Arrival

by Morgan Rice

  “I think there are rooms down here,” Luna said, leading the way down one of the corridors. There were. There were whole dormitories there, with rank after rank of bunkbeds that were mostly no more than metal frames, but with a few that had possessions by them, along with mattresses and bedding.

  “You’d have thought that some of them would stay inside,” Kevin said. “It makes no sense that there’s nobody here.”

  Luna shook her head. “They would have gone outside to help. And then… well, by the time they worked out it was a bad idea, the aliens would have controlled them.”

  That made a kind of sense, but it was still a horrible thought.

  “I miss my parents,” Luna said from nowhere, although maybe she’d been thinking it all this time. The pain that had come from Kevin’s mom being taken hadn’t gone away; it had just been pushed into the background by the need to keep doing things, by the need to get to safety, and to make sure that they would both stay safe.

  “I miss my mom, too,” Kevin said, sitting down on the edge of a bed frame. He found that it was impossible to picture her then as she’d been before the aliens came. Instead, the image that sprang to mind was of her as she’d been on the doorstep of their house, controlled by the aliens and trying to grab him.

  Luna sat on a bed frame of her own. Neither of them had picked one of the ones with bedding. That didn’t feel right somehow. Those felt as though they belonged to someone, and their owners might be back at any moment.

  “It’s not just my parents,” Luna said. “It’s all the other kids at school, all the people I’ve ever met. They’ll all have been taken. All of them.”

  She put her head in her hands, and Kevin reached out to take her hand, not saying anything. It was just as enormous for him in that moment, with the thought that everyone out there in the world might have been taken by the aliens. Ordinary people, celebrities, friends…

  “There are no people left,” Luna said.

  “I thought you didn’t like people anyway,” Kevin countered. “I thought you’d decided that most people are stupid?”

  Luna smiled slightly at that, but it looked as though it took an effort. “I’ll take stupid over controlled by aliens any day.” She paused for a moment. “Do you think… do you think that people will ever be all right again?”

  Kevin couldn’t look at her. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t see how they would. “We’re safe though. That’s all that matters.”

  It wasn’t, though. Not by a long way.

  ***

  They looked around the bunker until they found more bedding, not wanting to take anything from the bunks that were already set up. Those remained as pristine as if their owners might come back at any moment, although Kevin had to hope they wouldn’t, because he guessed that the aliens controlled them now.

  They went back to the kitchen long enough to get something to eat. The packet said chicken, but Kevin could barely taste it. Maybe that was a good thing, judging by the look on Luna’s face.

  “I’m never going to complain about having to eat vegetables again,” she said, although Kevin suspected that she probably would. She wouldn’t be Luna if she didn’t.

  When they were done, they took turns cleaning up in one of the bunker’s bathrooms. They could probably have just picked a bathroom each, or two, or more, but Kevin, at least, didn’t want to be that far apart from Luna just yet. Even when the time came to pick bunks, they chose ones almost next to one another, when they had the whole space of the dormitory to choose from. It was like a little island picked out in the middle of it, and if he tried really hard, Kevin could almost pretend that it was some kind of sleepover. Well, no, he couldn’t, not really, but it was good to at least try.

  They turned off the lights, using military-issue flashlights to guide them back to bed. Luna hopped up onto the top bunk of her chosen bed, while Kevin took the bottom level of his.

  “Afraid of heights?” Luna asked.

  “I just don’t want to have a vision halfway up and fall onto the floor,” Kevin said. Not that he’d had any visions since the one warning him about the invasion. Not that it would do any good now if he did. He found himself wondering what the point of his visions was when none of it had helped.

  “Right,” Luna said. “I guess… yeah, I guess you should be careful.”

  “Maybe in the morning things will look better,” Kevin suggested. He didn’t really believe it.

  “We’d have to see it before it could look better,” Luna pointed out.

  “Well, maybe we’ll be able to find a way to see things again,” Kevin said. If they did, though, what might they see? Would they see hordes of aliens out there in the world now? A barren landscape with nothing in it?

  “Maybe we’ll work out what we’re going to do next,” Luna suggested. “Maybe we’ll dream of a way to make all of this better.”

  “Maybe,” Kevin said, although he suspected that any dreams he had would be dominated by the sight of all those silent people.

  “Sleep well,” Kevin said.

  “Sleep well.”

  In fact, it seemed to take forever for Kevin to fall asleep. He lay there in the dark, listening to Luna as her breathing deepened and she started to snore in a way she would probably never admit to when awake. This would have felt very different without her here. Even if there had been someone else there, Kevin would have felt alone, but as it was…

  …As it was, he was still almost alone, but at least Luna was there to share in the loneliness of it. Kevin couldn’t get away from the thoughts of what had happened to his mother, to everyone, but at least he knew that Luna was safe.

  Those thoughts followed him down into sleep and into his dreams.

  In his dreams, Kevin was surrounded by everyone he’d known. His mother was there, his friends from school, his teachers, the people from NASA. Ted was there, with military gear slung all over him, and Professor Brewster, his face in a scowl that suggested he disapproved of everything Kevin had done.

  Their features twisted as Kevin watched, becoming every alien from a sci-fi movie ever. Some of them became gray-skinned and big-eyed, while others looked more like insects with plates of armor across them. Professor Brewster had tentacles coming from his hands, while Dr. Levin’s eyes were on stalks. They lumbered toward Kevin and he started to run.

  He ran through the corridors of the NASA institute, barely able to keep ahead of them as they poured out of doorway after doorway, and even though he’d lived there, Kevin couldn’t find the way out to safety. He couldn’t find the way to make this better.

  He dove into a lab, shutting the door behind him and barricading it with chairs and tables and anything else he could find. Even so, the transformed people on the outside of the room hammered on the door, their fists pounding against it while, for no reason Kevin understood, an alarm started to sound…

  Kevin woke with a gasp. It was still dark, but one look at the time on his phone told him that was just because they were underground. In the background, an alarm was sounding, the dull buzz of it constant, while underneath it, there was a dull, metallic thudding.

  He knew Luna was awake, because she turned on the lights.

  “What is it?” Kevin asked.

  Luna looked at him. “I think… I think someone wants to come in.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  They rushed down to the command center, the knocking louder now that they were closer to the entrance. Even so, with the airlock in the way, Kevin was impressed that the sound was carrying. What were they hitting the door with?

  Luna didn’t look impressed; she looked worried.

  “What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.

  “What if it’s the aliens, or controlled people?” she demanded. “What if they’re going around, rounding up survivors?”

  “Why would they be doing that?” Kevin asked, but fear crept into him at the thought of it. What if they were? What if they got in?

  “It’s what I’d do if I were an alien,”
Luna said. “Take over everything, make sure there’s no one left to fight back. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

  Not for the first time in his life, Kevin vowed never to get on Luna’s bad side. Even so, he could hear the fear underneath her words. He could even share it. What if they’d run all the way to somewhere that felt safe, only for it to be falling apart already?

  “Can we see who’s out there?” Kevin asked.

  Luna pointed to the blank screens. “They’ve been dead since last night.”

  “But that’s just the signal from around the world,” Kevin insisted. “There must be… I don’t know, security cameras or something.”

  There had to be. A military research facility wouldn’t stay blind to everything happening around it. He started to press buttons on the computer systems, trying to find a way of getting them to do what they wanted. Most of the screens there were blank, the signals from around the world cut off, or blocked, or just… gone. Luna started pressing buttons beside him, although Kevin suspected that she didn’t know what to do any more than he did.

  “Whoever it is, I don’t know if we should let them in,” Luna said. “It could be anyone out there.”

  “It could be,” Kevin said, “but what if it’s someone who needs our help?”

  “Maybe,” Luna said, not sounding convinced. “Whoever it is, they’re hitting the door pretty hard.”

  That was true. The metallic echoes of each blow reverberated through the bunker. They came in groups of three, and slowly Kevin started to realize that there was a pattern to the spaces between them.

  “Three short, three long, three short,” he said.

  “You mean SOS?” Luna asked.

  Kevin glanced over to her.

  “I thought everyone knew that,” she said. “That’s about all I remember.”

  “So someone out there is in trouble?” Kevin asked, and the thought of that brought a different kind of worry. Should they be helping, rather than hesitating? He spotted a picture of a camera down in the corner of one of the screens. He pressed it, and now the screens lit up with images from security cameras around the deserted base.

  “That one,” Luna said, pointing to one of the images as if Kevin didn’t know how to pick one out from the rest. “Here, let me.”

  She pressed a button, and the image came to fill the screen.

  Kevin didn’t know what he’d been expecting. A horde of people controlled by the aliens, maybe. Some soldier who knew about the base and had fought his way across the country to get there. Not a girl their age, holding what looked like the remains of a signpost and banging it against the door in a steady rhythm.

  She was athletic and dark-haired, her hair cut short and a stud through her nose as if daring the world to say anything about it. Kevin could see that her features were pretty, very pretty, he thought, but with a tough edge to them that suggested she wouldn’t appreciate being called that. She was wearing a dark hooded top with a leather jacket over it that seemed a couple of sizes too big, ripped jeans, and hiking boots. She had a small rucksack, like she was just on the mountain for the hiking, but the rest of her looked more like a runaway, her clothes streaked with enough dirt that she could have been out there for weeks before the aliens came.

  “I don’t like this,” Luna said. “Why is there just one girl out there, trying to get in?”

  “I don’t know,” Kevin said, “but we should probably let her.”

  That made sense, didn’t it? If she was asking for help, then they should at least try to, shouldn’t they? The girl was looking up at the screen now, and although there didn’t seem to be any sound, she didn’t look happy at being left out there.

  Luna pressed something and now they could hear her, microphones picking up her words.

  “…to let me in! There are still those things out here! I’m sure of it!”

  Kevin found himself looking past her on the screen, and sure enough, he thought he could make out the signs of people there, moving with the odd purposelessness that suggested the aliens had them.

  “We should let her in,” Kevin said. “We can’t just leave someone out there.”

  “She’s not wearing a mask,” Luna pointed out.

  “So?”

  Luna shook her head. “So if she’s not wearing a mask, how is the alien vapor not converting her? How do we know that she isn’t one of them?”

  As if in answer to that, the girl on the screen moved closer to the camera, staring straight up into it.

  “I know there’s someone in there,” she said. “I saw the camera move. Look, I’m not one of them, I’m normal. Look at me!”

  Kevin looked into her eyes. They were wide and brown, but most importantly, the pupils were normal. Not shifted to pure white the way the scientists’ had been when the vapor from the rock had claimed them, or the way his mother’s had been when he’d gone home…

  “We have to let her in,” Kevin said. “If we leave her out there, the controlled people will get her.”

  Sure enough, Kevin could see figures in military uniform moving forward, moving in unison, obviously under the aliens’ control.

  He ran for the airlock and used the key Dr. Levin had given him to open it. Beyond, the girl was there waiting, while the former soldiers were closing in now, breaking into a run.

  “Quick, inside!” Kevin said. He pulled the girl inside the airlock, because there was no time to waste. He went to pull the door closed, knowing that they would be safe the moment it was there between them and the controlled who advanced on the base.

  It didn’t budge.

  “Help me,” Kevin shouted to her, hauling on the door and feeling the solidity of the steel beneath his hands. The girl grabbed hold of it with him, pulling at the door, throwing her weight back to try to move it.

  A little way away, the former soldiers were advancing at a run, and it was all Kevin could do to keep his attention on the door, not on them. It was the only way he could keep his terror at bay and focus on throwing his own weight back, pulling at the door.

  Finally, it gave way, grinding into motion as they dragged it closed. Kevin heard the echo of it as it slammed, locking with a click that rang around the airlock.

  “Decontamination Procedure Starting,” an electronic voice said, the way it had when Kevin and Luna had first arrived. There was the rush of the air being cleaned by the bunker’s filters around them.

  “Hi, I’m Kevin,” he said. He suspected that there should be something more dramatic to say at a moment like this, but he couldn’t think of it.

  The girl was silent for a moment or two, then seemed to realize that Kevin might be expecting an answer. “I’m Chloe.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Chloe,” Kevin said.

  She looked at him quietly, as though assessing him, and seemed almost ready to run. “Yeah, I guess.”

  The other door to the airlock clicked open. Luna was waiting for them, smiling her most welcoming smile, even though she’d been the one arguing against letting Chloe in.

  “Hello,” Luna said. She held out a hand. “I’m Luna.”

  Chloe stared at it, then shrugged without taking it.

  “This is Chloe,” Kevin said for her.

  Chloe nodded in not very enthusiastic agreement, looking around warily.

  “Where is everyone?” she demanded at last.

  “There’s no everyone,” Luna replied. “There’s just us. Me and Kevin.”

  She stepped over next to Kevin as if to emphasize that they were a team. She even put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Just you two?” Chloe said. She sat down on one of the command center’s chairs, shaking her head. “All this way, and it’s just you two?”

  “Where have you come from?” Kevin asked.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Chloe said, not looking at them.

  “I think it kind of matters a bit,” Luna shot back. “I mean, you’ve shown up out of nowhere, and you’re asking us to trust you.”

  Chloe
looked over sharply, shrugged again, and then walked out of the room. Kevin went after her, mostly because he suspected that if Luna went after her there might be some kind of argument, and also because there was something intriguing about Chloe. There were so many things they didn’t know about her.

  “You don’t need to follow me,” Chloe said, looking back as Kevin followed her along one of the corridors.

  “I thought I could show you round,” Kevin said. “You know… if you want.”

  Chloe shrugged once more. There seemed to be nuances to her shrugs, and it seemed that this one meant okay. Kevin wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.

  “We’ve been looking around since we got here,” Kevin said. “There’s a kitchen and a storeroom down here, and some bathrooms here. This is the dormitory where we’re sleeping. Pick out a bed if you want. I’m down that way, and so is Luna.”

  Chloe picked a bed. It was the other side of the room from the ones Luna and Kevin had chosen.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said, “but I don’t know you, and…” She shook her head, not finishing that. There was a haunted look to her as she did it.

  “Are you okay?” Kevin asked.

  “I’m fine,” Chloe shot back, but then softened her voice a little. “I’m fine. I’ve just been used to looking after myself for a while. I guess I’m not very good at opening up to people.”

  “Okay,” Kevin said. He stepped back toward the door. “I can go if you don’t want to—”

  “I ran away from home,” Chloe said. It was enough to stop Kevin where he was.

  “What?”

  “I mean, before the aliens came,” Chloe continued. “My mom shouted at me all the time, and my dad was… well, some stuff happened, and they all said I was crazy… anyway, I have a cousin up north. I thought if I could get to him, I’d be okay, and then the aliens came.”