by Willow Rose
"What is this?"
If this is an invasion, then why are there no helicopters? Why are there no tanks? Where is the smoke and the explosions? Someone should be fighting, right? Where is our military? Where are our guys?
Josh felt confused. Someone knocked on his window and he jumped. It was Nick from the auto shop.
"Get out of here, Josh. Hurry. They shot Mrs. Kilcommons. They shot her right there in the middle of Treiman Boulevard."
"They did what?"
"Shot her in cold blood. I’m sure they’ve killed others as well. I saw one soldier beat up Steve from the gas station because he got in their way. Don't get in their way, Josh. They won't hesitate to kill you. Better get out of here while you can. Me and Tim are getting out of town now."
"Well, get in," Josh said. "I'll drive you. We'll all get out of here."
"Thanks, man," Nick said and they both jumped in.
Josh turned the car around and rushed in the opposite direction, back toward Gardenia Way.
"I just need to grab Irene and Marley on the way."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ridge Manor, Florida
As usual, Mayor Stephenson took the back road to get to the bank. It kept her out of the traffic on Treiman Boulevard. Not that it was really that bad, but this was just faster. Plus, she could park behind the building and walk in from the back. That way, she wouldn't have to deal with complaining citizens in the morning hours.
Mary drove up Orchid Parkway and parked behind the bank, whistling as she checked her hair in the mirror. She still couldn't stop chuckling when thinking about Wayne and his rambling the night before.
It was sad, it really was, but also a little funny.
"Chinese invasion, tsk," she said, shaking her head as she opened the door to the car. And that was when she heard it. The sound of stomping boots was almost deafening. She slammed the door behind her shut with a, "What the heck?"
Curious as to what would make such a strange noise in her usually very quiet small town, she walked around the building till she reached Treiman Boulevard. She had no words for the sight that met her on the other side. Yet some words still left her lips.
"Oh. My. Word."
And then the inevitable followed, "I can't believe it. Wayne was right. Wayne was right. Wayne…"
Mary stood for a very long time, at least that was how it felt, staring at the marching green-uniformed soldiers on her street. Never had she seen a sight this surreal. She heard someone scream and then a person came running up to her. It was Mrs. Young, who had stopped looking young when she was just thirty years old and had turned gray overnight. She worked at the bank as a secretary.
"Oh, dear Lord, Mary. It's terrible. Did you hear?"
Mary didn't even look at Mrs. Young. Her eyes were fixated, mesmerized by the sight in front of her. She felt completely paralyzed.
"Hear what?"
"They shot someone. In the street."
She looked at the small woman next to her, not sure she quite understood. "They shot someone? Who?"
"Mrs. Kilcommons," she said, her lips quivering.
"What?"
Mrs. Young started to cry. It was hard to understand what she said, but Mary got the idea.
"They shot her. Right down there. The body is still there. They didn't even move it. Just marched on and on, trampling on the poor woman. There must be thousands of them. Where did they come from, Mary?"
"I…I…don't have the faintest idea."
"What do they want?"
"I don't know that either."
Mary grabbed her phone and looked at it. She had been without signal all morning and it was still not there. Not even the Internet worked. There was no way of contacting anyone. She worried about her sister, Marie, who lived in a handicap facility in Orlando.
"It's terrible, Mary. What are we to do? Our beautiful little town. We'll have to leave it."
"Well…if they're here, then they're probably everywhere else too."
Mrs. Young looked up at Mary with eyes that seemed almost unrealistically big for this small creature. It was obvious the woman hadn't even thought about that.
"Oh, dear God."
Mary sighed and grabbed Mrs. Young by the arm. They walked around the building, out of sight.
"You got that right. God is about the only one who can help us now."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ridge Manor, Florida
Joanna had a terrible headache from the vodka when she woke up. Ellie Mae was already awake, sitting in her bed, writing in her notebook like she did every morning. It wasn't like a diary or anything where she recorded everything she did; no, it was a notebook filled with stories of the strangest creatures and worlds you couldn't even imagine. At least, Joanna couldn't. She had never had much of an imagination. She could put emotions and reality into words in her songs, but never imagine new things, things that weren't really there. The girl got it from her father. Jack had been quite the storyteller and he used to always get the job of telling goodnight stories, except for the time when he told a story of a bird that ate some little girl's skin. That story gave Ellie Mae such terrible nightmares that she kept waking up at night screaming in terror. After that day, he wasn't allowed to tell stories for two months. And not until she had him promise he would never tell another horror story.
Joanna smiled at the memory. She wondered if she should have written stories like that down in a notebook of her own. Her biggest fear right now was forgetting him, forgetting the little things like how he smelled, or how he looked at her when he thought she didn't see it. She reminded herself of these things daily. Especially the way he spoke, how his lips moved, how a lock of his hair always fell back onto his forehead after he had run a hand through it.
You were beautiful, Jack.
"Good morning, pumpkin," Joanna said.
Ellie Mae raised a hand to silence her mother. Joanna smiled again. The girl really got into her stories once she started writing them. Ellie Mae wrote a couple of words more, then stopped and closed the book. She looked at her mother and smiled an endearing smile.
"I'm hungry."
"Let's go grab something to eat," Joanna said.
"You think Wayne has food?" Ellie Mae asked.
Joanna shrugged. She didn't really like to keep eating his food. He wasn't exactly wealthy.
"Maybe we should go to the diner today, huh? The Smokehouse Grill? Have some of Miss Trudy's pancakes."
"Sure," Ellie Mae said.
Joanna sighed, thinking about money. She had to keep her spending down because she had no idea how long it had to last. It was no fun not having any money to spend on her daughter and not knowing when she'd start earning some again. Maybe the sale of the inn would go fast, she comforted herself.
"All right, girly. Get dressed."
Ellie Mae rushed to the suitcase, pulled out a shirt, and looked at her mother. "I wore this yesterday and the day before too."
"Then grab another one."
Ellie Mae pulled out another shirt and held it up. "This one doesn’t even fit me anymore."
"Then grab a third one."
"I don't like any of the other ones."
Joanna closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She hadn't bought Ellie Mae any new clothes for at least a year and the girl was growing like crazy. But now was not the time to spend money on clothes.
"Sure, you do. How about that green one, huh? The one with the tiger on it?"
"It's ugly. And kind of childish."
"What? You like tigers. Tigers are your favorite animals, always have been. What's wrong with tigers now?"
Ellie Mae shook her head. "No, I still like tigers; I just don't like that green shirt."
"Can't you just wear it anyway?" Joanna asked. "I don't really have anything else right now, okay?"
Ellie Mae sighed, then nodded. "Okay."
She put on the shirt while Joanna got dressed as well, thinking about today and how she was going to get through it
. She had to find somewhere else to sleep by tonight and preferably without having to pay for it. At least not too much. How was she supposed to find that?
Joanna opened the door to the bedroom and walked out into the hallway.
"What's all this?" Ellie Mae asked coming up behind her.
"I…I don't know…" Joanna said, concerned. She looked around the hallway that was covered with stacked boxes. All the windows, including those leading to the road, were covered with plywood now.
"What's in those boxes?" Ellie Mae asked and looked into one that was open. She pulled out a can of chicken noodle soup.
"Food?" Joanna asked and peeked inside the box. Nothing but cans and then more cans. In all of them.
"What the heck is going on here? Where is Wayne?"
Joanna walked to the front door, but sandbags and wooden planks blocked it. Her heart started to race in her chest as she slowly realized all the doors and windows had been blocked off. There was no way out.
They were trapped.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ridge Manor, Florida
He knew something was terribly wrong as soon as he drove back up the driveway. The house had been broken into. The windows were smashed in, the door knocked down. Josh hit the brakes and jumped out, ran to the stairs and inside the house. Broken glass was on the floor, Irene's favorite vase that she had inherited from her grandmother was shattered all over the carpet in the living room.
"Irene?" Josh asked, fighting to keep the panic down. "Irene?"
Nick and Tim came in after him. They stood behind him while Josh looked at the dirty boot prints on the carpet.
"Whoa. This doesn't look good," Nick exclaimed.
"Irene?" Josh called again, finding it harder and harder to keep the fear at bay. He tried to keep his voice even, but there was a desperation - perhaps even panic - bleeding through.
"Marley? Irene?"
Josh continued through the living room, where the couches were turned upside down, mirrors had been smashed, and all their family photos were scattered on the floor. He ran into the kitchen where all their plates were smashed across the wooden floors. In the middle of the floor was Irene's favorite cup with the words HOME IS WHERE MY MOM IS, except all it said now was the last part, WHERE MY MOM IS. Josh stepped in the spilled coffee. It had milk in it, the way Irene took her coffee. She was the only one who took it with milk. Josh liked his black with a little sweetener. No milk.
Where are they? Where on Earth are they?
"Irene? Irene? IRENE!"
The name echoed in the empty house. Josh could hear his own heavy breathing, but there was no sound of them. No yelling, no calling his name, no We're here! Not even screaming. Just the terrifying sound of his own heartbeat.
"Whoa, man," Nick said. "Is this blood?"
Josh turned to look at him. Nick was kneeling by the cabinets. "Here, on the corner," he said.
Josh rushed to the cabinet and bent down. It was blood, all right, on the corner where Marley had hurt herself so many times running (or just as often twirling) past too fast. A thick lump of blood that had run down the side of the cabinet in three very even stripes.
Please. Please, don't let it be theirs.
Josh stood up tall. The kitchen had started to spin around him while he desperately cried out, this time letting all his fear and panic be heard in his voice, "Irene? Marley? IRENE? MARLEY?"
Still, nothing but the infamous silence.
"I don't think they're here," Tim said and approached him. "I was just upstairs and all the rooms up there look just like here, but no one was there. The house is completely trashed."
"Why?" Josh asked. "Why would they do this? Why would anyone do this?"
"It's an invasion, man," Nick said. "Do they need a reason?"
Josh looked at him. He felt like punching him in the face.
"Dude, we should get out of here," Tim said with a sniffle.
"But…" Josh felt paralyzed. "But I can't leave without my family."
"I’m afraid you have to, man," Nick said. "We need to get out of here before they come back. I don't know where Shannon is either. She went to work this morning in town is all I know. I would love to go back and look for her, but if we don't get out of here now, I don't think we ever will."
Josh stared at the man from the auto shop. That was about all he knew about Nick, that he worked on cars and was married to Shannon. They lived across the street from each other, and the women were good friends, yet the men had hardly ever spoken. Nothing more than a few polite phrases. Josh had never thought he would have anything to talk to the guy about. Their worlds were too different, he had believed. He had never thought they would ever end up needing each other, but that they did. Right now, they needed each other more than anything.
"All right," he said. "Let's get out of here."
They rushed to the car and got in. Josh turned the key when suddenly he remembered something.
"The hatch."
"What was that?" Tim asked from the passenger seat.
Josh turned to face him. "There's a hatch in the closet in the bedroom downstairs. You can't see it because we put carpet in there, covering it, it was an extra piece we had left over from the rest of the bedroom. We put it in the walk-in closet because Marley often played in there and we wanted the ground to be soft for her."
"So what, man?" Nick asked anxiously.
Josh stared out of the windshield for a few seconds, then killed the engine.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Tim asked.
Without a word, Josh ran inside, ran through the living room to the bedroom in the back. He opened the closet, let his fingers caress the carpet gently till he found the edge of the hatch, then pulled it open forcefully.
His heart literally stopped when he saw Marley. She was in there, crumpled up in a fetal position, still dressed in her pink tutu skirt.
"Marley, baby."
She looked up. "Dad?"
"Honey. It's me. It's me," he said. "Baby? It's your dad. I’m here. I found you. I really found you."
The girl reached up so he could grab her in his arms and pull her out. She was crying heavily. "Oh, Daddy. It was terrible. They took Mommy. They took Mommy. I don't know where she is!"
He kissed her frantically on the cheeks.
"Shh, shh, baby. It's okay. You're with me now. I’m gonna get you out of here." He started walking, carrying the girl in his arms.
"You were smart. You remembered we had talked about this, didn't you? Joking about it, that if anything bad ever happened, if monsters ever came in the house, you could hide in that room."
"They came, Daddy. The monsters came," she said, still crying. "And they took Mommy."
"Shh," Josh said as he reached the stairs outside and took one after another, careful not to trip. He wanted to tell her he believed they would get Mommy back, but he couldn't get himself to say the words. They couldn't leave his lips and, as he approached the car, he realized he no longer felt so sure they would.
Chapter Thirty
Ridge Manor, Florida
Mary Stephenson and Mrs. Young were still watching the soldiers filing past the window at the bank. Others had joined them: Al, their handyman; Lulu, their cleaning lady who usually cleaned the bank and left before everyone else came in, but hadn't dared to leave the place yet; a couple of tellers, Jonas Wickham and Michelle Brown; and their new loan officer, Sara Spearhead.
All of them were watching, completely paralyzed, as the parade kept going on for what felt like forever.
Every now and then, Mary would look at her phone and check to see if she could get a signal, but nothing seemed to be working. Not on the computers in the bank either. No Internet connection and no TV kept them out of reach of the world. And no lights either. The power was completely out. She had no idea how far this reached. Was it the entire country? And where were their soldiers? Why wasn't anyone fighting this?
It made no sense.
How did people manage before th
ey had the Internet?
"I can't even see an end to it," Sara said, biting her nails. "How are we supposed to get home?"
Mary drew in a deep breath. They had tried to go out the back, but by now the entire parking lot behind the bank was swamped with soldiers as well. No one dared to approach them after what happened to Mrs. Kilcommons.
What were they going to do?
"You're the mayor," Lulu the cleaning lady said, addressed to Mary. "Can't you do something?"
"Yeah, don't you have like an emergency plan for this type of situation?" Jonas, the teller, asked.
"I…I have to say we don't. We have emergency preparedness for hurricane evacuations but not for…I don't even know what to call this."
Al shook his head. "My dad always told me this was going to happen. You know he lived in Poland when the Germans arrived. Said it happened out of the blue. One morning, they were just there, everywhere. Next thing he knew, he was on the run, trying to get away before they got him. Luckily, he managed to escape. Thought we would be safe here in America, but I guess nowhere is ever safe, huh?"
"I’m sure it's not…"
Mary wanted to say that it was nothing like back then, but how did she know? When they had no contact with the outside world, how could she know if this was a full-blown invasion of the entire country or not? It was hardly likely it was only this town, right?
"Let's wait and see before we draw any conclusions," she said.
"Donuts anyone?" Michelle, the other teller, asked. They all turned to look at her, baffled at the suggestion. Michelle shrugged. "Why not, right? I bought them on the way here. It's my birthday. I wanted to hand them out later in the morning, but why not eat them now…while we can?"
They looked at one another as if they wanted to make sure it was all right to eat donuts in the middle of a Chinese invasion, but who knew what the rules were? Not one of them had ever been in such a situation before.