He jogged down the runway, puffing in the early heat of the day. He glanced at his watch, which read 8:47. His stomach was starting to ache, and he hoped there would be a restroom in the building he was approaching. It took several minutes to cross the airfield, and Daniel was sweating freely and breathing hard when he finally approached the metal door. There were three garage-type doors, but they were all closed, with no handles to lift them by. The metal door seemed to be Daniel’s best bet and he tugged on the knob, but it did not budge. There was a window nearby, so thick with grime that he could not see through it. He was afraid to shoot the window for fear of the bullet hitting something flammable, so he used the butt of his rifle to break the glass. He couldn’t reach the door to unlock it, so he slung the rifle across his back and climbed across the sill. Just inside the window was a desk strewn with papers. Daniel managed to keep from falling to the concrete floor. He was in a small office, but the smell of oil and gasoline told him he was in the right place.
He opened the door that connected the office to the rest of the building, but could not see much. There were cracks around the garage doors, outlining them in sunlight. Daniel made his way to the nearest one and found the chain that raised the door. He pulled on it. The chain clanked and rattled as the door lifted open. With sunlight now streaming in, he took a good look at the room; it was filled with tools and equipment. He smiled and then raised the other two doors to give himself as much light as possible. He wasn’t a mechanical person, so finding the right equipment would be difficult. He began searching and soon found an air compressor which he mistook for a generator.
Before long, his stomach forced him to stop the search and find a restroom. The walls of the small bathroom were covered with pictures of scantily clad women which someone had cut from the covers of magazines and calendars. Daniel’s stomach cramped too hard for him to care, he bent nearly double while his bowels emptied themselves. After cleaning himself up, he resumed his search. After nearly an hour, he had managed to locate a battery charger and a generator, but no gasoline. The generator was too heavy to move across the airfield, and frustration was setting in.
Daniel made another trip to the restroom, then went out to inspect the vehicles. If he could siphon enough gas from one to power the generator, it was possible that he could charge one of the trucks’ batteries and then drive the equipment to the helicopter. It was a good idea, but he was getting extremely tired and his mouth was so dry, his tongue felt twice its normal thickness. He decided he needed to find something to drink, and perhaps even a bite of something, before he sucked gasoline though a rubber hose.
He walked slowly toward the airport’s main building. When he arrived, his muscles were starting to cramp in his legs and back. He found an unlocked door and went inside the large building. He was in a long hallway with metal doors and cinderblock walls. There was no signage and he was forced to make his way by trial and error. He finally found a room that appeared to be used as storage for a small café in the airport. There were cases of bottled drinks and boxes of individual bags of potato chips and crackers. He found a sports drink and twisted off the cap. The drink wasn’t cold, but it was wet, and he drank down half of the bottle before stopping. The drink lubricated his mouth and throat. He was worried that anything in his stomach would make his diarrhea worse, but his stomach seemed fine. Daniel decided not to push his luck with the junk food, but he did carry a box of drinks and chips back to the mechanics shop.
It took nearly an hour for Daniel to find everything he needed. A rubber hose, a large gas container, an extension cord, a dolly to move the generator from the rear of the shop. Once he had everything in place, he snaked the rubber hose into the tank of a truck. He worked at siphoning for a while and found it to be difficult work, but once he got the hang of it, he was able to fill the gas container. He was covered in gasoline as a result, but he was able to get the generator going. He plugged the battery charger into the generator and hooked its alligator clips to the terminals on the battery of a refueling truck. His hope was to get the truck running so that they could charge the batteries and refuel the helicopter at the same time. He went back to the bathroom as the truck’s battery charged and tried to wash the fuel from his skin. There was rough soap on the sink, the kind used for removing grease, and Daniel used it all across his body, stripping down to the skin and splashing himself with water from the sink. It was cold, but he didn’t mind, the temperature had to be in the upper nineties outside.
After his impromptu bath, he decided to give the truck’s engine a try. To his delight the motor engaged smoothly, and he let the vehicle idle while he unhooked the equipment and loaded the generator and battery charger onto the truck. He also collected a tool box and then drove back toward the helicopter. The pilot was still inside the aircraft with the doors closed. Daniel honked the horn as he climbed out of the truck. The pilot’s face appeared in the cockpit, sweating profusely from the heat inside but refusing to open the door. Daniel motioned for the man to come out and watched as the pilot’s eyes flicked all around before nodding his consent. The door popped open as Daniel pulled the battery charger from the truck. It was on a rolling stand and Daniel guided it over to the helicopter. He opened the maintenance door and propped it open with his rifle.
The pilot carried the pistol in his hands as he walked quickly toward Daniel. His clothes were soaked in sweat and he was breathing heavily.
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah, sure,” the pilot answered.
“Okay, then put that gun away before you hurt somebody and get the extension cord out of the truck.”
The pilot nodded and hurried to comply. He found the drinks and returned with one in his hand, along with the extension cord which Daniel plugged into the battery charger.
“Do you mind if I have one?” the pilot asked.
“You can have as many as you want, that’s what I got them for,” Daniel said.
He wrestled the generator off the truck and pulled the starter cord. The generator coughed to life and Daniel plugged in the extension cord. Then he connected the battery charger to each of the batteries and allowed the machine to show him the charge of each one. They were all drained, but one was completely dead. Daniel hooked the cable to one of the live batteries and started it charging. He then retrieved the tools to unhook the dead battery.
“Did you see anything?” the pilot asked.
“Nothing unusual,” Daniel replied. “I saw some batteries in the shop over there where I got this stuff. Why don’t you stay here while I see if I can replace this dead battery? You think you can get it pulled out for me?”
“Sure,” the man said, finally responding to something besides fear.
The heat of midday was stifling and Daniel enjoyed the feel of the air as he drove the truck across the tarmac. The sweat on his skin felt icy as the air blew across him. He remembered how his father always wore long sleeved shirts, even in the summer, saying that the sweat-soaked material kept him cooler than if the sweat simply evaporated off his skin. He smiled at such fond memories and once again Lana’s face materialized before his eyes. He was suddenly afraid that the creatures from the night before might have found her. Where did such creatures come from? They were unlike anything he had ever seen or heard of before. That’s when the realization hit him like a punch to the gut. He had never seen or heard of them, because they were not from this world. He was sure of it now, the spheres, the plague, the strangeness of the bodies, everything came into focus. There were no more questions about a government cover-up, or a terrorist attack. He was sure, and as he shifted the transmission into park with a gear-grinding shove, the movement seemed to cement the truth. The earth had been attacked by aliens, and he knew what he had to do.
Chapter 29
As he searched for a battery to replace the dead cell on the helicopter, his mind checked through the possibilities and theories as fast as it could. Were the creatures he had seen last night the aliens? They
looked intelligent, but also beastly. Surely a species advanced enough to cross through space would have recognized the helicopter and the people inside. So if those creatures weren’t the aliens, then the aliens must have brought them—but why? He found a battery and managed to get it into the truck, even though it seemed to weigh more than he did. On his way back to the helicopter, he wondered why they hadn’t been able to see the aliens on the satellite feeds in the White House. Perhaps it was because they were completely invisible or using some type of cloaking technology. Or perhaps they didn’t know enough about the satellites feeds yet, but that could also answer the question of why certain satellites had gone offline, perhaps the aliens had disabled them.
He knew he had to get back to Washington, but first he was going to Colorado. In his dreams he had seen Lana there, in a cabin in the mountains, with wildflowers covering the ground. He knew finding her was almost impossible, but he had to try.
By late afternoon they had replaced and charged the batteries, refueled the helicopter, and stocked the cabin with food and bottled drinks from the airport café.
“There’s no use trying to fly in the dark,” Daniel said. “We might as well stay here.”
“What if those things come back?” the pilot said.
“They didn’t get in last night, they won’t tonight.”
“I don’t know,” the pilot said. “I don’t like it.”
“Have you got a better idea?”
“Why don’t we take the truck and find a hotel or something?”
Daniel thought about that for a moment. It wasn’t a bad idea, really. Surely there was someplace close were they could stay the night in a bed; that’s what he had planned to do all along.
“Alright, let’s go.”
They got into the truck and left the airport. The road they were on was long and empty, no cars or houses and no hotels. But after a few miles they encountered signs of civilization in the form of a convenience store. They drove further down the road, past small neighborhoods and other small businesses, until they came to a large, drab hotel.
“What do you think?” Daniel asked, not very excited about the prospect of staying in the rundown establishment.
“Do you mind if we keep looking?” the pilot asked.
“Not at all,” Daniel said, but still he took stock of the sun as it sank toward the horizon. He had gotten over his fear in the daylight, had even managed to forget about the shaggy creatures he had seen the night before, but as the light faded, so did his courage. He stepped on the accelerator, wanting to find a place and get settled before they lost the daylight.
The next hotel was a nice looking franchise chain with a sign boasting of a free hot breakfast. They parked the truck in the drive-through just outside the main doors and walked into the lobby. The lobby was hot, but the furnishings were nice and undisturbed.
“I’ll see about getting us some keys.” Daniel went behind the desk and realized the keys were plastic cards, but without electricity to encode them, they wouldn’t open any door. He looked around for a master key, but found nothing on the desk. He went into the manager’s office and found a plain white card that had master written on with a magic marker.
Bingo, he thought and snatched the card up. He left the office and found the pilot waiting on him. They took the stairs and went up to the third floor. They took the first room that was made up with two beds. They opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony. There was a breeze, and the sunset was painting the sky in brilliant shades of pink and orange.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” said the pilot.
Daniel nodded and dropped into a plastic chair on the balcony. He propped his legs on the metal railing and sighed. He couldn’t help but think of how beautiful the sunset was. If he had left Washington with Lana, they could have made their way across the country, settling in places like this each night, enjoying the beauty of it. He rubbed his cheek bone and forehead around his artificial eye. The metal inside felt hot from the day, a searing reminder of how hard life had become. He heard the shower water begin and suddenly he felt hot and tired and ready for a cold shower and soft bed. That thought was comforting, at least until he heard the howl.
The creatures were some distance away, but they had not moved on. Daniel’s blood turned to ice in his veins and his scalp began to tingle as if ants were crawling all over it. He closed his eyes and wondered if the creatures could find them up here in the top story of the hotel. He got up and went into one of the other rooms and pulled down the metal shower curtain rod. He returned to their room and, leaving the sliding door open a few inches to let in cooler night air, he wedged the rod behind the door and the wall. It was a small protection, the large beasts could probably break through the glass, but it made him feel safer all the same.
When the pilot came out of the bathroom, Daniel told him about the howl. The pilot wanted to close the door, but Daniel knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep in the stifling, summer night unless they got some fresh air. He offered to move to a different room, but the pilot preferred having company to having a locked room. Daniel took a shower in the dark, then lay down for the night. It took hours to fall asleep, fear kept shaking him awake. Finally he did drift off to dream about Lana.
The next morning Daniel felt weak. He hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours and his head was swimming. He left the pilot snoring in his bed and went down to the lobby to find something to eat. In a room full of small tables and chairs, he found a closet full of breakfast fare. The only thing not spoiled were boxes of breakfast cereal and fruit snack bars. He took as many as he could carry back up to the room and sat outside on the balcony. The warm sports drink and dry cereal weren’t satisfying, but they filled his stomach and the dizziness stopped. After a while he felt stronger and roused the sleeping pilot.
“Let’s go,” Daniel said.
He walked down to the lobby and out into the parking lot. There were still cars here, and Daniel found small handbills stuck behind the windshield wipers. The flyers gave information about an emergency shelter in downtown Joplin, and a small map was printed on it. It could be, Daniel thought, that there were still survivors down there. It wouldn’t hurt to make a small detour before heading west to Colorado.
He went back into the lobby and found a city map. He memorized the directions when the pilot came down. It took almost twenty minutes to find the shelter. They approached the door and knocked. The doors swung open, but there was no response from inside. The power was off and there wasn’t much light, but it took only a moment for their eyes to adjust. They made their way past a row of offices and into a large room where cots had been lined up. There were tables against the walls with food and medical supplies. What Daniel saw in the room made him turn and vomit the breakfast he had recently eaten. The pilot sighed then fainted dead away, hitting his head against the floor so hard the sound echoed around the metal rafters.
On and around the cots were bodies, most of which were mutilated beyond recognition. It was as if someone had dropped them into a food processor, bits of flesh and bone were strewn everywhere. Some bodies lay half intact, while legs were missing or flesh was gone and only bones remained. Once Daniel had regained control of his stomach, he checked on the pilot, but he couldn’t rouse the man. There was a large lump on the back of his skull where his head had hit the concrete floor, but Daniel had always heard that if a head injury swelled out, there was only a small chance of permanent injury. He left the man on the floor and went to take a closer look at the bodies.
It was morbid to inspect these people, many of whom stared up sightlessly or lay with eyes closed as if they might wake up and accuse him of snooping. He felt guilty, as if he was invading their privacy, and at the same time he felt vile because he could not look away. One man’s left leg was nothing but bone from hip to ankle, but the foot and body were unmarked. There were fibrous strands of muscle tissue, tendons, and ligaments hanging from the hip and blood stains covered the bed
sheets. Daniel bent down and examined the femur bone, which was marked with grooves and indentions all along its length. It looked as if someone had squeezed the bone from various angles with giant metal pliers that had scarred the bone’s surface. There was something about that bone, something that seemed almost familiar. And then, as he searched around the cot, he found the clue he needed—a tuft of shaggy hair. The same kind of shaggy hair as the creatures he had seen the other night. And the markings on the man’s femur, those creatures had chewed on that bone leaving the marks and indentions.
Daniel had seen enough, he went back to the pilot and shook him. After a moment the man began to wake up. His eyes fluttered open and he groaned loudly.
“Shhhhh!” Daniel hissed.
He pulled the man to his feet and practically dragged him back to the truck. The man was trying to protest, but Daniel wouldn’t let him. He shoved the pilot into the truck and slammed the man’s door. As he circled the truck, he heard a strange sound from inside the shelter. It was almost like the purr of a lion or tiger, a deep, throaty, stretching sound. Then, from out of the shadows, one of the beasts’ heads emerged. It looked at Daniel, then it snarled.
Daniel screamed but didn’t know it. He flung open the truck door and jumped inside. The creature sprang from the shadows and swung its tail into the front fender of the truck. The blow rocked the vehicle and Daniel fumbled with his keys. The pilot fainted again, and Daniel was now mumbling incoherently as his shaking hands tried to get the car key into the ignition. There was a screeching wail that was quite different from the screaming howl they had heard in the night, and the sound reverberated inside the truck cab and made Daniel’s bones seem to vibrate. He cranked the engine and pulled the gearshift into drive, then stomped on the gas pedal. The truck sped away and Daniel looked in the side mirror to see if the creature would pursue them, but it merely stood there watching them escape.
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