“It’s a Hitler Youth knife,” Kent answered.
“Are you a Nazi?” Janice asked. “If you are, could you please vacate my premises?
“Have you met many Jewish Nazis?”
“No. Can’t say I have.” Janice looked confused.
I felt confused. “Janice, I’m sorry but we don’t have time for this. Get Clarence. Now!”
An alien’s hand wrapped around her face from behind. She was yanked into her house. I screamed. Freddie woke up. He screamed. Kent fired into the house, but quickly whipped around to face Freddie and me.
“Get low!” he bawled. I did. He fired two shots over our heads then ran and pulled me back upright. He dragged us toward his pickup; tears were running down my face, Freddie’s too. An alien was dead, on the hood of Kent’s pickup.
He dragged me to the passenger side door, opened it up, and pushed us in. He slammed the door shut, pulled the alien off the hood, got in the pickup, and started the engine again. He threw his shotgun on the dash and hit the gas. The wheels spun on Janice’s lawn for a moment, then the vehicle sped away.
I sat in silence, tears still running. Freddie was sobbing, hugging into me. That made more tears flow from me. Our neighborhood was soon behind us. Trees were whooshing past us on both sides; Kent was pushing the pickup to reach its top speed.
Janice was my rock. The foundation I was building on to start a new life. She was stopping me from wasting away, from just sitting in and crying myself into a stupor, night after night. I loved that woman. Now she was dead. Everyone I loved was leaving me, apart from Freddie. I still had my boy.
I wiped some tears away. “Are we safe?” I asked.
“For now,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the road.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, son?”
“Janice, did the monster get her?”
“No. It just dragged her back inside. She’d promised to make him some lemonade, it was just very thirsty.”
“Bullshit.”
“You’re right,” said Kent. “That is a smart kid.”
“I’m sorry, Freddie.” I hugged him even tighter.
“Is she asleep?”
“Yes, she’s asleep.” I swallowed, trying to fight back the need to cry and the want to scream at God.
“Like daddy?”
“Yes, just like daddy.”
“I’m never sleeping again.”
“I don’t think any of us will.”
More silence. More trees whooshing by.
Freddie fell asleep. I wiped the tears from my face again and then smiled at him. I had to sniffle, so I did. “Sorry,” I said to Kent.
“Don’t worry about it.” Kent sniffed snot down his throat, rolled his window down, spat it outside, and then rolled the window back up again. He turned to me and smiled.
I smiled back. “Could I ask you a question?”
“I took the knife from an enemy soldier, during the war.”
“What war?”
“The big one, the one with Nazis.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You’re not old enough to have fought in that war. How old are you? You look to be in you late thirties.” I was starting to be concerned that I’d jumped into a vehicle with a mentally unstable person, one that had a fucking shotgun.
“I am, or was, my body still is.”
“I’m confused.”
“I was old enough to fight. And I did. I found one of the alien pods, just like the one you had in your backyard. I made the mistake of touching it, something happened when I did. We’re still not sure what, since then I’ve not aged, but that might change now.”
“I have so many questions, I don’t know where to begin.” My head was dizzy from them. I needed to get them out. It would allow me to be more focused on survival, and maybe less concerned Kent was a crazy person.
“They dropped the pods during the war. It was the perfect cover, you see? Bombs were getting dropped most places. They have been waiting all this time to attack, we think they have some kinda timer on them, designed to open after a period of time had past.
“We believed that something inside the pod was pumping a substance into the aliens, preserving them, keeping them young, feeding them, and keeping them nourished. That’s what is believed to have happened to me when I touched the pod I found, that maybe I got some of that stuff on me. As well as not aging since the war, I’ve not had to drink or eat.
“The pod I found is at the military base we’re heading to. That’s where I spend most of my time. The scientists there study the pod … and me. Most of their work has been simple guesswork, until now. We couldn’t get in the pod. We couldn't figure out how to open it, we couldn’t cut into it to open it up, but it opened all by itself when these other ones popped up.
“We had no way of finding where the other pods were buried too, or if any others were, no way of tracking their locations. We got lucky with the one I found, it was a dud, I guess you could say, it didn’t dig down deep enough to be hidden.”
I didn’t know what to say. “LOOK OUT!” I screamed. An alien was in the middle of the road. Kent was going too fast to break. He ran right into it. The alien folded onto the front of the pickup, its top half on the hood.
Kent grabbed his shotgun, aimed the barrel at the alien, and fired. The blast shattered the windscreen into a million pieces and took the alien’s head off. The body fell under the pickup, which bumped upward, twice, as the alien went under the wheels. The vehicle started to skid. Kent dropped the gun, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and regained control.
I looked at him and let out a long breath. He did the same at me. Freddie woke up. “Mommy, what’s going on?”
“A bug hit the windscreen,” Kent said with a smile.
“Yuck.” Freddie pulled a face.
“Very yucky.” Kent added.
“I’m cold, Mommy.”
“The bug smashed the window,” I said.
“It must have been a big bug,” Freddie said as he began to shiver.
“There’s a blanket under your seat.”
“Thanks,” I said to Kent. I reached under the seat and wrapped Freddie in the blanket. “Is that better?”
“Yep.”
“Good.”
More silence. Wind whistled in through the front of the pickup now.
“What’s the plan, once we get to the base?” I asked Kent after clearing my throat.
“The plan is to find someone who has a plan.”
“I’m not sure I have much confidence in that plan.”
“It's the best plan we have.”
“Can’t you think of a new plan?”
“I plan to. Once I’ve found someone who has a plan.”
I smiled. “I didn’t plan on spending my evening like this.”
“Neither did I. I had plans.” It was Kent’s turn to smile.
“What’s it like, not growing old?”
“Pretty shitty, to be honest with you.”
“Why?”
“It’s not much fun watching people you love age, then die.”
“I imagine it isn’t.”
“That all might change now.”
“How do you mean?”
“Since the timer on those pods has finished ticking, whatever has been keeping me young might have run dry too.”
“You figure you will start to age?”
“That’s my theory. It might have already started.”
“How will it work?”
“The aging?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck knows. It might be gradual, just like it is for anyone else, or it might be accelerated. I could have another full life ahead of me, or a day, hours, I’ve no idea.”
“Just don’t keel over while you’re behind the wheel.”
“I didn’t plan to.” He smiled again. So did I. “Where’s the boy’s dad?”
“Dead.” I swallowed, my smile now gone.
“That’s what being asleep means to
your kid?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Freddie remember anything about him?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“He talks about painting a model with him. The plane is hung over his bed, from the ceiling, I spin it at night for him, he likes spiny things, it settles him.”
“Do you remember anything about your husband?”
“Of course.”
“Tell me something about him?”
“Um … He loved the movie A Nail for Your Coffin.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Me.” I was able to smile again. “You like that movie?”
“It's a classic, well, it’s shitty, but that’s what makes it a classic.” I laughed. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you think Freddie and you will ever forget those things?”
“Never.”
“Then your husband’s not dead.”
A tear ran down my cheek. I looked to Kent. His eyes were locked on the road. Trees were still whizzing by on both sides. I looked at Freddie; he was asleep, wrapped up nice and warm. He looked so peaceful.
“Could I tell you something?”
Kent sounded nervous for the first time. “Sure.”
“It will seem silly.”
“That’s okay.”
“When I was eighteen I lost my virginity to a girl named Stacy, in the barn at my dad’s farm. We had some issues though.”
“What kinda issues?”
“She had braces. The zipper on my trousers somehow got stuck to her teeth. We had to call the dentist out to our farm, so she could be removed from them. She didn’t want to go home with them hanging from her face, her dad would have killed her.”
I laughed.
“See, I told you it was silly.”
“It is, but I thought that was the point.”
“I don’t know how long I have left, maybe a whole life or a few hours. I do know though, that I don’t have any friends anymore, no family. Will you remember what I’ve just told you?”
“Yes ... You won’t die.”
“Not now you know that stupid story.” He turned to me and smiled.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked.
“I believe in … Holy shit!” An alien jumped from the top of one of the trees up ahead. It landed on the hood of the pickup, crushing the metal, causing smoke to spout.
The engine died. The alien reached its hands in through where the windshield used to be. The pickup started to skid. Then it flipped. The world spun. What was once the bottom became the top. What was once the top became the bottom, over and over again.
The noise was deafening, the pain of being rattled around inside, bouncing off the dash, the seats, the roof, and off Kent, was far from pleasant and too fucking close to horrible. I held Freddie as tight as possible, hoping my body would take the impacts and not his.
The pickup stopped tumbling. It was on its roof, we were on the other side of the roof, the ground zooming under us. The vehicle was skidding down the road, upside down. Sparks were flying. Freddie was crying. I couldn’t see Kent from my position, but it felt like he was on top of me.
The pickup came to a stop. I could feel blood running over my face. I angled so I could see Freddie, he was under me, his eyes wide, his chest rising and falling, blood on him too.
Kent rolled off the top of me, climbed out of the window and onto the road. He reached back in the pickup and grabbed the shotgun. He placed it next to him, then he grabbed hold of Freddie. He pulled him out and then he got me out too.
Once I was able to stand, the ache in my whole body not really wanting me to, I looked at the underside of the pickup, which was now facing the sky. It was on fire. Kent grabbed me by the hand. Freddie was on his back; the shotgun was in his other hand. He shone the flash on the gun down the side of the wreck.
“Fuck me,” he said as he ran, dragging me with him, toward the tress that lined the road.
“What?” I screamed.
“Gas.”
We reached the side of the road. An explosion sounded behind us. The force of the blast took us off our feet. I lost my grip on Kent’s hand and fell into the tree line. I started to roll, tumbling down an incline, the rocks and fallen branches digging into me, intensifying the hurt I already had.
My stomach smashed into the trunk of a tree, all the wind was knocked from me, but at least I wasn’t falling anymore. I slowly got to my hands and knees, I couldn’t have done it with speed even if I wanted to. I coughed, felt something shoot from my mouth and hit my hand. Blood. I couldn’t see it. It was too dark.
I looked to where I’d rolled from, up the hill, toward the road. There was a fire raging. The pickup. “Freddie! Kent!” I managed to holler before a coughing fit started. Once I’d hacked up more of my insides I used the tree to stand. My head was banging. I was dizzy, disorientated.
“Freddie! Kent!” Still no answer.
The branches of the tree I was leaning on started to move, the noise alerting me to the fact. I looked up, my head rushing to try and adjust to the new position it was in. I could make out shapes, silhouetted against the night sky, the branches. They were moving for sure.
Leaves started to fall onto me. Then twigs. I took a step back from the tree, still looking up at it. Then bigger branches started to thud down. Wood was cracking, something was screaming.
An alien dropped down in front of me, its hands outstretched, its long nails aimed at my throat. Its mouths were open; its teeth bared and ready to chomp. It snapped forward.
JUNE
Lexion walked to the driver’s side of a parked car and smashed the window with her biomechanical arm. She reached inside, grabbed hold of the door then pulled it clean off the vehicle, tossing it aside as if it was a piece of scrap paper. It skidded across the floor, flashes of sparks sizzling at it traveled.
A long thin section of metal extended from the top of her fist on the same arm she’d used to pull the door free. She stuck the point of the metal in the car’s ignition and the engine started. She walked to the other side of the vehicle; the metal that had appeared retracting, removed the passenger’s door in the same way, and then did the same to one of the doors at the rear.
She got in the car, sat in the passenger’s seat. “Get in,” she said, looking at Alec and me, seeming confused as to why we already hadn’t. I think we were both in shock, I know I was. It’s not everyday you see a naked chick rip doors off a car. The arm looked as if it gave her super strength. I doubt she’d have been able to do it with her other side, although I had no way of knowing, it was just a hunch.
Alec jumped into the driver’s seat and I got in the back. Lexion used the map again on her wrist. A section of the hologram image started to flash red. “This is where we must go. Can you pilot us there?” she asked Alec. A line drew on the map, from our location, aiming at the flashing destination.
Alec nodded. “Sure can.” He hit the gas, sped toward the ramp that led from the garage and smashed through the barrier. I ducked as we broke through, did a quick look over my shoulder, out the back window, to see the black and yellow wooden barrier fall to the concrete.
Alec spun the wheel to the right and we skidded onto the street. The buildings to the left of us were on fire. Cars had crashed in the street. Alec weaved between some. People were running, screaming. Aliens were chasing them, snapping, and biting off heads when they got close enough.
A body fell onto the road with a blood-splat spraying up; the slap of the impact was sickening. Alec managed to maneuver the car around the body. I looked through where my door should have been, up at a building on our right. People were either jumping or being thrown from windows. My heart sunk. So much death. We were surrounded by it. Some people might have wanted to watch the world burn, I wasn’t one of them.
Lexion leaned out of her side of the car and fired a blast with her arm. An alien burst into a popping bubble of slime. “Don’t concern yourself with
what is happening, I’ll deal with any of the aliens that get too close, just keep driving,” she said to Alec.
I heard gunfire and spun toward it. I saw muzzle flashes down an alley. A body flew from the alley soon after, skidding on the ground, leaving smears of blood. It was a soldier, his helmet rolled from his body as he came to a stop. I swallowed. I had to look away when an alien ran from the same alley and bit the soldier’s head from his shoulders, gulping it down after two quick chomps.
Lexion fired two more shots, this time toward a building’s roof. Two aliens blew. Alec angled the car to the left; we overtook a motorbike that an alien was chasing. The rider was snatched from the bike by the long arm of an alien. Lexion fired a shot over my head. I ducked low, heard the back window smash, and when I was upright again, I could see the sloppy remains of the alien next to the fallen bike and the headless rider.
A truck rumbled into our path, it was as if it came from nowhere. Its load, tree trunks, heaps of them, stacked on top of each other. Two aliens were on the top of them; another was hung from the front of the cab, slashing one of its deadly hands at the driver through a smashed windshield. The driver had his hands up, to cover his face; the claws of the alien were tearing at him. His defensive limbs were covered in red, I thought I saw bone showing.
Lexion shot at the aliens on the rear of the truck first. Her green laser struck some of the fastenings that kept the trunks secure. The trunks rolled from the rear of the truck, the aliens fell, getting crushed under them. She shot again; the trees that had fallen set alight, the aliens going up in flames too. Cries. Screams. Then, explosions. Two of them. Gloopy.
Alec spun the wheel, dodged some of the tree trunks that were rolling toward us, and overtook the truck, just missing the front of the vehicle, passing close enough to it for Lexion to reach her hand out to pull the alien from the front, away from the poor beaten and battered driver.
She had its head locked in her biomechanical hand, crushing it like a ball of putty, pressing it to the road that was whizzing under us, so much black blood flying behind us. She let go of the monster when its head had become vapor, a black smoke full of pulverized alien flesh and brains.
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