Heather stared out the opposite window at Liz’s house.
“I wish we could get to her.” She kept her voice low so as not to wake Abby.
“Me too.” He got up to sit beside her. He sat close enough that their knees were touching. The boundaries of personal space had shrunk to meet the demands of their timber prison. “I wish we could all be together. I don’t know how to get it to work though.”
She rested her hand on his forearm and squeezed lightly. “This isn’t all on you. We’re in this together.”
“I know. I just feel like if I could be smarter or better or something, I could figure this all out.”
She smiled at him before removing her hand. “I think you’re pretty good. You got us food, that’s something.”
“I guess. But I need to come up with a way for us to move. We can’t stay in here forever.”
“I bet you wish I never pulled you to the tree house in the first place.” She smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“You saved us,” he said. “I would have ended up like-” He was going to say like Kate but stopped himself. “Like everyone else.”
She stared out the window for a bit before turning to face him.
“Can I ask you a horrible question?”
“Is this about how many kittens I’ve hugged at a single time? Because the answer is two.”
“No.” She smiled, but there wasn’t much laughter in it. “It’s not about kittens.”
He realized she wasn’t joking and nodded.
“Now that she’s gone, do you regret not asking her out?”
A horrible question indeed. His ears went hot, and he bit back a sarcastic answer. She stared at him with wide eyes, no malice in her look. He sighed and shrugged.
“Does it matter now?”
“It matters.”
He shrugged again, glad Abby was sleeping. He kept his voice low. “It never seemed like the right time. I didn’t want her to say no.”
“She wouldn’t have said no. She liked you. She was waiting.”
Knowing that hurt worse than the question and he suddenly ached with the loss of it. Not sure what else to say, he turned away and went to stare out the window, down the road to where Pete and his family died. He felt her hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t ask to make you mad. I asked because… because, I don’t know. Because it’s just us. Because we’re at the end of forever. Do you think it makes sense to wait anymore?”
“Wait for what?” He still hadn’t turned to look at her, and she pushed him around, forcing him to face her.
“For anything. I’m glad you’re here with me, Matt. I couldn’t imagine being here without you. I wish I got to know you before this.”
He licked his lips and became very aware of her hands on his shoulder, how close she stood. She really was very pretty. “I’m glad too. I mean, not for the situation, which is terrible, but that you’re here with me.” Not wanting to have this come off wrong, he added, “I’m sure we’re in the friendzone now, but that’s fine with me. It’s whatever.”
He kept his head down and held his breath. He could feel the twitter of his heartbeat.
“Oh, fuck sakes.” She kept her voice low, but the jagged whisper was not what he was expecting. “The friendzone bullshit. This again. You’re putting in the hours, right? That’s how it works?”
Matt didn’t have deep experience with women, but he wasn’t so obtuse to miss trouble when it came out. Fortunately, he did have some experience with backpedaling.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant I’m glad we’re friends. It’s fine.”
“Oh, it’s fine? You give us permission to be friends? I have your approval? And who cares what I want, right?”
“What?” Most of this was coming at Matt to fast for him to throw up any defense against. She was clearly mad that they were friends, but also mad that they were not friends?
“So, I can’t decide anything? You make all the decisions between us?” She gestured between the two of them with both hands.
“You can do whatever you want.” A thin trickle of sweat rolled down his back and he stared right at her, unblinking. If the aliens weren’t such complete assholes, they would attack right now.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“Do you like me, Matt? No lying this time. We’re at the end of forever.”
Matt considered trying to be funny, but Heather leaned in closer and he smelled the strawberry in her hair. No waiting, she said. The end of forever. He dove in.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re funny and strong and smart. You’re great to talk to. You’re brave and good with Abby. A hundred other things. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. So there. If we weren’t in the middle of an alien apocalypse, I wouldn’t wait. I’d ask you out on a date. And if you said no, that would be fine because I’d still think you’re great.”
Heather didn’t say anything for a couple seconds and he couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“Why don’t you kiss me, then? If you like me so much?”
So much blood rushed to his head that he became dizzy. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to make sound come out. He was acutely aware of his hands and didn’t know where to put them.
“What?” He tried to make his voice normal, but it came out as a whispered squeak. She leaned forward, moving closer to him, their faces only inches apart. She ran her fingers through his hair, and he shuddered.
“If you think I’m so great, you should kiss me. Or are we staying friends?”
Matt had literally no idea what was happening. He had thought this was an object lesson about gender politics, but now her mouth was partially open, and her head was tilted, and their faces were getting closer and closer, only inches apart now, and he could smell the faint heat of her breath and oh my God, what was even happening. Were they about to kiss?
“That box just moved.” Abby said from behind them.
Heather jumped back, and he recoiled with such force that he banged the back of his head against the wall.
“Nothing!” he said, although that made no sense.
“What box, Abby?” Heather cleared her throat several times.
“That one.” Abby pointed out the window, and Matt knew the box she was referring to. The green electrical box near the forest, the same one he swore was bouncing around.
Curiosity deflated the other parts of his body, and he looked out the window.
“Okay, it’s definitely closer,” he said. The box was now on the road. Earlier it had been on the grass. And there was no question it had moved several feet nearer to them.
“The storm maybe?” Heather said. “Maybe it pushed it over or something?”
“Maybe.” Matt wasn’t convinced, although he couldn’t think of any other explanation for why it would be moving around. It seemed like another mystery to solve, although not one he could figure out how to do anything with.
Paul
Sharon’s room smelled terrible, a heavy combination of iron, meat, and stale sweat. Paul opened the windows again, trying to let fresh air carry away the worst of the odor. He was positive the bleeding had stopped but was concerned the leg itself was causing the stench. While he was terrified to remove the bandage, or even look at her leg, the spot under the bed was dry. The rusty blood left behind was starting to flake and he could scratch it off with his fingernail.
The single candle he placed in the room before he went to bed had burned to the wick. With the power out, they were fast running out of candles, but he wanted to make sure she had some light. It would be horrible to wake up in the dark. If she ever woke up.
She swam in and out of consciousness and he didn’t know how to help her. He thought getting food into her was the best thing, so he made a sort of nutrition slurry. He mixed water, peanut butter and crushed vitamin C capsules into a bowl and was figuring out how to get her to eat it.
“Sharon?” he w
hispered, leaning over her body.
No response.
Using a straw, he dripped the mixture directly into her mouth, enough that she was able to naturally swallow it while she slept. Slowly, he got about half a cup into her before she started to cough and hack, but not enough that she swam out of her slumber.
None of this was enough. He needed to get her to a hospital. Surely, they’d have backup generators and doctors? But he needed to get to the kids as well. And Krista was counting on him to open the wall in the basement. Lastly, with the power out, he hadn’t heard from Liz, Alexandra’s daughter, in hours. Was she okay? He didn’t think her mom would be helpful in a situation like this.
Too many wants were pulling at him and he thought now would be the perfect time to head into the bathroom for a quick cry. Nothing too severe, but he thought a couple moments of screaming directly into a wadded-up towel would do the trick. He left Sharon’s room to do just that, but was interrupted by John, who walked up the stairs covered in dust and sweat, wearing a faded and grimy undershirt. His thin, white hair stuck to his head and his red face had sweat pouring off it. He was wiping himself off with a towel.
“You look exhausted.” Paul kept his voice low. “How’s it going down there?”
“It’s going.” John took a long drink from the water he was carrying. “I’ve got a lot of the foundation removed, the section is about five feet wide now. I think wherever they come through, we should have them covered.”
“Good man.” Paul’s desire to sob uncontrollably in the bathroom diminished slightly. He clapped John on the shoulder, a move that under normal circumstances would feel artificial and forced but felt right in the moment. “I’m not sure how I’d have gotten through any of this without you.”
“Oh, I suspect you’d do fine, just fine. You’re all buttoned down here, at least until someone comes to dig us out.”
Paul bit his lip. “I’m not sure someone’s coming, John.”
“I suspect you’re right about that too. I didn’t want to say that though. Not sure what kind of mood you’re in.”
Paul snorted. “I’d say my mood is about a three out of ten on the ‘pants-shitting terror’ scale. You’ve been calm through this whole thing. Nothing fazes you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. When my wife Madeline passed, I was pretty fazed. It was a rough time, but you and Krista were good to me. After you get through something like that, it’s tough to sweat the smaller things.”
“An alien invasion feels like a small thing to you?”
John laughed and took another long drink of water. “I’ll tell you this much. I’m glad she wasn’t here to see this.”
“I get that.”
“It’s not only the situation.” John scuffed his feet on the carpet and looked off over Paul’s shoulder. “You didn’t get to know her well, my wife, but she was quite the cut up. Could make a joke over just about anything, you’d set your watch by it. I’d come home after a long day, fit to hang, and she’d make some dumb joke about something she saw on TV, and after a moment, I’d be laughing, forgetting what me had so bent in the first place. There’s a type of magic in someone like that, don’t you think?”
Paul swallowed the lump in his throat. “I do, John.”
“If she was here, she’d already have come up with a good name for the aliens. Eggliens, or something.”
“Eggliens is pretty good.”
“Well. She’d have done better, sure is sure. I’ll tell you though, while I do miss her dearly, it would break her heart to see this. She was a fan of all this science fiction muckity-muck, you see?”
“Seriously? Madeline?” Paul couldn’t picture it.
“Oh, for sure. She’d watch them all, the Star Treks and the Star Wars and what have you. Seemed silly to me, bunch of people running around in pajamas, but she loved it. She’d talk about it sometimes, the aliens, if they came, what it would be like. The hopeful movies were her favorite ones, like the one that Spielberg fellow did, right at the beginning, when he was a younger lad.”
“Close Encounters?”
“Yes, that’s the one. She’d say if anyone came to visit, they’d have to be friendly, because how screwy would the universe have to be if that wasn’t the case? It would be like us traveling to the deepest part of amazon, scraping and clinging to get there, and finding a brand-new species of bird, a wonderful thing that no one had ever seen before, only to kill it. I mean, what kind of tosser would even do that? So, I’m okay that she’s not here for this, because it would break her heart.”
“I’m sorry, John.” Paul couldn’t think of what to say. This was more than John had spoken through this entire ordeal.
“We’d go to church from time to time, Madeline and I would. We weren’t religious about it, if you’ll excuse the joke, but we’d kneel at Christmas and Easter. All the big ones. She catered to it more than I did, but I liked seeing her smile, and that got me through the sermons. The burdens are light when we carry them for our women. Isn’t that the case?”
“It is.” Paul smiled, thinking of Krista, and he wondered if it worked the other way around. Her long hours at work, the housework she did mostly herself. Did he make her burdens lighter? Or was he the burden?
John continued, “At the end, when the cancer had taken most of her, she wanted the Pastor to come from the church. I stood and watched, but inside, it burned and bothered, because here she was, having words with the fellow who was taking her, and I was supposed to smile and say thank you. Well, that didn’t sit right, but I kept it to myself and I held her hand and I tried to think about whatever comfort she found. You know?”
Paul could only nod.
“But now, in this moment, I don’t know anymore. If there really was a God and he really was all-knowing, maybe he did her a favor by taking her early. Because I think about Madeline and how good she was, and how to her, aliens from another world would be new friends you hadn’t met yet. I think about her smile and how it would extinguish against the blackness of these things, and so help me, I’m glad she’s not here. She’d break. I couldn’t stand to see her in this. Does that make me bad? To be glad my wife is gone?”
John wiped at his eyes with his palm, seeming almost ashamed.
“It makes you human.” Paul rested his hand on John’s shoulder, who blushed and looked away.
“Look at me. Go on. You don’t need to hear any of this. You’ve got enough on your plate without listening to the ramblings of an old man.”
“Thank you for telling me about Madeline, John. I mean that. I really don’t know what I’d do without you here.”
John rubbed his face into the towel and nodded. “We’ll get through this. Your wife is coming and once we’re together, it will be better.”
“Yeah, if only I could think of a way for us to move Sharon. She’s not going to last, not in these circumstances.”
John stepped close and gripped his forearm. “You’re a smart man. I can see that. Does your brain normally take a vacation? You typically suffer from the disease I call ‘being a moron?’”
Paul smiled and said, “No, I do okay.”
“I bet you do. You’re doing a good job here, Paul, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You read?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. Then hurry up and get us out of here.”
Heather
Heather could surprise herself, although not often. Generous helpings of self-reflection and relentless criticism were soaked into her bones. Telling yourself, “good try,” didn’t get you the best marks in class. Twenty minutes of practice didn’t get you a starting position on the basketball team. And taking your foot off the gas didn’t make your parents love you.
Almost kissing Matt Cutler was a surprise. Not that she had a type exactly, but Matt wouldn’t normally be the sort of guy to hold her attention. His looks were unremarkable. Not unattractive, just unnoticeable. He had a talent for shrinking into himself, holding his shoulders close and hunchi
ng low to fade into the background. But she liked him. He was sweet and soft and kind. There didn’t seem to be any upside associated with drilling too deeply into what happened. Besides, kissing was nice. Nothing more complicated than that.
Abby stared out the window with her elbow rested on the sill, her stuffed animal Fuzzy Bear tucked under her arm. The sun sat high in the sky. She was on ‘box duty’, a task she assigned herself to. Throughout the day, the box inched closer and Abby wanted to figure out how. Matt curled up in the corner, trying to puzzle out ideas to get them out of here. The Cutlers were built smart, no question, but this wasn’t a situation where raw brains would work.
Heather’s focus was split across her parents and Liz. All three in different places and all tearing at her attention. She preferred to concentrate on Liz, the situation with her own Mom was too terrifying to deal with and her dad seemed to have things under control, with his house tunnel excavation plan. The physical work would keep him happy, so she put him on lower priority.
Outside, she counted four aliens at the roof line, content to hover forever and keep them prisoner. Earlier, she wondered how many there were, and Matt launched into a complicated answer about geographical patterns and extrapolation mechanics, before providing an alarmingly high number. Why were they even here? Why keep them hostage? Why float in the sky, ignoring them, unless they went outside? And what the hell was with the alarms?
Thinking about the time, she checked her watch. Four hours since the last alarm. Never less than two, never more than six.
“Could be any minute now,” she said. Abby gave a shuddering sigh that tore at Heather’s heart. They had given her the ear plugs and Abby stuffed them in before burrowing into the beanbag chair. Matt closed his eyes so tight that his face scrunched in on itself and he also covered his head. Heather pressed her palms against her ears and waited.
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