by Paul Jones
Emily began to move her left hand very slowly behind her, feeling blindly around until she found what she was looking for.
Click! The thumb-latch to the door was unlocked.
She began to edge ever so slowly to her right; easy does it, she told herself, fighting the urge to simply sprint past the alien spider-thing sitting impatiently on her wall. She knew that idea would be a major mistake on her part. It sensed her but she didn’t think it knew what to make of her and she didn’t qualify as a threat to it just yet. That could all change in a second if the thing became tired of waiting around and decided to simply kill her and get on with joining its buddies that she could still hear moving around the building.
This is beyond surreal, her mind told her as it struggled to come to terms with the impossible situation.
When she judged she’d edged far enough, Emily slowly raised her left arm until she found the security latch, then, ever so carefully she slid it free of its receiver. The creature regarded her dispassionately, continuing to chatter at her while rocking slowly back and forth on its legs as though readying itself to launch at her at any moment. Emily, could feel cold beads of sweat begin to trickle down the nape of her neck, freezing against her skin as it traced its way down her spine. She lowered her shaking hand to the door-handle, pushed down until she heard the latch click, and then slowly pulled.
Inch by inch the door gradually opened, until a foot of space between the jamb and the edge of the door had been exposed, the creature exploded forward, scuttling quickly along the wall before disappearing through the gap.
Emily suppressed a gasp of horror as one of the legs brushed against her hand as the thing shot out into the corridor, its legs gouging holes in the wall as it ran, sending puffs of powdery debris to the floor. She slammed the door shut and quickly reset the thumb-lock and the security chain.
Her mind was telling her to run and find somewhere, anywhere to hide. But where was there to run to—nowhere! She had to press on. She forced her thoughts back to dealing with the situation.
And that was when she noticed the thin streamer of black smoke spiraling up from her open bedroom door. A cloud of smoke had already collected against the ceiling and was now moving slowly in her direction.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” she yelled as she remembered the candle she had left burning in her bedroom. She rushed to the doorway and looked inside. On the bed one of her pillows was on fire, small yellow tongues of flame were slowly consuming the cotton pillowcase. When the creature had dropped through the ceiling, something, either it or a piece of debris, had struck the candle, knocking it off the bedside cabinet where she had left it and onto her bed.
She rushed into the room and grabbed the edge of the pillow furthest away from the flame, trying to avoid burning her hand in the process. Flipping it over Emily threw it to the floor with the flame side down then started stomping as hard as she could until she was sure the fire was extinguished.
Goddammit, that was my favorite fucking pillow.
The room stank of burnt plastic. Emily coughed a couple of times and flipped the pillow up. It was ruined, of course. Her impromptu attempt at firefighting had also left a large scorch mark in the carpet. There goes my security deposit.
Emily let out a long sigh then realized with a sense of dread that now the fire was out the only light was coming from the candles in the outer rooms. She was standing in a virtually dark room with the hole above her head where the creature had dropped through, just minutes earlier. One close encounter of the weird kind was enough for her, she decided. That one was gone but what if more of them decided to pay her a visit while she stood there in the dark? She dropped the still smoking pillow to the floor, gave it a final stomp and then headed out of the room as quickly as her feet would carry her.
Emily picked up the flashlight, turned it on and headed back to the bedroom, peeking her head through the doorway as she scanned the room with the flashlight, ready to run if she was saw any sign of another of the creatures. The room looked empty, so she turned the flashlight toward the hole in her ceiling. It was an almost perfect circle, much like the one she had seen in the window of the crashed delivery truck and the stalled cars. Cut electrical wires dangled from the opening and she could vaguely make out some of the furniture from the apartment the creature had come from. It was a pity the power was off, she thought, chewing through those electrical wires might have fried the little son-of-a-bitch.
She had no way of patching up the hole, it wasn’t like she could call the building manager to come take a look, and there was no way in hell she was going to spend the night in the bedroom with that hole up there and the potential for more of those things to come crawling through. Besides the place stank now.
Tentatively, she stepped back inside her bedroom, keeping her eyes on the hole, just in case another unexpected visitor decided to put in an appearance. The bergen lay where she had left it on the bed, thankfully untouched by the fire. Emily pulled it off and onto the floor, choosing to drag it rather than try to lift it. She reached out with her free hand and pulled the comforter from the bed, pulling both it and her bag of precious supplies out into the corridor before returning to close the bedroom door.
Her earlier encounter with the alien had proved these things had no idea how to deal with a closed door. They seemed quite happy to bore through it rather than simply open it, so she felt sure that she would at least get a heads up if any more of them decided to drop by. She left the bergen in the hallway but took the comforter with her into the living room, shaking off dust and broken bits of ceiling.
Through the apartment window, Emily could see the last vestiges of daylight succumbing to the night. The light from the two candles cast flickering shadows across the walls and her still shocked mind was only too happy to turn those shadows into more of the creatures.
She dropped the comforter onto the sofa—she would spend the night there, she decided—then moved over to the table where she had left the sat-phone. The green LED indicator on the battery-pack showed just three out of five of the green lights lit. It wasn’t fully charged but Emily felt that would be more than enough juice to call the group in Alaska, she could finish the rest of the charge over night. Besides, she really needed to hear another human voice right now.
She disconnected the battery from the charger, popped off the plastic back panel of the phone and pushed the battery into place before reattaching the panel. The phone needed a clear line of sight of the sky to latch on to the satellite signal. There was no way she was going outside again tonight so she would just have to hope her roost by the living-room window would do the trick.
She extended the antenna from the side of the phone, clicked it into place and pressed the red ON switch on the phone’s keypad. The LCD display blinked the message SEARCHING … as it looked for a satellite signal. A minute later and the phone locked onto a signal and the display changed to READY.
She tapped in the number Jacob had given her and waited, listening to the chirrup of his phone ringing at the research base in the Stockton’s. It rang five times before it was picked up and Jacob’s voice answered “Hello, Emily. We were beginning to worry about you.”
* * *
Emily let out a sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension leave her body. She had secretly been harboring the thought no one would answer her call, that maybe something awful had happened in the time since she and Jacob last talked … or that she really had lost her mind and imagined the whole conversation. It was good to know she wasn’t crazy.
She wanted to say something profound to transmit her relief to him but all she could manage was a weak, “Well I guess the phone works.”
Jacob gave a good-humored chuckle, then: “So how are things looking? Are you all set to leave?”
Emily considered telling him about what she had experienced since they last talked but how could she explain something so inexplicable? Best if she just skipped those details for now, so she answered with a simple “Go
od. I’m packed and out of here first thing tomorrow.” She added, “I’m going to send you my route via email, as soon as I figure out how to do that. I’m following your advice and just getting clear of the city as quickly as possible. Once I’m out I’ll identify the best route to get to you guys. Things are getting a whole lot stranger here.”
Jacob sounded as though he was on the verge of asking her to elaborate on her comment but then seemed to think better of it. “Okay,” he said, “that sounds like a plan.” He paused for a moment then added, “Are you sure you’re safe? Do you have protection?”
Emily glanced over at the Mossberg leaning against the wall, “I’m covered,” she said.
They spent the next few minutes hashing out a plan for a daily communication schedule: she would call him at 6:00 pm her time every evening, and if she missed her schedule’s timeframe someone from his group would call her. Emily knew the calls were entirely for her benefit, to give her a sense of connection and safety, something concrete for her to fix on, because both Emily and Jacob realized she was going to be well and truly on her own out there. At least with his calls she could hold onto the illusion of company. Emily was thankful for Jacob’s kindness.
By the time Emily hung up the phone, she felt as confident as she could expect about her chances of reaching the Stocktons, given the circumstances.
Beyond her little apartment, the sounds of alien movement and their incessant calls had ebbed away to almost nothing .Emily began slowly to ease down from the intense emotional high of the day.
She knew she should get some sleep but her nerves were still buzzing. She reconnected the phone to the battery-unit and checked the charge level; four of the five green LEDs were now lit, it would take a little while still for the phone to fully charge but it would definitely be ready in the morning.
She took a can of Diet Pepsi from the counter, popped the top and downed a long swig from it as she moved around the living room back to the window. Darkness had well and truly descended, but the storm clouds that earlier had threatened to blot out the sky had dissipated and a fat full moon cast its glow over the city. With the lights of the city extinguished Emily realized this was the first time she had ever been able to see the stars that, until today, had been invisible to New York’s residents.
Her eyes scanned the shadowy horizon of the greatest city in the world, its towering skyscrapers and mighty financial industries now nothing more than history; a history only Emily Baxter could recall. The poignancy of the moment bit deep into her heart. Her eyes continued to roam over the shadowy rooftops and finally fell on the street below the apartment block. Emily let out a gasp of astonishment, the can of soda almost slipping from her.
The streets below and the rooftops of the stores lining them were nothing but a mass of shifting alien bodies. Thousands of the eight-limbed creatures jostled and pushed for position, scuttling over each other in what appeared to be two distinct streams; one heading north and the other south, moonlight glinting off their red bodies. Her limited view from the window, and the dim illumination, meant she could only see as far as a couple of blocks in either direction. Even so, she was sure she saw each of those streams bifurcate each time they reached a junction as a spur of the creatures left the main stream and headed off to whatever destination called them
It was like watching some strange migration.
The creatures seemed to be communicating on a level imperceptible to Emily or they were driven by a preprogrammed imperative to search and find their objective, whatever that might be.
Emily’s mind immediately flew back to the giant alien trees she had witnessed being built in Central Park. Was this where this exodus was bound? If she rode through the park tomorrow, would she see even more of those tree-like structures? Maybe this time they would be complete as each of these creatures below her sacrificed itself to the structure like some kind of biomechanical building block?
She looked down at the river of alien bodies streaming past her building, her eyes following others as they scuttled over the rooftops and out of buildings, leaping to join the flow of their kin. There was something strangely hypnotic about it. The ebb and flow of these creatures had a certain mathematical quality to it as they scuttled and crawled along.
Although Emily could not hear anything from her 17th floor aerie, she wondered what it would sound like to stand on the sidewalk down there and listen as they clicked and clattered past on their spindly legs: terrifying, she decided. It would be terrifying, like something from the deepest depths of hell.
Emily stepped back from the window and drew the curtains together. In the solitude of her apartment, she resolved not to look out that window again until daybreak.
* * *
An hour later, Emily flicked on the flashlight and blew out the last of the candles as she stifled a long overdue yawn.
She picked up the shotgun and carried it to the sofa, laying it on the floor next to her, within easy reach if the need should arrive. She doubted she would. Each encounter with the creatures seemed to point squarely in one direction: they were nothing but drones, building blocks if you will, for something far larger and much more complicated. If they had wanted to do her harm, well, she knew she would already be dead.
She thought she may have caught sight of some small part of the overall plan out there in the park. The creatures were adding to that structure, building something to only they knew what end. While she did not think these drones were any danger to her unless they were threatened, any plan created by an intelligence that could wipe out the majority of humanity and possibly most other life on this planet in a twenty-four hour period was the purest epitome of evil to her, no matter how unfathomable that plan may be.
It was no longer what had taken place over the past few days that concerned Emily; it was what was coming next that worried her now. She had the distinct feeling she was cutting her evacuation from what was left of New York by as close a margin imaginable, because this city no longer belonged to humanity.
New York and the Earth now belonged to the aliens.
DAY SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
Outside Emily’s apartment window, the dawn sky was a deep fiery red. Emily had half expected to see the streets still crawling with the alien creatures, but as she pulled the curtains apart, she could see the pavement, roads and rooftops below her were once more deserted.
The clouds that had abandoned the sky the previous evening had returned sometime during the night with a vengeance. From horizon to horizon, the sky was quilted in a thick blanket of red-tinged roiling clouds. The red tint looked like simple refraction from the meager light of the early morning sun, but as Emily studied them more closely, she could see the clouds were actually suffused with ribbons of red, layered like strata through the cloud and along each edge. It was a beautiful yet disturbing sight, another piece of the ever-expanding jigsaw puzzle of her world’s transformation from what it once was to what it was rapidly becoming.
She had spent a restless night on the sofa; her sporadic bouts of sleep punctuated by dark dreams of the creatures crawling quietly into her apartment, hundreds of them collecting around her as she slept. She woke from her nightmare when they attacked, soaked in sweat and with a strangled scream caught in her throat.
Finally, she had given up on getting any more rest. Her anxiety level was through the roof and the best cure for that was to just get up and do something … anything. Normally that would have meant an early morning bike ride into the office or a walk along the Hudson to clear her head. Today she decided the best thing to do was simply be on her way.
She could have used a coffee to kick-start the day but she didn’t feel like unpacking the portable cooker, settling instead for a bottle of water she had left out the previous evening. She took a few gulps of the cool water and ran through her to-do-list one final time, mentally checking off each item. When she was sure she had missed nothing, Emily picked up the shotgun from beside th
e sofa and walked into the hallway where she had left the bergen. She wriggled into the straps and fastened the belt around her waist, clicking the plastic clasp securely into place. She took a final moment to gaze at the apartment she had called home for the past six years. Not exactly how I had planned to leave, she thought. She was going to miss this little place. It had been her refuge from the outside world, leaving it behind was going to be painful not only because of her deep emotional investment but because, when she stepped outside that door for the final time, she was also stepping away from the last remnants of her old life and all the security that came with it.
Emily Baxter, a shotgun in one hand and all that was left of her worldly possessions strapped to her back, opened the door to her apartment, stepped outside, and closed the door on her old life as she began a new journey out into the unknown.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
It was a pointless gesture but Emily automatically locked her door behind her. She knew she would never return to the place she called home, in fact, she doubted she would ever see New York again, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.
The corridor outside her apartment looked like it had been the scene of some movie-style shootout. Hundreds of punctures littered the walls and ceiling like bullet holes, the only evidence of the alien exodus she had witnessed the night before. Circular holes, the telltale signs of escaping aliens, had been chewed through doors, ceiling and walls all along the length of the corridor, there were even a couple in the floor where the alien drones, in their frenzy to join the throng gathering outside, had simply chewed down through each consecutive floor.