by Alex Mersey
What? She thought this was his elaborate way of letting her down easy?
“I’m not making this up,” Chris said quickly. “Williams is secret service. He’s been my body guard for years. How do you think I know about the Silvers battlecruiser? Captain Davis told us.”
She took another step back, looking at him like he was a total stranger.
“I’m sorry, I should have—”
“You really are serious,” she ground out. “The president. Your father is President Merrick?”
Chris nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said again, not knowing what else to say.
“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated? This…” She flapped a hand between them. “This is complicated, Chris.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop saying that,” she hissed. “Sorry doesn’t change anything.”
“Neither does this,” he said. “I’m still me.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Until Airforce One or Air Copter One or whatever ride is coming for you whisks you away to some secret bunker and then you’re no one, Chris, just some boy I used to know.”
No plane, no helicopter was coming for him. The president wasn’t coming for his son. But she wasn’t wrong about the rest. “Rachel, you always knew I wasn’t staying.”
“Just Chris, Just Passing Through,” she muttered. “But then you stayed another day and another day and I thought…” She trailed off, shook her head. “I have to go.”
“Rachel, please…” He lurched forward, reaching for her.
“Don’t touch me!” She threw her hands ups, still shaking her head as she looked at him, then she was turning from him. “Leave me the hell alone.”
Chris started after her, then stopped dead, forced himself to stand there and watch her walk off into this night. Because everything she’d said was the utter truth. One more day, maybe two, and then he’d be nothing more than a memory in Little Falls, some boy Rachel once knew.
- 4 -
Beth
Butt planted on the curb across from the Henderson’s cottage, knees hugged tight, Beth tilted her face to the morning sun, savored the heat kissing her eyelids for a precious minute. Usually she grabbed a couple of hours sleep after a night watch and was good to go, but today there was a bone-weariness that went beyond those restless hours of tossing and turning.
Silvers on the ground.
Dammit.
Beth crumpled the note in her hand, crunched it into her fist. She kept getting it all wrong in this bloody apocalypse no matter how hard she tried. Learning to handle herself with a semi-automatic. Patrolling, salvaging, scavenging.
Surviving.
They’d all been so busy surviving, they’d forgotten to worry about what the Silvers were up to. So long as the bastards weren’t invading the skies directly above.
But now the Silvers were on the ground and what did it mean? That they’d run out of states, countries, continents to conquer? Was this phase two of the invasion, settling in and getting comfortable?
A chorus of sing-song voices pulled her eyes open. Three girls emerged from a hedged garden, giggling, walking up the street with a dance in their step. The youngest, a pretty pre-school girl dressed in leggings and a frilly top, smiled shyly and waved.
Beth twinkled her fingers at the girl and pulled out a smile that softened into something genuine as they skipped past. Every day the kids of this town got to be just kids was a win. And maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to forget about the Silvers while they could.
That’s the headspace she was in when Sean finally rounded the corner at the top of the road. Lucky for him. And possibly for the man walking beside him, too. Before the little girl’s wave, that shy smile, Beth had been ready to shove the crumpled ball of paper down Sean’s throat. And she’d had enough frustrated anger to save some for Williams.
“Didn’t you get my note?” Sean called as he loped up to her.
“This one?” She pinched the balled note between two fingers and shook it out in his face. “The one telling me you’d commandeered the Hendersons’ truck for the day but not to worry, you’ve arranged a special assignment for me and it comes with a jeep and an armed driver to escort me?”
“Not in quite that many words, but yeah,” Sean said with a hesitant grin.
“Beth,” Williams greeted as he walked around them to unload his gear into the back of the truck.
The collapsible grappling hook attached to the coil of rope ladder caught Beth’s eye. Not that she’d been in any doubt.
“You’re going to the fort,” she said to Sean. Not a question. “So all that talk about letting Captain Davis deal with the battlecruiser was just you feeding us crap.”
“I wasn’t—” Sean cut himself off and sighed. “I changed my mind, that’s all.”
“Or had it changed for you?” She shot a pointed look at Williams. They’d sat together on Nathan’s deck this morning, sipped coffee, and he hadn’t said a thing about this little adventure.
The big man’s head cocked in her direction, eyes hidden behind shades. If he took offense, no one was ever likely to know. She’d come to think of him as a Greek statue, and it wasn’t the sculptured cheekbones or the impressive physique. Williams’ had a way about him that made a slab of rock look animated in comparison. Secret Service School had done a real job on him.
Sean crossed her line of vision, tossed his bag into the truck before turning to her. “You okay?”
“I’m supposed to sit tight and leave all operations to the army but you get to sneak off behind their backs, and mine.” She brought her glare to him. “That’s not okay, Sean. We’re in this together.”
“I wasn’t sneaking off,” he said tersely. “I figured Lynn would tell you.”
“Lynn knows?”
“Of course she knows. I told her last night as soon as I decided and I would have told you, too, but you were off patrolling.” He walked around to the driver side, opened the door with more force than entirely necessary. “I’m not your keeper, Beth. I don’t make your decisions for you.” He looked at her, his jaw working. “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
She did want. But that was the weakness talking, the part of her that wanted to take her M4 and open it up on the battlecruiser and it didn’t matter, she didn’t care, that mere bullets wouldn’t punch a hole in a ship crafted of alien material and designed to withstand intergalactic travel.
“I can’t,” she said. “Nathan put in an urgent order.” Which reminded her. “I don’t have time for special assignments. Not today.”
“Take that up with Private Ritter,” Sean said and climbed behind the wheel. “I’m sure you can reach an agreement.” He closed the door, then rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Beth, take care out there.”
“Be safe,” she said, her gaze including Williams.
He inclined his head at her and slid in at the passenger side.
Beth watched them drive off, torn between the urge to jump onto the back of the truck and the deep-seated commitment of her own purpose. It wasn’t like she was the only person in this town who could do a salvage run. Then again, neither was she the only person in this town who could spy on the Silvers. Sean would share whatever he discovered over there today and she’d deliver the meds she’d promised Nathan.
A short while later, she was back to wanting to shove things down Sean’s throat. Take that up with Private Ritter, he’d said. I’m sure you can reach an agreement. Easy for him to say, as he rode off into the sunrise with Williams.
Beth had no doubt in her mind that Private Ritter had saved her sister’s life. If he hadn’t stopped for them, given them a ride to Little Falls that day, Alli would be gone. But that didn’t blind her to the man’s dogmatic faults.
“Your orders are to save a car, mine are to save a life,” Beth said. “Guess I win.”
“This jeep belongs to the army.” Rit
ter sat down on the rim of the door, planted his boots on the driver’s seat as if to cement ownership. “This ain’t a contest.” He squared a look on her. “McAllister said you could help, but I can do this on my own.”
The threat spiked Beth’s blood. She put a fist on her hip, her gaze narrowing in on him. “Chemo meds trump car parts and you’re right, this isn’t a contest, it’s a matter of common human decency.”
“Chemo meds?” Ritter ran a hand over his red-bristled skull, then leaned forward, elbows digging into his thighs. “What you gonna do with that?”
What did he think she was going to do with it? Build a bomb?
“A woman from one of the refugee families, a mother with two small kids, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer,” Beth explained calmly, aiming for the soldier’s heart beneath that stubborn exterior. “She was due to start Chemotherapy and Doctor Nathan thinks that can still happen.”
“Well, hot damn.” Ritter blew out a long breath.
“Thank you!”
The man stared at her—stared straight through her—for a couple of moments, then he said, “Tell you what, once we’ve found my parts, we’ll take care of your business.”
“What?” Beth gasped. “You said hot damn.”
“I did,” Ritter said. “But Captain’s orders still stand. Fixing up a car to run is top priority.” He slid down into his seat. “Come on, she’s all loaded up and ready to go.”
Beth slammed her way into the passenger seat. “You have no heart.”
“How many wars do you think were won with every soldier going rogue for a sympathetic cause?”
“There are exceptions.”
“Sure are.” Ritter turned the engine and maneuvered the jeep onto the dirt track across the field. “But this lady ain’t gonna die today without those meds.”
There was no getting through this bullhead. “Okay, what exactly are you looking for?”
“An older model motor, one that I can hook up to bypass all electronics.”
“And where do we find this?”
He glanced at her. “Isn’t that your job?”
“Left here,” she indicated as they hit the main road. “We need to pick up Jackson. So, some kind of car graveyard?”
“Nah, the motor has to be in decent condition. Once rust gets in, I can’t do a damn thing with it,” he said. “The motor I used on the LAV, I got out of a wreck. A truck had shot up the ass of a sweet Mustang, early sixties model.”
Beth directed him through town while she worked on lowering her levels of frustration. She failed miserably.
“That’s the plan?” she demanded as they pulled up outside Jackson’s house. “Cruising around the countryside for accident scenes and hoping like hell Mustangs had a really bad day with the EMP?”
“That was my plan,” Ritter emphasized. “I’m hopeful yours will be an improvement.”
“We’re looking for a running motor in a car that can’t drive away,” Beth said, mostly to herself. “Else it would presumably already be gone.”
“You know where to find one?” asked Ritter.
“I may have an idea.” She smirked at him and stretched across to honk the horn.
The front window curtain twitched and the younger brother’s face squished against the glass. She didn’t bother waving. Jake had some issue with her that she had zero interest in figuring out. She had her own teenager to deal with. Jake was Jackson’s problem, so far as she could tell. She didn’t know the full picture of their family, only that the parents weren’t in it.
Jackson, on the other hand, was her problem. Not a problem really, more like an irritable mystery. When she’d asked Nathan for a local to act as her guide to the area, Jackson’s name had been thrown in. They’d been out on a couple of runs now and he definitely had his uses, it was just…well, he lacked a certain sense of urgency that, in these times, frankly mystified her, and irritated the crap out of her.
Point in case.
They had to honk twice more before Jackson strolled out the door. He clambered into the back of the jeep, his gaze sweeping over the driver to Beth. “You hired us a chauffeur?”
Ritter sent a hard-assed glare through the rearview mirror.
“Jeez, chill.” Jackson unfolded his scrappy map and got comfy, putting his back to the door, stretching his legs out over the bench seat. “What are we’re looking for today?”
Beth grinned at him. “A hospital with an oncology department and a traffic jam.”
- 5 -
Beth
They hit pay-dirt on the outskirts of an urbanized area signposted Bridgewater. Not a traffic jam, exactly, but those were ridiculously hard to come by. Especially considering the weaponized EMP unleashed by the Silvers Base Ships had stopped 99.9% of cars within a heartbeat.
She’d have thought there’d be miles of gridlocked road leading out from every built-up area. Refugees flooding the countryside as they left their stalled cars behind and took the mass evacuation to foot.
Out here on the road, however, they only came across the occasional small groups of stragglers. Little Falls’ fear of being overrun by refugees and desperados had proven fruitless. After that initial influx within the first two days, and the Sunrise Farm situation, things had quietened down.
Too quiet.
They were about thirty miles south west of New York City, where the massive Base Ship had first materialized. Dozens of battlecruisers had launched immediately, spread out in a full-scale attack that had pulverized entire cities within hours. Along this part of the state, there’d been no warning, little time to flee, and the alien warfare spared no one and nothing. Buildings, roads, cars and people were all reduced to undulating dunes of rubble, ash and cremated bone.
But hundreds of thousands lived in the suburban fringes of cities. Beth hadn’t seen it for herself, but she’d heard there’d been news coverage in those first few hours, broadcasts showing the global and local devastation, an emergency alert had gone out, presidential orders to evacuate and flee into the countryside.
So where are all the people?
Given the lack of evidence on the roads, she was inclined to think they’d hunkered down, reluctant to leave the safety of their homes. And by the time they realized their walls and locked doors wouldn’t save them, it would have been far too late.
The mound of rubble, mostly ash, that Ritter stopped in front of was the proof. Whatever it had once been, an office park or shopping center, now it was a pile of flurries that would have blown away on a gentle breeze if not for the torrential rains that had swept through last week.
Her gaze shifted to the adjacent multi storey parking garage. One end was peeled open, half the structure falling into the remains of its sister complex. Definitely a flyover shot from a battlecruiser, probably as it streaked inland to target Philadelphia, or south to Washington D.C. The fighter drones had come later, much later, and this must have happened within the first hour or so of the invasion, maybe within the first minutes.
The sheer number of cars here suggested these workers or shoppers had been caught totally unaware.
And anyway, the drones attacked differently, didn’t destroy to such a granular level. Sean had witnessed it firsthand, had told her the laser fire from the battlecruisers melted and then vaporized brick, concrete and metal at the strike point, how the aftershocks crackled wide like blue electric spider webs to crumble any structure at the farther reaches. It was those spider webs, Beth imagined now, that had cracked the parking garage in half, poured rubble down the ramps, leaving three levels of parked cars with no way to drive out.
Each level had a low wall, mostly open air, but their vantage point at the head of the jagged seam gave them an unobstructed view. A minivan balanced precariously on the edge of level two. Numerous vehicles had toppled to the ground where the grainy ash pile thickened into the chunkier bits of rubble that blocked the ground level and any hope of exit for those cars.
Ritter stood up on the driver seat to get
a better look. “That’s easily two hundred cars.”
“Enough to keep you busy for a while,” Beth said.
He turned a look down on her. “You’re going on to that hospital?”
She nodded. The map indicated a hospital about three miles further north. “It’s not like I’d be much use to you. The last time I stripped a car for parts was…well, never.”
“Same here,” Jackson said cheerfully from the back. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of your fun.”
Ignoring that, Ritter lifted his gaze to survey the parking garage, then the broader area. “Nothing much moving about around here.”
“We’ll be fine splitting up.” Beth climbed out the front and went to open the rear passenger door of the jeep.
“Let me,” Jackson offered when she reached for the metal toolbox wedged in the leg space amongst the clutter of assault rifles and shovels. Moments later, he straightened, emptyhanded and grumbling, “What the hell’s in there? Rocks?”
Ritter moved in to do the heavy lifting. He carried a pistol on his hip, but he also took one of the M4 carbines and plenty of extra ammo. They weren’t expecting trouble, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t find them.
Minutes later, Beth was behind the wheel, Jackson in the navigator seat. “Mid to late afternoon, that okay?”
“I have a choice?” Ritter muttered.
Beth slammed the jeep into gear and waved him off. He’d be just fine. They’d divvied up the rations of Mac ‘n Cheese MRES and water. He was armed in case any nasties strayed too close and trained to take care of himself.
She reversed all the way back onto the road and turned the jeep in the right direction. “Eyes in the sky,” she said to Jackson. His role as navigator included watching out for approaching Silvers.
“Only from the skies?”
She gave him a sharp look.
“I heard something last night.” Jackson shrugged and propped a foot on the dash. “Apparently the Silvers have landed.”
