The Terminal

by Amber Fallon

  “Sounds good to me.” I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

  John opened the narrow door in the corner, revealing a set of worn metal bars bolted to the wall. Then he began climbing.

  I leaned against the doorjamb and looked up, waiting for John to give me the all clear signal. He was five rungs up, leaning against the wall. He forced what looked like a metal door handle with a swift motion and shoved the square hatch in the ceiling upwards and suddenly there was sunshine and the icy chill of winter in Illinois. I inhaled deeply, ignoring the smells of smoke and burning fuel that permeated the air. I took a few breaths, savoring the feeling of air that hadn’t been run through condensers and trapped in a building with dead people without circulation since the power had gone out. The cold felt surprisingly good on my skin. Usually I was a total wuss when it came to temperatures, but right now the slight sting on my face felt like an early Christmas present. Part of me wanted that moment to last forever.

  When I looked up again, John was nowhere to be seen. I fidgeted for a long moment, wondering whether it would be better to go after my new friend or wait where I was for some kind of sign or something saying everything was okay up there. In the end, I chose the ladder. Progress is better than stagnation, I reasoned. And I desperately wanted more of that air, maybe even a nice breeze on my skin.

  I climbed slowly, stopping to swing the access door shut behind me before continuing up. I don’t know why I did that, except maybe the hope of covering our tracks in case someone should stumble on our barricaded office.

  I paused when I reached the top rung. Maybe John had gone out to investigate, but maybe something had taken him the rest of the way. Why had I gotten so lost in the simple act of breathing? Really, Dirk? Someone comes to save your ass from the goddamned apocalypse and you let him get eaten so you can enjoy an impromptu Pranayama session? Again I was stuck in the position of not being quite sure what to do with myself. Should I climb up on my own and see if he needed help of some kind? Wait here for him to drag me along like a slow witted little kid again? What would I even do if I poked my head out only to find the man who’d saved me being ripped apart by big ugly aliens?

  Not be a fucking coward, that’s what. I took one more deep breath, inhaling that wonderful, toxin laced air and then stuck my head out.

  John was standing with his back to me, staring out at what remained of the Chicago skyline. I couldn’t see much from my relatively low vantage point, but what I could see left me stricken.

  The Sears Tower was a smoking ruin. The upper stories appeared to have been completely destroyed. The John Hancock building hadn’t fared much better. All around it, plumes of greasy looking smoke rose into the sky like sinuous black snakes. There went the hope that this nightmare was isolated to O’Hare.

  I pulled myself onto the roof and went to stand with John, looking out over the destruction of the place we’d called home. I noticed that John’s fists were clenched tightly at his sides. As I got closer, I saw a single tear sliding down his cheek.

  “Wow.” I muttered. I couldn’t think of anything better to say. What was there to say, really? Everything we as a species believed scientifically had been called into question by the arrival of extraterrestrials that most definitely had not come in peace. Civilization itself had changed. We’d lost our coveted spot at the top of the food chain in a single morning. Thousands, if not millions, of lives had been lost, crushed beneath the heels of an enemy we couldn’t even identify, let alone hope to overcome. Sure, John and I had technically made it out of the airport but what good had that done us? All along, I’d been hoping that some kind of massive SWAT Team/Military effort had been assembling outside, waiting for some special task force or a call from the President or something to mobilize and bust in, guns blazing, to save the day. Now, looking around at the devastation that spread as far as the eye could see, I knew that had been a foolish daydream.

  “We can’t let them get away with this.” John’s voice was choked with emotion. I briefly worried about PTSD or some kind of warzone flashbacks or something, but that didn’t really matter now, did it? This was a warzone. The city, if not the country, maybe even the entire Earth, had been overtaken by hostile invaders bent on terrifying purposes against our moral fabric and our very ideals. We were standing in the middle of the most hellish battleground I’d ever dared contemplate. Not to belittle other wars, but usually the enemy at least had something in common with our guys—physiology at minimum. Not so with these foes. Hell, I didn’t even know what to call them, let alone where they came from or what their weaknesses might be. Well, outside of getting crushed to death, shot in the head, or beheaded, that is.

  “What... what are we going to do?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  John turned to me, tear streaks running down his cheeks like war paint. He slammed a fist into the other hand, looking every bit the vengeful John Rambo plotting his first strike. All he needed was a cloth headband. For a split second I debated making him one, but I thought better of it almost instantly.

  “We fight back.” A look of stark determination pulled his features taught. He stalked towards the other end of the building, the side that faced the tarmac, and left me staring after him. After a second, I followed.

  “Wait, what?” I hurried to catch up. “Us? Fight those things? Dude, are you out of your mind? If we want to survive we should get out of here and get help or something!”

  “Help? Who’s gonna help us? The police? The National Guard? Look around, Dirk. If anyone was coming, they’d be here by now.” I hated to admit it, but he had a point. I listened for the sound of sirens in the distance, ears straining to pick up even the faintest alarm, but I heard nothing. Nothing at all. That actually scared me more than anything else had that day—the complete and total silence that was starting to feel suffocating. Normally there would be traffic, car horns, airplanes, maybe helicopters. People yelling at one another because a taxi was taking up a loading zone while waiting for his next fare. Birds. Thumping bass from stereos installed in cars that didn’t cost as much as a single speaker. But there was none of that now. Nothing. The silence was complete, and it was deafening. How many living, breathing human beings were left? Could it possibly be just us two? God, I hoped not.

  “So what do you intend to do? Run in there, guns blazing and launch a two man assault force?” My voice rose in pitch, becoming shrill. “Even if we managed to take a few of them out, we’d be dead before most of them even noticed.”

  “You got kids?” he asked. I shook my head, wincing internally at the image of Hannah that rose in my mind unbidden. “Family out there, somewhere?” I thought of my poor Dylan and again shook my head. I swallowed hard, having a feeling I knew where this was going.

  “Well I do, ok? I’ve got a daughter and an ex-wife I still love out there.” He nodded towards the ruins of Chicago, black columns of smoke and burned out buildings against a snowy gray backdrop. “I can’t just let those things win without a fight. I have to do something. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, I understand if you don’t, but I have to do this.”

  I swallowed. The conviction in his words was powerful. This was the kind of man who seemed destined to rally troops. A natural born leader. Still, I wasn’t exactly a soldier and I did want to make it out of here relatively intact. To what, I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to take things one step at a time. Confronting those alien fuckwads seemed like one step. Period.

  “Do what?” I asked him, starting to feel desperate but also conflicted. “Do you have a plan of some kind or are you just going to go kamikaze on their asses?” John turned back towards the tarmac. “Yeah,” he said, sounding confident and smirking in a way that sent shivers down my spine. “I got a plan.”

  * * *

  “Hold on a second, let me get this straight!” I cried, incredulous. “You want to blow up the terminal?!”

  John was hunched over the evacuation map I’d given him, circ
ling things here and there with a worn out old nub of a pencil he’d taken from somewhere, probably that desk we’d moved to block the door. I stalked around behind him, gesturing wildly.

  “What?” He looked up at me with an annoyed expression. “You got a better idea?”

  “Well, no, but I’m not exactly keen on this whole ‘take down the aliens’ scheme you’ve been hatching. I still think we should scrap this whole idea and head for the hills. How exactly do you plan on blowing up enough of this airport to take a good number of those fuckers out, without killing either of us in the process?”

  John’s face grew even more somber. He pointed to one of the locations he’d circled on the map, a tiny square that barely fit within the margins of the page, then raised his hand to point at a decent sized metal shed set back from the tarmac but within the airport fences. I hadn’t even noticed it before.

  “That’s a maintenance shed.” he said. “I know December isn’t exactly prime landscaping season, but with any luck, there should be some fertilizer in there.”

  “Uh huh?” I asked, not really following him. “And we’re going to plant something to kill the aliens?” Maybe John had suffered a break with reality. Perfect. Trapped in the middle of goddamned Armageddon with a crazy man bent on some kind of gardening related suicide mission.

  “No!” John sighed, rolling his eyes. “We’re going to use it to make a bomb.”

  “Oh.” I said. “Right.” Like I’d known all along that fertilizer could be used to make bombs. I glanced at the maintenance shed. It was a fairly unassuming building made from sheets of metal and it stood somewhere around football field or so away from us, give or take. While there didn’t seem to be much in the way of alien activity outside, being completely exposed for long enough to get there and back while hauling around sacks of fertilizer was a daunting idea at best. “So we make our way over there and get some fertilizer out of the shed, assuming of course that there is actually fertilizer in that shed to begin with. Then what?” I was trying to point out the flaws in John’s plan. At least, that’s what I told myself I was doing. The truth was actually closer to making excuses to avoid doing something I really didn’t want to be a part of to begin with.

  John pointed at an open access way almost directly beneath us. “There should be diesel for the plows and pulley trucks in there, along with propane tanks to power the forklifts. You put those three things together, hook up some kind of detonator and ... BOOM!” He held his hands out, expanding them rapidly to pantomime an explosion. I eyed him skeptically.

  “So you’re some kind of demolitions expert, then?” John’s eyes narrowed as he glared at me. “Something like that.” I flinched under his steely gaze. I was starting to get the feeling that he wasn’t fond of the way I kept poking holes in things so I prepared for one last all out debate winning question. It was all or nothing time.

  “So if we can get all of those components together—and that’s one hell of a big if—how do we bring all the aliens together in one place? You got a plan for that one, Einstein?”

  John paused, looking away from me and chewing his knuckle. “I’ll think of something.”

  Finally a question he didn’t have an answer for! Maybe he’d scrap this whole reckless plan of his now that I’d found a major problem with it. Victory! So why didn’t I feel victorious?

  I bit my lip as I watched him stare off into the distance. I almost felt bad for putting a damper on his ‘brilliant plan’, even though I thought it was more likely to kill the two of us than any of the aliens. I stuck my hands in my pockets, feeling the pair of necklaces that resided there. I thought of Dylan, my Dylan. Those alien fucks had taken him away from me far too soon. I thought about his body, lying there, abandoned and alone... and then I considered the possibility that maybe those bastards hadn’t just left him in peace. My blood began to boil at the thought of what they might’ve done to him, carving up his flesh for snacks or souvenirs. No, John was right. We had to do something. Even if our chances of actually defeating the invaders were less than none, we had to fight back. It really would be better to die like a man than like a coward, hiding or running away in fear.

  John sat on the tarred roof, his back to the raised platform of a skylight, his breath coming out in puffs of white mist. I plopped down next to him, wishing not for the first time that I’d worn something more substantial than my leather jacket.

  “I’m in.” I said. John looked up, surprised. “And I think I know how we can corral a bunch of those bastards into one place, too.” John’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Yeah?” he asked excitedly, twisting around to fetch the evacuation map, “Let’s hear it!”

  I paused for what I hoped was dramatic effect. “I don’t think those things see very well.” I said, “I think they hunt or whatever mostly by sound.” Now it was John’s turn to look dubious.

  “Okay...” he started, “How’d you piece that one together?” I licked my lips. All of a sudden I felt nervous and dry mouthed, like I was giving a report in front of the class or something.

  “I was within a few feet of that pair you saved me from and they didn’t seem to notice me at all until I made noise when I, um, escaped.” John seemed to chew on that for a second. I knew there were a lot of other conclusions one could’ve drawn from that particular interaction with our pale enemies, but for some reason this one just felt right somehow.

  “Alright, let’s say you’re onto something with that theory. How do we use that to our advantage?”

  “Well, security guards in places like this usually have golf carts or something to get around with in a hurry, right? And they’ve usually got walkie talkies and bull horns and things, too.” A slow smile spread across John’s face as he realized where I was headed.

  “Oh, I like it.” He stood up and pulled me to my feet. “Dirk, let’s go blow up some aliens!”

  Getting onto the tarmac was a lot easier than I had initially feared. I was worried we’d have to choose between going back the way we came and out through the airport or jumping from where we were. I was pretty sure I knew what John would vote for. As it turns out, there was a conveniently placed ladder built right into the side of the building. All we had to do was climb down it without plummeting to our respective deaths. Well, I had to worry about that, anyway. As the guy with the least amount of combat training, I was prepared to handle the short end of the stick as far as actual fighting went. What I hadn’t immediately realized was that John was more competent than I was in more ways than one. He was quick and agile and in much better shape. I’m not exactly chunky, but I could get a sense of how muscular John was through the fatigues he was wearing. That was only slightly intimidating. I watched him descend the ladder with almost practiced ease and the grace of a puma. I paced anxiously at the top, waiting for my turn and hoping that John would remain nearby in case he had to catch me or at least break my fall or something.

  Thankfully, although a few inches of snow had fallen, it was the dry powdery kind that blows around in drifts rather than the heavy wet stuff that collects everywhere and freezes solid. That meant that there wasn’t much in the way of ice or frost on the ladder. Unfortunately, it was winter and I didn’t have any gloves. If my hands didn’t stick to the metal rungs, they’d at the very least be numb and achy by the time I made it to the ground.

  The sound of a rock pinging off the roof next to me got my attention. John had made it to the ground and was staring up at me, arms raised in a “What are you waiting for?” kind of gesture.

  Ok, Dirk. Time to man up and get down that ladder.

  It was cold and unpleasant, but not as bad as I’d feared. My hands didn’t stick to the frigid metal once. John passed me a small orange object he’d been clutching as I reached the bottom. I took it gratefully once I realized what it was—a chemical hand warmer packet. This guy came prepared for anything!

  We tucked in against the side of the building and examined our surroundings. The maintenance shed was cl
oser than it had appeared from up on the roof. Maybe only three quarters of a football field away. Still, it might as well have been miles, given the danger we’d be facing running out there, exposed and vulnerable, to clang open a set of noisy looking sheet metal doors and dig around for bags of fertilizer that might not even be there to begin with. I sighed, shoving my hands into my jacket pockets while still clutching the hand warmer. John was staring intently at the maintenance shed, probably calculating distance or wind velocity or something. I happened to glance over to my right towards that access way we’d seen from above. What I saw there brought a smile to my freezing lips. I elbowed John to get his attention and pointed at the object of my interest—a baggage cart with a four wheeled trailer attached.

  John clapped me on the shoulder and dashed for the vehicle. I swallowed and went after him.

  It crossed my mind that perhaps John wouldn’t be able to get the thing started, but I figured he could probably hotwire it if the need arose. As it turns out, though, the keys were hanging from a neat little board on the wall not five feet away. Fate was conspiring with us this time, or so it seemed anyway. I still had my doubts.

  John grabbed the keys and hopped into the drivers’ seat. He gestured to the passenger seat, which I slunk into. I eyed the surrounding area warily as John turned the key in the ignition and started the beast up. There were no signs of slaughter here, but no people either.

  “This is great,” John exclaimed. “We’ll be able to carry all the fertilizer in one trip!”

  “Carry it where?”

  “Oh, no you don’t! Not this time! I’m one step ahead of you!” John’s tone seemed jovial enough, but I sensed a twinge of underlying malice. Perhaps I was being paranoid and reading too much into things, but I got the feeling I’d better start acting more gung-ho about this whole “blow up the airport” scheme. Gee, to think, mere hours ago saying that sort of thing out loud would’ve gotten me arrested. Well, I had agreed to be part of this, after all. Resigned, I looked towards where John was pointing.