Christ, here they were, facing an uncertain future and possible death from an unknown invader, and yet they still found themselves reacting like teenagers at the first glimpse of skin. At least it proved they were both still human, and that was a trait that had become the most precious of commodities in this world.
“Okay,” said Simon, “I think we all need to get some rest. Good night.” He took two steps toward his own room, stopped and turned: “Emily…”
“Yes?” she said, in the process of closing the bedroom door behind her.
“Thank you.” He gave her a firm nod of his head and disappeared down the corridor.
“You’re welcome,” Emily whispered into the emptiness and closed the door, Ben’s cry of monsters still echoing in the back of her mind.
“Good morning,” Emily said through a hand-covered yawn. Her stomach grumbled its own greeting as the smell of bacon sizzling on the skillet filled her senses.
“I’d ask you how you like your eggs, but all we have is this…” Simon shook a carton of liquid egg whites above his head with one hand while he poked at the contents of a frying pan on the stove. “So, it’s scrambled or scrambled, I’m afraid.”
“Sounds perfect,” Emily replied as she moved to join the two children at the breakfast nook table. Thor jumped up from his spot next to Ben and met her halfway across the kitchen, fanning the air with his tail while pushing his head between her knees until she patted his head and scratched behind his ears.
Ben and Rhiannon were bantering back and forth about some comic book hero figure the little boy had insisted on bringing to the table. The boy didn’t seem any the worse for wear after his nightmare.
“How are you guys this morning?” she asked.
“Fine,” said Rhiannon.
“I’m fine, too,” echoed Ben, almost in sync with his sister.
“Here you go,” said Simon as he brought the frying pan to the table, sliding portions of the fluffy eggs onto each plate, closely followed by a couple of slices of bacon.
“Oh. My. Goodness,” said Emily as she swallowed the first bite of bacon. “I never thought I’d taste fried meat again.”
“Why not?” asked Ben, a quizzical tone taking his voice up an octave.
That was a loaded question, Emily realized. Simon had kept both of the kids shielded from the reality of the situation they faced, and until their father had spoken with them, she was going to have to watch what she said. She certainly didn’t want to frighten them.
Emily glanced across the table at Rhiannon; she was busy shoveling the remainder of her breakfast into her mouth, head bopping to some internal melody only she could hear. But Ben, his big hazel eyes regarding her with almost adult raptness, waited patiently for her to answer his question.
Simon must have sensed her reticence. His eyes moved first to Ben and then Rhiannon, lingering momentarily on each of them. “Kids, we’re going on a road trip for a couple of days,” he announced without any kind of preamble.
That got their attention, Emily’s included. At some point during the night, he must have finally decided she was telling the truth. She smiled at Simon as she felt a swell of relief wash over her.
“Where are we going?” asked Rhiannon, her fork paused halfway to her mouth.
“There are some people, a little way north of here, that we’re going to see. We’re going to stay with them for a little while.”
Rhiannon just rolled her eyes and continued eating.
“Is For and Emily coming, too?” Ben asked, spitting bits of bacon onto the tabletop.
“What have I told you about talking with your mouth full? Hmmm? And yes, they are most definitely both coming with us.”
Ben’s eyes drifted to Emily, who smiled and nodded. “Yup, we’ll be joining you guys.”
“Cool,” replied Ben as his face broke into a huge grin.
“Now, why don’t you and your sister finish your breakfast and then, if it’s okay with Emily, you can take Thor outside for a walk. He looks like he could use some exercise to burn off all that junk you’ve been feeding him, Mr. Benjamin Keller. That okay by you, Emily?”
Emily thought about it for a second. She didn’t want to scare the kids, especially now that Simon was convinced of the need to leave, and tell them to stay inside. “Of course it is. Just, don’t stray too far,” she said. Using the kids’ affection for Thor, and his equal exuberance for their company, was about as obvious a manipulation of their emotions as you could get, but it was a means to an end. What the adults had to talk about was not for kids’ ears. Even Rhiannon brightened, quickly finishing the remains of her breakfast in a couple of bites.
Emily noticed Ben sneak the final piece of bacon from his plate and slip it to Thor as the three headed out the back door, the echo of their laughter and excited chatter floating back down the corridor.
Simon disappeared into the garage, reappearing a couple of minutes later with a large red plastic gas can in one hand and what looked like a bicycle pump in the other. The pump had two long lengths of thick orange hose attached to it, one at each end of the body; on its side was a crank handle.
Emily and Simon had quickly figured out that the Honda Accord parked out front was not going to be of much use to them. They needed something larger that could carry more supplies, Thor, and the four of them. Emily had remembered the Dodge Durango SUV parked in the garage of the house across the valley, and Simon had decided he would go and try and find the keys and bring it back. While Emily wasn’t particularly happy about them splitting up, it would save time and time was their most valuable commodity right now.
“It’s a hand pump,” said Simon, placing both items on the table. “That should solve our gasoline problem, but I’ll have to siphon gas from other vehicles. SUV’s are gas hogs, but as long as we’re careful and take every opportunity to keep the tank full, I think we’ll be okay.” He placed a large spiral-bound book he’d been carrying under one arm onto the table. “This might also come in handy,” he said. Emily canted her head sideways to read the book’s title: Michelin Road Atlas—North America: USA, Canada, Mexico, it read in large black letters.
Simon flipped open the atlas, found the page for New York State, and tapped his finger against Stuyvesant. “This is where we are,” he said. “We could head north up I-87 into Canada. Or we can head north for about twenty miles and can cross over the Hudson into Albany. Route 90’s right there, and that’ll take us west all the way into Michigan.”
Emily followed Simon’s finger on the map. The Mackinac Bridge was a suspension bridge that ran for close to five miles across the Straits of Mackinac, bisecting Lake Huron to the east and Lake Michigan to the west, and connecting Mackinaw City on the southern Michigan peninsula with Saint Ignace on the northern peninsula. From there it looked like it was about fifty miles to the Canadian border at Sault Saint Marie in Ontario.
“It’s a toll bridge,” said Emily, lifting her face to smile at Simon. “Better make sure we bring exact change.”
He gave her a toothy grin back. “Ah! A sense of humor…I’ll have to watch out for that.” Simon’s eyes dropped back to the map and he was all business again, flipping across pages of the atlas as he talked. “Once we’re in Canada, we can just head northwest toward Edmonton. From there it’s basically a straight line to Fairbanks in Alaska. I’d estimate it’s going to take us about a week or so if we drive a maximum of eight hours a day, maybe less if we don’t hit any bad weather.” He glanced up from the road map at Emily, his eyebrows raised questioningly. “What do you think?”
Emily wasn’t happy about the detour. It was going to take them into areas that were more populated than she was really comfortable with, but there was no arguing with Simon’s logic. It would shave so much time off the trip doing it his way. Still, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the decision. She had already seen how fast the world had changed; who knew what had happened since her last encounter?
Emily was still studying the route when Rhi
annon and Benjamin, closely followed by a barking Thor, came tearing into the house. They were yelling at the top of their voices, “Dad! Dad! You have to come see what we found.”
Emily spun around in time to see the kids almost collide with their father. He threw his hands up as they skidded to a stop next to him. “Whoa! Whoa! What’s going on?” Thor padded along behind them, ignoring the two kids and heading straight to Emily’s side. Instead of sitting next to her, he circled her, stopping momentarily to sit, only to be up and pacing again a second later.
“Dad, you have to come see,” pleaded Rhiannon, tugging at Simon’s sleeve. “Come on.”
“Kids, I can’t. We’re going to have to leave very soon, and we need to plan. Okay?”
“But, but…you have to come see this.” Rhiannon’s voice had turned shrill. Her little brother stood quietly off to one side now, silently staring up at his dad with those big hazel eyes.
“No!” Simon almost snapped, probably a little more forcefully than the children were used to, because she saw them both flinch.
Thor was still restlessly pacing back and forth around her. Something had obviously spooked both the kids and Thor.
“Simon,” she said, trying to be heard over the children’s excited chatter as they pleaded with their father to follow them.
Simon apparently didn’t hear her because he kept on talking. “Ben. Rhia. Please. Emily and I are trying to talk here. Could you give us just a little time, please?”
“Simon!” Emily snapped, loud enough that everyone, including Thor, turned to face her. She managed to force a smile through the growing miasma of anxiety she could feel settling over the room. “I think it would be best if we let the kids show us what they’ve found.”
Simon met her gaze for a few long seconds. She thought she could see anger behind his eyes, but then it was gone, replaced by a look of bemusement as he stared down at his two children, as if seeing them for the first time since they had rushed into the house. He sank down to one knee and pulled first Rhiannon and then Ben to him, kissing them both on the tops of their heads. “I’m sorry, guys,” he whispered. “Dad’s just a little stressed out right now.”
The children hugged him back, then each grabbed a hand and pulled him in the direction of the back door.
On the way out, Emily stopped by the bedroom and pulled her shotgun from the shelf in the cupboard, where she had stored it out of the kids’ reach. She checked the chamber to make sure it held a round, then slung the weapon over her shoulder and went to join her newfound family.
The kids were pulling Simon along a path that led away from the back of the house up toward the summit of the hill, still babbling excitedly. Emily jogged to catch up with them. All signs of the tension she had seen in the man just minutes ago had disappeared and he was now laughing, playfully leaning back to make their job of towing him that little bit harder.
Ben and Rhiannon were both giggling and laughing between complaints of “Daaaaad! Stop it. Come onnnnnn” as they tried to drag him faster.
“All right, I’m coming. Hold your horses.” He laughed, winking at Emily as she caught up with them. Then he noticed the shotgun slung across her shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow. She smiled back at him and gave what she hoped was a reassuring nod. She didn’t want this family to find out the hard way just how dangerous their world had become.
The sky above the valley was free of the previous day’s storm clouds. Emily could still see rolling clouds of red to the east, beyond the border of their sanctuary, as the sun struggled to push through the veneer of red dust that had turned the day into a permanent twilight.
The path wound upward toward the summit of the hill. Closer to the ridge the trees began to thin out, replaced by grass all the way to the top. Emily watched as the kids began getting more excited and finally pulled their stumbling father to the ridge. As he reached the top, Simon straightened and pushed his kids behind him.
By the time Emily walked the final few feet to join the silent trio on the hilltop and looked out at the sight that lay beyond them, she knew that she had been right to insist on following the children.
“See?” said Rhiannon, her young voice emphatic with an adult sense of vindication that she had done the right thing.
They looked out across the sprawling landscape that had, until only a day ago, been lush with grass and trees. Now it was nothing but a swirling mass of red. Gone was the grass; gone were the trees. Replaced by a jungle of alien red plants and vegetation that stretched from about a mile or so from the base of the hill below them toward the southern horizon.
A very obvious line of delineation separated the old world from the new—the planet’s original life from the invaders that had taken hold like some vicious weed, consuming everything they touched. On one side there was green; on the other nothing but red. It undulated off into the distance like some incoming tide of blood. To the east, the old world still remained, but once you stepped past that line of demarcation, you might just as well have stepped onto another planet.
“Jesus Christ,” she heard Simon whisper.
All this had happened in the space of just a day? While she had slept and eaten and talked with the family, this transmutation had been taking place at an incredible pace, far faster than she would ever have imagined possible.
As she looked out over the distant swell of red, she could see a shimmering distortion in the air right above the point where the red vegetation met with the grass and trees of her world. It looked like the kind of heat shimmer she had seen hovering over the road during a hot summer day, and it followed the line of contact almost perfectly, creating a wall of distorted air that rose a few feet above the ground. Was it something to do with the rapid transformation of earth vegetation into the new alien variety? Some kind of indication of the energy that was being used up as it relentlessly marched across the landscape?
Emily surveyed the area below her, trying to pick out some kind of familiar landmark in the red zone that she could define as still belonging to her planet. Her eyes flicked back and forth over the landscape until she finally found the distant glint of a lake. If she hadn’t been looking so intently, she would probably have missed it; the surface reflection was almost as red as the sky above. But it wasn’t the lake or the coppice of half-built alien trees bunched together in one corner, their thick roots clearly visible as they snaked down below the water’s surface, that made her reach out and grasp Simon’s arm just above his elbow.
No, it was the area just beyond that—a clearing, almost perfectly circular and completely devoid of both invading vegetation and earth life. Unmistakable even from the mile or so distance she guessed she was from it. It wasn’t even the huge tree she saw sprouting up from the center of the clearing, its limbs heavy with the unmistakable bulbous white-skinned fruit that had caused such unfocused terror in her when she’d found them in the forest as she fled Manhattan.
No, what caused her heart to race and her breath to freeze in her lungs was that she could see one of the fruit lying broken and discarded on the ground beneath the tree.
And whatever had been inside it was nowhere to be seen.
“We need to get out of here now,” hissed Emily into Simon’s ear. Whatever had come out of the sack could be out there right now, watching them. Or…stalking them.
Simon didn’t react; he just kept staring out across what had once been lush green fields and forests. “My God,” he finally said, his voice filled with awe or fear, Emily wasn’t sure which. “I honestly wasn’t sure whether I believed you, Emily. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but this…” He swept a hand across the horizon, then returned it to his son’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “This is just surreal.”
“Isn’t it beautiful, Daddy?” said Rhiannon, blissfully unaware that she was witnessing the inexorable destruction of her world. If this kid survived long enough, Emily realized, she would be one of the last generation who would ever remember what the earth had looked like before
this great transformation.
“Fantastic,” replied Simon as he released both kids from his grasp. “Now we have to go home, okay?”
As the kids raced ahead, Emily placed a restraining hand on Simon’s arm, holding him back until they were just out of earshot, but not so far that she lost sight of them—she would be keeping them all close from this point on.
“We have a problem,” she said.
“You aren’t kidding. Did you see that? It’s just so…so…alien.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that. We have a bigger problem. Did you see the weird-looking trees down by the lake?”
“Of course,” said Simon. “How could you miss them? Those things must be eighty feet if they’re an inch.”
She quickly reminded him of her disconcerting encounter with the lone tree and its white pods when she was traveling through the forest outside Valhalla. “Oh, shit,” said Simon. “That’s what those things were down there? I thought it was just some kind of trick of the light.”
Emily shook her head. “Don’t ask me to explain, or how I know, because I won’t ever be able to give you an adequate explanation, but whatever was growing inside those sacks it’s…it’s evil.”
She realized how ridiculous that must sound, but it was the truth. She didn’t mean “evil” in the religious sense, though. Her encounter in the clearing was simply the most incredible sense of concentrated malevolence Emily had ever experienced. It had been like the frozen blade of a knife had been laid against her soul, and it had left an indelible scar. Even now, as she thought back to her first brush with the globes, she shuddered. More than anything in the world, she did not want to know what was inside those milky-white sacks.
“Lock the doors and keep the children inside,” Emily warned as Simon ushered Rhia and Ben back inside the house.
Exodus Page 6