by J. Thorn
She didn’t move after that, hoping that the men wouldn’t see them when they drove past. She heard the men laughing and hollering as the vehicles raced by, but kept her hand on Cameron’s head as the woman sobbed into her own shirt.
When the sound of the engines faded, Maya lifted her head. She crawled out of the ditch and looked down the highway in the direction the gang had gone. They were out of sight, the highway empty for miles except for one car.
“Come on,” Maya said.
“Hold on.”
“What?”
“What if they come back?”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
Maya wasn’t. But she’d seen one car left, thinking it might have belonged to Bandana and his crew and Silver Beard hadn’t had enough men to take it.
“I’m not sure. But there’s a car down there, and I’m tired of walking.”
Cameron finally stood, shaking and wiping snot from her nose. Maya walked toward the grisly scene first, Cameron ten feet behind her.
“Don’t look down. Keep your eyes on the roof of that Civic.”
Death always tempted the eyes, but could never be unseen. As an EMT, Maya understood why people “rubbernecked” at car accidents; she also knew the emotional price they’d pay for doing so.
“Almost there.”
She could smell the gunpowder and the sickly smell of burnt flesh. Maya led Cameron around to the passenger side, trying to use her body to block the woman’s morbid curiosity. She ran around the front and stepped over the outstretched arm of a dead man before dropping into the driver’s seat and shutting the door as Cameron climbed into the other seat. Maya reached down and felt the steel carabiner which had at least 40 keys hanging from it, one still in the ignition. She closed her eyes, squeezed the head of the key, and turned.
The Honda’s engine fired right up.
Jackpot.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” Cameron said, staring straight ahead and toward the horizon. “It really smells here.”
Maya nodded, put the car in drive, and pulled out onto the long stretch of highway.
22
As dusk turned to night, Maya watched as the Civic’s headlights came on and the dashboard glowed. Although they hadn’t been on the road for long, they hadn’t come across anymore people, gangs, or aliens. The inside of the vehicle reeked of the pine-scented air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. She finally reached up and pulled it off the mirror, tossing it out the window.
“I hate those damn things.”
Cameron didn’t respond. She didn’t even turn her head to face Maya, so that Maya had to remind herself that the woman wasn’t used to trauma and high-pressure situations. She tended bar at a dive—a far cry from the day to day duties Maya had experienced as an EMT. That said, traversing the barren highways at night made Maya uneasy, and having a little conversation or sharing a joke would have made things more normal. If there was such a thing now.
The rural highway cut through fields, and the number of structures with lights on had dwindled. The longer this invasion lasted, the more Maya worried that they’d never get back to the way things had been. Even out here in the backwoods of Kentucky, folks seemed to be gone, hiding, or dead.
A few gas stations—their windows dark and pump nozzles on the ground—sat on opposite sides of the road at an intersection with a single traffic light hanging above it. Oddly enough, it was blinking yellow.
“How close are we?” Maya asked.
“Not too far.”
Cameron sat in the passenger seat with her knees up, staring out the window.
“It’ll be alright.” Maya flushed, feeling as though she was talking to her daughter. It was the kind of thing parents said all the time when they had no idea whether things would work out or not.
The woman continued staring out the passenger window, chewing on her thumbnail. The smallest whimper came from Cameron’s throat. She hissed out a breath, coughed, and then spoke.
“Fort Campbell. Gerald took your kids to the base. That’s where we’re headed.”
Maya leaned forward, staring hard into Cameron’s eyes but not saying a word.
“But please, don’t throw me out of the truck now that I told you that.”
Maya felt a knot in her stomach and the revelation made her heart flutter. Maybe Gerald had done the right thing, taking the children to the place that made sense as being the safest option.
Maya smiled. “Thank you. And, I won’t.”
Cameron smiled, but Maya could feel the fear beneath it.
“Look, we went through a lot of shit today. We’ll get a chance to regroup and maybe rest some once we get to Fort Campbell. Reconnect with people.”
Cameron scoffed. “Yeah, and I’ll be alone. You’ll have your kids. Gerald won’t want a goddamn thing to do with me. So, I’m going to be stuck by myself, no different than when I was at the house except for all of this.” Cameron waved her hand at the windshield as if to gesture to the mess the world had become before turning to face Maya. The woman’s eyes had teared up and her face was splotchy.
“You’re not going to be alone. I mean, damn, do you really think I wanna deal with Gerald’s bullshit all by myself?”
Maya thought she heard a slight giggle come from Cameron.
“Once we get there, you’re welcome to stay with me and the kids.”
“Really?”
Maya paused, realizing the words had come out before she had thought about them.
“Yes, really.”
Cameron grabbed Maya’s hand, then flashed a smile. “Thanks.”
As they approached a more densely populated area, Maya saw more buildings—all of them dark. A big blue sign stood on the right side of the road, welcoming them to Auburn, Kentucky.
“Ugh, I hate this damn town,” Cameron said. “Let’s get through here as fast as we can.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Maya had loved Nashville. It was part of the South, but with a metropolitan feel. But these podunk towns in rural Kentucky frightened her. She’d seen both the best and the worst of people, and given what they’d seen on the highway, she was not interested in stopping by Auburn’s Tourist Information Center. Soon, they’d be at Fort Campbell, and that meant she’d finally be with her kids again. Maya pushed the gas pedal down and hoped to blow right through the town.
“What was that?”
That droning noise. Maya knew exactly what it was, and immediately checked her rearview mirror. Nothing. Yet.
“Stick your head out the window and get a look at the sky. Tell me if you see anything.”
Cameron did, unbuckling her seatbelt and sticking half of her body out of the window to look around. “Nothing.”
The hum grew louder, and Maya saw a spark in the side mirror. She spun her head around for an instant, seeing the pinpoint light at the tip of the spaceship—the laser weapon that they all had.
“Buckle your seatbelt.” Maya punched the gas. “Hold on.”
If only she’d been behind the wheel of her 65 Mustang. Hell, even the rig would have had more torque than this “fuel efficient” sedan. Maya practically pushed her right foot through the floorboards, but the Civic wouldn’t go any faster.
The light grew larger in her mirror and, as they came through Auburn’s town square, Maya had to slow down to swerve around abandoned cars and debris. The ship kept coming and Maya realized she wasn’t going to outrun it.
Just through the square and past a park, Maya saw a row of office buildings. She cut the wheel and swerved into the parking lot.
“Why are you stopping?”
“We can’t outrun that ship.”
Maya slammed on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a sudden stop in the parking lot. She shut off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’ve got to hide like we did in the woods. Hurry up before they see
us.”
Shaking her head, Cameron unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out of the car. Maya hurried to the door of the nearest three-story office building and pulled on the door, but it was locked. She scanned the ground until she saw a large rock. Maya picked it up and, taking a few steps back, lifted it over her head.
The droning sound had gotten louder, the ship less than a quarter-mile away now.
Maya threw the rock, shattering the glass front door. It was darker inside the building than it was on the street, and no alarm had sounded. She reached inside and unlocked the door.
“You’re bad-ass.”
Maya smiled at Cameron’s comment, but the expression quickly faded as the vibrations from the ship’s propulsion system began to work their way from her feet into her legs.
“Get inside. Now.”
Cameron followed Maya into the main lobby of the office building. It didn’t seem as though people had looted the place—they’d just left it behind. As her eyes adjusted, Maya saw stacks of brochures on the counter, trash cans overflowing with paper coffee cups, and a janitor’s mop bucket pushed against the wall closest to some elevators. Maya wasn’t so sure that hiding in a dark office building was their best move, but it was their only one.
“Should we stay here or go up?” Cameron asked.
Maya wasn’t sure. How far into the structures would these things go? They had infested the warehouse in Nashville. But now, if they suspected humans were inside a building, would they just blow the place up instead? Before she could reply, Cameron answered her own question.
“Up. If we can get to the roof, maybe we can see what the road to Fort Campbell looks like.”
“Good call.” Maya ran past the mop bucket and elevators, coming to a door leading to the stairs. She ran up one flight after another with Cameron behind her until they reached the door that opened on the top floor.
Cameron and Maya together opened the door, turned down a short hallway, and stood at the front of an open room full of cubicles. Private offices lined the exterior walls, several of them with their doors open. The side of the building facing the street was floor-to-ceiling windows.
Desks and chairs began to rattle then, and Maya felt a tingling in her teeth. Like a massive bat, the spaceship descended and hovered on the other side of those windows as if staring right at them.
“Get down!” Maya said as she threw herself to the ground.
Cameron landed beside her and Maya waited, the hum steady but the windows remaining intact. The ship was still there, but it wasn’t doing anything but hovering.
Maybe they’re not sure we’re in here.
The building shook suddenly, and Cameron grabbed Maya’s hand. “What was that?”
She heard the reverberation of the doors slamming against the walls in the stairwell.
“They’re searching the building. C’mon!”
Maya grabbed Cameron’s hand and ran to one of the open offices. Once inside, she shut the door, careful not to slam it. The women ran around the desk and slid the office chair out of the way. The space beneath the desk was large enough for both of them, so Maya went down first, then pulled Cameron down.
Cameron was crying, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Close your eyes. Take deep breaths.”
Cameron did as Maya instructed, drawing in long, slow breaths. Maya held her hand, using her EMT experience to keep the woman calm while also trying to remain clear-headed. Maybe the aliens didn’t know what floor they were on, or maybe this was just a normal patrol?
Stay calm, Maya. Everything will be fine.
The stairwell’s door swung open outside of the office, crashing into the wall hard enough to make both women jump. Cameron’s eyes shot open and Maya covered her mouth before she could scream. She looked hard into Cameron’s eyes and the woman understood, then nodded. Maya pulled her hand away.
Heavy footsteps shook the floor, and then Maya heard the familiar hiss of the creatures breathing through their masks.
23
Maya didn’t know a lot about the aliens, other than that UV light weakened them, which she’d found to be the only way to overcome their regeneration powers and eventually kill them. She didn’t know what kind of tracking technology they used or if they had auditory detection, but they seemed to be able to find humans in complete darkness.
She pressed her head to the ground and looked through the quarter-inch gap between the front of the desk and the grey, moldy-smelling industrial carpet. Maya could hear the creature’s footsteps, but she couldn’t see anything, and had no way of knowing if more than one alien had come into the building looking for them. She crawled back out while Cameron simply stared at her. Peeking around the edge of the desk, Maya gazed through the open doorway and into the larger office space.
She saw the metallic, gleaming armor first. It caught and reflected the ambient light in the darkened room. Then she saw the creature’s feet encased in what looked like metal boots. And then she saw another pair.
Dammit. There’s at least two.
Maya turned back to make sure Cameron wasn’t freaking out or going into panic mode. To her credit, the woman had calmed herself, breathing more regularly now but keeping her hand over her mouth to be safe.
Maya mouthed the words, “You’re doing great,” and then put her finger to her lips again.
When Maya turned back to see where the aliens had gone, she saw only one pair of metallic boots, but this alien was walking right toward their office.
In the warehouse, they’d been engaged in an all-out war and it had been difficult to hear anything amidst the sound of gunfire. But here, hiding and hoping to remain undiscovered, Maya listened. It didn’t sound as though the alien was breathing, but it was making a low-pitched humming noise which fluctuated in volume—something she had to assume signified the way it was communicating with the others in the building or the ship itself, which was still hovering.
Maya knew they’d be dead if this one alien stumbled upon them. She didn’t have the energy or the resources to fight it off as she had back in the warehouse. She’d watched them kill dozens of people while under the dome in Nashville, using laser beams to instantly pulverize people into nothing but cosmic dust, and the same would happen to her and Cameron if it found them.
Think, Maya.
But she wasn’t sure what she could do. And as the alien stopped in front of the door, only several feet away, Maya shook. She felt her cheeks flushing and her stomach tightened into a sour ball. Cameron’s eyes had bugged out and the woman now used both her hands to keep herself from screaming.
Maya saw the boots cross the threshold and the hairs came up on the back of her neck. She slid back behind the desk. The low hum came from almost directly over her head now, and she was about to lunge out and take her best shot when a bright light hit the wall out in the open room with the cubicles.
The alien screeched and ran out of the small office and toward the source of the light, presumably to extinguish it. Maya slid out from behind the desk and stood up at the same moment that the light went out and a gunshot cracked, creating a still image on her retina—a single man pointing a gun at the alien who had been running straight at him.
Then came another blast and the sound of breaking glass.
Other than Cameron’s crying, the place had gone silent.
“They’re both dead and the ship took off as soon as I killed them,” the male voice said. “You can come out.”
Maya looked at Cameron. “Stay here.”
She slowly walked toward the voice coming from the cubicles, the office around her filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. The man had a penlight on and the beam cut through the haze like a spotlight in a nightclub.
Maya walked out of the small office and to within five feet of the man—and passed the dead aliens—before she realized he wasn’t a man after all.
The man was a boy. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old, sporting a shaggy haircut like A
iden’s. He held a shotgun in his hands, but it was pointed at the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.” Maya motioned for Cameron to join them near the cubicles. She did, keeping her hands over her ears. Maya’s rang also, but she’d heard that sound before, unlike Cameron.
“Is it just the two of you?”
“Yeah, and we’re unarmed. We were just trying to hide from those things.”
“I know. I saw you.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “Are you alone?”
He nodded.
“How can we be sure?”
The boy scoffed. “I guess you can’t be sure. But I’m not going to hurt you.”
If he’d wanted to, Maya knew he could have let the aliens get them or he could have blown her away with the shotgun as soon as she’d come into view.
The teen waved the women toward him. “I gotta assume you weren’t lying when you said you were unarmed.”
Maya shook her head.
“I’m Luke.”
He stuck his hand out and she shook it.
“Maya. And this is Cameron.”
Luke looked past Maya to Cameron. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.” He then turned and started walking across the open room and past the cubicles.
“Where are you going?” Maya said.
Luke smiled. “Come on, and I’ll show you.”
24
The women followed Luke to a door on the far side of the room. Maya turned when she heard coughing behind her, just in time to see Cameron staring at the dead aliens. She doubled over and vomited. Luke went to her before Maya could react, putting an arm around her and pulling her along next to Maya.
“How did you know how to kill these things?” Maya asked.
Luke shrugged. “Luck, I guess. I’ve been watching them ever since this all this started, and I noticed how they only came out at night. So, I figured they must be allergic to light.”
“But how did you know how to get their masks off?”
“One of the things came after me, and I didn’t have my trusty light handy. I shot at its face out of desperation, and the twelve-gauge packed enough kick to blow the thing’s mask off. I shot it, making it look like these guys here. I thought for sure I’d killed it, and when I ran back to where my light was, I heard it hiss and stand up. Even though I almost pissed my pants, I was able to shine the light in its face. The thing freaked out. I knew then that they could regenerate their body after being shot, but light really put a thorn in their side, so to speak.”
