by Willow Rose
Ridge Manor, Florida
Mary Stephenson drew in a deep breath to calm herself down before she knocked on the door to the meeting room. She hadn't seen Li Xiaoyan all morning and the clock was ticking. There was less than an hour to the execution, according to Arlene. Now Mary wondered if she could talk to the major general about this without letting her know how she knew that they intended to execute Irene.
The door swung open and a soldier looked at her.
"Yes?" he said with a lisp.
"I am sorry. I was looking for Major General Li Xiaoyan? Is she in here? I have a matter of some urgency for her."
The soldier stepped aside and Mary walked in. The room was packed with people standing very close and she could hardly find her way to the meeting table. It was unbearably hot in the room, but Mary seemed to be the only one bothered by it. It was excruciatingly hot everywhere with the power out and no AC.
Li Xiaoyan was sitting at the end of the meeting table. She looked up at Mary as she approached her. Their eyes met for a second.
Weren't her eyes brown yesterday?
Thinking she must have remembered it wrong, Mary shook her head and focused on the task. Her eyes fell accidentally on the corner of the room. Just as Tina had told her, they had put up some big machine of some sort. It looked like a big drill.
Had they drilled a hole in the floor?
"Yes?" Major General Li Xiaoyan said, sticking out her tongue that seemed to be unnaturally long.
Mary returned her focus to why she was there. In the corner, there seemed to be more soldiers coming out of the hole in the ground, like it was spitting them out one after another.
How are they doing that? Focus, Mary. Focus.
"It's about one of our citizens."
Mary put a picture on the table in front of the major general. It was from Irene's house, where Mary had picked it up earlier.
"Irene Pattison?"
Li Xiaoyan looked at the picture, bending her head swiftly up and down. She licked her lips, moving her tongue fast.
"Don't know her."
"No, look at it again," Mary said. "I think you might have her as a prisoner. She was taken from her house."
Li Xiaoyan looked again, then nodded. "Ah, yes, yes. She killed."
"No!"
All eyes in the room were suddenly on her, staring eyes.
Don't these people ever blink?
"You can't kill her," Mary said. "She has a daughter and a husband. She's very important to us."
Li Xiaoyan tilted her head and kept it there, the tip of her tongue emerging between her lips.
"Why?"
"Why? Why is she important to us?"
Li Xiaoyan pointed at Mary. "To you. Why she important to you?"
The question threw Mary off. She tried hard to think of a valid reason. "I care about her."
Li Xiaoyan looked like she didn't understand. She looked at the officer next to her, then at the one on the other side. Then she looked back at Mary almost without moving her head at all.
"No. She die."
"Why? What did she do?"
"Do? What you mean, she do?"
"Wrong. What did she do wrong?" Mary asked, sounding more and more desperate.
Li Xiaoyan looked at her officers once again, then back at Mary. "Enough. Enough you. Now leave."
A bunch of soldiers surrounded Mary and pushed her towards the door, repeating Li Xiaoyan's word, almost chanting it:
"Leave. Leave. Leave."
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ridge Manor, Florida
Joanna looked at the door after Josh had left. She heard the car start up and then - a little later - it drove away.
"He left me here? Without even a word?"
Joanna went back into the living room where the girls had started to draw. Ellie Mae asked for the crayon that Marley was using and, seconds later, they were fighting over it.
Joanna went to the kitchen, grabbed herself another cup of coffee, then found some Oreos in a cabinet and started to eat them. She knew it was the stress that made her eat, but she felt like it helped, at least for a little while. It was better than drinking, a lot better. She had promised herself to not drink when her daughter was awake. Ellie Mae wasn't going to see her like that. Ever.
What if he gets himself killed?
Joanna stuffed her mouth with two cookies more and chewed. She wasn't prepared to lose her brother. Not now when she had finally gotten back here again. Even though he hadn't forgiven her, she had to admit she enjoyed being with him again. Back in the day, they had been very close. Growing up, they were known to be the ones who stuck together through anything. Especially in school. If either of them had troubles or was bullied, the other would stick up for him or her. Joanna remembered the time when two sixth-graders had bullied Josh for a couple of days in a row and Joanna told them off. She got a beating of her own for it, but they left Josh alone from that day on.
To this day, she had never told Josh what she had done for him. It didn't matter anymore, none of it mattered anymore. She wanted them to start over, start from scratch; she wanted him to be her family, especially now that she was alone. She simply couldn't stand the thought that she might lose him now.
She looked at the girls who had settled their fight and were now sharing the crayon, taking turns using it.
I can't just leave them here, can I? No, of course not. But if I take them with me, Marley might end up seeing her own mother get shot. Can I live with that? And if Josh does something stupid and gets himself killed too, then what? Will Marley have to witness it?
Joanna sighed and drank from her cup. She was supposed to keep the girls safe and they were safest out here in the countryside where there were no soldiers and no dangers. Not in town, where people risked getting shot simply for protesting.
No, you must stay and wait it out, Joanna. You have to.
Joanna grabbed another Oreo and chewed it. She thought long about Jack and how he had suffered in the end, how he, in panic, had screamed and cried for her to help him, to make this go away, to end his life, but she hadn't wanted to; she wanted to keep him as long as possible. It had been selfish, but she knew she couldn't live with herself if she did what he asked her to. She couldn't go on knowing she had killed her daughter's only father, had killed the love of her life. There was no way.
But today, she regretted that she hadn't saved him the last couple of days of pain. He was going to die anyway, why did he have to suffer so long?
If only you had told him to go see the doctor once that cough started, like you wanted to, like your instincts told you to, then they could have caught it earlier and maybe he wouldn't have had to suffer and die. Maybe he would still be here.
The thought made her tear up as it did every time. Yet, she couldn't stop thinking about the many things she could have done to make things different, to change the way it had all gone down.
If only you had acted.
Joanna swallowed another Oreo and emptied her cup. She put it down hard on the counter. Joanna walked to Wayne's cabinet in his office, where she knew he hid his gun, and grabbed it. He was supposed to have given all his weapons to the Chinese, they all were, but he had kept one, he told her. As a child, she had grown up shooting with her dad, like most Florida girls did, at least where she came from. She held the gun in her hand and felt its weight. She put it in the waistband of her pants, behind her back, then covered it with her shirt and walked back out to the girls.
"Girls, I’m gonna leave for a little bit. Lock the door behind me and don't open it for anyone you don't know, okay? Wayne has a truck out back. I'm going to take it into town."
Ellie Mae lifted her head and their eyes met. "Okay, Mom. See you later."
Joanna swallowed hard, wondering if she would ever see her little girl again. The thought made her stomach churn.
"Yes, baby. See you in a little bit. Don't you two fight now, do you hear me? No fighting."
Chapter Fifty
&nb
sp; Cape Canaveral, Florida
There was something behind the wall. Martha and Carl both heard the sound coming from the other side. At first, they thought it was a mouse or some other critter because of the scraping sounds, but soon they realized the scraping came in a rhythm, and Martha rose to her feet, put her ear to the wall and said, "Is someone there? Hello?"
"Hello?" a muffled voice said from the other side.
Martha looked at Carl. Her eyes lit up with excitement. "There's someone there, Carl. Someone's in the cell next to us."
"Who are you?" she said, her ear against the wall.
"I'm Bob," he said. "Bob Howell. I'm chief of the Cape Canaveral Police Department. Well…at least I used to be."
"Well, hi there, Bob. I'm Martha, and Carl my husband is here with me. We just got back from the Bahamas and were put in this place. Do you have any idea what is going on?"
Bob sighed. "Well, I don't know if I know much. All I know is that I woke up one morning and, suddenly, they were everywhere. I walked out of my house and they were in the streets, marching by in the thousands. I have never seen so many soldiers before in my entire life. We were told to get back in our houses and stay calm, but how could I? I have my citizens to think about. When I saw them push that old lady…well, I simply lost it. I shot one of them right in the forehead. They put me in here. I’ve been here ever since. In the beginning, I had the company of a major from the air force base, but…well, they got rid of him yesterday."
"What do you mean they got rid of him? What did they do to him?" Martha asked, nervously.
"They killed him, Martha," Carl said.
"Oh."
"Yeah, well, it seems like they only kill those that fight back," he said. "Or get in their way somehow."
"You said that you were with a major from the air force base," Martha said. "How did he end up here?"
Bob sighed. "Well, according to him, they too woke up at the base suddenly to the sound of marching soldiers. How they got onto the base, no one knows, but they were everywhere. None of the guards saw anything. All the power was cut off. They came, not in the hundreds, but by the tens of thousands, he said. Like a surge. It all went so fast they couldn't even set off an alarm to warn people. Some fought back but were killed. There was one soldier, one of our guys, who managed to get to a plane and he shot a few hundred of them but was shot down himself shortly after by our own weapons. Some of the Chinese were killed, but there were still so many it didn't matter. What does it matter to lose a few hundred when you have millions? What seems impossible is how the Chinese got here without us seeing them. There were no airplanes seen on any radar or in the air, no tanks, no submarines or destroyers in the ocean. Nothing. It was like they simply appeared as if out of nowhere. Millions of them, everywhere."
"Wow," Martha said. "Does that mean they're all over the country? I mean…what about the president? Why hasn't he fought back?"
Bob sighed again. "There has been no news from anywhere outside the state, but my guess is, if they're here, they're there too. If they surprised and overwhelmed them in Washington like they did here, then all is lost. I can't forget the major's words that he repeated over and over again: We thought they would come from the air. For all these years, we focused on protecting our airspace because we genuinely thought they would come from the air, launching missiles. Even from the ocean, I could understand, but never the ground. We never thought they would surge from the ground like that. We knew they were coming one day, but we never imagined anything like…this."
Martha fell back on the bench, her back against the wall. She felt so stirred up, she simply refused to believe this was just it for their mighty nation, for them.
"But surely there must be hope found somewhere," she said. She didn't say it very loud and didn't feel very convinced by her own words.
"Right?"
Chapter Fifty-One
Ridge Manor, Florida
She was blindfolded when they brought her out into the town's square. Irene was crying hard and Mary couldn't stand watching.
The Chinese had asked everyone to come to City Hall and no one dared to disobey. Now, they were looking at Major General Li Xiaoyan as she grabbed Irene Pattison by the neck and placed a gun to her head.
"Everyone, listen," she said, her enormous long tongue sliding in and out of her mouth. "This woman fight soldiers and now she die. But one thing you do. Save her."
All eyes were on Major General Li Xiaoyan. Mary could tell they all wanted to ask what it was, but no one dared. Finally, someone did. Mary got worried when she realized it was Josh. They had told him to stay at Wayne's place. He wasn't supposed to be here for this.
"What is it?"
Major General Li Xiaoyan smiled. Her staring eyes moved back and forth, then settled on Josh in the crowd. Josh was sweating heavily. It was painful to watch the desperation in his eyes.
"Josh?" Irene suddenly said from behind the blindfold. "Is that you, Josh?"
"Yes, Irene," Josh said and elbowed his way through the crowd. "It's me." He looked at Major General Li Xiaoyan and said, "Tell me what I can do to save her. I'll do anything. Tell me."
"Good," Major General Li Xiaoyan said. "Desperation good, very good. Tell me where is gateway?"
Josh shook his head. "Gateway? I don't understand?"
Major General Li Xiaoyan leaned forward towards him. "I think you do. I think you do."
The soldiers standing behind her repeated her words. "Think you do. Think you do. Think you do."
Josh shook his head; Mary held her breath.
Don't tell them, Josh. Don't tell them.
"I…I really don't know what you're talking about."
Major General Li Xiaoyan walked closer to him, she reached out her hand and touched his cheek. Josh was shaking heavily. He stared at her face. She was playing with her tongue in her mouth and every now and then it shot out towards Josh.
"You not know, huh?"
"No. I…I really don't know what you're talking about," he repeated. "I really, really don't."
Faster than he could react, Major General Li Xiaoyan shot out her projectile tongue, twice the length of her body, and wrapped it around his neck.
The crowd gasped. Josh screamed, but Major General Li Xiaoyan tightened her grip on him and soon he was choking.
Oh, dear God. What the heck are those things?
Panic was about to erupt. People were screaming, Josh choking, when suddenly the crowd was parted by the sound of someone yelling from the back. They all turned their heads to see Joanna. She was walking up in the middle of it all, gun in her hand.
"Let my brother go, you big ugly lizard," she yelled.
Major General Li Xiaoyan hissed at the sight of her. Her tongue let go of Josh, who fell to his knees, coughing to get his breath. Major General Li Xiaoyan focused all of her attention on Joanna. Joanna pointed the gun at Major General Li Xiaoyan's head. All of the soldiers pointing theirs at her.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Ridge Manor, Florida
Josh was gasping for air. His throat hurt like crazy and he was terrified. How could one woman have a tongue like that?
As soon as the black dots in front of his eyes subsided, he got up and, as his sister held her gun to the major general's head - and while all her soldiers were busy pointing their weapons at Joanna - Josh jumped for Irene, grabbed her hand, and pulled her away, forcefully.
Irene whimpered lightly at first, but as soon as she realized it was her husband's arms that were around her, she relaxed a little. Josh pulled her away from the crowd, onto Lakewood Drive, and found Wayne's old truck parked with the door open and keys still in the ignition.
Josh sighed and sent a grateful thought to his sister, then helped Irene in and got in himself. A flock of soldiers had realized their escape and were coming up behind them, the sound of their boots echoing off the walls of City Hall.
Irene removed her blindfold and looked at him. Shots were fired behind them, but none of them even
hit the truck. As a matter of fact, the bullets seemed to hit everywhere except where they were intended. It made Josh wonder: how could professional soldiers be so bad at aiming? Soldiers in an army that supposedly had taken over the greatest superpower in the entire world?
"Where are we gonna go?" she whimpered.
He shut the door and floored the pedal.
"The swamps," he said. "It's the only place we know that they don't. I grew up fishing in those waters. I can easily lose them in there."
Josh accelerated and lost his persecutors, but as soon as he got rid of them, more emerged from the streets, throwing themselves at the car. He accelerated the truck further and the soldiers fell off one after another, some of them being run over by the truck afterwards. More soldiers emerged, most of them were knocked down, others clung to the truck, even though he pushed the truck to more than a hundred miles an hour.
"How are they clinging to the truck?" Irene said as she saw one of them right outside her window. "And what's with their hands?"
Josh hadn't noticed it before, but now he did. They only had two fingers on each hand and those big claw-like fingers, looking a lot like talons, could grasp and hold onto things in a pincer-like arrangement, reminding him of the way a bird would grasp onto a branch.
"I don't like this, Josh," Irene screamed.
The soldier outside of her window shot his tongue at her window and it stuck. Seconds later, the window disappeared.
Irene screamed and leaned towards Josh to get away from it. The window was thrown into the street, the soldier now crawling in, shooting his tongue at Irene, leaving thick slimy saliva on the dashboard as it missed her.
"What are those things, Josh? What the heck are they?"
"I don't know," Josh said with a whimper as the soldier crept closer to Irene and wrapped his tongue around her arm and started to pull.