by J. Thorn
Luke waved at both women to hurry, shaking the red gas can to get as much into the tank as he could in the next several seconds.
“We’ve got to go,” Maya said.
“What’s the matter?” Cameron asked. She followed Maya’s gaze. “Is that…”
“The gang from the office.”
The women hurried to the car. As Maya ran, she watched the van approach, hearing the engine running fast and hot. One of the men lowered the passenger side window and aimed a rifle out of it.
“Get down!” Maya said, diving behind the Civic.
She hit the dirt first, and then Cameron landed beside her. When the blast came, though, it wasn’t from a rifle. It was an explosion, shaking the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Cameron asked.
Maya raised her head and got to her knees, looking over the back of the vehicle. The van had disappeared, replaced by a rising flame in the middle of the highway. Maya felt her stomach drop and a cold chill run up her spine. Then she saw the ship emerge from the clouds.
She opened the car’s door and grabbed Cameron by the hand. “Come on.”
The two women climbed into the backseat. Luke was already in the front and had apparently seen the ship, as well. He was lying across the two front seats.
“Lay across the floor,” Maya said to Cameron.
Without asking any questions, the woman did as she was told.
Maya bit her lip as she sprawled across the backseat that was still covered in glass, keeping low and trying not to move. “Everyone be still.”
Were the alien ships tracking people or simply making visual identifications? Clearly, they’d seen the van on the highway—not something difficult to notice. Maya thought about the hours they’d spent on the road. They could have been vaporized by the alien lasers at any moment. And once they got back into the car, they could still be vaporized at any moment. But what choice did they have?
The ship roared overhead, and the little Honda shimmied as if caught in the gales of a hurricane. But after a few moments, the motion subsided, and the ship disappeared.
Luke sat up first, his face red and sweat plastering his greasy hair to his forehead. “That was a close call.”
No shit. We need to get to Fort Campbell. Now.
27
Maya continued to glance at the sky as she sped down the highway. Although the alien ships hid in the upper atmosphere during the day, she didn’t want to risk everything on that observation after two close calls.
The day had begun like any other, but without jets flying overhead, truckers using their loud air brakes, or the sound of other cars on the highway. In a way, Maya was getting used to it. Despite the situation, the sound of the rattling engine felt comforting.
The kid had climbed into the backseat, where he shared a can of mixed nuts with Cameron for breakfast. They’d offered some to Maya, who had declined. She knew she needed to eat, but she wasn’t feeling up to it. She was so close to reuniting with her kids, and it was all she could think about. Hunger was the last thing on her mind.
She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Cameron laughing and flirting with the teenager in an innocent way. She had her arm around him, and they’d been trying to sing some country song which was as foreign to Maya as contemporary jazz. She preferred to rock.
She’s empathic. Kind. Once you get past the stripper attitude.
Thoughts about Cameron inevitably led to Gerald. Maya couldn’t understand who he was now or what was motivating him. He’d taken the children and abandoned his woman. Why? It didn’t make sense, but she hoped to be able to hear his explanation to Cameron in person, and soon.
“Up there.”
In the mirror, Maya saw Cameron pointing straight ahead. She hadn’t noticed what was approaching herself, being so lost in thought.
We made it.
The American flag flew high above the main entrance, its gate topped with barbed wire, closed and secured. Maya didn’t see any soldiers out front, but the fact that the gate was closed had to be a good sign that it was protecting whatever lay inside. She hoped that would turn out to include her children.
Cameron unbuckled her seatbelt and squeezed forward through the space between seats to sit in the passenger seat. She let out an excited laugh and slapped Maya on the shoulder.
“Does it look like anyone is there?” Luke asked, finishing off the nuts while sliding into the middle of the backseat, pushing his head into the space between the front seats.
“I don’t know yet,” Maya said.
She hit the gas, speeding faster toward the base. Gripping the steering wheel, she felt sweat on her palms. Her stomach fluttered and, for a moment, she thought she might pee herself.
The front gates slid apart. A smile stretched across Maya’s face until three JLTVs came speeding out onto the road. The two in front stopped side by side, blocking the entire width of the road. The vehicles came to a sudden stop fifty yards from the front gates. Maya slowed down, stopping the Civic ten yards from the JLTVs.
“Something feels off.”
“Maybe they’re just coming out to greet us,” Luke said.
Three armed soldiers jumped out of the vehicles, aiming their rifles at Maya’s car.
“Don’t move!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Remain in your vehicle!”
Cameron checked her eyes in the mirror with a scoff. “I’m not sure that’s a greeting committee.”
“Everyone, just stay cool and do what they ask,” Maya said.
One of the soldiers remained in front of the car while the other two appeared on each side of it. The windows were already down, as they’d been riding with the A/C off to conserve fuel. A female soldier pointed the barrel of her rifle into Maya’s window.
Maya said, “Hi, I’m here to—”
“Quiet.”
Maya raised her hands and sat back in the seat. Did they look like aliens?
“Have you had any direct contact with them?” the male soldier on the passenger side of the car asked.
“With who?” Luke asked.
“Don’t fucking play smart with us, kid,” the female soldier said.
“No, we haven’t had direct alien contact.” Maya glared over her shoulder at Luke. She hoped her stare conveyed that she wanted him to keep his mouth shut.
“Are you armed?” the female asked.
“Yes. I’ve got a pistol nudged between the seats, and he’s got a shotgun in the backseat.”
The soldiers raised their weapons higher and took a step back. They glanced at each other, then refocused on the people inside of the Honda.
“Step out with your hands up,” the male soldier said.
“Slowly,” the female added.
Maya opened her door and raised her hands in the air, slowly getting out of the car. The female soldier grabbed Maya by the back of her shirt and led her to the hood of the car.
“What the hell?” Maya asked.
“Put your hands on the damn hood.”
Maya obeyed and the soldier patted her down. The other two soldiers did the same with Luke and Cameron. Cameron grumbled something about the man touching her, and that it would only happen again in his dreams. None of the soldiers seemed to care about their civil rights. Once the body searches ended, one of the soldiers went into the car and retrieved the two guns, which had been right where Maya had said they were.
“I told you. I’m not lying.”
The female soldier glared at her. “Listen, Ms. Priss, I’m following orders. You have no idea what we’ve been through.”
“Are you serious?” Cameron put her hands on her hips and blew a lock of hair from her face, stomping one foot on the asphalt. “You have no idea what we’ve been through, lady.”
Maya raised her hand to silence Cameron. “They’re just doing their jobs. Stay calm.”
“Listen to your friend,” one of the male soldiers said.
Cameron narrowed her eyes and shook her head.
The
female soldier pulled one of the men aside, and after a few whispers, she turned back to Maya.
“All right. You’re clear.”
“Thank God,” Cameron said.
“Now, get back in your car and go somewhere that isn’t here,” the female soldier said.
Maya stepped forward, no longer caring whether weapons were still pointed at her. “What? No, wait. You don’t understand, my k—”
“You heard her,” one of the male soldiers said. “Load up and leave.”
“You listen to me.” Cameron approached the soldier nearest her.
Luke tried to hold her back, but couldn’t grab her before the soldier raised his weapon again.
“Hold on,” Maya said, putting her hands up for the soldiers to stop.
A door slammed then, and Maya looked up to see someone climbing out of the third JLTV. The soldier strode toward them in full gear, complete with a helmet and sunglasses. He stepped out in front of the other two JLTVs and removed his helmet to reveal a head of curly black hair. Then he took off his sunglasses to expose a familiar face.
“Gerald?”
“You know him?” the female soldier asked Maya.
“Stand down,” Gerald said. “They’re with me.”
Cameron pushed the soldier out of the way and ran toward Gerald. She stopped, smiled, and then came across his face with a slap so loud that birds flew out of a nearby tree. The soldier’s raised their weapons.
“Thanks for leaving me, asshole. I hitched a ride with your ex.”
Gerald stuck his chin out and pushed his shoulders back, pausing to take a deep breath. He turned and nodded at Maya as she approached and asked him one question.
“Where are my children?”
28
Maya stepped between Cameron and Gerald, staring into his eyes, her lower lip trembling.
“Maya, hang on. I can explain.”
She balled her fist and swung, her knuckles smacking off of his left cheek. She then grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and threw him against a nearby JLTV.
“You son of a bitch. How could you?”
She reared back again, but two soldiers came over and pulled her off him.
“What is going on?” one of the soldiers asked.
“You want to tell them, Gerald? How you’re a kidnapper?”
“What’s she talking about, Waller?”
Gerald straightened his clothes and rubbed his face where he’d taken two blows from two women within two minutes.
“It wasn’t kidnapping, goddammit. They’re my kids, too.”
“Wait. This is your ex?” the same male soldier asked.
The other asked, “And what is this about kidnapping? You said your ex-wife wanted you to take the kids to safety because she was an EMT and had a job to do.”
Maya crossed her arms. “Well, at least you only lie half the time.”
“Look, everyone. Please calm down. I can explain everything.”
“I’m not going to calm down.” Maya took a step toward Gerald again, but the soldiers blocked her way. She swung her arms away from their grips, trying to fight them off.
“Let her go,” Gerald said. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s get back inside and then we’ll figure it all out.”
Maya hissed out a curse, glaring at Gerald, daring him to say something and give her a reason to go berserk. But he looked to the ground, avoiding her stare. The soldiers seemed less inclined to fear the threat of aliens anymore in the bright sunlight, now focused on the family drama unfolding before them.
Gerald waved Cameron toward him. “Come on, honey. You can ride with me.”
“I don’t think so, darling.” Cameron walked over and stood next to Maya.
Gerald thrust his hands out, as if pleading innocence.
“She’s with me. We’ll see you inside,” Maya said before she walked back to the car. She turned and shouted at Gerald. “And I want to see my kids the second we get in there!”
She climbed into the driver’s seat while Cameron got into the passenger seat. Luke jumped into the back. Maya took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly as she watched the soldiers turn the JLTVs around to face the gates.
“Well, that was interesting.” Luke thrust his head between the seats with a weak smile on his face, his eyes darting from Maya to Cameron.
Neither woman responded. They didn’t speak to each other, either. Maya felt Cameron looking at her, but while she had empathy for the woman’s situation, her concern for the well-being of her kids was her priority—and she wasn’t about to counsel the new girlfriend through the disintegration of her relationship with her ex.
Maya threw the Honda into drive and then hit the gas, following the JLTVs through the front gates. They took the main drive a quarter of a mile as it snaked along the inside of the stone wall, the caravan stopping beneath a covered entrance which resembled the face of an Emergency Room wing at a hospital. Two soldiers stood to the side of the door smoking cigarettes.
The vehicles parked and the other soldiers went inside or joined in for a smoke. All of them except Gerald. He waited for Maya to park and for the three of them to get out of the car. When she walked up to her ex this time, she kept her hands balled into fists at her side instead of swinging through the air at his face.
“Where are they?”
A female soldier had come out of the sliding glass doors and walked over to her with her hands up. “Ma’am, we have to run you through processing before you can do anything.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“We’ve got to follow protocol.”
“Fuck you and your protocol! I want to see my kids!”
The female soldier stepped back, raising her eyebrows as she looked at Gerald.
“It’s fine,” Gerald said to the female soldier. “We’re going to skip procedures with them.”
She shook her head. “Can’t do that. It’s orders, and they come from above your pay grade.”
“I’ll take the fucking heat for it. Now, step aside and let them in.”
The soldier stared at Gerald for another moment, and huffed before she looked at Maya, Cameron, and Luke. But she then stepped to the side and let them walk toward the sliding glass doors.
Maya and Gerald walked side-by-side to the entrance with Cameron and Luke walking behind them.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’ve got to be joking. Shut up before I give you a matching welt on the other side of your face.”
Gerald nodded at the smoking soldiers as they stepped through the doors and into the main lobby. “I saved you over an hour of processing.”
“Just take her to her fucking kids, Gerald,” Cameron said.
Gerald led them past a front desk manned by a soldier who looked as though he’d fought in Vietnam. Maya guessed that the military, if it even existed anymore, had begun to take in veterans or anyone else with weapons knowledge. The war for Earth didn’t require rank, just men and women who weren’t afraid to fight the aliens.
With a wave of his hand, Gerald ordered the opening of a second set of doors which led into the main atrium of the base. Maya felt the air conditioner and saw the flicker of the fluorescent lights overhead, wondering how long they’d be able to power the luxuries of the world as it had existed before.
The atrium sat in the middle of a hub with hallways branching out like the spokes of a wheel. Each hallway had a colored flag above it, which didn’t appear to be part of the base’s protocol, but something they’d added after the space had become a fort and safe haven from the invasion.
Nobody spoke as Gerald led them down the “blue” hallway, where Maya began to notice “normal” people—those in “civies” as Gerald had used to say. She figured this must be the part of the base where people had been living. Even though they had clean faces and fresh clothes, she saw desperation in their faces and distrust in the thin smiles as they passed by. She had to remind herself that many people, like Cameron, hadn’t yet h
ad an interaction. They didn’t really understand how bad things had gotten or even what was happening. This wasn’t a tornado drill or a hurricane warning.
Maya heard their voices before she saw them. Her face lit up and her eyes filled with tears. Gerald opened a door to a recreational room, and there they were. Laura was sitting on a sofa, reading a book, and Aiden was playing ping pong.
Laura looked up from the pages before her and her eyes went wide as she threw the book to the floor. “Mom!”
Maya’s daughter shot off the couch and ran to her. Aiden looked over, his jaw-dropping as the ping pong ball zipped by his chin.
Maya spread her arms and Laura leapt into them. She held her daughter tight as Aiden ran over, joining in the group hug.
“I can’t believe you made it here,” Laura said.
Aiden said, “We didn’t know if you were alive or—”
“I’m here now,” Maya said, cutting her son off before he finished the sentence.
Maya closed her eyes, gripping her children. She didn’t try to hold back the tears of joy that ran down her face. Laura sobbed while Aiden kept muttering about how happy he was that she’d made it. After everything she’d been through and all the destruction she’d seen, Maya had finally made it. Nobody knew what the future would bring, and there were no guarantees that tomorrow would come, but she’d made it to her kids, and hadn’t life always been that unpredictable anyway?
After several moments, she opened her eyes. Her grip loosened on Laura and Aiden, and she froze as she finally noticed the figure standing on the other side of the room, holding a ping pong paddle. She stood up straight and tilted her head, wiping the tears from her face.
“Reno?”
29
At least Gerald had given them some time together. Another soldier had led them from the rec room to a private lounge that at one time had been used only by high-ranking officers. Now, it functioned mostly as an all-purpose room. Anyone could walk in, but it gave them more privacy than some of the other common spaces occupied by other survivors who had made it to Fort Campbell. Maya wasn’t quite sure yet what the situation was or how many people lived inside the base, but that could all wait until she had time with her kids.