The Spaceship Next Door

by Gene Doucette

  Normally, keys were left in the vehicles parked in the pool, which was just good practice on a base where any one of them might need to commission a vehicle. But just because that was the practice didn’t mean that in this instance the key was actually there. On a day when the world wasn’t ending, this would’ve meant only a temporary inconvenience, because there were more Humvees at the other end of the yard to choose from. But that was pretty far away in the zombie base world, and once he opened the door he’d be letting everyone around know he wasn’t one of them, so sprinting the yard wasn’t going to end well.

  After steeling himself for what was to come, he opened the door, threw his rifle in the passenger seat, and climbed in. The door he pulled closed as slowly as possible, just short of slamming it shut and engaging the lock. First, he had to check for the key…

  …it wasn’t there.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  Directly in front of him, about thirty feet, one of the zombies adopted a pose Dill was familiar with. It meant, something’s not right over there.

  He was about to grab the rifle and reopen the door for his final death-sprint, when he felt something cold touch his neck.

  “Are you one of them?”

  It was a voice he didn’t recognize, and it was too high for an adult. He thought maybe it belonged to a kid. The gun barrel against his neck didn’t much care who was holding the other end, though.

  “I can talk, and I can drive, so no I ain’t.”

  “No telling, maybe they learned how to do those things.”

  “Well they didn’t. Or if they did, I’m not one of ‘em anyway. Do you have the keys? ‘Cuz they’re coming, and if you don’t you may as well pull the trigger and then use that on yourself because they’re gonna do worse.”

  “I want you to take me to a friend in this, can you do that?”

  “I can drive you to Nebraska if you wanna go, but I need the keys.”

  “Not Nebraska, just up the road. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Sure, fine.”

  The kid—it was definitely a kid—held the keys out next to Dill’s face. He snatched them out of the air, slammed the door closed, and started the engine.

  This got everyone’s attention.

  He raised the windows and flipped on the headlights.

  “You better put that gun down and belt yourself in, son, this is gonna be real unpleasant.”

  He snuck a peek in the mirror at his hijacker.

  “You’re the kid from the farmhouse on the other side of the fence,” Dill said. “What are you even doing here?”

  “I sneak on the base all the time,” he said.

  “You picked about the worst time to try tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Are you gonna drive?”

  “Sure am.”

  Dill found a gear and stomped on the gas pedal.

  The gate leading to the street was straight ahead through a guarded checkpoint with a lowered yellow crossbar, and an unknown number of zombies. The guards were gone and the bar was made of wood, but the people jumping in the way were going to slow them down. Fortunately, a military Humvee was essentially designed to drive over people.

  “Tell me again what you’re doing here?” Dill asked.

  “I heard the gunshots,” the kid said. “I was worried she might be here.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My friend Annie. I saw her here before.”

  “Oh sure,” Dill said. He aimed straight for a drill sergeant named Keith and tried not to feel guilty about enjoying the experience of running him over. Then he heard the sound the man made as his body went under the wheels and decided there was nothing about this to enjoy at all.

  “Do you know her?”

  “My buddy Sam does,” Dill said. “I met her once. She’s a real sweetheart.”

  The boy tensed up. “I want to make sure she’s all right is all.”

  “Don’t worry, she wasn’t at the base. I’d’a known. She’s probably fine. I bet your parents are worried though, huh?”

  “My parents are zombies. I think the whole town is.”

  “Right. Well my friend Sam was on duty at the ship. That’s where I was headed.”

  And maybe to figure out how to stop the zombies at the source, he thought.

  “You promised,” the kid said.

  “Yeah, we’ll check on your girlfriend first, just tell me where we’re going. Then we’ll go check on my friend. Okay?”

  “Okay. But she isn’t my girlfriend.”

  * * *

  Oona stopped the camper long enough to let Annie on, but almost refused to let Ed aboard.

  “Uh-uh, nope, that son of a bitch knew this was gonna happen, he can join the zombies.”

  “Oona, be serious,” Annie said.

  “I’m serious, kiddo.”

  “Why would I keep something like this to myself?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. You’re the one working for the government; this is probably all one big-ass experiment. I should shoot you is what I should do.”

  “Oona, technically I work for the government. Let him on,” Annie said. They were both at the edge of the door, so the handgun the angry lesbian in the driver’s seat was pointing at Ed was also pointed at Annie.

  There was stomping on the roof.

  “Oona, you let him board!” Laura said through the ceiling.

  Oona sighed, looked up, and put the gun away.

  “You’re lucky she’s nicer than me. Get in.”

  Sam slid down the ladder from above as Oona put the camper in gear and the screaming vehicle got underway.

  “Annie!” he said. “You’re okay!”

  They hugged. She felt her face go flush and hoped the fact that she was blushing wasn’t too terribly obvious.

  “Looks like you hitched with the right crew,” she said as he released her. “How’d this happen?”

  “Really long story. How did you end up here?”

  “That’s also a long story.”

  “Where are you heading?” Ed asked.

  “We already tried the south bridge, sir,” Sam said.

  Annie almost giggled when she heard him refer to Edgar Somerville as sir.

  Laura climbed down the ladder behind Sam.

  “So now what?” Ed asked.

  “Well, the bridge was all choked up with cars, so we figured we’d head along here and maybe see what the zombies were looking for at the same time.”

  “Looking for?”

  “They were all headed this way. Can’t figure it out though. They’re just milling about along here.”

  “Oh my goodness, look at you,” Laura said, speaking to Ed. “Hey, sit down, let’s take a look at that eye.”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You’re not fine. What happened to you guys?”

  “He was protecting me,” Annie said. “I’m who they’re looking for.”

  Sam laughed. “They’re going after anyone the think’s a threat, we’ve been seeing it all night.” To Ed, he said, “I think if you hadn’t fought back, they may have just left you alone and gone on looking.”

  “No, Sam, I mean it. I’m who they’re looking for. That’s why they’re wandering around right now. It’s because I’m nearby.”

  Sam looked at Ed, who was wincing because Laura was applying an antibiotic to an open cut on his arm. Ed gave him a little half-nod.

  “Seriously?” Sam asked. “But why?”

  There was a stomp on the ceiling.

  “Crap, what was that?” Annie asked. “Is someone else here, or…”

  “They can’t get on the roof, that’s just Dobbs,” Laura said.

  “Dobbs made it? That’s great, what about…” but Annie didn’t finish the sentence. Based on Laura’s expression, she didn’t need to.

  “Pretty sure we’re the only ones who got out,” Oona said. “Everyone else is either one of them or… well, or one of them the other way. Coming up on the bridge, we could use s
ome shooters.”

  “The bridge is closed,” Ed said from the couch.

  “We’ll see about that,” Oona said.

  “It was Dobbs that figured out they were sensitive to the sound,” Laura said.

  “Way to go, Dobbs!” Annie shouted through the ladder opening in the roof.

  “He’s got the headphones on, he can’t hear,” Sam said. “Tell me why they’re after you, specifically.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Hey, how long has he been doing that?” Ed asked. “With the screaming noise.”

  “I dunno,” Laura said. “A little while.”

  “He should stop.”

  “What’s wrong, Ed?” Annie asked.

  “This is an intelligent force. If you give them too much exposure for too long, they’ll figure out a patch, and then it won’t work any more. Which is a problem when you’re surrounded by zombies.”

  “You have a point, government,” Oona said over her shoulder. “But we’re getting out of town. Soon as we’re in Mount Hermon, we’ll do just that.”

  “I told you, the bridge is closed.”

  “Unless the bridge is gone, I’m driving over it. I don’t care who’s in my way.”

  “She won’t be able to,” Ed said to Laura. “The ship won’t let anyone leave. You have to explain that to her.”

  Just then, they all heard something that sounded like thunder. Given it was audible over the high-pitched screech coming out of the equipment on the roof, they were suitably impressed. Also, it probably wasn’t thunder.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Oona said.

  “Hey, hey did anyone else see that?” Dobbs shouted from the roof.

  “What was it?” Annie asked.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Oona said.

  Dobbs’ head appeared in the roof opening. “I think they bombed us,” he said.

  “They who?” Annie asked, although she knew the answer.

  “The military. Just guessing.”

  “The whole sky lit up,” Oona said. “But, in a, like a dome, like we were on the inside of a snow globe. Hey, Mr. government. There’s something keeping us in, huh?”

  “It comes down to about halfway across the bridge. Annie and I saw it happen earlier. You’ll just bounce off if you can even get to it.”

  “It’s true,” she confirmed.

  “Well that’s fantastic,” Oona said. “It’s Edgar, isn’t it?”

  “Ed. Yes.”

  “Edgar, if everything you two are saying is true… we can’t get out of Sorrow Falls, nobody can get in, the sonic attack is gonna stop working any second, and we’re riding around with what all the zombies are looking for, in a camper carrying less than a quarter tank of gas. Is that right?”

  “Wait, what do the zombies want?” Dobbs asked.

  “Later,” Sam said.

  “Yes,” Ed said. “All of that’s correct.”

  “Then we’re gonna have to shoot everyone in town to survive this.”

  “Not necessarily. Do you have a map?”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Ed was in the passenger seat of the camper looking at a map of Sorrow Falls, and Annie was sitting in the back. She was feeling a little light-headed, a lot exhausted, and a tiny bit hungry. She also had to fight the urge to start crying, which really pissed her off. As much as she was aware that this was her body’s normal post-stress reaction, and as much as nobody was going to hold it against the sixteen-year old zombie catnip for freaking out a little, she didn’t want to be that kind of sixteen-year old. She wanted to be the kind that people thought was older than sixteen, who everyone knew, who was never out of her element. Annie spent a pretty long time cultivating the girl who was always going to be okay, and she didn’t want a little thing like the world ending to screw with that image.

  She also really, really wanted to call her mom. It probably wasn’t a huge secret that something had gone awry in Sorrow Falls. Someone had to tell Carol her daughter was okay. The worry would just make her condition worse.

  At the same time, she was glad her mother was in Boston. The thought of her cancer-riddled mom wandering around town in her slippers and bathrobe, trailing multicolored fabric wraps in her wake was both comic and horrifying.

  But Annie couldn’t call anyone because of the ship, and since the ship closed off the town specifically to look for Annie, if the stress ended up killing Carol, that would end up being Annie’s fault too.

  The whole thing made her want to curl up in the loveseat in the back of the camper and sleep until it all went away.

  She couldn’t do that, though, because Sam wouldn’t let her.

  “What do you mean, you touched the ship?” he asked. Laura was there too, expressing more or less the same sentiment, but without the tone of betrayal. “When did you do this?”

  “Sam…”

  “Did you sneak past the guards or something? I know the back of the fence was vulnerable.”

  “It was three years ago, the night it landed.”

  He looked surprised, but a different kind now. “How could you not tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even tell Ed until earlier tonight, and only after I found out half his gig was to figure out who touched Shippie.”

  “Shippie?” Laura asked.

  “The… yeah, the spaceship, it’s what I call it sometimes. Look, I just want a nap.”

  “You can’t sleep. In fact, here.” He handed her a small tablet. “It’s a caffeine pill. We talked about it, and decided we can’t risk sleeping until this is all over.”

  “Yeah that makes sense.”

  She took the pill and gulped it down.

  “Never had one of these before.”

  “They’re fine,” Sam said. “I’ve had three. So why would they be after you for touching the ship?

  “I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on, which is the problem. The ship was cold and smooth, and that’s all, have a nice day.”

  There was a thump, and a bump, and the sound of tree branches brushing up against the side of the camper. They were going off-road.

  Dobbs came down from the roof. They’d been running silent since leaving Main Street, which was working out okay so far as Annie could tell from the back. According to Sam everyone in the hills had been heading down toward Main and the river all evening. It would take them a while to relocate Annie and follow.

  “Looks like we’re going to hide in the forest, or something,” Dobbs said, heading back. “I’ve never seen this part of town.”

  “Does he think that’ll make a difference?” Sam asked Annie.

  “I don’t know, I guess. He has a plan. I’m too tired to care.”

  She did peek out the window, though. She saw nothing but dense woods, and began to wonder for herself what Ed was up to.

  Then she thought maybe she recognized where they were.

  “Ed, where are we?” she called.

  “Come on up here.”

  She got up with Sam’s help, partly because the loveseat was particularly cushiony, partly because he was a gentleman.

  Getting from end-to-end in a camper bouncing madly due to an unpaved road was a real treat, especially since this particular cabin was a museum of practical post-apocalyptic junk.

  She got to the front in time to see Violet’s house just as it was coming into view.

  “You sure this is the place, champ?” Oona asked. “It ain’t even on that map.”

  “Positive,” Ed said.

  Annie was ashamed to realize she’d hardly even thought about her best friend through the entire ordeal. Somehow she imagined Violet and her family would be okay, because it seemed like nothing that happened in the rest of the world had an impact on them.

  Ed was perhaps thinking the same way, but for entirely different reasons.

  “They’re not going to be up,” Annie said. “Not at this time of night.”

  But when the headlights hit the porch, there they wer
e: Violet, Susan and Todd, waiting there like this was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Oh well, that’s not creepy at all,” Oona said.

  She pulled over behind the family car, and Ed stepped out. Annie climbed over the passenger seat and out the same door.

  “Evening,” Ed greeted.

  “Hi,” Violet said neutrally.

  “So I’m not sure how to put this, but… take me to your leader?”

  20

  A Super-Intelligent Shade of the Color Blue

  Ed’s head hurt.

  The wound above his eye was still swollen, though not as bad as it had been about an hour earlier, before Annie applied ice, and he had three other cuts on his arms that required disinfectant and bandages, and they were all throbbing in time with his heart.

  Over the course of the evening, he’d managed to: throw himself out of a car moving downhill backwards—that the door didn’t kill him was a miracle unto itself—onto a pile of rocks; club a woman over the head with a piece of rebar he found lying in a ditch behind the gas station; break the arm of a man who had been dead for at least twelve months; get nearly brained by a fence post when a zombie executed a surprisingly nimble maneuver and drove his face into it; and hit a celebrity with a bat.

  Annie, thankfully, was mostly untouched and either unaware of how many times they’d almost gotten through Ed to get to her, or deliberately ignorant of it. If they survived this—his opinion on this possibility had only improved slightly in the past hour—she would be reliving a few things in therapy that she was currently pretending never happened.

  He expected he would be doing the same.

  “Ed, don’t be weird,” Annie said with a laugh at his somewhat unusual greeting. “Hi, I’m glad you’re all up, it’s been a crazy night.”

  She didn’t understand yet.

  Violet stepped off the porch. Her parents didn’t move, they just smiled a little.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Violet said.

  “Are we safe here?” Ed asked.

  “Yes.”

  Violet looked at Ed for a solid three or four seconds, in a creepy-mature sort of way even Annie could sense: she inhaled sharply, and he felt her body tense up through the hand he had on her shoulder. Violet knew exactly what Ed figured out, and didn’t see any point in denying it.