby swept me off my feet – all I heard was this crushing ringing sound, and it felt heavy because it knocked off my entire equilibrium. I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t see because the light had blinded me, and I couldn’t hear.

  I staggered about like some drunkard leaving a casino – squinting for something familiar. I could see armed guys shooting at various moving shadows, and I knew I had to run. I had to escape the dangers around me. I just started running in a random direction.

  Sound began to return, and it was chaotic. People were screaming, gunfire blasted, and aliens screeched as they did everything they could to eliminate everybody. I ran because my instinct screamed at me to do so. I didn’t even look back, because I knew if I did, I would do something stupid. Like stumble and fall. Or see something that would make me turn around and go back and –

  I ran.

  I just chose a direction and ran without looking for the others. I didn’t even think of them – I just thought of myself.

  I couldn’t die. I had just made it to Reno. I was that much closer to my parents, I needed to just go. I couldn’t just continue to waste my time with these people – I just needed to go.

  I needed to live!

  Chapter Eighteen

  Since I pretty much was familiar with the Sparks area, I knew where I was going. I ran until I literally couldn’t, anymore. I walked heavily, struggling for breath, wishing upon wishes that I’d started out as this in-shape gym-rat and not a skinny-fat gamer chick. The night was extremely cold, but the clothing and the jacket I wore helped immensely. With the light being provided overhead by the moon, and the reflection of it bouncing off the white snow that had settled undisturbed in the city, I was able to see pretty clearly.

  Walking felt good – though it had been awhile, I found a rhythm that felt comfortable. The silence that stretched around me was foreign and strange, but eventually that became familiar. The sounds that had been so deafening back at the school were sadly silent. I couldn’t help but look back every once and a while, catching sight of the smoke that billowed up into the night sky.

  The massive rectangle in the sky was still there, but it looked as if it were slowly moving towards the east. Its continuously blinking lights were almost mesmerizing. I had to wonder how many of those robots were up there, and what else was going to happen. It seemed like those things in the sky had made sure to drop enough shit on us to clear out the human population – everyone that struggled to survive the Rabid was now going to have a harder time with the aliens.

  It was clever of them. Wipe a whole bunch of us with a zombie virus, lay eggs in the dead, and continue to clean house with what they had left. They were trying to make us go extinct. It was too bad that humans are rather stubborn and don’t like to die easy.

  My route home was already mapped out in my mind – I would find Prater, take it all the way d
own to adjoining Fourth – then make my way to Wells, and South Virginia. From there, South Virginia, I would find California. If not that route, there were others I could take – side streets that I often took when the main streets were either in the midst of frustrating construction/repair, or during rush hours. Reno always had some sort or road mess going on.

  It was a trip that allowed me a lot of thinking, a lot more one-sided conversations with myself. When morning arrived, I was physically exhausted, but found an open room in a hotel on Fourth Street and collapsed underneath a bed that faced the door. I fell asleep facing the street.

  After napping, I woke, and stared out through the open door. My breath was visible as I breathed, and the blankets I’d used to wrap around myself smelled of cigarette smoke. I was too cold to sleep, and there was a dog running chaotically through the snow. I was almost home – that motivated me enough to climb out from my hiding spot, stretch, and then go through the room for something useful.

  I didn’t find anything, so I left without bothering to check the other rooms. Looking behind me, I saw that my footsteps stretched for at least a mile. The mothership, or whatever it was, was gone. The sun rose high over head, and it looked so odd to stare up and see only blue stretches of sky. Reno had always been busy with air traffic coming through, so not hearing those incoming and outbound planes was something I had to get used to. I looked towards Sparks, and saw smoke continuing to curl up towards the sky.