Exodus

by Paul Antony Jones

  “So, what do you say, mutt? You hungry?”

  Thor looked up at his mistress and bounced his tail back and forth enthusiastically.

  “Okay, then. Let’s find somewhere we can eat.” Emily slowed the bike to a crawl and began looking over the street in front of her. She quickly found the building she was looking for, pulling to a stop outside a small corner convenience store and dismounting. She could feel the burning ache in her calves as she wheeled the bike toward the sidewalk. The military-style backpack strapped to her back had grown lighter as she and Thor consumed the initial stockpile of food she had brought with her. Emily had to admit, losing the bulk of the weight had been a relief, but it was time to replenish her stock.

  Pausing for a second, she scanned the street ahead of her; grayscale buildings lined both sides of the empty road. It was the same everywhere she had traveled since leaving Manhattan. No sign of any other living creature except for her and Thor. No birds, no dogs, no cats—not even an insect, as far as she could tell. And no people. She had no idea what that meant for the world, but she knew it couldn’t possibly be good. What would be the effect of the total destruction of most, if not all, of the earth’s indigenous species?

  It was no mystery what had happened to life on this little blue planet. It had been annihilated by the red rain, consumed and then reconstituted into the weird alien life-forms she had encountered in the days after everything had died.

  As she continued traveling north, Emily had seen more signs of the insidious encroachment of the red forests into the earth’s environment. The second day into her ride, she had noticed small pockets of the towering trees similar to what she had encountered in Central Park scattered here and there along her route, usually near a water source like a lake or a river. She had seen a couple of small clusters of trees growing on sidewalks with their roots spiraling down inlets into sewers, but these had been much smaller, almost scaled-down versions of their bigger brothers. But by day two and three, she had begun to notice larger groups and far more frequently. To her mind, there was an almost exponential growth occurring, although she had seen nothing on the scale of the forest she had traveled through in Valhalla. Not yet, at least.

  She had seen little of the spider-aliens other than the occasional distant sighting, but on day three she had found one, or at least the desiccated remains of one, hanging from an iron security fence outside a block of offices. Evidently it had impaled itself on the spikes when it had leaped from the building; she could see the telltale circular escape hole in a window three stories up. She was tempted to take a closer look, but Emily had begun to recognize that her reporter’s nose was more likely to get her into trouble these days. She gave the thing a wide berth and continued on her way.

  The only other survivor she had spoken to was Jacob Endersby. He was part of a team of scientists on the remote Stockton Islands, just off the northern shore of Alaska. She still wasn’t convinced that Jacob’s hypothesis—that the farther north she traveled, the colder it would get and the less of a foothold the invading alien life-forms would have—was right, because it sure as hell didn’t seem to be having much of an effect so far. Truth be told, there was little in the way of temperature difference in the hundred or so miles she had already traveled; so maybe it was going to take a much more severe drop before there was any observable decrease.

  Emily slipped the backpack from her shoulders. The wounds she had sustained during the attack by the alien creatures in the forest were healing nicely; her shoulder still ached and she felt the occasional spasm of pain if she moved her arm too quickly or spent too long riding her bike.

  She knew she would have to find an alternative form of transportation soon. With winter closing in, and the temperature already starting to drop, finding a vehicle that would protect her from the elements was also going to have to be a major consideration in her plan of reaching the Stockton Islands. There were thousands of cars and trucks left at the side of the road or waiting in garages for owners who would never return.

  Of course, that meant she would have to learn to drive.

  She’d need something easy to handle but large enough that she could stash her bike, supplies, and, of course, Thor. It was also going to have to be robust enough to cope with the bad weather she was sure to hit when she crossed over into Canada. Roads were going to be closed once the winter weather set in, with no one to clear the inevitable snowfalls that would make them all but impassable. She would give it some serious consideration over the next couple of days, she decided.

  The pain in her shoulder paled into inconsequence when compared to the soreness she had experienced in the first few days of eight-hour cycling sessions. She now knew the true meaning of the old cowboy phrase saddle sore because her butt chafed like nobody’s business after long hours parked on the saddle of the bike. She learned quickly that she needed to make frequent rest stops or suffer the consequences, that and the liberal application of cream from a tube of Desitin she had picked up from an abandoned pharmacy to her more tender areas.

  She had decided to follow the Hudson as far north as she could. Keeping the river to her left gave her a sense of security; it was one direction she didn’t think she’d have to worry about an attack. Staying on the east side of the river also had the added advantage of keeping the half-mile stretch of water between her and what had been, up until only a week or so ago, some of the more populated areas of New York.

  That first day, as she and Thor had stood on the hill and looked back at the village where she had spent the previous night slowly succumb to fire, Emily had worried her canine companion wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. But as she rode along the deserted highways and side roads, she had quickly learned how wrong she was about that. Thor was more than capable of matching her pace. In fact, he could go far longer than she could between breaks; a result, she believed, of malamutes having originally been bred as sled dogs. She found herself having to limit herself to a maximum of thirty or so miles a day for herself rather than the dog. Emily guessed that Thor would be able to easily cover twice that distance, if she gave him his head.

  Thor wasn’t the problem, though. It had quickly become apparent to Emily that cycling the forty-five hundred miles to reach the Stockton Islands and the group waiting for her there was going to be a next to impossible undertaking. She was utterly exhausted by the end of each day. She had been lucky so far and not had any accidents, although she had come close on a couple of occasions. But she knew her luck wouldn’t hold out forever, and the odds were stacked well and truly against her traveling that kind of distance and not hitting a pothole or letting her attention slip momentarily and ending up lying in some ditch with a broken arm, leg, or worse.

  And then, of course, there were the alien creatures she had encountered. Who knew what strangeness was wandering around the world ahead of her? It was like living in some crazy zoo where she was the prey.

  Emily glanced down at Thor sitting patiently at her feet, his ears alert, tongue lolling from his mouth as he panted gently in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

  “Coming?” she asked the dog, but he seemed quite happy to stay where he was. “All right,” she said after a second. “You guard our things. I’ll be right back out.” She picked up the almost empty backpack from where she had set it down and walked toward the store.

  The door was unlocked. Surprisingly, the shelves looked untouched and almost fully stocked, unlike the majority of shops Emily had stopped at on her trip so far. The unmistakable chaos of panic buyers and thieves marked virtually every location she had tried to look for food.

  Sunlight cut through the glass window and illuminated the two middle rows of shelves. The rest of the small room was shrouded in shadow. She paused for a moment, listening for any sound of movement that might indicate that she was not alone. Motes of dust floated gently through the shaft of light; just regular dust, not the weird semi-sentient stuff she had witnessed in Manhattan.

  As she walked to the
nearest aisle, she began running through a mental checklist of the items she would need. Soup and fruit, maybe some cans of meat if she could find it; it would still be good. She’d also need to grab a bag of dog food for Thor. He was running low.

  A shadow to Emily’s left shifted. She stopped midstep, her breath catching in her throat. Instinctively, she reached for the Mossberg shotgun she kept strapped around her shoulder, but it wasn’t there.

  “Damn it,” she cursed under her breath as she took a step backward. She could have sworn that she had brought it in with her, but she must have left it with the bike.

  Emily took another slow step backward and reached behind her as she searched for the exit she knew was just a few feet away. If she could just get to the door, she could alert Thor and make a run for—

  The shadow separated from the darkness surrounding it and moved into the dim light.

  It was a spider-alien. Its eight articulated scimitar-clawed legs clicked across the tiled floor of the store. As she watched, first another and then two more joined it from the shadows. One climbed over the nearest set of shelving, perching on the top boxes of instant potato, its two eyestalks swaying back and forth as it focused on her.

  She took another step backward. As she did so, the leading spider matched her.

  A glass jar of preserves smashed against the floor to her right, the sound like a thunderclap in that enclosed space. Emily yelped. Another creature was climbing over the nearest shelf. More of the freaks were emerging from the darkness, edging toward her across the floor.

  She counted seven, then eight, then twelve. Her chest felt heavy as the air she had sucked into her lungs seemed to turn into a dense fog.

  Emily could hear Thor barking ferociously from the other side of the door and the frantic scrape of his claws against the glass as he tried to get to her. But the door opened outward, so there was no way he was going to be able to reach her.

  She took another step back, too afraid to take her eyes from the ruin of monsters advancing on her. It was some kind of a nest; she had stumbled into a rally point where these things collected and waited to move on to become a part of one of those huge alien trees, or who knew what else.

  Her encounters in Manhattan, when one of the ugly bastards had fallen into her room and she had almost been run over by another in Central Park, had taught her that the things seemed mostly harmless, unwilling to attack her while they were gripped by whatever deep motivation drove them. But these were reacting differently; they seemed pissed, and by the way the eyestalks flicked and wavered like an agitated cat’s tail, she was pretty sure they weren’t in a mood to share their newfound home with her.

  Emily kept moving back, one slow careful step at a time, until, finally, her hand closed around the door handle. Thor was still growling and whining his frustration and anger outside, his paws batting against the door so hard that she was afraid to open it; he might slip in and go straight for the nearest creature. She was sure he could easily dispatch one or two of them, but there were at least twenty stalking her now, and he would surely be overwhelmed if he tried to take them all on.

  “Thor,” she hissed, “be quiet, boy.”

  At the sound of her voice, the gathered creatures’ serrated lower jaws jittered up and down so fast she could barely see them. They sounded like dry autumn leaves blown over pavement.

  Thor’s agitated scratching at the door stopped, and his barking dropped to a low growl.

  She chanced a glance over her shoulder; Thor had stepped back a few paces and was now sitting, staring at her, his tail moving back and forth across the flagstone pavement in either agitation or anticipation. But she could not see any new threat behind him.

  When she looked back, the creatures had advanced on her again—the walls and ceiling were covered with them, and every featureless black bulbous head and eyestalk was turned and focused squarely on her. As she watched, a barely noticeable ripple of movement flowed through the creatures.

  One after another the creatures launched themselves at her.

  Spinning around, she pulled the door toward her and slipped through the crack, pulling the door back into place behind her. Black bodies flung themselves against the glass, smacking against it before dropping to the floor. She clung to the handle, leaning back and pulling it against the jamb as wave upon wave of the creatures tried to get to her. The weight of the mass of flailing aliens kept the door closed.

  As more and more of the creatures sank to the floor, they began to form a drift of twig-like flailing legs, writhing eyestalks, and chattering jaws that soon became indistinguishable as individual creatures.

  At a mental count of three, she let the door handle go and stepped away. For a second she stood and stared at the monsters as they mindlessly tried to reach her.

  “Fuck you!” she yelled eventually, then flipped them the bird, grabbed her bike, and hurtled away from the swarm.

  The next afternoon Emily found herself in the rustic town of Stockport. It had taken her almost that long to shake off the encounter at the store. Thoughts of the creatures had even invaded her sleep when she had finally pulled over for the night.

  Until she had stumbled into their lair, she hadn’t seen any sign of the spider-aliens for days, and to come across so many of them concentrated in one location was a disconcerting new development in an already surreal week. The more she thought about it, the more it was as if they had been congregating in the store, like troops awaiting fresh orders. Maybe that was exactly what was happening; maybe they were waiting to be given new directions by whatever was orchestrating this strange overthrow of her world.

  If that was true, then it would mean that there was some kind of intelligence behind the annihilation of life on earth. And that thought was even more frightening than the idea that she might stumble on more of the creatures.

  It was just more strangeness for her to think about.

  And she still didn’t know why she had survived the red rain when it had first fallen. Or if there were other survivors. Once she made it to the islands, she would have to convince Jacob’s group it should be their primary goal to locate and rescue as many survivors as they could. Quite how that particular feat was to be accomplished was another thing altogether.

  All that day, Emily had been keeping her eye on a huge bank of billowing clouds close to the horizon. It looked as though it was still many miles away, but it was hard to get a clear view of it as she traveled along the narrow, tree-lined streets of Stockport. The storm clouds were preceded by an honor guard of red sky that swept from a coral pink behind her to a deep crimson where the sky mated with the storm. There was not an inch of blue left up there.

  It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight.

  The red sky had become a permanent fixture. Emily guessed it was a result of the dust she had seen the alien forests releasing into the air. It didn’t take much of a stretch of her imagination to draw a disturbing conclusion: the red rain had killed off the indigenous species of the earth, humanity included, then used their bodies to create their own life-forms. Those in turn had created the alien forest and whatever those creatures were that had attacked her, and the trees were now spreading the red dust across the world. Whatever plant life the dust touched began the transformation process, as it was turned to the invaders’ own needs. It would not be long, Emily estimated, before what little was left of earthborn life was totally subsumed and replaced.

  And then there was whatever she had seen growing in the forest. Just thinking about the strange orbs hanging from the tree in the forest gave her the creeping heebie-jeebies. She had no idea why. There was just something about them that seemed…wrong. They were all smaller parts of a much larger, much more complicated conundrum, and she didn’t have the first clue as to what it meant.

  Rounding a corner, Emily came to an abrupt stop.

  Thor stopped beside her, panting heavily as he looked up at her. Ahead, the road was blocked.

  Stretching out into the distance
before them was a river of vehicles of all descriptions. They filled both lanes, even overflowing onto the grass border on either side of the road, pushing up against tree trunks and fences. Most were crushed against its neighbor, bumper-to-bumper, but here and there she saw an SUV, compact, or truck that stood on its own. All the cars Emily looked into as she wheeled her bike between the snaking alleys of metal were empty, their doors either ajar or one of the telltale perfectly round holes testifying to the occupant’s fate.

  That, in and of itself, was disturbing enough, but the award for weirdest experience of the day definitely went to the three-quarter-finished alien tree sprouting up from the tarmacadam of the road, its roots burrowing deep into the blacktop. Beyond the first tree, several hundred feet or so farther along the road, Emily could see the outline of another, and, beyond that, another and another.

  The occupants of the vehicles had not had to travel very far to complete their part of the alien agenda, it seemed.

  Emily stood below the first tree, straining her neck to look up at the black trunk. Halfway up, fracturing the almost perfect symmetry of the shiny black surface, Emily could see the back end of a silver Buick jutting out at an odd angle. She walked around the base of the tree, climbing over the thick roots that had burrowed into the road’s surface, uprooting concrete and tilting cars as though they were nothing. On the other side, farther up the tree, Emily saw another car—this time it was just the front headlight of some indistinguishable make—embedded in the trunk. Unconcerned by the sea of vehicles, their newly transformed owners had simply built straight through them.

  It was, Emily had to admit, an amazing feat of bioengineering. In fact, the whole subjugation of planet Earth had been an astonishingly successful process, as much as she did not want to admit it, and it hinted at an intelligence so far ahead of humanity’s that it was godlike in its brutal, ruthless efficiency.