by Kody Boye
“I’m scared too,” she offered. “But at least we have each other, and at least this is the last road we have to travel on before we get to Austin. Right?”
“Right,” I said, then nodded.
I didn’t want to confide in her at that moment—to share fear I knew she couldn’t handle. It was obvious that she was scared too. I could see it in her eyes, in her lips, in the way she shuffled her feet through the snow. We were terrified, yet neither of us wanted to admit that, after all this time, it could be the one night we were caught out in the open.
That scared me senseless.
With a sigh, I shuffled forward and took my place beside my friend.
Regardless of what happened, we at least had each other.
We didn’t find a house by the time the sun set. With no other way to seek shelter, we angled ourselves beneath the trunk of a massive pine and covered up with a pair of blankets as we watched the sun fall.
“You okay?” Asha asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, scooting closer to her. “Are you?”
“I’m scared out of my mind, but yeah—I think I’ll be okay.”
“We could always keep walking, you know? See if we find anything else?”
“I’m too tired to walk anymore.”
I couldn’t blame her. Though I couldn’t tell time by the way the sun fell, I knew, based solely on the fact that we’d risen at dawn, we’d been walking for ten, if not eleven hours. My body ached, my feet throbbed, my bones screamed bloody murder. It felt like someone had tried to drive a nail into the base of my heel, such was the pain I endured.
Rather than think on it, I opened the pack at my feet and pulled out a pair of bottled waters.
“Thanks,” Asha said as I passed hers over.
“No problem,” I said, taking a sip of my water as she popped the cap on her own. “So… how are we going to do this?”
“You mean the watch?” Asha asked. She capped her water, settling it between her knees and taking hold of the gun across her lap. “I’ll go first, then you can go until you start feeling tired. We’ll keep alternating until the sun comes up.”
“You really think that’ll work?” I asked. She nodded. “But what if we both fall asleep?”
“Then just go as long as you can,” Asha offered. “All I know is that I’m ready to pass out, but I’ll force myself to stay awake if I have to.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the two of us to fall asleep at the same time. I mean, we were hours away from civilization. Surely the Harvesters had no reason to land out in the middle of nowhere, much less a copse of trees. Regardless, I knew I couldn’t argue with Asha. As I settled back against the tree and closed my eyes, she sighed and adjusted her position against the trunk.
“This isn’t going to be an easy night,” she said.
No. It wasn’t.
By the time Asha shook me awake, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all.
“You okay?” she asked as I leaned forward and took the gun from her arms.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”
She didn’t respond. Rather, she simply considered me with eyes I could not see before lying back against the tree and closing her eyes. It took her much less time to fall asleep than it had, and by the time her soft breaths pierced the silence of the night, I felt ready to fall back to sleep myself.
But I couldn’t.
Once again, I was a Guardsman—guarding against the night and the horrors within it. Out there, I knew we had much more than just Coyotes and Harvesters to worry about. Though I didn’t think there were bears or wolves in Texas, I knew for a fact there were jackals and foxes. I was also aware of the reality that we were coming upon the outskirts of Austin—which meant the Austin Zoo; which meant wild animals that could have gotten out of or have been freed from their cages.
I swallowed.
The closer we walked toward town, the more dangers we were likely to face.
I lifted the gun as I heard a snap in the distance and aimed the weapon into the darkness, unsure where the noise had come from. I imagined it was just a rabbit, or an owl, or an owl hunting a rabbit. Either way, it’d been the first noise I’d heard since waking up. I didn’t want to chance it.
With a shrug, I shifted the blankets from my shoulders, stood, and flexed the muscles in my legs.
I didn’t want to reach for the flashlight. I really didn’t. If there did happen to be a wild animal in the woods, then I didn’t want to see it. But if it saw me before I it, what would happen? Would I get attacked? Bitten again? Killed? And what of Asha, all prone and defenseless?
I reached down for the pack just in time to hear another snap.
I jolted back into a standing position.
It came again—closer that time.
“Whoever you are,” I said, trying to make my voice deep and intimidating, “leave. You’re not wanted here.”
A rustle in the nearby bushes caused me to jerk my gun to the side. I was about to fire the weapon when the silhouette of a deer appeared.
“Thank God,” I breathed, lowering my arms.
The deer fell suddenly, then convulsed three times before ceasing to move.
I looked up.
Something white and ominous stepped from the bushes. It resembled a person, but not, with long, gangly limbs, white skin, and eyes that sank so far into its head I wondered if it had a brain at all. It opened its mouth in a smiling gesture and extended a finger toward me.
I fired.
As the flash from the gunfire lit the creature’s being, illuminating it for but one moment, I realized that it resembled one of the aliens in my dreams, though possessed far lighter skin and much more emaciated features.
Asha screamed.
I ran back to her side, desperately clawing for the pack that had been lying at my feet before the deer and the creature had appeared. “We have to leave.”
“What is that thing?” She sobbed as she hauled herself to her feet.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We walked as fast as we could away from the scene. Down the road we went until the moon passed over the horizon and our spirits began to wane. Always, Asha questioned what had happened—where it had come from, why it had appeared, what it had wanted, and why it had killed the deer. I could only imagine that it wanted something to do with us, but when she continued to question me, I could only say one thing:
“I think it wanted us found.”
To this, Asha had no reply. Rather, she continued to cry, letting the tears fall as we continued down the road that bid us ill will. She crossed her arms under her breasts and hugged herself tightly. I continued to lead us, gun in my arms and the muzzle set ahead.
Why had that creature appeared in the woods? Why was it even on the ground? And why had it tried to make contact with us?
I couldn’t fathom its logic when it’d stumbled across us—when, after ripping the deer’s neck out, it’d walked into the copse of trees and found us, but two girls, in the thicket. Maybe it would’ve tried to establish contact. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Either way, it was dead, and no longer a threat to us.
I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if it had reached out to its companions upon seeing us.
It’s been proposed that They can communicate through telepathy, Captain Henshaw had once said.
If that was true, Asha and I were screwed. If not… then who knew what was to come.
I reached out and brushed a hand along her arm only for her to instinctively jerk away. “Hey,” I said. “It’s just me.”
“I know,” she managed, reaching up to rub the tears from her eyes.
“You gotta stop crying. We’re fine.”
“It’s just… I’ve never seen one of… Them.”
“I don’t think that was one of Them,” I offered. “It was too thin, too gangly, too… tall.”
“What?” Asha asked. “They’re supposed to be different?”
“Shor
ter. Grayer. With bigger, blacker eyes.”
She sniffled and trained her attention on the path before us. “Ana,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“You think we’ll make it to Austin?”
I could only hope.
We walked throughout the night until we came across the first of a series of farmhouses that extended beyond the Austin city limits. Knowing we were close and we would soon be upon the city, we veered off the beaten path toward one of the farmhouses. Upon its porch we sat, not bothering to try and break in, and watched as the distant sun began to rise in the far east.
“We made it,” Asha said, acknowledging the stretch of road that led toward the central part of the city.
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “We did.”
A yawn escaped her lips as she stretched her arms over her head. Desperate to keep her eyes open, she leaned forward to study the horizon before turning her eyes on me. “I’m sorry I lost my head last night,” she said. “It’s just… I’d never seen anything like that before.”
“Neither had I,” I replied.
“But you had the gun. You weren’t woken out of a dead sleep.”
You had visions, I knew she wanted to say, but didn’t. It was in the way her mouth opened, in the way she faltered, in the way her eyes shied away from mine as I turned my head to look at her. I knew she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, and I knew she didn’t want to make it seem as though I were some greater-than-thou person. But, in truth, I’d seen more than she had; and knew, by circumstance, what some of the aliens looked like.
The Overseers were small and gray.
The Coyotes were tall and looked like jackals.
And that new thing we’d encountered in the woods—it’d been long and gangly, resembling a human but at the same time appearing nothing like one.
I’d seen three different aliens in the span of a week, either physically or through the strange visions I’d witnessed as a result of contact with Them. And all I could think of was how horrible it all was.
After contemplating our situation for several long moments, I pushed myself to my feet and stepped off the front porch. I aimed my attention toward the roadway and the pass we would take to cross into the city limits. “We should keep going,” I said. “We don’t want to risk staying where we can’t sneak away.”
“Couldn’t we just stay here? Just for a little while?”
“I know you’re tired, Asha, but we really need to keep moving.”
She groaned, but stood, obedient to my whims, and stepped off the porch alongside me. It was only when we began to make our way back toward the road that I realized how tired I was.
I wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep at that moment. But with the likelihood of aliens having heard the gunshots in the past few hours, and the possibility that we were being hunted more than clear, I knew we couldn’t afford to stop.
With that in mind, we continued forward.
Austin, Texas was haunting. Desolate, absent of people, and resembling nothing like its former self, the once-utopia of Central Texas appeared like nothing more than a ghost town. We passed through the streets and into what had undoubtedly been the more populated areas of town. There, the businesses hadn’t even been broken into. The windows were standing, the structures solemn, the billboards crisp but for the dirt and bird droppings. Worst of all: the roads were completely clear except for those cars parked along the curbs. It looked like any other morning, albeit one six years after the end of the world as we knew it.
“This is… creepy,” Asha said as we continued through the once-great city.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It is.”
Our first order of business was to find somewhere habitable to sleep. We needed, above all else, to gain our bearings before we attempted to find the hospital, and we wouldn’t be able to do that unless we got some sleep first.
“Look for a house,” I offered. “Or a hotel. Somewhere we can bed down for a few hours.”
“Why not just try an office building?” Asha asked. “Or one of these pizza places?”
“Because I’d rather lock ourselves in a room and sleep until I can’t sleep anymore.”
At that, she nodded. Having reclaimed the gun, she took the lead and began to scout the road ahead, always trailing its muzzle toward the shadows and the things we could not see. I didn’t fear being ambushed there—at least, not yet—but after our experience in Stonewall, we could never be too careful.
This world was cruel, dangerous, without mercy in the slightest.
If only we hadn’t lost Jason.
The rumble of what sounded like a falling metal trash can caused Asha and me to spin instantaneously. “What was that?” Asha asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, scanning the area around us to find the source of the noise. “I—”
It appeared then—a dog, no larger than a German Shepherd. The ugly thing—spotted with mange and resembling something like a hairless rat—offered a low, subtle growl as it approached us, teeth bared and mouth curled in a snarl.
Asha aimed her gun at it.
“Don’t shoot,” I said.
“If that thing’s going to jump at us, I’m going to shoot at it.”
“But—”
She fired once, then twice, but not directly at the dog. Rather, she trailed the gun at its feet and smiled as it ran with its tail tucked between its legs.
“I never imagined having to worry about dogs,” I said, sighing.
“Not like the ones we had at the Fort.” Asha took my hand and pulled me along. “I imagine there’s whole packs of them roaming about the city, which is why we have to be especially careful now that we’re here.”
“Coyotes, dogs, and bandits, oh my,” I mumbled beneath my breath.
Asha giggled and gestured. “Come on,” she said. “There has to be a gas station somewhere. We can grab a map of the city and see if we can’t find this hospital Captain Henshaw was talking about before… well… you know.”
I knew.
Nodding, I allowed her to lead on.
Chapter 14
We entered a massive gas station and began to pilfer its wares. First we broke into the back office to see if we could find anything of use, then we scanned the aisles and picked through the leftover candies, peanuts, and bagged items we felt might still retain their taste. While wandering, we pulled bottled waters from the now-decrepit freezers and drank with gusto the warm liquid within—all the while knowing we would soon have to face reality and get ourselves into a home.
“Okay,” Asha said as we approached the front counter, searching through, and then pulling from a rack a map of the city of Austin. “Let’s see here. Burgandy Hospital. Burgandy, Burgandy, Burgandy…”
While she looked, I scanned the outside world, taking note of the road that cut before the row of apartment buildings across from us and the run-down joints that would have gone out of business had the invasion not taken place. I saw a sign for pizza and immediately craved it, then looked toward a small boutique and longed to have my nails and hair done. But as much as I wanted those things, that world was gone, and with it all the creature comforts it had once held.
“Here we are,” Asha said, jarring me from my thoughts.
“Find it?”
She tapped a section of the city, due northwest, and nodded. “It’ll be across the nearby river,” she said. “It looks like we go over a bridge and just keep following the road until we’re there.”
“And that’s it?” I asked, skeptical. “It seems a bit… well… too easy.”
“Well, this is if the city hasn’t been wrecked,” Asha added, folding the map and tucking it into her pants pocket. “There’s no telling what the Harvester ships did to Austin once They began abducting people in the streets.”
“You think They’d’ve taken out parts of the city like They did Fort Hope?”
“They did there. Why not here?”
Sighing, I ran a hand through my shor
t hair and considered the small pile of supplies at our feet. My vision blurred from lack of sleep and my muscles ached from the extended periods of exertion. “I say we pack up,” I said, “get ourselves into a house, and have a nice, long nap.”
“I figured you’d say that.” Asha frowned.
“Come on, Ash. We’ve been going for over a day now. Don’t we deserve a little rest and relaxation?”
“I don’t know how you can relax when we’re so close to finding out what’s going on with you.”
“It’s called not sleeping,” I said, scooping the items up into my bag and lugging it over my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We traveled due north for a half hour, per Asha’s request to move deeper into the city, before we entered a suburban neighborhood. It was quiet, shrouded with greenery, and slowly being overtaken by the vegetation that had been allowed to grow rampant. The grass was tall, the bushes unkempt, the trees resembling spider webs in places where branches hadn’t punctured through homes or collapsed on top of roofs. The sight—while somewhat mystifying—was also unsettling, as when we approached a home we could barely see anything inside it.
“You think it’s safe?” Asha asked as I tried the door, but to no avail.
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be,” I said, casting a glance behind us. “Why? Are you worried about all the bushes?”
“It just seems… well… I don’t know. Too easy for something to hide until we’re walking out of here to leave.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said, taking the butt of the rifle and, with one hard blow, knocking the glass out of the front door. “Let’s just go inside, board up, and get some rest. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I broke away the last bits of glass before snaring my arm through the small indentation and unlocking the door. Once inside, I turned, gestured for Asha to retrieve the duct-tape we’d grabbed from the gas station, and taped off what sections of the glass we’d broken to get into the house.
“This is nice,” Asha said as she spun to examine the house. “Small. Homey. Just big enough for the two of us.”