The Trunk

by Linda Mooney

  Hand over hand, she followed the rope, her body trailing in the waves that lapped against the pilings. The rain intensified, making loud, splattering noises on her poncho.

  Her knee banged against something. Wincing, she reached down to find what felt like the remains of another boat. She followed it upward to where she detected what could be a ledge. Whether it was or not didn’t matter. She got a foot up on it and was able to hoist herself up out the water again.

  She’d dropped her glow stick when she’d fallen in the first time, but she withdrew another one from her backpack’s side pocket, tore off the wrapper, and broke it. This one was yellow, casting a dull gold glow in front of her. She saw a concrete bumper. Beyond that, a sidewalk. She was near the entrance.

  It was a struggle not to lose her footing as she stepped over the bumper and released the rope. Her legs threatened to give way beneath her, but she doggedly worked her way up the slope. She was too tired to look for the stairs. All she could focus on was finding a place to hide. A safe enough place where she could rest, out of the rain and away from any more sonic booms.

  It took her a while to grasp what the pale glow from her light stick revealed to her as she reached the top of the slope. The tall fence and gate were gone. Large, unidentifiable pieces of debris littered the parking lot. From what she could tell, the massive building that housed the bait shop, the clubhouse, and a restaurant adjacent to the marina was gone. Or rather, it lay flattened to the point where it looked like a tornado had taken it out.

  Emlee stood there, wavering slightly on her feet. She briefly considered seeking shelter under the roofing and walls, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. The building material could shift and trap her further. Or fall and injure or kill her.

  A massive pole barred her way. Going around it led her into the parking lot, and she spotted the two lone vehicles parked there. She stared at the red Vayva. A piece of siding had landed on the roof, but the vehicle appeared otherwise intact. A closer examination exposed a bullet hole in the back window, as well as in the passenger side window.

  A rumble overhead signaled a fresh deluge of rain. Emlee shivered in the onslaught. There was an outside chance this was Mykail’s car. There was a lesser chance the key fob in her backpack would work on it after being dunked twice in the bay waters. But she had taken chances with lower percentages of success before.

  Going over to the car, she reached out and placed her hand on the lock panel. She gasped when the car accepted the sensor, and the door swung open. Quickly, she removed the poncho, throwing it into the back seat, then slipped off the backpack, which she dumped on the passenger side. Crawling into the driver’s seat, she closed the door and locked it.

  With the exception of the two bullet holes, she was out of the rain. The driver’s panel lit up to show she had nearly three-quarters of a tank of gas, and that her batteries were fully charged. She could travel more than five hundred miles to wherever she wanted to go before it needed refueling.

  She glanced out the front windshield at the darkness. Should she stay and wait until dawn to see if Mykail returned for her? Or should she leave now and get as far away from the city as possible and avoid the next alien strike?

  Her stomach twisted, letting her know she needed to eat something. Reaching for her backpack, her fingers brushed against something on the seat. She held the glow stick up to see what it was.

  A notepad and a pen.

  The items he’d used to write her the note he’d left nailed to the locker.

  If you’re not here, I’ll keep trying.

  The twisting she felt this time came from her heart. Without question, there was no debating what she’d do next.

  “I’ll be waiting for you, Mykail. Please be careful…and know that I love you, too.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Decision

  Emlee awoke with a start. Her heart was pumping furiously as she hunched down in her seat, every muscle tense. Something had awakened her, and her instinctive reaction had been one of survival.

  She’d fallen asleep inside Mykail’s car, using her backpack in the passenger seat as a pillow. Slowly, she sat up and cautiously looked around, hoping to spot whatever had alerted her. As she stared at the scenery, her eyes widened in shock.

  The sun was brightly shining over what used to be the marina. Although she’d somewhat suspected the place had suffered damage, she wasn’t prepared for how much it had sustained. It looked like a hurricane had hit it. Every building was flattened, and material lay strewn for a hundred yards. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Not seeing anything potentially dangerous, she got out of the car and walked over to the sea wall where she stopped to stare at the remains of the pier. The wharf had been reduced to giant toothpicks. Not a single boat lay afloat. Every vessel either had been sunk or pulled so hard on its moorings that only pieces of the hulls remained. Where the rest of the boats were would forever be a mystery.

  Shielding her eyes from the morning glare, she glanced up at the sky. What time was it? How long had it been daylight?

  Mykail, have you already come back for me, but when you saw this, you left?

  A small breeze swept over her, giving her a little relief. Her clothes felt tacky and scratchy from their salt water bath. They weren’t quite dry. The sections that had been in the seat, like her back and backside, were uncomfortably damp. Add the oppressive mugginess from the humidity after the rain, and she was already sweating profusely. The days of air conditioning were gone. She glanced at the car behind her. With an exception or two. And those won’t last long.

  She scanned the bay one last time for some sign of a sail. She was on the verge of returning to the Vayva and enjoying the rare opportunity of having it blast cold air over her, when she saw something in the distance. Stunned, her breath caught in her throat when she realized what it was. What remained of a large expansion bridge hung in tatters, suspended above the bay, dangling by the guy wires that once connected it from the city to another land mass. The bridge must have been the alien’s original target, and the marina and pier got caught in the backwash. She remembered other times where she’d seen other bridges destroyed, preventing people from escaping as the bombardments tried to wipe out as much of the population as they could.

  Emlee stared out over the water, praying for some sign of a sailboat. “Did you survive this devastation, Mykail? Please tell me you didn’t get caught up in this!”

  A distant report rang out. A gunshot.

  Emlee whirled around as the shot was followed by another, and then a series of them. That’s what must have awoken her. A second later she caught the growl of an engine, and it was growing closer. Running back to the car, she got inside just as a green pickup came flying down the road.

  “Vehicle, on!”

  The car’s engine roared to life. In the rearview mirror she saw the truck barreling straight toward her.

  “Vehicle, switch control to manual!”

  The green light flashed on the dashboard, letting her know she was in control of the wheel. Shoving the stick into reverse, she pressed the gas. The car jerked, but didn’t move any further. There was a grinding sound, and she heard something fall behind her.

  A red symbol flashed on the dash. “Vehicle obstruction,” the car intoned. “Vehicle obstruction.”

  Jumping out of the car, she hurried around to the rear to see what was keeping it from moving. The piece of the marina building she’d notice sitting on top of the car last night had shifted when she’d tried to back out. It now sat at an angle on the ground, one edge of it wedged against a back tail light. Grabbing a corner, she tried to shove it out of the way, but it wouldn’t budge.

  She had to move the car.

  She heard the truck getting closer as she slid back under the wheel, put the car in drive, and hit the gas. The Vayva lurched forward, and she heard a loud thud when the debris fell away. She threw the car back in reverse. At the same time, there was the sound of a gunsho
t and glass shattering, and bits of the rear window flew forward, hitting the back of her head. Before she could react, the truck skidded to a stop behind her, and four young men climbed out.

  “Vehicle, lock doors.”

  She watched in the rearview mirror, her breath coming in gasps, as they slowly approached. Wide grins creased their faces, and one guy in particular started openly rubbing himself on the outside of his jeans, using his hand pistol to perform the act. Two of them had rifles slung over their shoulders. The one in front carried his revolver in his waistband. He called out to her, “Hey, sweetheart! What’s the rush?”

  They stopped, two behind the car, one on the passenger side, and Mr. Sweetheart on the driver’s side. He leaned over and rapped his knuckles on the window. “Open up, sweetheart!”

  Emlee kept herself facing forward, eyes directly ahead, and both hands on the wheel. The guy on her right tried opening the door, but failed. “She’s locked herself in,” he told his buddies.

  “Guess we’ll have to coax her out,” the one to her left remarked. He knocked on the window a second time. “Hey! Sweetheart! We wanna party! It’s the end of the world! Come and have a drink with us!”

  Her heart was hammering in her chest. Gripping the wheel, she took deep breaths to calm herself. She knew these men wouldn’t give up and go away. Not until they’d had their fill of her. And she was pretty certain they wouldn’t leave her behind alive.

  “Oh, fuck this! Let’s get her!” the guy to her right yelled. She caught a movement in the corner of her eye, and she reacted.

  Shifting into reverse, she jerked the wheel and floored the accelerator. The car whipped around, hitting one of the men standing behind her. There was a gunshot, but the bullet went wide. She saw Mr. Sweetheart pull out his revolver. Acting purely on adrenaline, she put the car into drive, mashing on the gas pedal.

  More bullets zinged by. Several hit the car, breaking another window, and she felt a sudden burning on the side of her neck. The Vayva bounced, its engine growling, as it went over a parking bumper, a large piece of debris, and finally shot across the parking lot.

  In the rearview mirror she saw the young men climbing back into their truck. The injured man was dumped into the bed as the pickup came after her.

  Emlee raced away from what remained of the marina. She didn’t know where she was going, but it didn’t matter. She had to get away from these men. She couldn’t risk being caught.

  The car’s tires squealed as she went around corners, hoping to outrun them, but the truck remained doggedly on her tail. Fortunately, traffic was sparse to nearly nonexistent as she got up to speeds of nearly eighty miles an hour on the longer stretches.

  They continued to fire at her, sometimes hitting the car, but most of the time their shots went wide, missing her. The most she could hope for was to make it to a main highway. If she could find one, she’d have no problem losing them. This Vayva could hit a hundred and twenty miles per hour in six seconds flat.

  Another car suddenly appeared in front of her. With the traffic lights no longer operational, it entered the intersection the same time she did. Emlee swerved to miss it. Her left front end sideswiped the car’s rear tire, and the impact sent them both rotating almost in a complete circle.

  Emlee cried out, expecting to crash, when the Vayva came to a stop. She looked up through the windshield to see the truck coming straight for her. Hitting the gas, she took the first street she spotted as gunfire rang out. There was a loud popping noise, and a red light lit up the dash.

  “Warning! Flat tire! Warning! Flat tire!”

  She struggled to keep the car going in a straight line, but the wheel was sluggish. She tried to turn onto another side street, when the vehicle took on a life of its own and plowed through a chain link fence, past several trees, then buried itself nose-first into a tall hedge. The airbags deployed, throwing her back into her seat.

  Gasping, she fought her way through the fabric surrounding her, and managed to open her door. Linking an arm through the strap of her backpack, she jerked it out of the passenger seat and stumbled from the car. The engine continued to hum, but the Vayva was done for.

  She ran. Ducking between the bushes, she soon discovered she was in some sort of city park. A swing set and a twirl-a-gig sat not far away when she emerged from the tree line.

  Emlee paused to listen as she fought for every breath. The distinct sound of the truck grew closer. It would just be a matter of minutes before the men would ditch their vehicle and come after her on foot.

  She had to find cover.

  There was a public bathroom not far from the swing set. It was a small concrete structure, with one end open for men and the other for women. She hurried inside the women’s section and slammed the door shut, locking it from the inside. The door was flimsy, she realized. It wouldn’t take much for those men to break it down.

  Or shoot the lock off.

  She turned to look for another way out, but the two narrow windows near the ceiling were too narrow for her to squeeze through. Even if she could, there were three of them and only one of her. If one of them managed to grab her, he’d be able to detain her long enough for his buddies to join in.

  She leaned over the sink and bowed her head. She had mere minutes left before they’d find her, but she didn’t have the strength to keep running. Eventually, they’d catch up with her. Then they’d use her, destroy her, and kill her.

  Emlee lifted her face to see herself in the mirror. Blood covered the side of her neck. Thin streams soaked into the shoulder and down the front of her t-shirt. Laying a hand to the wound, she winced in pain. One of the bullets must have grazed her. She was lucky it hadn’t struck her outright.

  Collapsing on the cement floor, she tried to think of some way out of this, but her mind was foggy. Her vision was also starting to grow hazy.

  “There’s no way out, Emlee Rose. Your goose is cooked big time.” She tried to chuckle, but it came out as a cough. She was too parched and dehydrated.

  Water. God, what I wouldn’t give for a drink of…

  Water. That bottle of water. “Wait. Don’t I have that bottle from Mykail’s apartment?”

  Pulling her backpack toward her, she opened it up, when her eyes fell on the t-shirt and jeans she’d stuffed inside. They were the clothes that had taken her into the future, to her own real time. But would they do it again?

  She threw off the bloody t-shirt and gym shorts, shoving them into the backpack, then hurried to put on the other clothes. Fortunately, they were dry. The backpack’s waterproof interior had done its job. She was zipping up the jeans when the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel surrounded the bathroom. Someone tried to open the door, found it locked, then beat on it.

  “Hey, sweetheart! We know you’re there! You left a nice bloody trail for us to follow! Come on out now, or we’ll have to break down that door!”

  “Yeah! Don’t make us come after you, bitch!” a second voice hollered.

  Sitting back down on the floor, Emlee hugged the backpack to her chest, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and prayed.

  ***

  Mykail brought the sailboat around the point to head back to the marina, when he noticed the ruined bridge. Huge sections of it hung in the air, twirling and swinging like some bizarre wind chime. As he tacked the sail, he got his first glimpse of what also remained of the marina.

  His hands shaking, he brought the boat to a halt several hundred yards from shore and used the field glasses to get a closer look. Even though he knew what he was seeing, even though he’d suspected there might have been some kind of damage done after what he’d experienced last night, he wasn’t prepared for the sheer magnitude of destruction. Not only had every single boat been capsized or scuttled, the damage extended to the marina restaurant and tackle shop.

  Curious, he swung the binoculars around to check on his car he’d parked in the lot, wondering if it had sustained any damage. And, if so, how much. But the car was gone. Confuse
d, he checked again. The other car was still there, but his red Vayva was not.

  Either someone stole it, or…

  “Emlee, did you take the car? If you did, where did you go? Why didn’t you stay at the marina? Didn’t you get my note?”

  There was no way to tell if she had. The pier was underwater, along with dozens of other boats.

  Something that sounded like gunshots came to him across the water. It was too dangerous to stay here and wait. Maybe he’d have better luck tomorrow.

  Checking one last time for some sign of her, and not being successful, Mykail took the sailboat away from the marina and out into open water where it would be safer. At least, he hoped so.

  “But I’ll be back. I promised you I’d keep coming back,” he murmured, when the ugly, flat truth hit him, nearly breaking his heart.

  What if she hadn’t gotten the memo he’d left for her at the slip? What if she’d never seen his letter he’d left for her at the apartment?

  What if she’d never come back to the past?

  What if he was destined to face this terrifying new world on his own?

  Fighting his mounting fears, Mykail adjusted the sails and left the area as the sun sparkled like diamonds on the calm waters.

  Chapter 20

  Futility

  Birds chirped. The wind rattled something outside. Other than that, there was a total absence of sound.

  Lifting her head, Emlee blinked, then turned her head to look around. Either she’d fallen asleep, or…

  I went forward in time.

  She remained motionless where she sat on the cement floor of the restroom. She strained to hear any further movement outside. After another minute or two, she stiffly turned around, when she saw what remained of the door. It had been kicked in, the lock and doorframe shattered. The fact that those men hadn’t taken her told her one thing. She’d returned to her present, and those would-be rapists had found the bathroom empty when they’d entered.