Nathan Hystad

THE EVENT

BY

NATHAN HYSTAD

ONE

The ships came at dawn. The radio announcer made it sound like War of the Worlds, and in my half-sleeping state, I dismissed it as a prank. When I flicked my television on to see what the news station was saying about it, my stomach dropped to my knees. This was no hoax.

The screen showed scenes from the world’s metropolises, and one thing remained constant: there were ships over each of them. Big Ben’s clock kept ticking while the people on the streets panicked. Lady Liberty pushed her torch into the dark sky, among the plethora of sleek gray vessels; above them were huge black boxes. They floated above the cities like massive monoliths. I tried to stay calm, but my hands had already begun to shake and my breathing sped up.

The sun was just beginning to peek through my living room window, and I turned my blinds wide open. Relief washed over me when I couldn’t see any ships in the sky above me. That feeling quickly subsided when I noticed a reflection off something to the north. One of the ships was nearby.

Not worried about walking outside in my boxers and t-shirt, I headed down my driveway. There were at least six of the vessels within sight of my house. I lived in a small community, a hundred miles northwest of New York City, and when I turned toward the big city, I could see the black cube even from here. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how large it must have been.

My neighbor Susan and her cocker spaniel trotted down their driveway and planted their feet, both looking up at the ships. It was surprising how some people could look so much like their dogs. Carey barked up to the heavens, and I wasn’t sure if he was saying hi to the intruders or warning them off.

“What do you think they are, Dean?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the dawn sky.

I had only the slightest inkling of what they were, but I couldn’t tell her without sounding like a raving lunatic, so I kept it simple. “I have no idea, Susan. The news is telling everyone to stay calm. Maybe we should just go back inside.”

By this time, the street was filling up with people, and I could almost taste the fear in the air. Carey saw a bird and chased after it; wings beat fast and the bird rose into the sky. My gaze lingered on it, and I saw the gray, shining ship in the distance, reminding me why we were all out here. The neighbors were all gathering around Jacob’s house down the street, hands waving frantically in the air, voices calling out over each other.

I left them to it, giving Carey a pet before heading back into the house. They had been in our atmosphere for under an hour, and I was very curious to see what the news had to say about the situation now. My initial panic had all but passed, and my stomach growled angrily as I crossed my kitchen to the living room. I turned the volume up and listened to the anchor say that there had been no movement by any of the invaders, anywhere.

Within moments, I went to my usual routine of making breakfast: burner on, frying pan heating up, and bread stuck into the toaster. I was a man of routine, and doing something normal at a time like this calmed me. My doctor had told me to cut back on fried eggs, but under the current circumstances, I figured that was the least of my concerns. Soon I had the comforting smell of coffee and eggs filling my kitchen, and the anchor said the president was about to address the nation. With plate in hand, I settled down on my couch and waited, seeing shot after shot from around the world of people’s reaction to the ships. Some were frantically trying to escape the large cities; some were bowing to the ground on their knees, praying to their gods, or maybe to the invaders. I had no idea.

By the time the president appeared on the television, I’d cleaned my plate off and filled my cup a second time. Through my window, I saw a few neighbors driving away, cars full of personal belongings. I didn’t know where someone would try to escape to, but I wished them the best. No one knew what was going to happen, and even though part of me had been waiting for this day, I really didn’t know what they were going to do.

Janine’s brown eyes knowingly watched me from the picture frame hanging on the wall. My heart ached as the president told the world they were trying to communicate with the ships. I couldn’t break my wife’s frozen gaze as the world was told to not panic, that this was our first contact with an obviously intelligent race. First contact.

My phone rang, and I picked it up to see my mother’s name flash on the screen. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought to call her. Surely she would be in a full-on panic attack by this point.

“Hello,” I said.

“Dean, are you up?” Her voice was frantic.

“Mom, calm down. Yes, I’m up. We don’t know why they’re here, but maybe it’s not bad.”

“Of course it’s bad! If they were here to make friends, don’t you think they would have used a little more tact than hovering thousands of ships over the Earth?”

My mother had always been a sharp woman, and her argument did make a lot of sense.

“We can’t presume to think we know what an alien race would know about tact. For all we know, this is a friendly gesture.” Even as I said the words, I knew they sounded wrong.

“What should I do?” she asked.

The truth was I had no idea, but she was all alone in her townhouse across the country from me. “Mom, just stay inside and don’t panic. Lock the doors too. You know how crazy people can get when something strange happens.”

She paused and I could hear her breathing ease up a bit. “Okay. You stay safe. I’m just going to see how Mabel’s doing next door, and then lock myself in. Stay in touch, though, honey.”

I said I would and hung up. The president’s speech was over, with no real substance behind it. The recap was scrolling across the screen on a black banner: Stay indoors. Don’t panic. My gaze wandered back to my wife’s picture just as the TV began showing people in the Middle East firing semi-automatics at the ships from the ground. Military forces in other countries were ramping up. Footage from Russia showed lines of tanks and fighter jets, ready to mobilize. This gave me a sinking feeling in my gut, and in a flash, my memory snapped into place and I felt like I’d been slapped.

I had to get the necklace.

_______

Seven Years Earlier

Janine was running late, so I had dinner covered and in the oven to keep it warm. It was her favorite: butter chicken and rice. The wedding plans were scattered across our kitchen table. In this pile of magazines, cake pictures, and honeymoon pamphlets sat our unfinished wedding invitations, and we were finalizing those tonight. I poured a glass of wine and sat down, grabbing her invite list. We each had a limit of thirty people, not including the mutual friends we’d already worked out.

Her list had all of the regulars I knew: her adopted parents, brother, sister, aunts, and family friends. There were four names I’d never heard before. It made me think of how much we still didn’t know about each other; mainly, how much I didn’t know about her still.

The door opened and she called at me while I guiltily dropped her list to the table.

“Hey, babe. I just poured a glass of wine. Care to join me?” I asked.

“Well, I smell butter chicken.” She smiled widely. “So that means I owe you big, and I may need a glass of wine to make your touch bearable,” she teased.

I loved her so much. Her brown hair cascaded down her back, her eyes danced with mine, reminding me why I’d fallen for her so hard and fast. I was smitten.

“Come to me – the monster you’ve agreed to marry.” I stepped toward her and she put a hand up, looking at the table.

“Dean, I see you found my list,” she said.

Her face had turned white, and I worried there was more to those names than I’d thought.

“Is one of those an ex of yours?” I asked.

She visibly relaxed. “No, nothing like that. You know I’m adopted… obviously. Those people are… some of my real family members.” She fidgeted with her necklace. I knew there was a pendant under her shirt. She said it was from her real parents, and she liked to keep it close to her heart. She never took the thing off – ever.

“I didn’t think you knew any of your family.” I was hurt that she hadn’t brought this up before. We preached honesty, but with Janine, I always felt a wall between us that I didn’t want to admit was there.

She could tell I was bothered, because she moved in front of me and cupped my face with her hands. “I’ve been looking for my parents, and I heard back from a cousin I tracked down. These two are related to me in some way, and I wanted to have them at our wedding. They live across the country, and it would be tough to see them otherwise.”

“Just trust me enough to share this stuff with me. I want to know everything, and I’m here to support you.”

“Of course, sweetie.” She fumbled with the necklace again. “I love you. Now, how about some of that great-smelling dinner?”

She seemed a little off, but it was natural to be stressed with her whole newfound family and all of the wedding preparations.

TWO

I had looked everywhere I could think of and resigned myself to the fact that the pendant wasn’t in my house. I sat with my back against the hallway wall and tried to think. I ran my shaking hands through my now damp hair, racking my brain, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. Then it came to me.

My clock read ten thirty-two when I checked it on my way into the kitchen. The television still showed ships by the thousands in the sky around the world, and there I was looking for a stupid piece of jewelry. I told myself it was a promise to my wife, and I knew there was no way I would break that. I fumbled around my junk drawer and found what I was looking for: an envelope with an address and a number on it. Inside, a key weighed the paper down. I put the key in my pocket and grabbed my wallet.

Passing by a mirror in the living room, I saw what a mess I looked like. Hair in a wild display of unintentional hipster; clothing wrinkled and in need of a wash. Who was going to care today? The sky was full of aliens and I just needed to get across town. I’d be back home before I knew it.

I clicked my television off and wondered how many people were still sleeping or hadn’t yet turned their TVs on or been outside today. They were going to be in for a surprise.

My neighborhood was quiet, even for this time of day. Most of the people that lived here were retired or in single-income households. That, combined with half the families letting their kids stay home until they were thirty or married, meant the street usually had more cars and people out. Something about being outside right then was truly unsettling. Static. The air had an energized feel to it, almost like licking a nine-volt battery when you were a kid to see if it still had a charge.

Susan was in her window staring up at the sky, and Carey gave me a bark as I got into my truck. I turned the radio on to the local news station to see what was happening. As far as I could tell, the gray ships hadn’t moved or done anything yet, and it had been over four hours since they’d shown up. The large black vessel hung in the horizon, a menace in my vision as I started to pull out of my driveway. I cracked my window to let in some fresh air. The September breeze had a hint of the autumn to come, but summer was still here in the state of New York.

The soothing voice of Rollie Armstrong assured the townspeople that panic wasn’t going to help anyone, and he was reiterating what the president had just spoken about at his press conference. I knew people were scared; hell, I was shaken up by the whole thing too. But since my wife’s death, I’d learned to not get upset by the things I couldn’t control. Alien invasion would fit into that category.

As I drove through the neighborhood, groups of people were just standing and watching, as if they could make the ships go away by sheer will. I passed the local Lutheran church, and the parking lot was fuller than on any given Sunday. Give the people a reason to pray and that’s when they begin to believe. One of my clients was walking to the church, and he lifted his arm in greeting. I’d known him for years, so I pulled over and rolled the window down.

“Hello, Steve.” What did someone say for small talk when the Earth was covered by a million spacecrafts? Nice weather? Did you see the Giants game? You’re still on for this Friday’s poker game, right? I waited for him to start it.

“Hey, Dean.” He nodded at the church. “I figured it was time I said hello to the big guy upstairs. Something like this makes you think. Debbie and the kids are inside; I was just parking the car. Where are you off to?” His voice wavered, and I could tell he was really worried.

“Just going to get some supplies. I figure the stores may shut down early today. That’s if any of them are open.” It was only a half lie.

“The Happy Hut is open on Sherwood Road. That old guy is open on Christmas. I guess he figures to make money while the rest of them are watching the news. Well, I’d better get in there. Debbie is a mess. Take care, Dean.”

“You too, Steve. With any hope, this will be all over soon, and I’ll call you next week about your paperwork,” I said. He nodded, his mind already on the sky. I wondered if I was the only accountant in the world who’d just brought up work today.

The side roads were nearly empty, but when I hit Sherwood, there were cars for miles. I don’t think I had ever seen this many cars in our little city before. I sat at the four-way stop, thinking of the best way to get across town without being bogged down by the traffic. I looked to the left and saw what looked to be a fresh accident. The drivers were getting out of their cars screaming at each other.

A flicker of recognition hit me when I noticed the back of James’ Jeep all smashed up, and the familiar gesture of him running of his hands through his hair when he was stressed. The driver who had rear-ended him was a large man, and was getting in his face. I threw my truck in park and jumped out. This wasn’t the first time James had needed me to come to his aid, but it was the first time in daylight.

I ran the hundred yards to the cars, the rest of traffic still gridlocked behind them. James didn’t see me as the other man was pushing and threatening him. I could hear James saying his assailant was the one who ran into his Jeep. The law didn’t seem to matter to this guy, who was built like a Mack truck. I heard him mutter something about insurance not mattering anymore, because they were all going to be dead within the day.

As the man cocked a fist to throw at James’ face, I ran behind him, kicked his left knee, and grabbed his arm. I was thankful for the memory of my high school karate lessons. We went down together towards the pavement and I whispered in his ear, “Let’s not let this get out of hand. We all have enough to think about today. I’m going to let you up, and we’re all going to just drive away. Okay?”

He stopped thrashing after a moment and he grunted in assent. James had backed away, smirking at me as I got off the man. I stepped back quickly, ready for retaliation, but the man just moved to a sitting position. He was crying.

“My wife left me this morning. She saw the ships; told me she’d been cheating on me with my best friend. They left together, heading to his lake lot. As if being on a seaweed-infested swamp is going to stop the aliens from ripping your head off.”

I offered him my hand and pulled him to his feet. He wiped his eyes dry with the back of his dirty arm before stumbling back to his big truck. It was big enough to do some serious damage to James’ Jeep. “Watch yourselves. These bastards are here for our blood. I know it.”

He left and James stood there looking at the back of his Jeep. Other vehicles were pulling to the side of the street, passing by the damaged vehicle. Some were honking and yelling from their windows. James flipped a few the bird.

“James, let’s get your Jeep moved to the curb and you can hop in with me. Where were you going, anyway?” I asked.

James climbed in the driver’s seat and drove off the road, onto the grass beside the curb. The back of the Jeep was crushed. “I was heading out of town. I didn’t know what to do. I guess I wanted to head into the city. I figured they would have a better defense in New York than our hick town.”

Most of the traffic I’d seen on the television was cars heading out of the metropolises, not into them. I wondered if James’ logic was sound or crazy. I wasn’t sure at this point.

“Well, I have a couple errands to run. Want to come with me? We may as well stick together.” I looked him in the eye. “We don’t have anyone else around to watch over us.”

James smirked again and hopped out of the Jeep. He sauntered over and put his arm around my shoulders. “You got it, bud. Where are we off to?”

“Word is Happy Hut is open, and I want to get some supplies before things head south and the looting begins.” He gave me a doubtful look. “Seriously. It happens every time in the movies, so I’m not taking any chances. Then I have one more place to hit.”

Soon we were on our way down the side streets, passing by sidewalks full of sky-gawkers. The ships appeared to not have moved at all, still six above our town and holding. The traffic was light heading towards downtown, and ten minutes later, we were pulling up to the Happy Hut. The parking lot was semi-full, but not as bad as I thought it would be. As I pulled into a spot, the radio announcer was talking about Russia firing missiles at the ships as the sun went down overseas; no reaction from the ships. No damage, no retaliation.

The line-up inside the small grocery store was about seven deep.

“You go grab some lighters, toilet paper, a couple newspapers, and a box cutter. I’m going for water, protein bars, and batteries,” I said, and we split up. People were milling around the aisles talking amongst themselves. Are they going to contact us soon? Did the government know they were coming? Should I have gone in to work today? I tried to ignore their conversations, but they were asking some good questions I doubted any of us could answer.

I turned the corner to see two women arguing over a jar of baby food. It appeared it was the last one. They both had their hands clamped tight around it, and soon they would be in an all-out brawl if this didn’t get resolved.

“Ladies, there’s enough going on. Let’s settle this like adults,” I offered.

“Go to hell!” the blonde spat.

“Yeah! Who the hell do you think you are? I was here first!” the other called.

“No you weren’t!”

They pushed each other and the blonde fell to the ground, hitting her head on the floor. The other grabbed the food and left, without so much as a worried glance at her fallen adversary. I couldn’t believe how fast animal instinct took over when a person felt threatened. Any other day and this would never have happened. As the blonde lady came to, I spotted a case of baby food sitting on the shelf below. Classic. I helped her to her feet, and she groggily thanked me as I handed her the case of food.

I grabbed the things I needed, throwing them into a basket, and added some mini-propane tanks and the rest of the D batteries. It surprised me that any of this stuff was still here. My heart sped up when I felt the envelope in my pocket. James had distracted me from my original purpose for leaving my house, and I had to get moving before it was too late.

I found James in the snack aisle and pulled him to the checkout. There were eight people now, and the owner was moving like a snail. Sweat was running down my back as I thought back to my wife’s words, and I grabbed my wallet, estimating the value of my stuff. I figured it was about sixty bucks, so I pulled out eighty and dropped it on the checkout till.

I received a few curse words for my trouble as I headed out the front door but didn’t really care. I had somewhere to get to – and fast.

“What a jerk! At least you paid him for it. I’m sure there’ll be a few looters before this is over.” James waved his hand at the gray ship hovering over town.

“Let’s get out of here. One more stop, then off to home. You want to come stay with me until whatever this is, is over?” I knew James probably wasn’t looking forward to going back to his apartment alone right now, and I could use the company too.

“You got it, buddy. We forgot one thing, then.”

“What’s that?” I asked, seeing that typical mischievous look in his eyes.

“Beer and pizza.” He laughed, and I joined him.

“I’m sure we can scrounge some of that up from my fridge. I’m a single man, after all.” It was more likely I had veggies and fruit at home: one of the many promises I’d made to my wife as she lay on her deathbed.

THREE

The streets on this side of town were quiet, and it only took ten minutes to get to my destination. We pulled up and I stopped at the keypad, truck window open. I could hear sirens blasting across the town: a mixture of fire and ambulance, with a hint of police. I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and opened it. The key slid out, as did a small piece of paper. 3691 was written on it. I punched that sequence into the pad and the gate in front of the truck slid open.

“What could we possibly be doing at a storage facility? There are aliens above us and you’re here looking for what? A dining room chair?” James didn’t hide his annoyance.

“Something important. Something Janine told me was important.” My voice was quiet and James just shrugged.

I drove along the path, passing countless storage units, until I reached the one by the back fence with the light hanging over it. I hadn’t been here since just after she’d died. I felt myself about to lose it and took a deep breath as the memories flooded my mind. I exhaled and threw the truck in park. I could do this.

I twisted the key into the padlock and it turned smoothly, even after being untouched for over two years. James grabbed the handle and lifted the sliding door up; it squeaked from its non-lubricated wheels. Daylight peeked inside the mostly empty space. I’d always intended on getting rid of more of my furniture because it reminded me too much of my wife. After some time, that was the very same reason I couldn’t bear to part with it. A few things from my bachelor days were stacked in the corner on a dark brown couch. I wasn’t here to reminisce about my past. I was here for something else.

I almost felt it calling me from inside one of the large plastic storage containers. James leaned against the wall, watching me through squinted eyes as I walked over to it. I opened the lid and found all of Janine’s mementos from our lives together. There were little notes she’d left me on the fridge; drawings on napkins from Michaels, our favorite little Italian restaurant; and a small jewelry box. I slowly opened the felt-covered box and saw exactly what I’d expected to find. Her wedding ring, and the necklace she’d never taken off for a minute the whole time I’d known her.

_______

Three Years Earlier

I was in bed waiting for Janine to join me when I heard her coughing from the en-suite. It was a deep, phlegm-filled cough, and it almost shocked me to hear those noises coming out of my petite wife. I went to check on her, but she wouldn’t unlock the door. I panicked when the coughing fit wouldn’t stop, and just as I was about to get a pen to pop the bathroom lock open, she opened the door. Her hair was a mess, and blood dripped from her lips. Blood covered the sink too. My heart hammered in my chest as I asked her questions, but she wouldn’t reply – couldn’t reply. She turned white and passed out in my arms.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her, but they figured it was some tuberculosis mutation they’d never seen before. She spent more time in hospitals than anyone should have to and took it all with grace only she could muster. It was the strangest thing. I could never get her to seem realistic about it. I cried when they told her she would probably die within six months, and she put her hands to my face, streaming with tears, and told me I would be okay. That this was just her path.

I should have known then that something was off.

_______

We headed back to my house, and after being bombarded by James’ questions, I did need a beer. The day had been tough for me, as I’m sure it had been for most of the world. I’d almost forgotten about the ships in the sky around the world, I was so lost in my past.

The street was empty of people, and I didn’t know if they had left town or if they were all hunkering down in their homes. We pulled up and grabbed our supplies from the back of the truck. Carey barked a friendly hello from Susan’s window as we walked up my driveway. I gave him a wave, and I saw him wag his tail in reply. I’d always wanted a dog, but Janine had been terrified of them. She said they’d hated her since she could remember, and even Carey, the world’s wiggliest dog, seemed to raise his hackles at her. In the past two years, I’d really thought about getting a pup to keep me company, but it seemed like I’d be dishonoring her in some way. I knew it was stupid, and Janine would have told me to get one if she could.

Inside the house, I turned the TV on after dropping the supplies in the kitchen. It was dark in Moscow, where they showed a riot in the streets. Looters ran rampant in London, and there were stories coming in about some groups of people found dead in Ohio; presumably a cult ritual. Still, none of the ships had moved an inch, as far as anyone could tell. They seemed to move along with the Earth’s rotation; some sort of geostationary orbit within our atmosphere.

It was almost three o’clock local time, and I was starting to feel worried. The news said that it had been almost nine hours since their arrival, and that they came near dawn on the east coast of the USA. No one knew what implication this had, or if it was relevant at all. I think the waiting and wondering was doing a number on everyone, as if them coming down and doing something – anything – would have been better.

High definition cameras showed the world the many details of the cubes, as they were calling them, and the metal-looking outsides were a stark contrast to the smooth, almost marble-like look of the smaller, sleeker ships. They weren’t sure on the exact size, but estimations put them at three miles per side. Massive. There were five over the United States. Sixteen over China. If I was a betting man, population was the motivation for the amount of these cubes over the world. One of them nestled in the sky, hovering there above New York, an ominous black alien vessel taunting the population.

“What the hell are these things? I mean, all those little ships and then the huge ones,” James asked. “Do you think they’re full of aliens? Are they going to land?”

“We’re going to just have to wait and see. I think there are a lot more qualified people out there than us to figure it out,” I said.

“This is just insane, isn’t it, Dean?” James had grabbed a couple beers, twisted the cap off one, and passed it over to me. “I mean, every one of us has wondered if there could be life from outer space, and here’s proof. And what do we do? Loot, kill, and panic.”

“That’s the way we’re built. Mob mentality and all of that other Psych 101 stuff I slept through in school,” I said, turning the volume up on the TV.

It was dark across the ocean, and some areas were using large searchlights to see the ships. A haunting image scrolled onto the screen from Hungary of the huge white moon with the black silhouette of one of the sleek ships in front of it. It sent shivers down my spine. James cleared his throat. “This isn’t going to end well.”

Moscow was in flames. Missiles had been fired for over an hour at the ships, both the huge cubes and the smaller, gray ships, and they hadn’t moved or shown any sign of damage. It was absurd! We sat there for a couple hours, drinking a few beers, and watching the news. The world was getting more volatile, more wound up every minute. World leaders were trying to keep everyone calm, people of every religion were speculating about end times. The United States’ most popular TV evangelist swore it was the Rapture. God’s wrath was now upon us for creating war and destruction, and through it all, people were frightened.

My stomach sank as I watched it all happening. My wife’s calm words on her deathbed rang over and over in my ears. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the box that held the necklace. I put the wedding ring back in the box and held the gold chain. The pendant was made out of some sort of crystal; a beautiful green hue glowed out of it. I’d thought it was fluorite, but Janine had said it was far rarer than that. She hadn’t elaborated, and I’d never pressed her on it. I just knew it was from her real parents, and that it was very important to her.

My stomach growled and I looked at the clock. It was almost six thirty, and I heard James snoring in my recliner. I decided to leave him peacefully sleeping while I made a sandwich. I heard Janine’s words race through my mind again and I decided to heed her wishes. I put the chain around my neck and tucked the pendant under my shirt.

_______

Three Years Ago

Janine was in bed sleeping soundly when I stepped into the room. The hot soup cup was burning my hands, and I just stood there with the pain. I felt like I needed the distraction, like the burning would make my other pain go away somehow. Even though we were in our own house, the smell of the hospital still stuck in my nostrils, and I wasn’t sure if the chemical scent would ever be gone.

It was time, and Janine demanded to come home for the end. How could I deny that beautiful woman’s wishes when she was so small and frail, her life slipping away in hours and minutes instead of decades and years like someone her age should have left?

I put the soup down, sat at the foot of the bed, and just watched her breathe. The sounds lulled me, and I felt my own eyes getting droopy. I lay down and curled up beside my wife like I always did when we went to bed. Even if it was too warm, I needed to feel her body next to mine to fall asleep. I’d become dependent on her in so many ways, and I had no idea what I was going to do when she was gone. As I closed my eyes, I thought about dying and wondered if we would be together in some sort of afterlife if I ended my own life when she was gone. My last thoughts were of a bottle of whiskey and a vial of pills before sleep took over my exhausted body.

I woke to her touch. A soft kiss on my lips; her hair cascading down on my face. I cried and felt shame in my pain. She was the one dying and I was the one crying about it like a baby constantly. The worst part was, it seemed like she was okay with having a husband who couldn’t stop blubbering.

“Janny, I love you so much. I’m so sorry this happened,” I blurted between sobs.

She looked me in the eyes, and for the first time in weeks, I saw her own eyes well up. A single tear fell slowly and splashed on my cheek. It mingled with my own, and somehow, I felt better for it.

“I have to tell you something.” She leaned back down on her pillow, and it was almost as if I noticed how sick she really was for the first time. Her eyes were sunken, skin tight against her hollow cheeks. She coughed lightly and I saw a speck of blood fly out onto the bedding.

“Just remember that I’m sorry.” I went to stop her and she waved me down. “Dean, don’t say anything…” another cough, “just listen. One day you’ll learn something about me. Just know that I’m sorry, and that I truly do love you with all of my heart. You mean everything to me, and I never expected to feel this way. My life has been worth it just to have met you, and don’t forget it. Don’t ever forget this moment.” Her hand wiped the tears from my face as her own streamed down her cheeks.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew she was almost gone. Her voice had gotten so quiet, her breathing ragged. “They’ll come one day. Appear in the sky.” My heart hammered in my chest as she spoke, the words sounded so foreign to me. I glanced over to the night stand and saw the half empty bottle of pills, and assumed she was hallucinating. She tried to take off her necklace, which she had never done before, but I put my hand on hers and stopped her from over-exerting herself. Her eyes were closed and she whispered softly. I had to move in, our cheeks pressed together tightly. “Wear the necklace. When they come… wear the necklace.” She coughed hard, but I kept close. I could feel her breath on my face, hardly there at all. “Promise me, Dean. Promise me. When the ships come… wear the necklace…”

“I promise,” I said.

Her breathing stopped, and I held her close to me one last time.

FOUR

The pendant was cold on my skin, and I found the sensation comforting. I’d seen it on my wife so many times that it was strange to be wearing it. I kept an eye on the news as I made a sandwich and dumped my lukewarm beer down the sink. There was a near worldwide ban on airplanes, helicopters, air balloons; really, anything that could be seen as an act of hostility. The countries that had fired at the ships had given up, and now were mere observers of the phenomenon like the rest of the world.

England had shut down their nuclear plants and most countries had followed their lead. They figured anything generating power like that might be a quick target for the intruders, and the result if they were targeted would be catastrophic. This left many nations running on low power grids or backup power. As I heard this on TV, I saw the streetlights turn on from the photocells telling them the sun was going down; then, just as fast, they went dark. The power in the house followed suit, and I was left in darkness, slopping mayo on a piece of rye bread.

“What’s going on?” James asked from the dim living room.

I reached into my side drawer and pulled out an LED flashlight that doubled as a small lantern. Growing up in the country, I was used to storms blowing out the power, and my dad always had flashlights sitting around where they were easily accessible.

“Power’s out.” I passed him the lantern. He set it down on the coffee table and I grabbed a couple of candles and lit them, leaving them flickering on the kitchen island. “Still no change out there.”

James stretched and checked his watch. “Just before seven. Sun’s almost down, and these things still haven’t done anything! God, I just wish they would do something already.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted them to do anything but leave just like they came. Quickly and quietly.

“Do you want a sandwich?” I asked, and jumped back as the pendant on my chest seared my skin with heat. “What the hell was that?” James looked at me, alarmed, as I grabbed the chain and pulled the pendant out, leaving my shirt to protect my skin. It was glowing bright green.

James moved to help me, and in an instant, he was covered in a green light coming through my house from above.

“Dean! Help me!” he called as his feet left the ground. He was screaming, but my heart pounded in my ears so hard I could hardly hear his shriek. I was sure my ears must have been bleeding, and I covered them hard with the palms of my hands. James was being lifted up by an outside force, his feet above the back of the couch now. I ran to him and tried to put my arms around his legs. I was jolted back from the green field surrounding him, and I watched as he headed towards the ceiling. The pendant was still glowing hotly as he moved into the ceiling, passing through it like a ghost. He shot me a terrified look right before he crossed into my upstairs.

I shot up onto unstable legs, which were shaking like I’d just run a marathon. I half ran, half crawled up the stairs and made for the room James would be floating through. There he was! I hurled myself towards his screaming, green-light-covered body and tried to grab on to his legs. The light repelled me and sent me sprawling to the corner of my guest room, a floor lamp whacking me on the head.

“James!” I called to him, but he just kept screaming. In mere moments, he was gone.

I slowly got to my feet and looked out the window. Thousands of green lights were beaming down. Every person on my block was floating towards the darkening sky; the terror in the air was palpable. I felt the urge to vomit and choked back that first bite of my sandwich. The pendant still glowed hot green and kept glowing until every last soul was gone. The green lights blinked out, and the shadow of the ship I could still see vanished into the dark atmosphere.

The ships left at dusk.

_______

There are many feelings someone goes through when they experience something traumatic. I quickly went to denial. There was no way I’d actually witnessed my city being teleported off the planet by a huge alien cube ship. It was just so impossible that, clearly, I was having a dream; hallucinating from an illness or an accident, maybe. For all I knew, I was lying in a hospital bed, morphine flowing through my veins, and I was dreaming the whole thing up. Janine was probably by my side holding my hand, telling me it would all be all right. My clients’ get-well cards would surround the room, and those cheesy balloons would be floating beside my head, tied to the hospital bed. As I lay on the guest room floor with my eyes closed, that scenario seemed likely. I could almost hear the steady beeping of the hospital equipment, keeping an eye on my blood pressure and oxygen levels.

I must have stayed there, curled up in the fetal position, for half an hour before I braved opening my eyes. My heart had been pounding so hard I thought it would expel itself from the cage it was trapped in. It finally relaxed and soon I felt almost normal. The pendant hung cool around my neck, its color just the regular green I’d always seen on my wife.

The noises I’d heard in my daydream were multiple car alarms going off a few blocks away. Soon even they stopped, to leave me with an eerily quiet night. I heard a dog bark down the street. I was now in the grieving phase. James’ look of terror as I helplessly watched him ghost through my roof and into the night sky was engrained in my memory. I realized I didn’t know if the ships had done this everywhere, or if I was just in an unlucky pocket. I tested my shaky legs and found them sturdy enough to carry me back downstairs.

I didn’t have a landline, so I reached for my cell phone and tried to call my mom first. A lovely robotic operator told me my call couldn’t be completed as dialed. I then started to go through my contacts one at a time and got the same message. I texted, tweeted, emailed… all with no reply from anyone out there.

It was after nine when I forced myself to eat something and slumped my head down on the kitchen island. Acceptance came next. I had a sneaking suspicion I was all alone. Then I heard a noise that had annoyed me on a daily occurrence: the sound of a howling cocker spaniel piercing through two sets of walls. Carey was a great dog, but he had what you might call a little separation anxiety, like so many others before him. Anytime Susan left him in the house alone, he would howl like there was no tomorrow. He would only do this for about five minutes; then I always pictured him sobbing into a pillow. More likely he just curled up on the back of the couch and slept.

His calls now were primal. He was howling to the aliens to return his mommy, and I’m sure the green light that had sucked her into the sky had left him a frightened mess. I left the comfort of my home and stepped onto the doorstep. The air had a chill to it, but other than that, there was no way to tell that I’d been left alone on Earth. The streetlights were still dark, but the now cloudless sky’s moon and stars shone down on me, lighting the way easily. I headed over to Susan’s house and as I passed by the window, Carey switched from a howl to a bark. He recognized me, and when I approached the front door, I could see his wiggling form twisting back and forth like only a spaniel could do.

Not sure if the door would be locked or not, I felt a little trepidation at the idea of breaking into my neighbor’s house. It seemed a little silly to me after what had just happened, but that sense of normalcy wasn’t something that just left on a dime. Lucky for me, she was as trusting as most people on our street, and the door was unlocked.

A blonde ball of fur jumped at me, licking my hands as he romped and hopped around. It was so refreshing to see such a normal, comforting act from a sweet animal after seeing James float out of my reach. He followed me as I went into the kitchen. I couldn’t leave him behind, since I didn’t know where I was going to be going or for how long. I thought about all the rest of the animals out there, scared and alone, but pushed them from my mind. I was only one man, and hopefully, this would all be over at any time. I didn’t know what the aliens could possibly want with the people of Earth. Maybe this was just a test. Maybe they would return all the people in a few minutes. I didn’t believe that, but it was a possibility.

I would be leaving in the morning and Carey would be coming along for the ride, so I needed to find all of his supplies. I grabbed his dog dish, which made him throw a low growl at me, before searching for his bag of food. I found it in the basement, along with some treats and cans of wet food. I took it all. Carey barked as I took the bag of treats and packed it. I tossed a salmon treat at him and he deftly caught it. He was really cute, looking up at me, turning his head side to side so his ears alternately flopped and hung there.

All loaded up, I found his leash, and he looked excited to be going for a walk.

“Carey, we’re just going to go over to my house. We don’t have time to go for a walk,” I said. Carey’s head turned sideways, and he gave me the saddest puppy-dog look I’d ever seen.

“Fine. But just a quick walk.” I was already under his command, it appeared.

Twenty minutes later and a deposit from Carey on the Jeffersons’ lawn, and we were back at my house. Carey hesitantly investigated my home, and I left him to sniff around like a pig looking for truffles. There was something I had to get from my office, and it wasn’t something I was looking forward to. Since I’d seen the ships arrive, I knew I would have to open the letter. I’d envisioned the moment I’d open it for the past three years, and I wasn’t sure if I truly was ready to see her handwriting, or to smell a waft of her perfume on the paper.

Janine hadn’t explained why the letter couldn’t be opened as soon as she was gone. We were in the hospital when she handed it to me, her hands shaking slightly as she passed it over. We’d argued for a few minutes about it, but after I knew she wouldn’t budge on the contents of the envelope, I ceased to protest and accepted what she asked of me. I wouldn’t open it until the right moment. She told me that I’d know when that was. Over the next three years, there were a few moments when I’d almost opened the thing, when I was so down in a well of depression that I thought the only thing that would save me would be seeing her words written down. Every time, I got through it on my own, and I knew for sure that now was indeed the right time to open it. It just felt right in every sense of the word, and not only that; it all fit together like some odd puzzle that I couldn’t see the full picture of yet.

Carey followed me upstairs and into the office, pushing his face into my leg as I stood there facing my closet. He rolled on the carpet as I opened the door and pulled a shoe box down from the top shelf. The letter was sealed shut and “Dean” was scrawled across the front in shaky handwriting. I sat down at my desk and set the lantern flashlight down so I could see it. It had been a tough day: not only the dredging up all of the memories from back then, but also the fact that I was sure I was the only man left on Earth. How did it come that I was here while they were all gone? I hoped for an answer as I slid my letter opener through the top, careful not to rip the paper inside.

My dearest Dean, I’m sorry you have to read this now. I know you have so many questions, but I can’t answer them all. I only know so much, and I’m unfortunately not around to tell you about it. I love you so much. I don’t know how long it’s been since I passed to when you are reading this, but I hope you’ve stayed strong through everything. Take heed that there is help, and you won’t be alone for long. I miss you as I write this and you just left the room a few minutes ago. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that I loved you so much and always will. Go to New York, Toronto Dominion on Broadway and 50th. Safety deposit box 107. The key is in the back yard under the bird bath.

And Dean

She stopped there, and it felt like she had more to say but didn’t. Maybe she was too weak or tired. I would never know.

I wiped a single tear from my face and felt a sudden resolve, a sense of purpose. Janine was telling me it was up to me to save the human race, and I had a clue where to go to do this.

FIVE

I tried to sleep for a few hours, but I just ended up tossing and turning; the whole day was a nightmare replaying itself in my mind. Carey was curled up at the bottom of the bed, snoring lightly on his side. I was amazed at the adaptability of the animal and decided to take a page out of his book for myself. This was the world at the moment, and I was the only one here to do anything about it. My truck was packed with everything I thought I’d need for the trip, and I just had a quick stop in the morning to fill up and grab a bunch of gas cans to keep me going. I’d found a brand-new generator in Bob-next-door’s garage, and I didn’t think he’d mind me borrowing it under the circumstances. It was an eleven-hundred-watt beast with a ten-gallon tank. I figured it would be able to handle anything I would need it for on my journey.

After what felt like hours, I decided to just get the trip started. I thought I’d test the generator and make some coffee. It was the right call. I had a bag of clothes packed, with a few winter items and shorts. I had no idea what I was in for and wanted to be prepared. Coffee in hand, and Carey and I on empty bladders, we hopped into the truck just as the sun was peeking from beyond the horizon. For a second, I thought the ships might come back at dawn, but the sky held nothing but wispy clouds and some dim stars.

We made a few pit stops at the gas station and convenience store, and then we were off. I felt bad not paying for anything. I knew that there was no one to pay, but these things were engrained in our brains from childhood; right and wrong are always right and wrong. I had a hundred-mile drive to go, and I figured under ideal conditions it would take me just over two hours. I was wrong. The streets were full of crashed cars near town, and it took some heavy maneuvering to get around some of them. Maneuvering meant pushing with my truck’s bumper on occasion. Carey stuck his head out the window, sitting in the front passenger seat with his tongue flapping in the cool fall morning air. I sipped my coffee as we slowly made it past the car piles and through to the outskirts of town. Once I made it to the highway, the roads were sparsely littered with vehicles, and I was able to go forty miles per hour.

“Carey,” I said, and his head turned as he looked at me, “how are you doing? I’m sorry you’re stuck with me like this. I know you must miss your mom a lot.” He turned his head the other way and looked at me with that sad spaniel face. “I want you to know that I’m actually very thankful to have you with me. You’d think I’d be used to being alone, but truthfully, I’ve never been good at it.” He slipped his butt to the back of the seat and plopped down, putting his head between his front paws, all the while never taking his gaze from me.

“I’ve always wanted a dog. We had one growing up on the acreage. I remember the day my dad brought home Johnny. What? Don’t look at me like that. Johnny is a perfectly respectable name for a dog. Plus, he told me I could name him, and I was obsessed with The Karate Kid that summer. Anyway, Johnny came tromping over to me in the yard, all ears and paws. I must have been around seven, and he seemed so huge to me even as a puppy. I still have no idea what breed he was, but he ended up weighing around sixty pounds. We were inseparable for his whole life.

Unfortunately, big dogs have short life spans, and he passed the summer before I went into high school. I was depressed for a year, I think, and when my parents suggested we get another dog, I slammed the door and said I hated them. We didn’t get a dog, and I’ve never had one since Johnny.” It felt strange but good to talk to Carey about this. He lay still, eyes slowly closing to the sound of my voice. “So, Carey, hey? I have a feeling Susan didn’t name you after Jim Carrey, although I can see the resemblance between you two. In a good way, of course.” His eyes closed and soon I heard some soft snores. I put my focus back on the road and noticed as we got nearer to New York City how many cars were jammed on the north bound highway. People were frightened by the sheer volume of ships that had been hovering over their city, no doubt, and thought they might find solace in the countryside. It appeared no one had been safe from the beams of the ships, at least not as far as I could tell.

I did keep an eye out for anything that might be a sign of another human being, but so far, nothing. I had the AM radio on low, so a quiet buzz constantly emanated from the truck’s speakers, but no signal came the whole trip. I honestly hadn’t expected to hear anything, but it was worth a shot. At that moment, I wondered if it had been short-sighted to not bring a CB radio. If someone was alive, they might try transmitting on one of the common channels. I decided to find one as soon as I got into the big city.

I slowed down as I neared an exit that would take me to Manhattan in about thirty miles. If I tried to take one of the city bridges in, or a tunnel, I knew they would be jam-packed with cars and there would be no way to get my truck and supplies through. I elected to head east and make for one of the entrances far north of Manhattan so I would have an easier time; then I could meander down through Yonkers and south from there. With any luck, I would be able to get through.

It almost seemed too good to be true as I approached the large bridge. It was fairly full, but mostly on the other side. I could tell that a bunch of people had tried to drive on the wrong side of the road at the end, but I could still squeeze through by keeping half my truck on the shoulder. I bumped the curb a couple times, but soon I was over the Hudson River and on my way into the city. I took as many side roads as I could to avoid cars. At this point, I wished the aliens had taken the cars with them too. It was extremely eerie to see thousands of vehicles strewn around the roadways, but no people.

As I thought about a city the size of New York being empty, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. All of a sudden, I felt very vulnerable out here all by myself. As if on cue, I saw it lower through the clouds.

I quickly slowed the truck to a stop as the silver-gray ship dipped lower and lower. My heart slammed against my chest, and I started to gasp for air. I checked the necklace and it was just the regular color; no molten green at the moment. I sat as still as possible and Carey perched himself up against the window that I had closed. He watched the ship with me as it sped across the morning sky. It did a loop a couple of times, like it was looking for something, and then disappeared into the distance. One thing I knew for sure was that the ship was a duplicate of the ones that had arrived yesterday, but it was much smaller. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I had to keep my eyes peeled for more of those things. Whatever I was destined to do, something was going to try to stop me.

SIX

By the time I got to the Bronx, there were so many cars on the roads that the only place the truck would fit was on the sidewalks. Maneuvering it through the light poles and building steps wasn’t as easy I hoped. It was a very slow, rough drive, and by the time we got to Yankee Stadium, it was well after noon. My stomach was growling and Carey looked like he could use a bathroom break; so could I.

The stadium grew in my windshield until I was parked right outside its front doors. I used to love coming to the games, watching the Yankees on a sunny afternoon, “Sunday in New York” blasting through the stadium speakers. We hopped out of the truck and to the gate. Surprisingly, it was open, unlocked to the public. I was the only public left, I supposed, so we sauntered on in, making our way to the field. I’d never stood on the grass, and once down there, I found that given the world’s current situation, being on the diamond had lost its luster. Carey decided to relieve himself on the pitcher’s mound and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the sight. He wiggled and ran around the grass like he was a puppy. I ran with him for a few minutes, like a boy playing with his dog. After we were both worn out, I figured while we were here, we might as well get some baseball food. We went to the concourse and I hopped the concession stand, pilfering a few bags of peanuts and some beef jerky. Carey seemed to smell the meat before it was out of the bag; drool fell from his mouth as I tore the bag open.

“Someone’s hungry.” I gave him a piece of the jerky before eating a piece of the salty meat myself. Dark clouds were rolling in as we walked back towards the truck, and it looked like rain was due any minute. I looked to the sky and for a moment worried I would see that silver ship again, but there was nothing but dark clouds looming above us now.

“Come on, Carey. Let’s get moving.” He listened and ran ahead of me but never too far away. I found it hard to believe this was the same whining dog from back home, since he seemed so confident and self-assured out here in the wilds of New York City. We headed toward the front entrance and I grabbed a Yankees ball cap and umbrella to stave off the impeding rain. As we left the front doors, I whistled “Sunday in New York,” for a second forgetting the fact that I was all alone in the world.

Once the truck door was open, Carey hopped in and soon we were heading deep into the city. I hoped we would be at the Toronto Dominion Bank in an hour or so, but I was wrong. Once we passed through the Bronx, I headed to Willis Avenue Bridge, the southernmost entrance into Harlem. I’d driven by the other bridges and they were all jammed with cars, so I had high hopes that I could cross this one. I was sadly disappointed when we arrived there to see it fully clogged with vehicles. The sidewalks were on the right side, and with the dividers, they weren’t wide enough to get a vehicle through. I slumped forward, letting my head rest on the steering wheel, as heavy rain pelted my windshield.

For a moment, I thought I would just sit there and wait out the rain, but if I was truly humanity’s last hope, I knew I’d better find a way to get across. I decided to walk and find another truck, then haul all of my supplies there. Once I was over, I wouldn’t have to worry about a bridge until after whatever I found in Manhattan. With the plan settled, Carey and I started making the trek across with my groceries and clothing. I hadn’t realized how long the bridge was until I had to walk to the end and back four times to get it all. The last trip, I borrowed an appliance dolly from a moving truck and moved the generator. I figured I had just walked almost five miles in total and it had taken me over two hours, making it close to four by the time I had my new truck loaded up. Carey was soaked and the front end of the GMC lost its new car smell as it was very quickly replaced with the classic, wet dog de toilette.

Before starting my journey again, I saw a semi-truck sitting there like a behemoth amongst cars, and I recalled the CB radio I wanted to get. I jumped into the cab of the Mack and tried to slide the CB off its mount. After a few minutes, a couple of swear words and a screwdriver, I was the proud owner of a radio. I moved it to scan, looking for any local frequency that might be transmitted, glad that truck driver had a quality unit. When it didn’t find anything, we started to move, slowly dodging cars and heading through the streets of Harlem.

_______

One of my favorite things about living in the state of New York was the sheer number of trees. They were everywhere. I remember the first time I’d flown in from Ohio and saw the green from above. Growing up in the country, we had our share of trees, but they usually lined a farmer’s crop. This was different to me. I’d always thought New York would just be a huge city with nothing but concrete and criminals. Instead, it was a lovely state, with flowers, trees, and parks everywhere, with the Mecca of everything you could want in the big city at your fingertips. It was the perfect balance for me. When I’d first moved here, I’d spent the first couple years in a Battery Park condo. It was the size of a shoebox, but it was close to the subway, which made commuting to work so easy. It was also a twenty-minute ride to Central Park.

I loved Central Park. It was the most magical place I’d ever seen; ever since the first time I walked onto the grass, it felt special. The paths, the trees, and the people – it was just amazing. As Carey and I neared the huge park in the middle of the high-rises, I fondly remembered the first time I’d seen my wife, nine years ago in this very park. I was meeting a client for my firm in the Boathouse, a wonderful dinner and drinks spot in the middle of Central Park. It’s an iconic place where many “meet cutes,” as they said in the movies, happened in classic films. It was fitting that this was where I would first lay eyes on Janine. My meeting was just finishing, and as I stood to leave, she walked in. There was something that just drew me in instantly; she smiled at the hostess and my heart melted. I saw a man rise from the bar, leaving his stool empty, and start walking towards her.

My shoulders slumped as she turned to him. It was like she moved in slow motion, and as her head turned, our eyes locked. Hers widened slightly, and my heart pounded in my chest. No woman had ever looked at me like that before, and I doubted any ever would again. I stepped forward, all rational thoughts pushed to the side for the moment. I forgot about the man coming to meet her and I reached her first. Her eyebrows rose as I took her hand and said hello.

“Hello,” she replied quietly, a slight blush in her smooth cheek.

“I don’t know who that guy is, but how about we have dinner?” I asked in a way so unlike myself.

The man had arrived by this point, and I suddenly felt inadequate. He was one of those classic manly guys with the square jaw, shirt tight against his chest. I also noticed a military tattoo where his dress shirt sleeve was rolled up.

“Janine, I presume?” he asked, trying to step in front of me.

She glanced at me. “Sorry, no. Must be mistaken,” she said, taking my hand in hers. We went to a table in the back corner of the lounge, leaving behind a bewildered military man. We talked for hours and had a great dinner. I remember her ordering a portabella mushroom panini, and we started with a glass of red wine, and by the end of the night, we were sipping scotch outside; white string lights hung above us by the pond while midnight lovers paddled by in rented canoes. It was the best night of my life.

When I asked about the guy, she said it was just a blind date, and I didn’t prod past that.

Carey looked out the window and gave a low growl. It knocked me out of my daydreaming, but I couldn’t see any reason for him to bark, except the usual dog things: fire hydrants, mailboxes, a garbage bag flying in the wind. We headed down Central Park West at Eighty-First Street, one of the most beautiful in the entire city. There were a lot of cars out, but it wasn’t in a jam: more like everyone had just made straight east or west from where they were and not north-south. It made sense. The best way out was to head west inland from here. I tried to imagine what the lines at the Lincoln Tunnel must look like right now and shuddered at the thought. I’d never been much for traffic, hence moving into a small community. I liked the slower pace much better, and so had Janine.

We weaved through the cars that were on the street and soon the buildings got larger and cleaner, and more expensive. I couldn’t fathom the sheer wealth that sat in the area, with each park view condo being well in excess of five million dollars for a two-bedroom. We came up to the Museum of Natural History, and I slowed to a stop. Here was where I’d proposed to Janine almost eight years ago. She was fascinated by the place, and instead of something outrageous, I asked her to marry me outside while we snacked on a bagel and coffee. I hit the gas and noticed something out the corner of my eye.

A large black man ran towards my truck at full speed, a sheer look of panic in his face. Carey barked incessantly through the window. I didn’t know what to do. I stepped out of the truck and slid a rifle out from behind the seat. I walked back a couple steps, Carey following and barking as the man approached, obviously out of breath.

We stood there for a few moments, neither of us knowing what to say. He broke the silence through ragged breaths. “Get in the truck. They’ll see us!” I looked up to the sky and saw a silver ship hovering nearby.

“Carey, in the truck!” He looked at me with a tilted head. The man had already jumped into the passenger seat. “Carey, get in, boy!” He growled at me. The silver ship was getting closer, and any moment, it would spot us standing there. I got in the truck and Carey finally got the point, jumping onto my lap. As I swung the door shut and turned the truck engine off, the ship slowly hovered over us and into the park space.

We sat in silence, barely breathing while we watched it hover over the green space; soon it was out of our sight.

“I saw a ship a few hours ago, up north. Do you think there are a bunch of them?” I asked the stranger.

“No idea. I got close to the city early this morning… left Pittsburgh as soon as everyone disappeared.” I noticed him fidgeting with something and saw a ring on his pinky finger with a large green stone.

I nodded towards it. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Not a lot. I hoped you did,” he replied.

I pulled my amulet from under my shirt and showed him. He grimaced and rubbed his hands over his face.

“She told me to wear this damn ring. I had no idea what she was talking about, or why. But when your girlfriend is sick and asks you to do something in her memory, you do it. Save the world, she said.” His breath was ragged, the words spilling out like he’d been waiting years to say them.

I’m sure my mouth hung wide open at his words. His story was so similar to mine that I knew this couldn’t be a coincidence, only my wife hadn’t mentioned the “saving humanity” bit. I had no idea what was happening, but I was glad to have someone to share the pressure with.

“I’m Dean. Dean Parker.” I reached out my hand, which he took in a firm handshake.

“Ray Jones. I tell you, I’m glad to meet someone else. How’d you not get taken?”

The word taken stuck in my brain, and I sat there remembering James getting lifted through my house. “My wife. Same story as you, Ray. She died and made me promise to wear this.” I lifted the chain and showed him the green pendant hanging from it. “Only I didn’t believe that my life was at stake, and I just got it from a storage locker yesterday after the ships came. I guess I’m glad I did now. Even after death, we should listen to our wives, hey?” The joke hung out there in the air, neither of us laughing at it.

“How the hell are we supposed to save the world? I mean, I’m just a guy from Pittsburgh, a computer science engineer, who works at a steel factory programming manufacturing machinery. I mean, God above us, all I want to do is watch the Steelers and drink a cold one after a long day.”

“I have no idea. I’m an accountant. Maybe if I audit them, I can find out where they brought everyone.” Another swing, another miss. My mom used to always chide me for making jokes at the wrong time, but I guess that’s how I dealt with things. “How did you get here? Why New York?” I thought about the vague letter with the safety deposit box information.

“I drove in. The highways had a lot of cars, but I made it through with a Jeep. I had to drive in the ditch for some sections, but I made it all right. When I got through to Jersey, the tunnels and bridges were all packed. I grabbed my bag and went to a dock on the Jersey coast where I commandeered a motor boat. Didn’t think the owner would mind. I landed at the boat basin by Seventy-Seventh Street and started to head east. Then I saw the ship and started to hide, when I saw you there. I was sure the ship would see you if you were moving. And here we are. The reason I came here. A letter telling me to, after my Kate passed away.”

I wasn’t normally a trusting man, and with all the things my wife apparently had kept from me, I had good reason, but there was something right about Ray. He just seemed so honest, and I instantly felt like I could trust the guy. “Let me guess… TD bank… box number, all of that business.”

He slowly nodded to me and put his bag in the cab of the truck. “You got it. Seems we’re more alike in this than I thought. So, both had significant others die and make us wear a freaky stone that heats up and keeps us here while the rest of the world gets dragged to space. Then we have the same message to go to New York to a bank box. What do you think we’re going to find when we get there?”

I had no idea. “Hopefully some answers. Let’s go find out.” I took one last look at the museum, started the truck, and headed toward downtown.

SEVEN

As we crossed into Times Square, the sun was being blocked to the west by all of the tall buildings surrounding us. We pulled up to the block the bank was on, but the roads were just too full of taxis, tour buses, and police cars.

“We’re going to have to walk there,” Ray said, getting out of the car. “Should we leash Carey up or leave him in the car?”

I thought about a ship coming and finding us because Carey might decide to stand and bark at it. “Let’s bring him but leash him up.” I eyed my rifle under the seat but doubted it would do me any good should one of the aliens, or whatever they were, come down and confront us. I just brought the paper with the information on it and checked my pocket to make sure the key was there. Once we had everything and Carey was leashed, we headed down the block. He didn’t seem to mind the leash, and I thought it was probably quite the picture.

In a minute or two, we were at the bank, and I couldn’t help but notice how eerily quiet it was there. I’d spent a lot of time in this city, and noise was something you just got used to. The dead silence of it now was more than unnerving to me. Even the country growing up wasn’t this quiet. No cars honking a language only the cabbies understood, no falafel vendors shouting to patrons, no noise of the city. Just silence.

As if reading my mind, Ray turned to me and said, “It’s too quiet. I don’t like it.”

We walked into the unlocked doors and passed our way to the far side of the building.

“Where do you think they keep these things?” I asked, hoping Ray might know.

“I think they’re going to be around the back here, out of sight, but still close to security.”

He was right, and we were soon at the doors. Only problem was, they were locked. It appeared there was a code to get in, but we didn’t have it. There was also a manual key hole, so we decided to search the place in hopes of finding a key ring left behind that would grant us access. With the power out, the code puncher was probably useless anyway.

I let Carey go and he wandered around, following fairly close to me as I checked all of what I assumed were the executives’ desks. I found many strange things, including booze, poker chips, and a spare set of underwear. Whoever worked here sure wanted to be ready for a good time. After ten minutes of looking around, I called out to Ray. “Any luck?”

He appeared with a big grin covering his face. “If one of these doesn’t open the door, I’ll eat your hat.”

“Ray, I’m not wearing a hat.”

“Yeah, I know. I only make bets I can win.”

We laughed, showing our raised spirits as we tried each key on the ring one by one. After about five keys, we found one that fit. With a final holding of breath, I turned the key and heard the latch click. Victorious, we hugged each other as if we had already saved humanity.

I moved to deposit box 107 and stared at it for a moment, wondering if Janine had been the one to put something in here. How could she have known about this moment? It just didn’t make sense at all. She was a clothing store manager, what did she know about all of this business? Ray stood directly beside me; he had box 108. Box 109 beside him hung open, like someone had already been here for it.

“Do you think…?” I asked, nodding to the open box door.

“I couldn’t even presume to know,” he answered, digging a key out of his pocket.

“On the count of three?” I asked with my own key in the lock. “One, two, three.” We both turned the keys and our doors swung open. I had no idea what to expect but wasn’t surprised to see an unmarked envelope inside. Ray held his identical envelope up to mine and we smiled at each other.

“Time to save the world.”

We moved out of the room and laid the contents onto a desk. They appeared to be identical in every way. Ray started to read the letter aloud.

“You have been carefully selected to save the world’s population. We can’t say who we are or explain much, but do believe me when I say we are on your side. For centuries, your planet has been the target of invasion. We tried to postpone it for as long as possible, but it was inevitable. To ensure survival, we created and left you a device. It is a counter to their tractor beams, which at this point have taken every human into space. They mean to have your planet for themselves, but it will take a generation or so for them to adapt the atmosphere to their own liking. You must go to this hidden device we planted three hundred years ago and disarm it. Doing so will bring your people back and notify us of your actions. At that point, we will come and escort the invaders from your solar system. We have a pact, but once they break the agreement, we will use force to remove them. A map of the device’s location is in this letter. You must hasten there and save your people. Be wary of the ships that are undoubtedly searching for you. You must avoid them at all costs.”

He stopped reading, and we stood there with our mouths wide open for a moment. I grabbed the letter and flipped to the next page. It was a map of Peru, and the next page was a zoomed-in map of Machu Picchu. It was incredible to think that we were left letters from a second alien race. Could any of this really be happening?

Ray broke the silence. “I’ve never been on a vacation with a man before. What do you say, Dean? Ever thought of traveling to Peru?”

“What choice do we have? But did that letter give you the sensation you were reading an email from a Nigerian prince, needing you to send them a thousand dollars so they can send you a million?” The better question was, how was I selected to save the world, and who had already been here to open box number 109?

_______

It was dusk outside when we hit the streets again, and we made our way back to the truck in silence. Dusk. One day since the ships took everybody into the sky with them. The pressure of the task at hand came tumbling down on me, and I almost stumbled off my feet. Just a few yards away from the truck, I sat down on the curb as the street spun in front of my unsteady eyes. Carey sat beside me and licked my face; he brought me back to reality.

“Dean, we can do this. All we need to do is get to Peru and turn this damn machine off. Voila.”

It sounded easy and impossible at the same time, somehow, and I couldn’t shake the question of how it all worked. How would turning a device off return them all? In the end, I supposed I wasn’t the resident expert on alien technology, so I shrugged off my doubts for the time being.

“Atta boy. We’re going to have to stop and hit an electronics store. I may need my computer, and I’m going to need backup laptop batteries – lots of them. And a phone charger. Good thing is about these phones – the GPS still works even with no active network running,” Ray said.

With a new resolve, I let Carey into the back cab and got into the truck. Ray smiled at me as we started down the street. I knew there would be less traffic density if I headed west a way, and then down towards the south side of Manhattan where I would hit an electronics store I knew of.

“Ray, it’s getting late and we’re going to have a long day tomorrow. Not only that, but we’re going to have to hike across to Jersey. I realize that I may have wasted all my time carrying all of this junk with me when I’ll just have to dump it now. We should hit the hay for the night. How does the penthouse at Trump Tower sound?” I laughed.

“Well, my dogs are barking. Pardon the pun, Carey. That sounds good to me.”

An hour later, it was fully dark, and I left my lights off in case a ship was looking for us as we pulled up to the hotel. We had picked everything up from the store that Ray was hoping to grab, so all we had to do was go in and find a bed to lie on. The hotel loomed over us in the dark, and I took Carey for a bathroom break before heading into the luxury building. I was pretty sure it was a few thousand a night for a penthouse, but unless the elevators were working, that was going to be an awfully long walk. We opted for the third-floor units, and to be respectful, we found a couple of suites that were empty. We went our separate ways, each with a flashlight to light our way. The hotel had a backup power source, and we used what looked to be universal keycards to get in. Ray said Kate had worked in the “biz” and they all had them.

I had a shower and was happy to know that the water heaters had enough warm water in them still to make it manageable. Then it was a king-sized bed to share with my new little friend. In moments, Carey was snoring at my feet. The crazy events since yesterday raced through my mind, and my thoughts kept roaming back to how my wife had fit into all of this. It just didn’t add up to me. I wondered if I would ever know the truth of it. It felt like hours passed as I tossed and turned before my cell phone alarm went off. I must have dozed off for some time because I actually felt well rested, but Carey groaned and rolled over as I got out of bed.

I found Ray dressed and ready to go when I knocked on his door, and we were off just before the clock struck six am.

“I was thinking of it, Dean. Let’s hit the pier and take a boat down and across. There’s no other way to get into Jersey, and I really don’t think we want to leave anything or walk,” Ray said as we hiked down the flashlight-lit stairwell.

I felt stupid for not having thought of that. We were surrounded by water; why not use a boat when there were so many just sitting around unused? I felt a little bad about once again using someone’s property but figured saving the world’s population was more important than a missing boat.

“Perfect. Glad to have you around.”

On the way down to the pier, Ray was messing around with the scanner on the CB radio, and as we neared the water, the constant hiss cleared for a second and we heard a distant woman’s voice coming through. “…Philadelp… leave… ington…” That was all we made out, and soon the hiss was back. Ray fumbled to keep it on that channel.

“Holy crap. If I was going to speculate what that message meant, someone is in Philly and is heading to Washington. Let’s get moving and see if we can catch up to… whoever that was.” My voice cracked in excitement to think there were more people out there to help us, as if the pressure on me wasn’t as immense with more people to share the burden with.

We got there and I hopped the fence while Ray stayed with Carey, who barked at me through the gate. I broke into the security cabin and found the keys, along with a few sets of boat keys. One of them would have to do. Soon we were loading our gear onto a twenty-foot motor boat, and in moments, we were heading south.

“I think we should head all the way down and around Jersey. If we hit the mainland down there, we can find a vehicle and be home free from any more bridges or tunnels,” Ray called out over the wind.

“Sounds good to me!” I yelled back. Carey stood on the back seat and watched cautiously as water splashed up and around us in the otherwise quiet area. We hadn’t seen any ships since yesterday afternoon and hoped they were searching far away, or better yet, just gone.

It took us a stressful hour or so to find land, me constantly worrying about the ships finding us, but we made it unscathed. We trolled along looking for a pier or somewhere to park this thing, and in another twenty minutes, we found a makeshift dock we could use. I roped it off after Ray parked it, and he went off in search of a truck as I started to haul stuff to the road. He pulled up in a smaller truck, but it still had enough room for Carey in the back seat.

“I figured a smaller truck would mean less stops for gas. This one is almost full and I know we’ve been hauling all those gas cans.” He tossed me the keys. “You don’t mind being the driver, do you?”

I’d always felt more comfortable driving than being a passenger, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be much help when it came to the computer device side of things.

“You got it, boss,” I said.

The roads were fairly clear as we moved west on a connector road that would lead us to the I-95. On to Philly from there. Day two of the adventure and I was still scared of what was to come. I glanced back at Carey and then over at Ray. At least I wasn’t alone anymore, and it felt good.

EIGHT

Things were going well for us, and we were making good time. We stopped for some food at a grocery store and found some of the refrigerators were still keeping the food slightly cool. I was sure in another day or two, we might be talking about another story. We got some ice bags from the bottom of the freezer and added them to a couple of coolers we found, and set ourselves up with some food for the trip. Ray convinced me we needed to spend the effort to make some coffee, so we started the generator and brewed a big pot of coffee while we filled up the truck.

From there we drove down the highway, two fast friends with thermoses of coffee and a goal in mind but no firm plan, short of trying to meet up with whomever we overheard on the radio.

“Why do you think it was us, Dean? Of all the people in the world… why were we left to do this job?” Ray asked quietly.

“I really don’t know. There are so many questions that I don’t have the answers to. I was married to a woman who gave me this necklace and knew what it meant! It just confounds me… and upsets me at the same time. Who the hell was she? Who was your girlfriend?”

“Kate was a wonderful woman, an assistant at the plant I worked at. We started dating a couple months after she started there. She was always really interested in the engineering side of things and loved to pick my brain. I think she wanted to be an engineer herself, but thought she was too old to start college. I tried telling her she should start at Penn U, that I’d support her through it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Then she got sick. Coughing up blood; had the doctors lost for words on what it was.”

A lot of things had been making me pause in the past two days, and this was just another to add to the list. “That’s the same thing that happened to Janine. She was gone in six months. We’d been married for four years,” I said, knowing this was no coincidence.

“This is just freaky, man. Sounds like our timelines match up pretty well. We never got married. I was for it, but Kate didn’t think we needed to label ourselves. No kids, either. She wasn’t ready. I loved her, man, I really did. But deep down, I guess I should have known something was totally bogus with us. Now, as I look at our life together through a rear-view mirror, I feel like an idiot for not wondering before. And then the ring. When she told me to wear this god-ugly ring, I almost laughed. Then I saw the deadly serious look she gave me and heard the pleading tone in her voice. I said I would, and I never took it off. Now I’m not sure if I wish I’d just been taken with the rest of them or not.”

I was sure that being here was better than wherever they were moved to. I just hoped they were being handled without aggression. I pictured my mother being cornered by a horrible alien in space… I tried to shake off the thoughts of torture or the destruction of the race.

“The message we were left said we can save them still, so let’s do it. No moping around, no worrying about what the hell our ladies had done. Maybe we were tricked and they used us for some crazy intergalactic strife… I don’t know, but I do know we’re going to kick some ass, save the world, and feel bad for ourselves after this is all done.” The words hit me hard as they left my mouth, but I knew what I said was true. I had to hold on to the fact that Janny had loved me, she had told me that no matter what happened, to remember that, so I would assume she’d done what she did because she had no other choice.

Ray stuck his fist out and I hit it with my own. “Deal, brother. You sure you’re an accountant? You’ve got a little Tony Robbins in you. When Earth is back to normal, I’m going to get you on TED Talks.”

I saw a sign saying we were closing in on Philly in a few miles. The best move was to head around the city and keep moving south towards Washington. If possible, we would be able to find the mysterious radio people and meet up with them there.

Ray and I agreed on the plan, and we spent the next few hours avoiding abandoned cars on the road, driving through various side roads and ditches until we were well clear of Philly altogether. The CB radio occasionally stopped its routine hissing and cracked for a bit instead, but we didn’t hear any voices. Once we were through that, we found a secondary highway that would lead us close to Washington, and it was near empty as evening neared, and Baltimore signs came more frequently.

We wouldn’t have much farther to go, but light was rapidly disappearing from the sky. The two hundred miles had taken us most of the day, dodging vehicles and watching for gray ships in the sky.

“Well, what do you think? Do we make a stop in Baltimore or keep going to Washington? I think we can make it there without lights. Once the sun is all the way down, we’ll be screwed – it’ll be tough to see cars at a complete stop on the road, though we may be able to do it at a really slow pace,” I said.

Ray was about to answer when the radio cleared and voices came across. He turned up the volume, and Carey barked once when the woman’s voice came over again.

“We are in Washington, D.C. If anyone is out there, we are at the intersection of I-95 and I-495 Springfield. There are two… Crackle…”

“Come in, Washington. We are on the way. Repeat. We are on the way. Be there in T-minus one hour. Over.” Ray’s hand shook as he held the radio button. There was no reply, and the hissing was back.

“Damn. At least we know where they are. I say we have to go for it now,” he said excitedly.

“Is there any chance we might be walking into a trap? Who knows what kind of crazy things these aliens are doing? Do we just trust anyone we meet?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear his answer.

“We trusted each other, didn’t we?” he asked as he petted Carey on the head.

“Yeah, we did, I guess. I just feel like such a fool for not knowing my wife that I’m second-guessing everything. You’re right. What choice do we have? We need help, and I’m not missing out on that opportunity. Let’s do this.”

I was excited to see someone, even though I’d been a semi-recluse for the past few years. Just spending some time with Carey and Ray made me remember how much I liked people. It had only been a couple days, but the idea that there were more of us out there had me so happy, I couldn’t wait to meet them and hear their stories.

The sun was going down behind the trees on the side of the road, but I figured we’d be cutting it close at this point. At least this way, we would be going around the main city and heading to the west side. It had been years since I’d visited Washington. The monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Capitol Hill. All pivotal icons of American history and politics; history I liked, politics was something I’d never cared a whole lot for.

“Ray, I know we aren’t going to do this, but just for fun. We’re alone, or almost alone, in the world. Where do you go?” I figured we might as well waste some time.

“That’s a loaded question, isn’t it? There are lots of places in the world I want to see, but as for being alone and being able to go anywhere? Maybe the Oval Office.” He laughed. “I used to dream of being the first black president, then Obama came in and ruined that one. I’d sit at the president’s desk, lean back, put my feet up on the shiny wooden desktop and… have a nap. I always thought that would be my ideal napping spot. I’d also probably leave some notes on things I think need to be done to make this a better country. I’d use his letterhead and leave the notes with his name and dates on them, on the off chance that he might read them thinking they were his ideas, and implement them.”

Ray was staring out the window, but I could tell he was smiling from his posture. I hardly knew anything about the guy, but I felt like I really knew him at the same time. “How about you, Dean?” he asked.

“Not sure if I can top napping in the Oval Office, but I’ll try.” Where would I go, given the chance to be anywhere? “Well, seeing how Carey and I already walked the Yankee Stadium field yesterday, I think having free rein of Vatican City would be quite the experience. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a devout Catholic, but the history behind it amazes me. I’d also like to walk the halls of Buckingham Palace, to see where the Queen sleeps and eats. What does she read? The newspaper? The Ladies Detective Agency books? Does she poop in a golden toilet? I kind of want to know these things.” I felt foolish for a second about that last one, but Ray just laughed.

“Now that’s something I can get behind. Okay, now let’s get trashy, where we knew this conversation was going to go. I want to see Kerry Washington’s house. What music does she listen to? How can I trick her into a date?” Ray laughed and then got a little quiet; I assumed he thought of his late Kate.

“Okay, me sneaking around the Queen’s room is purely historical, you creeping in Kerry’s house, that’s just stalker material. But if I were going to become a stalker on an empty earth, I’d find this guy named Ray Jones’ house in Pittsburgh. I bet that guy has posters of Mario Lemieux on his wall, and Steelers figurines showcased beside the bar in the man cave.”

Ray laughed so hard tears trickled down his face. “You are just so funny. Who would have thought an accountant could have a sense of humor? I guess you have to, to keep yourself from jumping every time you balance a ledger. And for the record, I was never much of a hockey fan. The posters were always of Joe Montana. He never played there, but he was from Pittsburgh and my dad played a year with him back when they were kids, not football but basketball. He was quite the player, if you listen to my dad’s stories. I met him once at a Steelers game. My dad had taken me to a game when I was little, and somehow had connected with Joe. He tousled my hair and signed a 49ers football for me. I still have it… next to my Steelers figurines in the man cave.” This brought on a fresh round of laughing that had me leaking from the eyes. It felt so good to have a laugh in the midst of the insane position we found ourselves in.

It was almost fully dark, but we were nearing the intersection the woman on the CB had mentioned. We turned the radio up, but no signal was coming through. It was as if they had turned their end off. The truck lights were off and we struggled to see where we were going, while trying to avoid the sporadic cars, trucks, and semi-trailers sitting on the freeway.

“What do you think? We’re here. I would think they might be lodged up at a motel or something nearby. Can you check your phone GPS to see if anything pops up close?” I asked Ray.

“Sure,” he said, zooming in on his map, “looks like a Holiday Inn half a mile east of here. We better make this exit and take that overpass. That’s the only hotel nearby. Unless they kept moving or are camping out in a vehicle.”

I really wished I could have tossed my day lights on for a moment, to make the trip easier, but that dream disappeared as quickly as it came. A bright beam of green light shone down from the sky in a perfect cylinder shape. My necklace burned again, and I slammed on the brakes and turned the engine off. Carey whined in the back, and I reached back to pet the shaking dog. He could probably hear something we couldn’t emanating from the beam. Ray’s ring glowed bright, and he covered it with a jacket sitting on the console beside him. We didn’t speak; the only noise in the truck was our quick, panicked breaths and Carey’s near silent moan. The ship above moved the green beam like a searchlight over the area, and it felt like they were there for hours. As if the whole experience wasn’t already stressful enough, we now had to play dead with one of the ships scouring above us.

“Ray, do you think they know we’re here? Maybe the radio drew them in.” Before I finished asking, Ray’s hand darted out and turned the CB off. His eyes were wide, and I realized he hadn’t told me where he was when the people were taken off the Earth.

Carey was trying to hide his head under his paws in the back, making for one of the cutest scenes I’d ever seen in one of the most frightening moments of my life. The world was full of juxtapositions.

“I don’t know what those bastards can sense. We know nothing about them. They might even have heat sensors, or maybe they’re scanning for lifeforms like on Star Trek. Hell, maybe they’re trying to beam us up right now.”

He was right. We knew nothing about them. Just like I’d apparently known nothing about my wife.

The ship was still close by, but the beam was focusing further down the road. I felt my neck loosen up, as if the immediate danger was gone for a moment. I didn’t think the danger would ever be gone, though, not until we solved this and brought the world back.

“I think the ship is leaving,” Ray whispered, and we watched the light move down the road. Soon the pendant cooled, and eventually, the green light on it dimmed to nothing.

All was silent for a moment. Then something knocked on our window.

NINE

Six Years Earlier

There was a knock on the door, and I answered it in my bathrobe. Who could be coming over this early on a Sunday morning? And right after we got back from our honeymoon? I opened the door to a handsome man around the same age as me, and it took a moment to recognize who he was.

“Hello, Dean,” he said as he stepped inside. “How was Aruba?”

“Aruba was great. It rained the whole time, but that just meant we got to stay in…” I stopped when I realized I was oversharing with Janine’s – what – cousin?

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Is Janine in?” He looked uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot lightly.

“Yeah, come on in, Bob. I have coffee in the kitchen – help yourself. Cream’s in the fridge. I’ll go tell Janny that you’re here.”

Bob seemed like a nice enough fellow, but I really hadn’t heard how they were actually related. None of it was clear, but Bob and his wife had come to the wedding a couple weeks ago, and Mary had seemed an absolute delight. If his wife was that cool, then there must be something about Bob that was endearing too. She was a member of the US Air Force, and to me, that was one of the coolest things you could be. That and maybe an astronaut, which Mary could very well end up doing. Apparently, she was an astrophysicist too. I had five bucks on it that she’d quite the high-pressure parenting.

I walked upstairs to find Janine brushing her hair in the en-suite. “Who’s at the door, sweetie?” she asked with a voice like honey. The pressure off our wedding, and a week in seclusion from the rest of the world, had just brought us closer than I could have imagined.

“It’s your cousin Bob. He seems a little off. Not that I know what’s on for the guy.”

She fidgeted with her necklace a moment and told me she’d be right down. I went and shared a cup of coffee with him and when Janine came, I excused myself to let them have a moment. The room had felt tense as I left it, and I made my way to my office; I had some work to do anyway. Without trying to hear what they were saying, I thought I caught him saying I was the wrong man for her, or something along those lines. Then I heard Mary’s name from my wife’s mouth. I never knew exactly what their exchange was that day, but I never saw Bob again.

_______

Carey rushed to the window and barked incessantly at the dark shape outside the truck. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to see who was knocking on the truck window. With the ship just having left, Ray and I were already at wits’ end. I turned the key and pressed the window button, lowering it slightly.

“Who are you?” I tensely asked.

A woman replied, “We’re here to help. The ship is gone for now.”

Ray and I got out of the car and let Carey out to investigate the new person. He hesitantly sniffed her hand as she crouched down to greet him.

“I love dogs. What’s your name?” she asked.

“His name is Carey. He’s my neighbor’s dog, but he’s been a great companion on our trip so far. I’m Dean, and this is Ray.”

She shook our hands and I caught sight of her face. I knew her. “I’m Mary. Mary Lafontaine. Vanessa is back at the hotel. We were thinking you might make for a hotel near here, but decided one of us should come find you if you didn’t. Then the ship came and I had to hide.”

Mary. It was Bob’s wife Mary. We’d only met on my wedding weekend, which was six years ago now. I had no idea if she would recognize me or not. Things were starting to become a little clearer, but they were still so convoluted and fuzzy. Janine’s cousin Bob was the husband of the woman in front of me. This was no coincidence.

“Hotel, you say. Let’s get going, and get out of the open,” Ray said.

“Yes, my Jeep is just up a little way. I’ll leave my lights off, so just drive up a hundred meters and you’ll see me. We’ll be at the hotel in five minutes.” Mary smiled and took off into the night. She spoke into a walkie-talkie. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even thought of getting those to communicate if we got split up.

“Dean, you okay?” Ray asked.

Carey finished his business and came and sat down at my feet, his body resting against my shin.

“Ray, I know her. Her husband claimed to be my wife’s cousin. She was at my wedding.”

“That’s some seriously heavy stuff. Let’s get going. Maybe we’ll figure this all out when we get to the hotel and talk to them. She seemed sure of herself, out here all alone.”

“She was US Air Force. I think she can handle herself.”

We got in the truck and followed behind Mary in the darkness. The night sky was clear, and the moonlight and stars lit our way as best they could. In a few minutes, we were pulling up to the Holiday Inn.

“Welcome to our private hotel, gentlemen. Here are a couple keys to rooms beside ours.” She passed us keys. “Luckily, they still have regular keys. I’m not sure we could get into the rooms with those key cards.” She led us down a hallway and we toted our backpacks down the flashlight-lit corridor.

“We’re just down the hall in 105 and 106. We’ll be in Vanessa’s room, 106.” She squinted at me slightly before turning around and walking away.

“Come on, Dean. Let’s freshen up and find out what’s going on here,” Ray said.

In a few minutes, we were standing at the entrance to the room, a little fresher now that the day’s trip was washed off, me with a newly applied layer of deodorant. The door was propped open by the bolt, but Ray still knocked before entering. A voice called for us to come inside.

Mary sat at a desk in the far corner of the room, going over some maps. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. They had a generator whirring quietly in the closet, it seemed, with the door closed to muffle the sound. It was funny that just a couple of days with no simple things like lights, and it seemed like magic when you did see it.

The other woman, whom I assumed to be Vanessa, smiled at us as we walked in. She was older than us, maybe pushing fifty, and she wore it well. “So, you’re the other two,” she said, looking us up and down.

“Other two what?” I asked.

“There are four of us, Dean. Four people left behind to save the world. My husband passed this locket on to me before he died, and I wore it, watching my children float away. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To know you’re staying and that you could save one of them, but not?” She was on the verge of crying, and Ray stepped over and put his arm around her shoulders.

“No, I don’t, but I watched my whole workplace get taken. We were working late trying to get a new product’s software done so the manufacturing would be on schedule for a big government contract. I saw twenty of my co-workers get sucked out of the building, and they all looked at me like I was the monster because I wasn’t leaving with them. I’ll never forget Tina’s face as she disappeared through the ceiling; face contorted in agony, looking at me like I was the devil,” Ray said, his hands visibly shaking.

I hadn’t heard Ray’s story yet, and listening to these tales made everything seem so much more real.

Mary came and sat at the end of the bed. “I was in a hangar bay in DC here. We were waiting to be called out in case we needed to try to immobilize the ships. The reports from around the world were saying that all weapons were non-effective against the ships, but we still had to sit there waiting. Like our missiles would have any more power than the Russians’, or the Middle East’s. It was terrifying seeing the news feeds of the missiles and bullets having zero effect on the bastards. They didn’t even have to swat us away like flies; they just hovered there like we were nothing more than a minor nuisance, if they even saw what the humans were doing at all. Those massive black behemoths fell from the sky and I just got a sinking feeling in my stomach, like the end was near. And I suppose it was.” She paused, and we were hanging on her every word. “The sun started to go down, and then things were almost a blur. Everyone started to shout and I didn’t know why, then I saw them floating, all surrounded by green light. This started to burn up” – she showed a large men’s ring on a chain hanging around her neck – “and I finally understood what Bob had been telling me back then. Bob was my husband. He died two years ago.”

The room went silent, and then all eyes fell on me. My story was so boring compared to theirs, but I had to tell it anyway. “I spent the day getting across town to grab my amulet from a storage unit. My wife had made me promise to wear it, but stupid me couldn’t stand the sight of her stuff. It was all a painful reminder of how much I missed her. Janine died three years ago. Just like Ray’s girlfriend died and your husband Bob died, Mary.” I watched Mary, and I saw the light click on in her mind. She knew me, and now she recalled where she knew me from. I nodded to her to let her know I knew and would get to it. She cracked a small smile, and I realized how attractive she really was. It had been a long time since I’d thought like that; the thought of dating after my wife passed had left me with a sick feeling of guilt. Why did I choose this moment to feel a spark? All the memories from the past couple days rushed into my mind, but I almost felt better for it, like my heartache was being cleansed.

“I had run into my buddy James, and we were just hanging out at my house, trying to see what was going to happen. Janine had told me to wear this necklace when the ships came, and I put it on just soon enough to see James get sucked out of my house and into the sky with the rest of my city. I’ve never felt so alone as that night, and I’d been alone there for the past three years.”

Mary walked over to me, reached out, and grabbed my hands. “I can’t believe it’s you, Dean. What odd set of circumstances could have made it so we were both left after the ships? How is this possible?”

I looked over at Vanessa, who was sitting there looking surprised. “Ray, did Kate go by Katherine sometimes?” I had a hunch and was ninety-nine percent sure it was right.

“Yeah, to most people. I hated calling her that, and Kate stuck. Why do you ask?” Ray asked.

“Because she was at my wedding too. It was the strangest thing; Janine sprang a couple guests on me for the wedding. She always said she was adopted and then she met some of her real cousins online and invited them. Kate came, as did Bob and Mary. How my wife had a black cousin wasn’t my business, but it did seem a little odd, though not totally out of the realm of possibility.”

“So you’re saying that Kate was at your wedding and so was Mary here? Whoa, fella…” He paused as if he’d just remembered something. “You know what? She did try getting me to go to a wedding when we first started dating years ago. I hated weddings, and we were so new that I thought it might give off the wrong impression, so I lied and said I couldn’t because I had to work. I’ll be damned. This just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”

Now how did Vanessa play into all of this? “Vanessa, you say your husband died? Was he sick?” I asked, knowing this wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation.

“Pretty much the same thing as your wife, Dean. He was my second husband. The kids weren’t his, but they loved him as if he were their father. Now they’re all gone.” She wiped away tears, and we all softened at the words.

“Every one of us was given our green alien rock thing by our significant loved one who’s now dead. Kate and my wife seem to have died the very same way, and I can only assume Mary’s husband shared a similar fate? I’m sorry to bring it up, but this feels really central to everything going on,” I said.

Mary took a deep breath. “I loved my husband a lot. He was a kind man, with a heart of gold, but he felt distant for the last couple years of his life. He got sick; some sort of lung infection where he would cough up blood, and within a few months, he had wasted away to nothing, and he died with me by his side. Being in the Air Force, I spent a lot of time away from home over the years and often wondered if he strayed from our marriage, or if he even loved me. As he lay in his hospital bed, he told me a crazy tale of people from another world, where a civil war ravaged part of their planet. Two sides came to peace eventually, but there was always a small amount of resentment still felt between them. They needed a new home, as theirs wasn’t going to last, and Earth was found to be suitable.

“One side claimed to have found a home for them that wouldn’t involve the genocide of a race, but the decision was already made. So a safety net was put into place: a device that could be used to bring the humans back once taken. It was said that the device has been here on Earth for hundreds of years, and that the rebels used a highly dangerous wormhole to make it here way ahead of the fleet we saw grace our atmosphere. Then we were selected to carry out the plan to save the world. It’s all been set up by the opposing faction from this planet. Though Bob didn’t say so outright, I now believe him to have been a member of that race. At the time, I thought he was delusional and insane. Now I know better.”

My stomach sank at the implications of her story. If Bob had been one of them, then surely Janine had too. But she was very human. I knew this for a fact. How could she have been anything but? The room swayed, and I reached my arms out to keep myself from falling down. I felt the soft cushion of the mattress and Ray’s hand lowering me down. “I know. If what Mary says is true, then we’re all in the same boat. Feeling deceived and hurt, but maybe it was the only way to save the people. We have to push past this and do what we need to do for the sake of the world. I just don’t quite understand how this is all going to work. We bring them back, then what? Get blasted to smithereens by them? Do we not expect some serious retaliation?”

“Is there anything to drink in this place? Mini-bar?” I asked.

Ray popped open a cupboard that unveiled a mini-fridge with single-serve alcohol bottles in it. “No ice here. What do you say to a glass of wine or a whiskey?”

Soon we had moved to the small table by the window and I was feeling slightly better about things, but that could have just been the effects of the cheap whiskey I’d downed. I was swirling a second one in a plastic glass and noticed Mary watching her red wine more than drinking it.

“It just doesn’t add up. Did any of you have kids? Bob and I tried for a couple years, but it never took. How about you guys?” Mary asked.

Ray shook his head, as did I.

“We can sit here all night and speculate, or we can figure it out moving forward. Now let’s stop worrying about the past and try to figure out the fastest way to get everyone back.” Her voice had progressively risen in pitch, and she emphasized the speech by taking my whiskey and shooting it back.

We settled in and started to form a plan for getting to Peru. We were four strangers and a dog sitting in a hotel room.

TEN

Carey and I walked away from the hotel, into a small field behind it. The morning sun was just about to rise, and the fall air felt cooler than it had in previous days. I was glad we were heading south; it would be warmer. I really was enjoying having a dog around. He reminded me of a regular life and was helping me stay grounded through all of this. He’d already had breakfast and now he was chasing a bird that had landed too close.

We headed back to the building, and Mary was leaning against the front lobby doorway, foot pressed against the brick wall. My heart skipped a beat seeing her there.

“Dean. How messed up is all of this? Can you imagine that we met six years ago and now here we are?” She let the comment stop, like she had more to say but didn’t want to say it.

I couldn’t help but look at her in a different light all of a sudden. I was no psychology major, but it was almost as if my last three years alone were bubbling up, and the sight of someone I’d met before, combined with the fact that we shared the same spousal story, was making me see her for all the woman she was.

I cleared my throat and hoped I wasn’t blushing too hard. I was in my thirties; did we still blush at that age? Feeling the flush in them, I guess I’d answered my own question. Thank goodness Carey interrupted my moment of shame, as he sauntered over to her, doing the patented cocker spaniel full-body tail wag. She crouched down and rubbed his ears while he kept wiggling.

“Bob wasn’t a dog person. Actually, I can’t even recall him ever interacting with one,” she said.

“Come to think of it, neither did Janine. I know she felt bad because I wanted one, but she said she was allergic. I looked into hypoallergenic ones, but she refused even then.”

Ray came and knocked on the door, waving us inside.

“Vanessa and Ray were making breakfast. Once we eat and get everything loaded, we’ll be on our way,” Mary said as I held the door open for her. She paused as we walked inside, her hand sitting lightly on my forearm. “Dean, do you think we can do this?”

“I honestly don’t know, but at least we have a plan for now. Too bad you didn’t have a jet to take us there with.” I laughed.

“I thought of that. Just heading down there myself and doing it. Vanessa was for it. But then we saw the ships, and I was too worried they would just shoot me down, and the whole mission would be screwed. Or at least my involvement in it. Plus, I would be dead,” Mary said solemnly. “I had no idea there was definitely anyone else coming. I just figured if Vanessa and I had been chosen that there must be more.”

“Were you in New York then? Was it your safety deposit box we found open?”

She fidgeted with the ring on her necklace. “That was me. I was close in Washington and took a boat there. Lots of those available where I was. It was only a matter of hours and I was there. I knew I would have to go there and had gone to that bank a couple times in the past two years. Bob gave me the letter to not open until the day they came. Of course I was angry at him for dying, and for telling me that insane story about aliens. I didn’t know what to think when I read it, telling me about a security box. Why wouldn’t I go and look at it? I stood there two years ago in that very bank and stared at that box for an hour. But for some reason, I didn’t open it.”

“How about Vanessa?” I asked.

“I guess she never got one there. Hers was in a local bank. Interesting how her story is always different than ours.” She looked at me, and I guessed she was trying to gauge my reaction.

I really had no idea if that made a lick of difference to our situation, but I was going to watch Vanessa a little more closely than the other two.

“Let’s go get some food and get out of here. We have a long trip ahead of us.” My stomach growled when I smelled the bacon and eggs wafting from down the hall. Carey had already forgotten about me as he ran out of sight.

Soon we were packed up and full from the wonderful meal. It felt great to have something like breakfast to share with other people; another seemingly small event that gave me motivation to keep going. Vanessa and Mary were in a four-door Jeep, and Ray and I kept our truck. The drive to Florida was over a thousand miles, so we had some ground to make up, especially since light was at a premium. We had no idea if the ships would find us at night, but we turned the CB off and they gave us a walkie-talkie so we could communicate with them as we drove.

“We’ll take the lead for the start. If you see anything, let us know and we’ll stop and pretend to be just another abandoned vehicle,” Mary said as she bent over to pet Carey. “See you in a bit, pup.”

Mary was used to taking charge, it appeared. I always figured a soldier was better at taking directions, but she seemed to be good at it. I knew I was in no position to take charge here. Her training was ideal for what we had to do.

“Sounds good. We’ll be in touch.” I smiled at them as Ray said the words.

In minutes, we were heading down the road, Washington just a blip in the rear-view mirror.

_______

We started the drive around seven thirty that morning, and after a stopping for a bathroom break at around nine thirty, we had made some decent distance. A thousand miles on roads with non-moving traffic could take a long time. We decided to just try side roads for most of the trip, and so far, it was working really well. We cruised along some paved and some gravel roads on the way towards Richmond, Virginia. We stopped for a quick break as we neared the city, and by noon, we were fifty miles south of it, heading towards North Carolina.

Everything seemed to be going well, but we were really far from our goal; Peru seemed like an impossible distance. Ray was quiet this morning, and I drove while he manned the walkie-talkie.

“You okay, Ray?” I asked, worried about him.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just letting it all sink in. Trying to wrap my head around what it all means.”

I felt like he was going to ask the question I was scared to know the answer to.

“If any of this is true, were Kate and Janine some sort of…” He paused and looked at me. “Aliens? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it’s true.”

After everything I’d gone through with my wife – the secrets, and Janine’s cousin Bob being Mary’s dead husband too, Kate being at my wedding… it was all too much to not be something strangely unbelievable.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. How could they be aliens? How would aliens look like us? Is that why they died? Maybe they couldn’t survive here. There are so many questions I’m not sure we’ll get answers to. Will it change how I feel about my wife, or you about Kate? I think it will, but I honestly do feel like what I had was real in every way. It had to be.” Just remember that I’m sorry. Never forget this moment. Words from three years ago that I’d blocked out flowed into my head that moment, and tears formed in my eyes as I recalled the desperate look she’d given me. “She knew I was going to find out about her, and she apologized on her deathbed. I forgot the words until now.” Warm tears now flowed down my face, but I didn’t sob about it. I let them fall, and from here I would harden myself. She had to do what she did, for some reason, but I knew without a doubt that she had loved me.

“I think you’re right. But how messed up is it that we had alien women? Not even Kirk married one of them,” Ray joked.

I stayed silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. “We’re going to be friends for a long time. I love making jokes at the wrong time! That’s straight out of my playbook.”

The talkie cracked. “Hey, boys. There’s a gas station just ahead. Let’s take a breather. Over.”

“Roger that. We’re right behind you,” Ray replied.

We followed them down the gravel road and turned left toward the highway. The Jeep slammed on its brakes and pulled up beside a car sitting there. We did the same and cut the engine when they did.

“There’s a bogey in the sky coming this way from the west.”

The ship was coming in fast. Just when I thought it might pass over us, I saw the beam coming from it. The beam was red, not green, this time. My heart was racing as it came closer; its red light was cutting the ground up in chunks. Huge pieces of earth flew in its wake, cars exploded, and when it passed over the gas station, I had to cover my ears when the tanks blew. A mushroom cloud shot into the sky; the gray ship kept moving, red beam shredding the ground as it moved. Carey was barking as Ray and I sat watching the devastation with our mouths open.

“How are we ever going to stop them?” Ray whispered.

“I have no idea.” My heart was hammering in my chest, and I could feel the drip of sweat run down my back as I stared into the sky. As if to accent the danger we just missed out on, a large piece of metal fell right beside the truck, sticking into the road, fire burning around it.

“We better wait a moment longer in case there’s any more airborne flaming death waiting to fall on us,” I said. In a few moments, we got out of the truck, and Carey ran over to the Jeep and barked at Vanessa in the driver’s seat. I was sure he just wanted to see if they were okay, but she seemed hesitant to get out of the vehicle. He moved over and forgot what he was doing when Mary walked over to us, because she was obviously more interesting than the car door. We watched the line of fire spreading across the horizon for miles.

“Do you think they know we’re here? Why else would they have done this?” Ray asked.

“It could be they were demonstrating their power in case we saw what they’d done. They probably think we’re somewhere around this distance. Maybe they’re cutting a line down this side of the country to stop us from passing?” Mary answered. “I heard the generals arguing about whether these ships had weapons or not. They thought that they didn’t, that the reason they didn’t retaliate against Russia when they threw missiles at them was because they couldn’t. Boy, were they wrong. They just cut open the ground like a can opener, with a beam of frickin’ red light.”

“I say we head up there, check how big this gash is, and see whether we can get through it or not,” I said, everyone nodding in agreement. We moved back to the cars, but Mary reached out and grabbed my arm while Ray and Vanessa headed back to their respective vehicles.

“Something feels off here to me, Dean. Why bother with this tactic? With this power, couldn’t they just fly down there and blow the device up?” Her military mind was probably whirling at their strategy.

“Maybe they don’t know what it is. Maybe they don’t know where it is. I just know that I can’t see how they’ve transported all of Earth’s population and are carrying them safely in space right now. Why would they just not destroy humanity? Maybe we’re already too late.” I said the words and felt horrible, thinking of my mother, and my sister in California, whom I rarely saw.

“You could be right, but we still have to try. That’s all we have left. Let’s head over there and see what we’re up against. One thing at a time, I suppose.” She smiled and walked back to the Jeep, where Vanessa was sitting and watching our exchange.

“What was that all about?” Ray asked as I got into the truck.

“Nothing. She just has some concerns about the aliens’ motivation on Earth. Things we have no answers for.”

I drove down the street and up a quarter mile to the remains of an exploded gas station. Sections of the building were scattered so far I would have thought it impossible for them to fly that distance. A sign sat on the ground, half on fire. It read “Eat Here, Get Gas,” which under normal circumstances would have made me laugh. With my breath gone, I had a hard time. The earth split open in front of us for what looked like a hundred yards or so. Just split down for another fifty yards. Whatever that laser thing was, it was built for destruction.

The four of us got out and surveyed the damage, all of us too afraid to talk. I looked east and west, and it went as far as the eye could see.

“What if they’ve done this every few miles down? We’ll never be able to get there.” Vanessa broke the silence as she stood there, shoulders visibly slumped forward.

“What about heading around it? We may eventually be able to get past the starting point. Or we head for the coast now and get a boat there,” Ray suggested.

“I have a feeling it’ll be a long way to the end, and for all we know, they blew up the coastline’s boats. I don’t know what the answer is.” Mary crouched and rested her arms on her knees. “Dean, what do you think?”

I wasn’t sure what to think, but if they wanted my opinion… “I say we have four options. One, we go west and see if the ship maybe started close by so we can get around. Option two, we head east and try to get a boat now. It’ll add a lot of time, especially since we were looking to get a sailboat; because as Mary pointed out, there will be a lot of sailboats between Miami and Cuba, so we won’t look out of place. Option three, we cross this chasm, come up the other side, and get into a new vehicle and keep driving south, sticking to the original plan.”

Ray was nodding along and he asked, “What’s option four, then?”

I licked my lips, unsure if I wanted to say it aloud. “Option four, we turn around and give up.”

ELEVEN

I waited for someone to speak, not sure if I wanted to hear what they thought of that option. I wanted to keep on, to keep going and try to turn the damned device off. I just hoped they did too.

Mary was the one to say something. “I say we cross over here. There are plenty of cars on the street just over there. It’s the most known route, and I think that gives us our best odds under the circumstances. Are you with me?”

We all chorused our agreement and grabbed things we’d need. “Only things we need from here on out. If we need something else, we can pick it up on the way. Food, water, flashlights, radios, maps,” Mary called out in her take-charge way.

We set to it, and soon we had stripped the cars of anything we would need for the next leg of the journey. It was about one thirty as we started our descent into the pit. The first few feet were concrete, but it turned to dirt very quickly. Lucky for us, the beam seemed to have wreaked havoc on the ground and it was an uneven cut, especially by the gas station, where the tanks added to the destruction. It gave us some steps on the way down.

Carey was able to make the run down easily, and he sniffed around the rift’s floor. Vanessa had the hardest time, claiming chronic lung problems, and by the time we were near the bottom, she was coughing hard. I was sweating in the cool air, more of a result of hauling three full bags with me than anything else. My rifle hung across my shoulders and I figured we would have made quite the sight. If me from four days ago had seen me now, I probably would hardly have recognized myself. A more-than-five o’clock shadow, dirt on my face, and a gun strapped to my body. Desperate times and all that other stuff, I guessed.

I looked down the hole in the ground, and it was an odd feeling to be so deep into the Earth. I quickly got a sense of claustrophobia and felt like the walls were coming closer, even though they were a hundred paces or so apart.

“I hope we find another generator. I miss coffee,” Ray said, patting my back as he headed toward the other side.

“I hear you. I honestly don’t know how we’re functioning right now. I mean, no caffeine for at least five hours! That’s unheard of,” Mary said with only a hint of sarcasm. Vanessa appeared to be recovering, and Carey ran up to me and jumped his front paws onto my thighs. I scratched him on the head and picked up the two packs I’d let down. We moved through the terrain to the looming far side, where we found out the surface was much less carved out for us to walk up.

“What do you think? Should we head down a bit to see if there’s a better spot for footholds?” I asked.

“We can make it halfway up this way, and then there’s a steep section where I think I can climb. Then I can tie a rope to a car’s axle up there and toss it down,” Vanessa said.

“Uhm, are you sure you can do that?” We all looked at her a little incredulously. It wasn’t that she was old at fifty, and she looked like she was in decent shape, but that cough-fest was enough to make me doubt her climbing skills at that moment.

“I was a rock climber for a few years, recreationally anyway. Nothing big, but definitely stuff harder than this. I can still do it. You have your skills, I have mine.” And that was that. She headed up by herself, the flat spot almost halfway up the fifty-yard wall, and from there, she startled us all by reaching up and grabbing a small rock. Slowly, she ascended the fairly flat surface. In ten anxious minutes, she was up top and we could hear her coughing when she was done.

“You’re amazing, ‘Nessa! Are you okay?” Mary called up to her.

“I’m okay. Give me a moment and I’ll get the rope down to you guys,” she called back.

Five minutes later, we were at the halfway mark and grabbing hold of the rope.

“Can we all make this?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe ten years ago,” Ray said, and ran his hand over his slightly overweight stomach.

“How about I head up first, then Mary, and we can pull you up if you need the help?” I offered.

“At this point, I have no shame in help from a friend. Sounds like a plan. How about Carey?” Ray asked.

The dog looked up at us as if we were crazy, and he was on the strangest walk of his life.

“I can use my jacket like a sling and he can come with me,” Mary said. I knew she was tough, but this was going to be quite the sight.

I slung the lightest pack over my shoulders and took the rope. It had been a long time since I’d had to climb a rope, the last time probably being in a bad white t-shirt and school shorts in the gymnasium, while Mr. Pat yelled at us and called us girls. As I started up the wall, I could almost hear him insulting my manhood. I weighed a little more now than my tenth-grade self and felt the burn as I climbed with a combination of my arms and pushing up with my legs. A couple of painful minutes later, I was on the top being helped forward by Vanessa. I’d feel the soreness later.

I passed the rope back down and then watched as Mary climbed up quickly with a shaking cocker wrapped up in a jacket like a baby swaddled to her belly. It was quite the sight. She hardly looked to be breaking a sweat as she climbed up, much faster than I had. Once Mary was up, Carey squeezed out of the cloth trap and rolled around on the ground, as if he could wipe the fear off his hair by covering it in dirt. The only thing left to do was get the rest of the supplies up, and then Ray. We tossed the rope back to him and he started to tie the bags to it.

“You guys sure you can lift me up there?” he called from below.

“Sure, how heavy can you be, Ray? Two-thirty?” Mary called back.

“Yeah, pretty damn close. Okay, the bags should be good to go.”

We all grabbed the rope and moved hand over hand, pulling the gear up slowly but firmly. It would have been much easier if we’d had some sort of a pulley, but the rope looked like it was holding up nicely. Leave it to Mary to have brought a rope. It was sure nice to have her along. I watched her arms tense as she stood in front of me, pulling with fluid motions and ease, like she did this type of thing on a daily basis. Vanessa brought up the rear and she smiled slightly when I gazed back at her. Her coughing fit seemed to be a thing of the distant past, and soon the gear was over the edge and accounted for.

“Okay, Ray. We’re going to toss the rope back down. I’ve tied it in a loop at the bottom. Jump into it like it’s a hula hoop and sit your butt on the bottom of the circle. We’ll pull you up, no problem.” Mary sounded so sure of herself, I didn’t think we would have a problem.

“Good to go,” he called.

We started to lift, and it wasn’t much worse than all the gear we had moved. We only had to lift him around thirty yards, so I figured a couple minutes. The pulls were getting a little heavier, and I heard Mary mutter something under her breath. Carey barked a few times and wagged his tail. Then I saw what had Mary reacting like that. The rope was coming to our hands frayed.

“Mary, are we good still?” I asked.

“Should be. I grabbed this rope from a hardware store, because I forgot the good stuff at the base. Damn it. I should have known it would be cheap. Probably made for tying up a gate or something, not pulling a grown man up a cliff front,” she said through her teeth.

It was becoming more frayed with each pull, and I was getting worried. Ray hadn’t seemed to have noticed yet, and we kept pulling, trusting it would hold.

We stopped when Mary did. The rope snapped slightly, and we were forced forward by the pressure change.

“What the hell was that?” Ray yelled up, alarm in his voice.

“Don’t panic. The rope is starting to give. We almost have you,” Mary told him.

“How far down is he?” Vanessa whispered over my shoulder.

“Only about ten feet, but this thing is almost ready to snap. We have to pull smoothly and quickly. Once he’s close, I’m going to grab his arm,” Mary said.

We hefted him, and soon Mary was letting go and diving to grab him, just as the tension on the rope eased as it snapped. Vanessa and I fell back in a heap and I quickly scrambled back to my feet and toward the ledge, where Ray was almost howling. Carey was running back and forth as I made my way over. Mary had him hanging there by his left hand.

“Ray, toss your right hand up and I’ll help,” I yelled. Mary’s grip was lessening as the large man’s weight was taking its toll on her small frame. She was strong, but there were limitations to everyone.

“I can’t! I’m going to slip!”

“Mary, we have one chance at this. Try to swing him over. Ray, reach out to me with your right hand!”

Mary swung him, and I could see his hand slipping away. Everything seemed to slow down, and I could see the sweat beading off Ray’s head. Carey’s barking was slow and low, a background noise I almost didn’t recognize. He came back toward me, his right hand rising up to me. I clasped his hand and arm with mine, and together Mary and I pulled him up and over the ledge. We lay there in a pile of stress and relief.

Then came the laughter and the tears.

“I’m alive! Holy mother of God, I’m alive! Thank you, guys.” Ray’s eyes were wet.

I was still on my back staring up at the clear sky, breathing hard. “Well, we may still need you and I’m not great with computers, so that’s your thing.”

Vanessa was passing around a water bottle, and for a minute, it just felt good to be alive, and for us all to still be together. Then reality set in and we started to look for a suitable car for the next part of the trip.

“What do you think about that big SUV? Maybe we should just pile into one vehicle from now on,” I suggested as I walked toward one that looked like it would do the job.

“Perfect. I used to have one of these bad boys,” Ray said, his voice still shaking a little bit. I didn’t blame him. “Not the best mileage, but it’ll get us where we’re going in comfort and still with plenty of room in the back for our gear.”

“Then it’s settled,” Vanessa declared, and we put our things inside. I turned the ignition to make sure the thing started fine and was happy to see a three-quarter full tank. Soon we were cruising down the highway on the way south. We could only hope there weren’t going to be any more road-blocks along the way.

The I-95S ate up the rest of our light and by the time we were three hundred miles down the road, the sun was creeping down below the horizon, making us decide where to camp for the night.

“You know, at some point, we’ll need camping gear. Once we land in South America, there aren’t going to be hotels on every corner any longer,” Ray said.

“Do you think anyone ever camps in Miami? Could you imagine waking up down there in a canvas tent? It would be pure torture, sweat pouring out of every orifice. I just can’t picture it,” I said, laughing at the image of us all camping on the beach.

“Don’t laugh. I’m sure you’ll have your share of sauna moments coming up. I know it’s getting cool here, but down there, it’ll still be in the high eighties. And that’s if we’re lucky. Until we get to the mountains at least,” Vanessa quipped.

We decided to keep going, sans headlights, in an effort to gain some miles. It was still early after all and we needed to get as far as we could. We couldn’t risk the ships seeing us, so we traveled by the moonlight, which, lucky for us, was out in full force that night. We passed a few clusters of cars, but for the most part, we managed quite well at a smooth fifty-five miles an hour pace.

It was almost midnight when Ray pulled over at a roadside motel. Vanessa was sleeping away in shotgun; Mary and I were in the back seat with Carey snoring between us. He was leaving small drool spots on my leg.

“Let’s stop here and get some shut-eye. We can pound back a granola bar in the morning and get moving. I think we can get to Miami by tomorrow if we leave by six.” Mary was already leaving the vehicle, her knapsack slung over her shoulder. We were standing outside when she came back and tossed us some room keys. “Enjoy,” she said, and headed into the closest room, just beside the SUV.

“Well, I’m tired. You guys all sleep well. I’ll take Carey out and then it’s off to bed.”

Dog and man, we walked behind the hotel, and under any other circumstance, I would have been worried for my life in the middle of nowhere, in the dark night of Georgia, but here it was peaceful and actually relaxing. No crazed serial killer was going to jump out and swing a chainsaw at me, but I supposed an alien might try to beam me up or dissolve me to nothing using a large red beam of death. I wasn’t sure which way I’d prefer to go. Carey walked forward, his head low to the ground in smelling mode.

I heard the crunch of a twig behind me, and I spun to see a shadow coming close to me.

“It’s just me,” Mary said quietly. “I just wanted to talk to you in private about something.”

“Sure. What about?” I asked.

“You did a great job today. You were quick to act with Ray, and you have great ideas. I may be trained by the US Air Force, but I think an outside mind may be just what we need. I don’t know how to say this without it sounding strange, as if all of this isn’t strange enough.” Her voice was firm, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear what she was going to say.

“Go on,” I prompted, our bodies only a foot apart now.

“You weren’t the one. Whoever chose us didn’t choose you. Janine did, in her own way. I overheard Bob talking about it on the phone back then, just after the wedding. He was so upset about it. I think each of them had to find a pre-selected mate to do this task once it happened. You weren’t the guy. I think he was supposed to be military.”

My heart sank for some reason. Of course they hadn’t wanted me. I was an accountant. They’d wanted a military guy. In order to increase their odds of success, they would have wanted competent, trained people to do this job. That night at the Boathouse in Central Park flashed into my mind, and there I was, walking in front of Janine as she was about to go on a blind date with the muscles covered in military tattoos.

That was him. “I don’t know if I can really feel bad. I guess I made more of an impression that night than I’d thought. I’ve always been proud that I took the chance on her. I remember that night quite well.”

Mary took my hands; hers were slightly chilled in mine. “From that moment, I had an idea about all of this, and ever since, I questioned Bob’s actual love for me. He could be so cold at times, but so warm at others. I don’t know what to believe, but I think they were sent here to choose us for this, and that’s it. From what I gather, your wife chose love over what they were told.”

“I don’t know if I should be happy or not at this point, but I’m here,” I said, meaning the words.

“I just wanted you to know.” Her hands lingered a second, then she let go and went back to the motel, leaving me and a sniffing dog alone in the night.

TWELVE

We left as the sun came up and were determined to make it all the way down the five hundred or so miles by nightfall. I took the driver’s seat, with Vanessa up front with me. She was coughing sporadically, claiming Carey must be affecting her lung condition, which was sounding a little worse this morning.

I was still a little flummoxed by my late-night conversation with Mary; the look in her eyes, the touch of her hand. It all made me feel even worse to find out that Janine chose me, and more than likely did truly love me through whatever she was or had to do.

The roads in Georgia were fairly clear, and I decided to stick to the highway here rather than the side roads, at least for the time being. I kept expecting to find the road torn up like yesterday, but nothing showed up on the first part of the journey. By the time we entered Florida, it was getting warm, and the sun was high in the sky. We stopped to fuel up and freshen up, and then we were back on the road. I’d been worried because we had no generator to attempt to power the tanks, but we still did have our siphoning gear. Turned out this part of the US had backup power on all their gas stations because of the hurricane threats. They still wanted to be able to function with power outages, for emergency vehicles and transport. I would classify this as an emergency, so we were happy to have the power in the tanks. It made the arduous task of filling up a lot faster. We filled multiple jerry cans from inside the station and we were set.

The day was quiet for all of us; the enormity of the task at hand was sitting heavy on our shoulders and minds. The conversation was light, and we all spoke about our childhoods a bit, mainly where we grew up, number of siblings. I was glad we hadn’t got into religion or politics, because in all honesty, with aliens looming over our planet and everyone but us gone, I wasn’t comfortable having a talk about God.

Ray volunteered to drive the last couple hundred miles, and I took him up on the offer. The afternoon wore on uneventfully as we weaved through piles of cars leading up to Orlando.

“Why don’t we just go to Tampa? We could probably be on a boat and cruising tonight,” Ray asked from the driver’s seat.

Vanessa replied first. “I know the path from Miami to Cuba has a lane, and I just wanted us to go unnoticed by the ships. If you think it’s worth the risk, we can do it. I’m sure we can find a sloop with a large enough berth that we can weather a storm if it hits. My family was well off, and we all learned how to sail from a young age. I haven’t sailed myself for a few years, but we should be good.”

“Okay, I think we should be safe heading from Tampa. Let’s do it and cut a couple hours off our trip. I’m sure congestion by Miami will be bad, and at Tampa we can cut around the city and head for a marina. We figured about fifteen hundred miles from Miami to Colombia, so we’ll be a bit further, but we won’t have to cut around Cuba like we’d been planning. How fast do those things go, Vanessa?” Mary asked.

“Depends on a few things, like wind, of course. We should be able to average around thirty to forty miles an hour. There really isn’t any reason we can’t keep up that pace for most of the trip, putting us at what timeline?” Vanessa paused, thinking.

“Forty hours, or thereabouts,” Ray said. “If everything goes perfect, we can be there by Thursday morning.”

It all sounded so perfect to us at that moment. We had a plan, did the math, and all we needed was time and luck to get there.

Ray veered on an exit, sending us westward on the way to Tampa. We moved slower as we neared the city, and a map directed us to circle south and around the main part of the rural area.

“The main Tampa harbor is pretty deep into town along the coast. Odds are we can head south along the coast and find a mansion with a beautiful sailboat for us to borrow,” Vanessa suggested.

An hour later and we hit the coastline; the water was a beautiful sight down here. I hadn’t been to the area before and appreciated the sights right away. Vanessa was one hundred percent accurate. There were a bunch of huge homes on the waterfront here, and it didn’t take us long to spot one with a boat she knew how to handle. It was moored out a way from the shore.

“This is a single-masted sloop. It’ll go like the wind, but the underdeck will be tight. We’ll have to take turns sleeping anyway, so it’ll work.” Vanessa sounded so confident in her lingo that it made me feel at ease about the four of us heading into open waters.

We pulled down the driveway and over their grass toward the dock. I saw their infinity pool and huge house and wondered what the owners were doing now. Even though they had all of this on Earth, it wasn’t going to help them wherever they were right now.

“From here it looks like a beaut. It’ll do just fine. If you guys want, I’ll go to that Walmart we passed a mile back to get supplies. Maybe two of you can load our stuff onto the boat? That little boat there is the tender. We have to use that to get out to the sailboat. Often these shores don’t go down deep enough to dock a sailboat this close, so they have a dinghy-type small engine boat to transport. If we’re lucky, the keys will just be under the seat or something,” Vanessa said.

“I’ll go with you, ‘Nessa,” Ray said. The two helped us load the bags out and onto the ground. We had a list of things we needed. A gas pump kit was high on the list, because we were sure that once we were in South America, we’d be siphoning on occasion. A new, better rope was needed, as well as socks and other essentials. Food was going to be key, and we planned on the easiest, most nourishing stuff we could get.

“Ray, would you mind grabbing a couple bottles of wine, and some beer? I think we might need an evening to take our minds off things. Oh, and maybe a nice fat cigar. I want to feel like the Cubans as we pass by them,” I added with a wink.

“Maybe see if they have a good portable GPS too. It’ll be more accurate than the cell phone’s mapping. See you guys in a bit.” Vanessa got into the SUV, leaving the two of us behind with an exploring Carey. I had no idea how he was going to take being on the water for two days; hell, I didn’t know how I was going to react. I hadn’t spent much time on the water either, short of the odd fishing trip to a lake. The ocean was a whole different can of worms, so to speak.

“Well, this is all happening, isn’t it? We should be well through Colombia in two days. I’ve heard it’s just beautiful down there. You know, if you don’t mind fighting drug dealers.” I was glad to see her smile at my joke.

“Machu Picchu is on my bucket list. Oddly enough, so is saving the world, so you know, two birds, one stone,” she quipped back. Mary seemed like a hardened soldier at times, then funny and sweet at others.

“It does look really nice there. I wonder what made them put the device there? I guess a few hundred years ago, there really weren’t tourists around, so they probably thought it wouldn’t be uncovered by man. As good a spot as any. With the exception of us having to take days to get down there,” I said.

We talked as we moved our few bags and foodstuffs we had left. Turned out the key to the little dinghy was in the ignition. I guessed they didn’t have much in the way of trespassers way out here. “I hope they get back soon. We only have about an hour until the sun’s down, even though Vanessa isn’t worried about night sailing. She sure is quite the character. Rock climber and sailor? Very nice, though,” Mary said.

“Yeah, she’s quite the woman. Who knows what other hidden skills we’ll get from her? Maybe she’s also a world-renowned juggler, or a master chef,” I said as I loaded the last bag onto the boat.

Carey was walking around the yard, and he started barking. I thought our other two must have been coming back. “That was quick,” Mary said, both of us turning to the driveway. A man was walking down toward us.

My heart pounded when I saw the stranger. It seemed so odd to see someone I didn’t know.

“Mary, where’s your handgun?” I asked quietly.

“On the dinghy,” she replied.

“Go get it. I’ll see who this guy is.”

She ran down the dock and onto the boat. Carey was backing up in my direction, and the man was crouching down, trying to get Carey to come smell his hand.

“Hello there!” he called. He was tall, brown-haired, and broad-shouldered.

“Hello.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Carey was still growling, but came and almost sat on my foot, putting himself between me and the new man. The first thing I looked for was a green pendant, ring, or anything else that would match up with our stories. I couldn’t see any.

“I know what’s going on, Dean. It is Dean, right?” His voice was sure of itself, and an accent I couldn’t place. Canadian, maybe?

How the hell did he know my name? It clicked. He was one of them.

“Stay back!” I called to him, and I could hear Mary’s footsteps approach from behind. “Who are you and what do you want?” I asked, voice raised.

He lifted his hand in the air and spoke softly. “I’m here to tell you something. I’m on your side, I promise you this. You’ve been lied to. You don’t want to turn off that device. Think about it, why would…” A gunshot rang out, and it hardly registered as I saw blood spray into the air. The man crumpled to the ground. I stood in shock and Mary rushed forward. We scanned the area and saw the SUV with the passenger door open and Vanessa perched on it with a rifle and scope. It had all happened so fast. I’d just been there talking to him and then he was dead. Mary crouched down and turned his body on its back. Half his face was missing. I turned and threw up, bile burning the back of my throat. The SUV pulled out and I could hear Mary yelling at Vanessa, but the words were lost in the ringing in my ears.

In a few moments, my head cleared, but I kept my eyes averted from the body.

“We need to get out of here. Now!” Vanessa called. “Where there’s one, there are probably more.”

“Why did you shoot him?” Mary pleaded.

“He had to be one of them,” she replied.

“Why? What if he was one of us, or trying to help?” she asked.

I stepped forward. “He wasn’t one of us. He was trying to convince me not to shut the machine down.” It burned to talk.

“Let’s get this stuff loaded and get moving. Vanessa is right; we better clear out of here.”

It took less than five minutes to get the boat loaded and untied. Vanessa pulled the body by the legs and dropped him into the water by the dock. She reached down and grabbed his shirt collar and tugged him under the dock, to be hidden from anyone that might come looking. She coughed, a violent hack, when she was done. I noticed Mary didn’t take her eyes off Vanessa.

_______

Once we’d settled onto the sailboat, we lifted anchor and ran the onboard engine to bring us out into the water a way. Vanessa had directed us on the sails, and just as the sun was setting in the western horizon, we were heading southwest.

We hadn’t talked about it, and near midnight, once we were sure we were heading in the right direction and everything was set, Ray, Mary, and I were in the underdeck, sitting around the small table. I’d never been below on a sailboat before, and it was quite cozy. It reminded me a lot of my parents’ tent trailer from when I was a kid. It had that same slightly musty, canvas smell to it. Everything was compact and folded up like the trailer too. The table had a ledge on it to prevent dishes and cups from sliding off in uneven water. Being down here was even stranger-feeling than being on deck, and my stomach was swaying in opposition to the waves. Part of that was the uneasiness I still felt from the murder of that man, or alien, or whatever he was. He’d breathed and spoken, and now he was a nothing but a body under water.

“What the hell was that?” Ray asked through his teeth.

“I don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about it. Even if he was a bad alien trying to convince us to not kill the device, was it wise to shoot him?” I asked.

Mary leaned forward and kept her voice low. Vanessa was manning the ship’s wheel, so we thought we could talk openly, but you could never be too safe. “What’s with her? On top of all those other skills, she’s a frickin’ sharpshooter? That was some of the most messed-up shit I’ve ever seen, and I’m in the Air Force. Dean, what do you think about that guy? Why wouldn’t they have just killed us? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree. He really wanted to tell me something about the device but didn’t have a chance, obviously. Did you see how cold and callous she was about it? And the way she dragged the body by herself? I don’t trust her,” I said.

Ray got up and pulled a beer out of a cooler. He opened and passed one to Mary and then to me. “She was so pleasant and nice on our trip for supplies. Telling me about her little Dennis. He sounds like a great kid. Her husband collected African masks, and they’d been there over a dozen times. Normal rich white lady stuff, if you ask me. But that was seriously deranged. She told me to slam on the brakes, and she had that gun from under the seat in seconds. Before I knew what was happening, I heard the shot and saw that guy drop.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“What do we do?” I asked, looking between the two of them. Thoughts of dumping Vanessa over the side of the boat entered my mind, and I shook the image out of my head. Where did that come from? Suddenly, my stomach felt even queasier.

“For now, nothing. Let’s pretend we’re all good, but honestly, we can’t trust her. One of us should go up there and talk to her. I don’t think I can right now, though. I’m still so upset and fuming,” Mary said, taking a drink from her bottle.

I knew where this was going. I was going to have to be the middleman, the buffer between everyone. It wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’d played the role. “I’ll go see how she is.” I grabbed a beer for her, in the off chance she was up for one.

“Thanks, buddy. We owe you one,” Ray said, eyeballing the small bed in the corner.

“Why don’t you two get some rest, and I’ll hit the hay in a few hours. We can just take shifts for alien watch, Vanessa watch, and sleep.” They nodded and I climbed the few rungs to the deck. Carey sat there and happily greeted me. He hadn’t wanted to come down the ladder. When I tried to pick him and carry him down, he just whined and shook ferociously. I’d settled on leaving him here.

The night air had a chill to it, even though we were quite far south at this point. The smell of ocean, salt, and night mixed together and gave a somewhat calming scent. I headed to the back of the boat, or aft, or was it starboard? I really knew nothing about ships. Vanessa was at the wheel, one hand on it as she stared into the starry sky. It was beautiful out here.

I settled in on a bench to the side of her and offered her the semi-chilled beer. She took it with a smile, took a sip, and kept staring into the sky.

“Dean, I’m sorry if I scared you before. I know you guys must think I’m nuts. My instincts took over and I felt like I did what I had to do. I saw a threat and eliminated it.” She was speaking softly and I could see that she was upset.

I stood up and put my arm around her shoulders. It was hard to imagine she was capable of killing anything, being a small-framed fifty-something. Her face pressed into my chest and she started to sob. Just when I’d passed her off as a threat, she softened my views of her, but I knew people were all capable of being manipulative. I thought I was a pretty good judge of it, and honestly felt like she was being real and in the moment. I held her and told her it would be okay, and in a few minutes, she was backing away, wiping away tears and apologizing to me for being silly.

“There’s nothing silly about it, Vanessa. Think of what we’ve been through in the span of a couple days. It’s been crazy! Not only did everyone we know and love leave us, ripped from our planet, but it’s just us left to fix it. If that isn’t pressure, then I don’t know what is. I used to think tax time was as bad as it got.”

She laughed and we stayed there small-talking: talking about Peru and drinking our beers. Carey sat by my feet, surprising me by how well he was doing on a boat. The waters were quite calm and I could see other sailboats and ships in the water as we sailed on by in the moonlight. It was so quiet and serene out here that for a moment I forgot where I was and closed my eyes, feeling the sway of the boat and the lapping of the water as the wood cut through the slight waves.

A couple hours passed and Ray emerged from below. He stretched and Vanessa showed him how to hold the wheel and explained about the tiller. It all seemed easy, but I knew there was more to it than “take it and hold ‘er steady.” There were only a few boats in the distance, and when I asked how far she thought we’d traveled, she said about one hundred and fifty.

“If you see a ship coming in too hard, steer clear if you can. If you’re worried, then come and get me,” Vanessa said.

“Aye aye, Captain,” Ray said.

Mary climbed up top and asked what time it was.

“About three AM. A few hours until sunrise,” I answered. “I think we’d better go get a little shut-eye. Keep an eye on Carey for me, would you?”

I was below deck in moments, sharing the small bed with Vanessa: a woman who, hours before, had shot a man right in front of me. Even with my mind racing, I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

THIRTEEN

When I came to, I was alone in the bed. I was groggy, but when I stood to the lightly rocking motion of the boat, I knew I was finally rested. The sun blinded me as I climbed out, and I was greeted sloppily by a cocker spaniel’s wet tongue. I gave him a kiss on the top of his head and added a multitude of pets to tell him I missed him. He was such a good animal. Everyone was still there and smiling as they sat on the bench, eating bagels and drinking what looked like orange juice.

“Well, aren’t we all just out of a Hamptons Elitist Magazine.” We laughed at the idea of the grimy group of us being on the cover.

“I might need a little makeup first,” Mary said.

“Me too,” Ray said with a chuckle.

“Why didn’t anyone wake me? It’s after nine!” I felt bad for hogging the bed so long.

“You needed it, and besides, look how nice it is out here,” Vanessa said.

I scanned the horizon and was amazed by the wonder of it. The ocean stretched for far beyond my eyesight in every direction. I couldn’t see any other ships bobbing in the water now. We were getting much further south, and already my shirt was clinging to my back from the heat and humidity.

“We passed Cuba about three hours ago and are well on our way to Panama. I think we should head there first, since it’s closer by a hundred or so miles, and traveling by boat is much slower than an automobile,” Vanessa said. We brought out a map of the area and agreed that the northern tip of Panama was probably our best bet. It looked to be around seven hundred miles, and we were currently averaging twenty-five miles an hour. We’d hopefully land by noon the next day.

I noticed Carey looking sheepish in the corner, and I found he’d made use of the bath towel I’d laid out. I’d hoped he would think of it like a patch of grass and was happy it worked. I took the towel by both ends and carried it to the back of the boat, holding it away from my nose. I shook it off into the trailing winds and figured I’d better put it back so he knew it was okay to keep using it. Ray gave me a grossed-out face when I finished flinging it off. The things a dog owner had to do. I tried to imagine what this trip would have been like with a child and was glad I didn’t have to deal with the stress. Janine and I hadn’t been able to have kids, but they were something I still saw in my future. Not going on a date in years wasn’t helping my cause, though. My gaze lingered on Mary, who was taking lessons on the ship from Vanessa. Her ice from the night before seemed to have melted off in the heat, and the two of them appeared to be fast friends once again.

The rest of the day went by quickly, as if we were sailing through time, and before we knew it, late afternoon was upon us. Dark clouds threatened to cause rain in the distance, the direction we were heading into.

“What do you think of those?” I asked Vanessa, who was staring at the looming clouds miles away.

“I think we may have reason for concern. The weather down here can be very touch and go, and that storm may pass, or we may pass through it with no problem.” She paused. “But we don’t have a choice at this point. We have to keep going.”

“Why don’t I head down to the kitchen and make us something to eat? Who’s up for some world-famous grilled cheese?” I asked, hoping to take their minds off the potential storm.

“I’ll help you,” Mary said, and we headed down the steps into the ship’s small underbelly.

“I hope we don’t have to deal with anything too harsh. I don’t relish the idea of being tossed about the sea in this thing. We’ll get ripped to shreds.” I was surprised by her honesty. Again, I felt like I was getting to see the real Mary, the one behind the mask of the Air Force and tough attitude. The more time I spent with her, the more I enjoyed being with her. My cheeks burned, and I turned to the stove.

“Yeah, I agree. My stomach doesn’t want to deal with that. It’s uneasy enough as it is. How about we make some food and hope everything works out?” I kept my back turned to her.

“Is everything okay, Dean?” she asked, hand coming to rest on my back. I spun around slowly and felt self-conscious with how close she was standing to me. All of a sudden, I wondered if I smelled fresh, or if hours of hot Caribbean air had washed away my deodorant.

“Sure, everything’s fine,” I whispered as she took my left hand with her right. It was slightly cool, and soft in my grip. If ever there was a moment to make a move, this was it, at least under normal human circumstances. Still, I knew I couldn’t let this piece of time fly by without seizing it. “Carpe diem,” I said under my breath as I raised my other hand to her cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned in to her perfect face; our lips met for an instant, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt.

“You guys better get up here! Looks like we’re in for some weather!” Ray called down.

My hand lingered on her face, and she looked down to the ground. “We’d better get up there and see what we can help with,” Mary said, heading up the steps. I watched her go and remembered to turn off the gas burner before following after her. If only I could have turned off my own burner.

The wind was blowing hard as I got above deck. The clouds were black and angrily spitting rain on us. “What do we do?” I called out.

“We have to reef the sails. Ray, I’m going to turn into the wind. It’ll ease tension on the sail. Grab the reefing control line and untie it, letting it loosen. The sail will shrink and the wind will cut around it rather than catch us like a parachute. Mary, you grab the rope and help him tie it off when I tell you. Dean, come and help me manage the wheel. It gets tough in the wind and waves.” We were finding out Vanessa was good under pressure.

Lightning flashed around us and the waves grew larger. Facing the wind, we fought the waves head-on, and the boat rose and crashed over and over. Thunder boomed as Mary and Ray finished their task; the sail contained, Vanessa called for them to tie it off. She told me to take the wheel and hold it tight. Pressure from both directions made it tough to control and keep even. Every time I felt it slacked in one direction, the wheel would try to spin the other.

“See that clear patch over there? I’m going to use the engine to drive us over past the storm.” Vanessa turned and lowered the engine down into the water. She threw on a life jacket and we all followed suit, me wondering why I hadn’t done that the moment the clouds looked imposing.

With the engine on, she took over the steering again and turned us to ride along with the waves, slowly easing us away from the lightning. The wind was so loud ripping through the masts, and the crashing of the waves against the wood was adding to the deafening experience. My heart pounded almost as loud as the thunder in my ears, and I told myself that my trembling was mostly due to the incessant rain and splashing of sea water onto the deck. I knew I was kidding myself.

“Take Carey and go below, while I get us out of here!” Vanessa called.

Mary picked up the panicked dog, and she and Ray climbed below.

“I’ll stay with you!” I called over the noise.

We were moving quite fast, and the rain was pouring down hard now. Vanessa smiled as she kept her hands on the large wheel, arm tendons and muscles bunched tight against the angry sea. A huge lightning flash shot out into the sky, and I thought I saw the shadow of a ship. Not a boat in the water, but one of the gray alien ships, which we hadn’t seen since the one that tore up the ground on the interstate. My heart hammered when I saw it again on the next flash. We kept moving along, and even though it felt like hours, in a few minutes, we were on the outside of the storm, the wind blowing it northwest of us.

I scanned the sky for signs of the ship but couldn’t see one. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I didn’t think so.

“Did you see that, Vanessa?” I asked, my voice wavering.

“See what? One hell of a scary storm? I think I saw my life flash in front of my eyes… but that could have just been the lightning. Dear God, that felt close. Too close.”

Mary climbed up top, Ray close behind her.

“Mary, can you check the GPS and see how far we are away from our landing spot?” Vanessa asked.

“Sure, are you guys okay?” Mary asked back.

I wasn’t sure if I was. I’d just had the fright of a lifetime and to top it off, I was quite sure I’d seen a ship. Did they know we were here? What were they waiting for? Us to kill ourselves? I found Carey curled up and drenched. When I held him, I could feel his little heart pounding away.

“Yeah, we’re good. Vanessa really came through and saved our asses. We owe her big time,” I said. I decided not to bother telling them about the ship. Maybe it had just been my imagination.

“GPS says we’re still four hundred miles away. Not too far off what we’d thought,” Mary told us.

Vanessa headed over to the sail and untied a rope. Ray went over and helped her get the sail back to its regular position. Soon we were sailing full speed ahead, with the sun setting to our right. The crew looked tired, soaked, and hungry.

“How about those grilled cheese now?” I asked, laughing a little bit.

“Sure, but first I think we’d better give this boat a name. We fought the sea and won, and it deserves a better name than the letters on it,” Vanessa suggested.

I leaned over the side and read the lettering. Princess. I said it aloud and we all laughed.

“I don’t know, maybe we should just stick with Princess. They always get their way, after all.” This from Ray.

“Princess she is,” Vanessa said, smiling with wet hair plastered to her forehead.

FOURTEEN

We took turns sleeping on the bunk, and Mary and I didn’t talk about the moment we’d shared earlier. Ray and I demanded that Mary and Vanessa take the first shift, and around three am, we woke them up and hit the hay. My mind was reeling from the past few days, and I couldn’t believe the crazy adventures we’d been through already. I could only hope that once we landed in South America, things would run smoothly. As I lay my head down on the pillow, I doubted it would be quite as simple as I was dreaming it might be, but we’d already shown what a resilient group we’d become.

I woke some hours later and left Ray in the bed snoring lightly. Carey was sleeping by my feet when I woke up, and I was happy to see him finding himself a little more at home here. The sun was just coming up as I carried a sleepy dog up the ladder. Vanessa and Mary greeted me and offered me a cup of tea. The ship had a propane stove that was giving us just enough to make this almost seem like a normal trip across the Caribbean Sea: four friends heading to Panama for an excursion.

“Good morning, Dean. Ray still down for the count?” Mary asked, her gaze lingering on my eyes for a moment before she looked down to her cup.

“Yep, I left him snoozing like a baby. Are we still on track?” I asked, enjoying the lemon tea with a dash of honey. My mom always used honey in her tea. The worry for her and everyone I cared about was like a constant buzzing in the back of my mind, but I had to push it to the back of my thoughts to be able to keep functioning. It was easy to forget that everyone was somewhere out there, and that was the whole point of us heading down to Peru. Most of the time, it just felt like we had one small task at a time. Get to New York, get to Washington, get to Florida, get on a boat, and get to South America. It was a series of small tasks that would eventually make up one huge, immense task.

“Yes. We’re about six hours from land – one hundred and twenty miles. We made okay progress through the night. We got lucky last night,” Mary said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t we know it. I’m pretty sure I had a nightmare that we capsized, and the last thing I saw as I was being pulled under the current was Carey swimming towards me, wearing a life vest.” I patted the loyal guy’s head as he sat beside me, tongue already hanging out the side of his mouth in the warm morning heat.

“One bad wave or one more minute with full sails and that might have been the case,” Vanessa said.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell them, but I decided I should. “In the midst of the lightning and the storm, ship swaying in all directions, I thought I saw a ship,” I hesitantly said.

“Sure, there were probably a couple ships out there getting tossed about along with us. It could have been much worse; we could have hit one of them. Then we would have been going for a swim.” Vanessa had missed my point.

“Not that kind of ship. One of the big silver ones. I swear I saw one looming there, watching us. I saw it for two lightning strikes, and then it was gone. It could have been my imagination, but given all that’s happened, I think it was real.” There; I told them.

“I believe you,” Mary said. “They may not have known there was anyone on the boat, though. It could have just been one of their patrols, or whatever those ships are. Patrols, scouts… either way, they’re probably looking for us, but it doesn’t mean they found us. Otherwise, I have a feeling they would have red-beamed us, and we’d be searching for Spanish gold on the bottom of the ocean.”

I heard Ray banging around in the galley below, and soon we were smelling bacon and eggs: a real heart-healthy breakfast. The old me would have wished for something a little lighter, but today I was drooling almost as much as Carey when I went down to help Ray bring the food up.

We ate, finished our tea and started to pack up our stuff as sea ate up the hours. Before we knew it, land was in sight, and Ray and I brought all the bags up to the front of the deck.

“I’m not looking forward to the trip back,” Ray said.

“God help us if we’re sailboating back. Let’s bank on us flying back with big fat medals around our necks,” I said with a laugh.

Vanessa directed us to reel the sails and we slowed the ship, then used the motor to bring us closer to shore. Panama’s landscape looked beautiful and lush.

“We’re coming up to the Gulf of San Blas. There should be a few mooring points, and I bet there are a few resorts down here. How could there not be? Look how amazing this water is,” Mary said, waving her hand over the water like she was Vanna White on a game show.

“Tell them what they’ve won, Pat,” Ray said, mirroring my thoughts. We all had a good laugh, and soon we were coming up to a sailboat dock a couple hundred yards from the shore-line.

There was a four-seater tender there, waiting to take us to land. We took a couple of trips on the tiny boat, hauling our supplies along with us. The thing’s motor sounded like it needed tuning up, and the noise echoed down the bay. We were happy to finally be off the boat and on shore, though my legs told me otherwise. The world felt like it was moving, and I was standing still as I tried to get my bearings on the sandy beach. I could see the others also trying to adjust to being on land again. Carey gave up and settled for lying down and rolling in the sand.

“It’ll take a while, but before you know it, you’ll all be back to normal,” Vanessa assured us. She broke into a violent coughing fit and turned from us for privacy. I tried not to watch, but I had my suspicions about her, and I’d heard that same coughing from Janine. I swore there was blood on the sand before she kicked at it with her foot. If Vanessa was one of them, what did it mean? My wife, Bob, and Kate all seemed to be on the right side of whatever internal alien conflict was going on, so all I could do is hope Vanessa was too. But the way she’d casually killed that man back in Tampa weighed heavily on my mind. She’d helped to get us this far, so for the time being, I told myself that I’d have to trust her. Trust her but keep an eye on her.

I could see Ray watching her too, out of the corner of his eye.

“Are you okay, ‘Nessa?” Mary asked, concern thick in her voice.

“Yes, I’ll be fine. I’ve just been over-exerting myself. Let’s get moving.” Vanessa grabbed a bag, slung it over her shoulder, and started to walk toward the road.

“Let’s do this,” Ray said, following suit.

We got to the narrow road and could see signs for resorts down the street. There were a few vehicles a couple hundred yards down, so we made for them, hoping there was something we could all fit into. We found a van from a local tourist company. The back was full of snorkel gear, which we proceeded to toss out onto the ground.

“Maybe we better keep a set,” Mary said. “You never know what we’re going to be up against out here.”

I didn’t see a case where we would need goggles, but she was right. We really didn’t know what we were in for. Once we were loaded up, we all filed into the white van. I took the driver’s seat, adjusted it, and off we were.

“Where are we going, other than east? Do we need to make any stops?” I asked.

Mary was sitting beside me, Ray and Carey in the middle row, and Vanessa was all alone in the back, lying down. Mary brought up the GPS. “Let’s hang a right in a couple minutes. About five miles down, we’ll turn left, and we’ll eventually hit the main highway. Hopefully, there won’t be a lot of cars blocking our way. It’s not like we’re in the best off-roading vehicle.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I wish we could just stop at one of these resorts first, play a round of golf, have a couple Mai Tais.”

“I can float in a pool for hours. We don’t have a lot of nice outdoor pools in the ‘burg. I used to go down to the Y twice a week and do laps. That was in my twenties, and before Kate passed away. I don’t think I’ve been to the gym since. We used to go together all the time. She brought out the best in me, always pushing me to run with her. Hell, I even did yoga. Take a guess how many black guys in Pittsburgh there were at the yoga studio. None. Just me. I miss it all, though. Maybe I just miss her, I guess,” Ray said.

It was touching, hearing Ray talk about it. I think we all felt a little bit of what he was saying. I’m sure we all missed our spouses. Even Mary did, I was sure, though she wouldn’t admit it. Vanessa had been married, and I could picture her and the hubby sitting on a Sunday morning, sipping teas and doing a crossword together, the kids in the other room watching some educational program or another.

“Janine used to convince me to watch her horrible television shows with her. When I was a bachelor, I watched a lot of hockey – always the Rangers. That and outdoor shows. You’d think I would be better at roughing it, but maybe I just liked watching other people do it. Before I knew it, I was watching singing shows and chefs yelling at line cooks. I didn’t mind it. We accommodated each other. That’s what couples do,” I said.

Mary had been quiet up to this point, but she now chimed in quietly. “Bob used to come to kickboxing with me. Ever since I was a little girl, I wasn’t like everyone else. I liked playing with GI Joes and footballs. I used to get teased about being a tomboy, but I never cared. I didn’t want to play with dolls or braid my hair. The Air Force was awesome for me. I met so many like-minded people, and more importantly, women who respected me and treated me like one of them. Bob seemed to pick up on this, and he tried to do things with me that friends outside of the Force wouldn’t, typically. He hated kick boxing.” She laughed. “But he did it for almost a year before he admitted it wasn’t for him. Maybe I should have taken it a little easier on him. Or maybe a small part of me knew he wasn’t who he said he was, so each landed hit was a little pre-emptive revenge.”

“I wish I could just go swimming with Kate again. Maybe one day I’ll be able to swim in the eternal waters of heaven with her. What do you guys think?” Ray asked.

“I think anything’s possible. I mean, Earth’s entire population was just threatened by aliens from another world. A week ago, anyone would have laughed at you and called the asylum just for suggesting such a thing was going to happen. Now I’m driving around Panama with three complete strangers in a snorkel van.” I made it sound like a joke, but it was one hundred percent true.

“I’m quite happy to see so few vehicles on the roads out here. I know this part of the country must be sparsely populated, but I wasn’t expecting this clear a path,” Mary said from the seat beside me. I glanced over at her, her brown hair in a ponytail. She had light bags under her eyes, and they did nothing to lessen her piercing eyes’ effect on me. I wondered if she’d relived that small kiss over and over in her head like I had. Since she hadn’t mentioned it, I doubted the impact on her. Still, she had initiated every touch of the hand, every tension-filled eye contact moment. So far apart from what I was used to. I remembered the moment when I’d met Janine and how I’d taken charge and a chance.

I reached across the console separating the two of us and took her hand in mine, giving it a light squeeze. She smiled at me with her eyes, and as I started to pull my hand away, she held it tight. My heart rate sped up and I could feel a bead of sweat drip down my back, and not just from the Caribbean heat.

“Hey, guys, we’re coming up to the Colombian border. That was faster than I expected,” Ray said from behind us. Mary opened her hand and I pulled mine loose. I smiled at her while keeping my eyes on the road.

“GPS is saying that we’re about an hour from the mountain range that we have to go around. I doubt the roads will be very accommodating. I think we’ll have to change out this thing, as much as I love the leg room, in favor of an all-terrain vehicle,” Mary said.

Colombia was going to be a bit of a challenge to navigate through. With mountains cutting through most of the country’s length, running north-south, we’d have to hit them from the top and follow the valley road on the east side of them. There weren’t going to be more than a few little villages along the way, but we knew things should be fairly quiet here. It felt more humid as we approached the border, and I was surprised by the amount of security here. There were gates at each section where the guards would presumably ask for documentation – or bribes, for all I knew. I didn’t know a lot about Colombia short of what the movies told me, and that amounted to some terrorized villages, cocaine factories, and bad guys with moustaches smoking huge cigars.

All of the gates were shut, and for a minute, I thought about pretending I was Arnold in one of those movies, crashing the gates down with the van while machine gun fire sprayed around me, narrowly missing me as the windshield caved in. Instead, I pulled up and we hopped out to check if it would slide open without a key.

“Ray, can you check on Vanessa? She hasn’t made a sound in quite a while,” I said while testing the first gate. It was locked.

“Guys! Something’s wrong here.” Ray was crouched over Vanessa in the back of the van. We hurried over and saw blood on the seat beside Vanessa’s head.

“‘Nessa, are you okay?” Mary asked, fingers on Vanessa’s wrist, checking for a pulse. She nodded and Ray hit the lever and leaned his seat forward, and we lifted Vanessa out, onto the ground outside, on the grass. Her chest was rising up and down.

“Get the water!” I called, and her eyes shot open, blood dripping from her mouth when she violently coughed. She coughed non-stop and rolled to her side. I knew this cough. I’d seen it too many times over that six-month period. I could tell from the looks on the others’ faces that they did too. Whatever Vanessa was, it was the same thing our significant others had been. From my estimation, that made her, at the very least, some sort of alien hybrid. Now that I was sure, I really hoped she was going to pull through so we could get her to tell us the truth.

We tried to get her sat up and against a tree when she seemed like she was going to stop the hacking. She hesitantly took the water bottle and sat catching her breath for a minute before taking a drink. She coughed halfway through her first guzzle and spit water on herself. Three minutes later, she had finished coughing and she leaned back, eyes closed, chest heaving slightly.

“Vanessa, we need to know the truth,” Mary said, crouching low to the ground. I had no idea how this was going to go down, and I felt thankful her gun was under the seat in the van; images of that man falling to the ground dead in front of me flashed in my mind.

FIFTEEN

Vanessa nodded slowly and started to talk. The sun was still high in the sky, beating down on us. I could smell the tropical plants mixed with seawater around me. Her words were so quiet at first, I had to lean closer to make them out.

“My husband died five months ago. Heart attack. He was only fifty but had some sort of hereditary condition that wasn’t picked up until it was too late. He was truly an amazing man. Olympic triathlete, long distance runner, and swimmer. He could swim any length in ice-cold water or run a marathon in the snow; I thought he was invincible, and when I was directed to meet him and make a relationship, it didn’t take much for my mission to become sloppy.” She took a pause and asked for more water. I got the bottle, noticing my hands were shaking from her story. I eagerly anticipated hearing the next part of the tale.

She took another drink and continued. “I think I fell for the guy. We were together for seven years, and they were good years. I knew there was an end date to it all, but I never thought it would end like it did.” Tears fell down her face. “We were born to come to Earth and recruit people to our cause. We knew they were coming to take over the planet, and we’d seen it done to others before you. It was up to us to stop them, without them even knowing it. We brought a fail-safe device a long time ago, and eventually, they would make it here to take your planet from you. The bastards had no care about another race. We started off as a conquered race, when they came. It took many years for them to almost see us as equals. Thousands of years. Eventually, we were trusted enough to have ships of our own, and one of the first things we did was head to livable planets to help them. Instead of just telling our spouses the true story and risking blowing the cover, we figured the best way was to find partners we could trust and leave them the information they needed to save your world.”

“Why didn’t you guys just find people in Peru or close by to make it faster and easier?” Ray asked, eyes wide.

“This world is poison to us. The closer to the equator we get, the worse we get. We basically have an expiration date, and the ring around the center of the world advances the decline of our limited lives. We really aren’t sure why, but it has something to do with the air and the planet’s energy. You all saw it with your other halves. They couldn’t survive, but we had hoped this event would happen while they were still around. We guessed wrong by about three years.”

“This is a lot to take in. Would you be okay if you headed back north?” I asked her.

“It’s too late. I’m in this and committed to see it through. I want to see every last human back on the planet, and my race will have helped one world.”

“So what’s next? What… are you?” Mary asked.

“We’re close to humanoid by your definition. This body is a mix of both DNA’s. By all physical observations, we appear fully human, but on a molecular level, we’re something else. We also have much different cognitive functions. We don’t taste well, and our eyesight is highly elevated over humans’. I was raised in a lab light years away and brought here with the others ten years ago.”

This was crazy. I had to know something else. “How many of you were brought here ten years ago?”

“Almost a hundred around the world. Most didn’t survive long. Some of us were more immune to the planet than others. I have every reason to believe I’m the last remaining alive.”

“So how does this device actually work?” I asked, trying to not sound accusing.

“I have no idea. Our jobs were to reel the assets in to our cause; have them fall in love and be willing to do anything in our name, once we were gone and the invasion began. All I know is it will bring them back, whether it’s through some sort of teleportation, or whether they’ll be lowered slowly via green beams from the massive ships they’re currently occupying. From what I understand, the invaders beam them up and there they sit in containment cells, presumably in a coma-like state until later.”

I didn’t want to ask, but Mary beat me to the question anyway. “What’s later?”

“In our planet’s case, they waited about a week, and did tests on our race while everyone was under. They kept five percent alive. The others they destroyed,” Vanessa said, before breaking into another coughing frenzy.

My breath caught in my throat and I thought I might be sick. A ship full of humans up in space, and only five percent were going to make it. I found myself praying to a God I wasn’t sure existed, for the sake of humanity.

“We’re nearing a week. We have to get to this damned device now.” Mary got up and helped Vanessa to her feet. Ray stood looking bewildered. We got Vanessa back to her seat and gave her another bottle of water, where she pulled a couple pills from her breast pocket and downed them.

“Helps the pain,” she said.

I saw something glimmer behind some bushes, and when I pulled a branch back, I spotted the man-door into the guard station. I tried it and found it unlocked. From there, I searched for a way to release the gates. I didn’t find one, so I hopped into one of the camo Jeeps sitting idly by and ran through one a way down from the van. It did the intended job, and we now had a way to get through.

From the window, I tossed Ray the van keys. “You guys follow behind me. I’ll take this bad boy in case we hit some rough terrain. Then we can all hop in here. I’m pretty sure this thing will climb a mountain if I ask it to.” I really just wanted some alone time after being jammed in with someone every step of the way. Carey ran over and barked at the door. I opened it and he hopped in, giving me a sloppy kiss on his way to the passenger seat.

Mary looked my way as she got into the van and gave me a light smile and a nod. What we’d just heard was heavy stuff, and we were on a deadline now. I wished Vanessa had just told us the truth from the get-go, but I could understand her reluctance.

The Jeep had the T-top off, and warm air rushed through my hair as I drove down the main road, which was mostly paved, but free of lines and shoulders like the ones we were used to back at home. There were a few cars lined up to get into Panama at the time of the taking, but we were able to maneuver around them with ease. I checked my watch and it was three PM, so we really only had a good three or so hours before the sun went down; less if we were in a mountain range by then.

Two hours passed by with nothing but the sound of Carey panting and the hum of the Jeep’s large tires on the road. “Dean, come in,” the radio crackled.

I grabbed it with my right hand, pressed the button, and brought it to my face. “Roger. I’m here. Over.”

“I think we better stop soon. I don’t think Vanessa is going to make it.” Mary sounded worried.

We were coming up to the entrance to the mountain range, and sunlight was limited. “Mary, can we see if we can just make a few more miles to get into the valley before dark? We need to get as far as we can. Over,” I said into the radio.

“Okay. She says to keep going too. See you in a little bit… Over.” The pause made me feel she had more to say, but maybe couldn’t under prying ears.

As I approached the foothills, I saw that there were no lanes cutting through the two peaks ahead. Instead, the road just started to elevate. “Mary, any chance that GPS shows a better road into the valley? I have a bad feeling this one just goes up and around the nearest mountain. Over.” I waited a moment, slowing down in case we had to make a turn soon – or turn around.

“Negative. This is the way. There’ll be a lot of switchbacks coming up. Just take your time. I think we’ll be through it with enough light, and then maybe we can stop for the night. Everything goes well tomorrow, and we get an early start, I think we’ll reach our destination tomorrow. Over.”

Tomorrow. I was so excited and nervous at the same time about getting to the device and deactivating it. What would happen? Would everyone go back to the place they were beamed up from? Would they all go to the center of Russia? I blinked and had a vision of half the population being transported back, but into the ocean by random draw.

“Okay. Follow me at a safe distance and let me know if the van is too tough to drive on these narrow roads. Over.”

Carey watched me as he lay down with his face between his paws on the front seat. I wondered if he thought of Susan, his mom, on this trip. Did he go to sleep picturing her rubbing his belly or feeding him a treat? I reached over and scratched his ear, and was rewarded with a soft groan.

I was really going to miss him when this was all over. Maybe I was being a little presumptuous about the end of whatever this invasion was being near, but I felt in my gut that we were almost done with it.

Turning my attention back to the road, I could feel the humidity rising as we rose in elevation; large green-leaved trees surrounded the narrow road. After ten minutes of driving at a high grade upwards, and two ear pops, I plateaued and came over a wooden bridge. Then it all opened up in front of me. I could see the winding road down the hill and into the valley. It looked like a hundred-mile asphalt snake, winding its way southwards, pointing me to my destination. It was beautiful.

The sun was behind the mountain range to the west and we would be out of light before we knew it. I kept driving, the van following behind, until I wound halfway down the mountain side road. There were no guard rails anywhere, and a few times I caught myself peeking down the ridge into oblivion as we went into the valley.

“We’d better stop. Light’s almost gone and not only do we not want headlights bringing attention to us, Ray doesn’t want to be driving this thing over the side. Over.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll pull over ahead.” I noticed they had already pulled to the side. I was watching the rear-view mirror and when I looked forward, there it was. A ship hovered there, a horrifying game of chicken in play. It was smaller than the ships we’d seen in New York and cutting up the world on the trip south, but mostly the same shape. I twitched and panicked. What to do? I saw the look on Mary’s face in the van. They hadn’t been moving, so more than likely, the ship had only seen me. Conflicting debate ran through my head faster than I’d have thought possible. I went with my gut. Seconds after I spotted the ship, I hit the gas, racing down the hill. It followed me.

SIXTEEN

Gravel spun under my tires and flung behind me as I tore down the mountain. Carey was sitting up, scared by the movement and noises. The ship, silent as ever, followed me effortlessly. I knew I either had to hide somehow, or just keep driving until this thing blew me up. Either way, I hoped I’d been able to give my friends time to get away and keep themselves safe so they could complete the mission. Vanessa would probably be dead soon, so that left Mary and Ray to do the task. I had faith they could do it.

I must have driven two miles, my knuckles bright white as I clenched the steering wheel, racing in and out of corners, trying to keep on the road. The ship was there still, staying just behind and above me, always visible in my mirrors. No green lights shone out of it, and thankfully no red ones either.

The sun was going down, and I knew my chance was going to be in a few minutes. I saw a waterfall ahead to the southeast and made my stupid plan. If anything, I was sure I could at least distract them from the others for a while. I heard my radio crackle, but no voices came through. The radios were only good for a couple miles, and out here, surrounded by mountains, it was probably less than that.

We whirred around another bend and the Jeep drifted on the gravel, so close to the edge I almost crapped myself. With a pounding heart, I saved it and kept going down the road, end in sight. As the last rays of light crossed over the mountains, I killed the lights and threw the e-brake on, turning to the waterfall. Before the car stopped, I opened the door and ran for the water. I could hear Carey growling and following me. He soon passed me and we both jumped the ten-foot ridge into the cool water. With a glance back, I saw the ship stop and turn. There was no time to watch them. We swam, me quietly urging Carey forward. We only had thirty yards to cross before we hit the falls, and there I felt some rocks under my feet and planted them, picking up Carey and sliding us beside, then behind the falls.

Just as I hoped, there was a cavern behind them. I had visions of huge snakes twisting towards us in the water, ready to asphyxiate us before swallowing us whole. How much worse could that be than alien death? Lucky for us, no snakes came out to greet us. The cavern was damp and muddy, but we clambered up and into it, Carey shaking off wildly and no doubt wondering what the hell I was doing to him.

My breathing was heavy and my heart banged in my ears, a real life tell-tale heart that I was sure the aliens could hear. Carey whimpered as we walked slowly into the dark space, where God knew what was hiding to devour us. I heard a voice calling out.

“Dean, don’t be afraid. We need to talk,” it said.

I crouched and moved toward the entrance, telling Carey to stay back. He seemed happy to listen. From here, I would have sworn that was the exact same man Vanessa had killed already. Did they all look the same? Maybe their human forms did. And why did they even look human? What did they really look like?

“You can’t turn the device off. It means the end of everything if you do. Come out and I’ll explain it to you,” he called. Damn right he’d explain it to me. With a laser to the head.

I sneaked back to where Carey was waiting, sure the alien hadn’t seen me, and walked deeper into the cavern. The man kept calling to me as I found a narrow passageway in the dark dirt-covered wall near the back of the cave. There was just enough room for me to squeeze through. There was light a little way away and where there was light, there was freedom. With a little coercion I wasn’t proud of, I tricked Carey into following me with the promise of a bone that I didn’t have.

The voice was getting harder and harder to hear as we neared the opening back to outside. We would be on the other side of this small rock outcropping. I picked Carey up, pushed him out the hole, then jumped up, grabbed the edges of the opening, and hauled myself through. Carey rolled around, trying to get the mud off his body. We were both soaked, stinky, and covered in grime, but we had evaded him for the time being. I headed east by foot, and hopefully away from capture; the canopy of trees would cover us from above. I only hoped that my crazy stunt had allowed the others to go unnoticed by the ships, especially if there were more than one around.

I kept looking back and to the sky for signs of pursuit but relaxed a little bit when I didn’t see any. I really wished that I’d had the common sense to bring my knapsack into the Jeep with me. I had nothing with me. For a time, I wondered if I should head back to the Jeep and see if I could find the group again, but for all I knew, the aliens were waiting for me to come back. So instead, I kept walking in the humid night, my shirt not getting any drier as we went. It felt like rain wasn’t far off, so I looked for some sort of shelter to stay under for a few hours.

I wandered for a while, and as the rain began to fall, I found a thick copse of trees with a large canopy of leaves above it. With no choice but to hope no wild animals had us on the menu, we hunkered down by a large tree trunk, only a small amount of rain creeping through to splash us. Carey snuggled in close, and I could feel his stress. I’m sure he was picking up on mine; it was probably radiating from me in waves. At some point, I dozed off, and when I came to, Carey was almost on top of me snoring away, and the first bits of light were showing to the east. It was time to keep going, and hopefully, meet up with Mary, Ray, and Vanessa along the way.

We stretched and got to our feet, both taking the time to relieve ourselves by a tree. Two wild animals in the jungle. Carey looked up at me, no doubt wondering why I wasn’t feeding him. My stomach growled at the thought of food, and we set off looking for the road and some fruit if we were lucky. I used the rising sun to direct me south. I was never the best outdoorsman, but I could build a decent fire and find basic directions. We walked through the morning mist for a mile or so before we meandered to the road.

Just as I’d given up on finding any sort of food source nearby, there stood a huge mango tree, heavy with fruit. I laughed out loud and ran over to the great tree, squeezed one of the mangoes and plucked a ripe one. I used my teeth to peel the first bit, then went into it with my somewhat clean hands. Carey sat by me, instantly knowing it was food in my possession. He took the first piece hesitantly and dropped it a couple times before deciding it was palatable enough. I almost forgot what I was even doing here, but with some food in my belly, it became clear again. I snagged as many mangoes as I could hold and we headed down the road at a brisk pace. I was sure we would come across a car soon. This area seemed to be sparsely populated, but there would be a village somewhere nearby. And where there was a village, there would be cars.

The sun was over the mountain peaks when we came upon a beat-up truck. The black paint was rusted through around the wheel wells and the windshield looked like it was held together by luck alone. I got into the truck and fired it up; the engine came to life and sounded better than I thought it would. Carey sniffed around the seats like a hound on a mission. I understood. The cab smelled quite bad, like rotten onions, but when I couldn’t quickly find the source, I rolled the windows down and took off. My first mission was to go back and see if there was any chance the group was still at the top of the valley. I kept a close eye on the sky for ships as I made my way back. Time was pressing and I hated having to backtrack. I really dreaded the idea that I might have to finish this task all alone. I was more than a little worried about Mary and Ray, and wondered if Vanessa was still with us.

When I got to the top, the tour van was still there, but devoid of my friends. I grabbed the few supplies they’d left behind: a knife in the glove box, a bottle of water under the driver’s seat, Carey’s food. After giving the dog some food and water, I took a swig myself and decided to keep going with the truck. It had far more fuel and I had no siphoning gear with me. What had happened to them?

Did they stay hidden, then walk to get another car? Or did the ship come back and find them? With a heavy heart, I headed back down the road I had raced down last night, racing from the ship following. I passed the waterfall spot and saw the Jeep off to the side. I kept driving. It was just before nine as I moved down the mountain road, now leveled off and smooth going. I knew there had to be some ships looking for me, but I had no choice but to keep moving. Colombia was a large country, and I was still close to four hundred miles from the Peru border. At that moment, it felt really far, and going to it alone was devastating. I tried to see if I could spot any dust on the road ahead but couldn’t see any sign of another vehicle from here.

The roads were empty, and I pushed the hunk of junk truck to its limits. I had it up to fifty-five miles an hour as Carey and I cruised down the road. We kept that pace for an hour or so before we came up to a roadside village. I slowed as we approached a little one-pump gas station. The pump was an ancient-looking guy, and when I tested it, gas flowed out. Some of these towns were off the grid, so they would have things to accommodate that. I filled the truck, and after pilfering something to eat and some water from the tiny shop, we were back heading south. I didn’t have a map with me, but I knew the general direction and was confident I wasn’t going to get lost.

The next two hours were much of the same thing. Beautiful countryside, tropical plants everywhere. The humid heat kept my shirt plastered to my skin and Carey panting almost non-stop. I made sure to keep us hydrated. We shared a mango; this time, I had a knife to cut it as I drove. Carey now had a taste for the smooth juicy fruit, and he eyed me as I handed him a piece of it. When I checked the time, it was two in the afternoon and I figured I was still a hundred or so miles from the border.

The mountains were more like foothills now, and it had been a while since those dramatic elevation changes that caused my ears to pop. Carey and I were making good time, but I had to wonder if I would catch up to Mary soon. Unless they were cruising down at seventy, I should have found a sign of them by now. Then it dawned on me that they might have backtracked and taken a less direct way in order to avoid the ships detecting them. That’s if they weren’t caught when I raced down the hillside road like a lunatic. Maybe if I’d just stayed with them… no, I knew that would have just gotten us all caught or killed.

Machu Picchu was seven hundred miles or so away, with some potentially rough terrain ahead. Peru was another tropical and bumpy sort of country. Not only that, I didn’t have the GPS with me and was going from memory for the most part. I would stop at a gas station somewhere and hope they had a map of the country or something to help me along if I needed it. I tried to do the math and figure it out. Seven hundred miles, at an average of fifty miles an hour, would put me at fourteen more hours. I had about five hours of driving light left today, so if I started out at five in the morning, I could be there tomorrow at two in the afternoon. That said, I knew I would have to take surprises into account. Any number of things could happen to me between now and then: tire blowout, road block, ships attacking me.

Since I was just driving and getting a little unsettled, I needed something to occupy my racing brain. I knocked off the average speed to thirty miles an hour and calculated the time to Machu then. Twenty-three odd hours, with five today and a five AM start tomorrow, put me arriving there in the dark. Not only that, but Machu was a way up from the town. There was going to be some all-terraining combined with some serious hiking to get there. Best case, I was walking up the hill there tomorrow night. More likely, I was still a day and a half from reaching the device to turn it off. My palm itched at the thought, but I didn’t scratch it. There was nothing I wanted more than ending this crap, but the closer I got, the farther away it felt.

Carey stuck his head to the window crack I’d left open and his drool strung out behind us. I laughed and he seemed to think it was funny too, judging by the dog smile he showed me. It was hot; had to be over ninety degrees as the sun beat down on the roof of the rust-bucket I was driving. Gas was getting low as we cruised to the Peru border. As soon as I saw a “Twenty Miles from Peru” border sign, the engine made an awful noise, one of those sounds you know there’s no coming back from. Black smoke rose as the engine sputtered to non-functioning. By instinct, I pulled to the side of the road, even though I wasn’t going to impede anyone’s driving.

“Well, there’s another setback, Carey.” He looked at me sideways. “First we lose our friends, sleep under a tree, and then I blow up a truck. I bet this thing hasn’t hit fifty-five in a long time, and I ran it pretty hard today. Probably hasn’t had an oil change since the eighties.” I didn’t even bother opening the hood. Not only did I hardly know my way around under there, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it going again. I did dump one of my water bottles on the engine to cool it, but quickly stopped as I realized it was making more smoke and wasting my hydration.

I grabbed our supplies, throwing a portion of Carey’s food into my sack, and we left the truck on the road, smoldering in the heat.

SEVENTEEN

The heat was getting to be too much for both of us, and after walking for fifteen minutes in the middle of the road, I moved us to the side of the road where the large-leafed trees shaded us. We had to find a vehicle soon. This road wasn’t a super-used one, obviously, but someone had to be out here.

I wondered about how the ships dealt with isolated places like this. I bet there were people in the world who had no idea the ships were even here until they were being whisked away, green light summoning them into the sky. It would have been so frightening, almost worse than knowing. I also was sure that more than a handful of people had died of heart attacks when they were taken. What a horrible way to go. And what about the people in hospitals, or the ones whose lives depended on medical equipment or pills?

James’ face flashed into my memory and I missed him dearly. My closest friend, the one guy who truly seemed to understand how much Janine had meant to me. I could still hear him calling to me as he floated out of my house.

I would bring him back if it was the last thing I did. That was a promise to him. I couldn’t save him then, but I could bring my buddy back, along with my mother and everyone else.

Pwwwwing! A tree shot bark out behind me, as I heard the echo of a gun down the small valley we were in. Carey perked up and growled, his hackles raised like a cat on the prowl. I looked for the source of the shot but couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure what to do. Run? Drop to the ground? Head into the trees?

Pwwwing. Another tree, this time closer. I figured the aliens weren’t using rifles to shoot at me, so I took a gamble. I raised my hands in the air, and walked to the middle of the road, out in the open.

“I’m not armed! Why don’t you come out and we can talk this over?” I called out, hoping that whoever was firing at me could hear me, and wanted to talk.

My heart raced in my chest and sweat ran down my face as I anxiously waited to hear a reply or get shot for my trouble. Wouldn’t that be the way to go? Travel halfway around the world to get shot in the middle of the road, miles from the Peruvian border. I moved to wipe the sweat from my face.

“Stay right there! Don’t move!” a rough, slightly accented voice exclaimed.

I tensed and raised my arms straight in the air. Carey was barking loudly and pacing back and forth between me and the voice. He was trying to protect me. If I didn’t fear for my life, I would have petted him and thanked him for caring so much.

“My arms are up,” I said as two bodies came from the trees on the other side of the road. The man was huge, sleeveless vest revealing tree-trunk-sized arms. The woman was petite but dangerous-looking. Her steps were measured and sleek, like an animal’s.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Dean. Dean Parker from upstate New York.” My arms were still high in the air, a gun still pointed at me. The woman was carrying a handgun. These folks looked like the real deal, like who the rebel faction really wanted to have turn the device off. Compared to them, Carey, Vanessa, Ray, and I looked like the peewee team. Mary could have stood with them, though. I hoped I wasn’t going to get shot before I could tell Mary how I felt. The memory of her lips touching mine, albeit for a brief second, was enough to keep me going.

“Dean, hey? Are you alone?” he asked.

“Just me and the dog, Carey.” Carey had stopped barking, but he stood angrily at my feet, and I doubted he would take his eyes off the targets for a minute.

They walked up to me, and the woman came close and patted me down. She nodded at him and he lowered the gun from my face finally. I dropped my arms and felt the urgent tension leave my body for a moment. The heat and fear took over and I stumbled, almost passing out. Black spots danced over my eyesight, and the man stuck his hand out and steadied me. Great, I made myself look even more like a wiener next to this monster of a man. I guessed seeming even less harmful was a way to be nonthreatening. I tried to tell myself that lie, but even my dizzy conscience wasn’t buying it.

“I’m Magnus. This is Natalia. I didn’t think I would ever see another person again. I definitely wasn’t expecting to see one walking alone with a dog, like he was on a stroll. What’s your story, fella?”

He had a slight accent and I was putting him as a Scandinavian. His light skin had a tinge of red from the sun out here. Natalia was clearly Russian, or at least Eastern European. I saw the ring on Magnus’ pinky finger, green stone tiny against his meaty hand. Natalia noticed me looking and she pointed to her ears; both had green stone earrings in them.

I pulled out my chain and showed them the pendant. They both smiled and Magnus came in and hugged me, like I was his long-lost brother.

“It is good to meet you, Dean. It’s been a long few days, and it’s really nice to see another who is joining us on our struggle. Come. We have a Jeep just a little way down. We’ll share what we have and tell our stories to each other,” he said, already moving and waving for me to follow.

I had no idea what to think about the pair, but I was on their team now.

I grabbed my knapsack and offered them a mango. Natalia accepted with a graceful nod of her head, and she was peeling the skin off with a knife that hadn’t been in her hand only a moment before. I hoped I was on the same side as these two.

Their Jeep was indeed close by and soon we were heading down the road, Carey hesitantly sitting in the back with Natalia, quickly warming to the woman who was scratching him behind the ears.

Magnus had insisted I sit up front with him to share stories. I asked for theirs first, just to make sure it all added up. Vanessa had turned out to be something we hadn’t expected, and these two almost-too-perfect people could have been on the wrong side for all I knew.

“I’m from Sweden. Used to be a bodybuilder. Won some serious awards at it too. Before that I was a soldier. When I decided to get out of the show business, I realized I missed soldiering. There were a lot of causes out there that I felt were unjust, and I found a mercenary group who shared my ideals. Rolled with those guys for almost a decade. We didn’t fight too often, but mediated a lot of crap in Northern Africa and in the Middle East.” He turned his head to the left as he drove. “Killed when we had to kill. Anyway. One of our missions, we found a bunch of people in a container in Egypt. Half of them were dead, the other half scared out of their wits and starved. Natalia was one of them. I carried her out of that container; she weighed almost nothing. She hasn’t left my side since. Has never said a word, either. Isn’t that right?” He looked in the rear-view mirror and smiled at her. I saw her smile back, and for a minute, she let her hard exterior soften.

“How did you get the anti-alien beam gear?” I asked, truly curious. Their story was quite a lot different than any of ours over in the States. Of course, there would be others on the same mission from around the world. Maybe we would even get close only to have someone beat us to the punch. I realized I would be okay with that. I sure wasn’t doing this for the glory.

He smiled. “A few years ago, we had two people contact us to join the group. They came with glowing recommendations from the British army. A man and woman, both strong as oxen. We let them in and they proved to be invaluable. They got us out of some tight situations and were quite often great at negotiating out of other situations that should have gotten sticky. We grew very close, like a big family. Natalia here trained so hard with us, and soon she was one of our own. More deadly than most… a hunger to prevent the darkness of her life from becoming anyone else’s path.” He paused and took a drink of water; beads of sweat dripped down from his close-cropped hair. “Our new friends each got sick. Really sick. The woman was dead a few months later; the man not far behind. He asked for Natalia and me to come to the hospital to see him, just the two of us. He told us a tale of such imagination, either he was an author, or it was true. I’d felt betrayed, but days later, I felt I understood his reluctance to tell us from the start. They were recruiting people around the world. He said some were doing like them, getting into groups like ours, or the military. Others were recruiting by marrying prospective targets. I imagined any betrayal I’d felt would be so far amplified for those who had married someone to find out they were being used.” He paused and looked at me, unsure which side of the fence I was sitting on.

“Go on,” I urged instead of answering his questioning eyes.

“Sure. So he told us about the device that they’d planted all those years ago, and how it was the only chance humans had of survival. That if we brought them back, the race would leave us, looking for easier plunder.” Another drink of water. “I don’t feel like we’re getting the full story here. Either these guys recruiting us were just naïve, or what? Say this device does bring back our people. What then? The invaders just leave us be? Maybe they don’t have any weapons.”

“Oh, they have weapons. One of the ships ripped a massive trench across the landscape for miles to slow us down. A red beam, the same size as their green abduction ones, shot out and destroyed the ground on touch,” I said.

His eyes went wide. “You’ve seen ships since that first day?” He sounded like it was impossible.

“Yeah, a few times. It was like they were hunting us from the start. I saw them in New York, then the lasers outside of Washington. I swear I saw them when we got hit by a storm in the sailboat.”

“Sailboat? I can’t wait to hear your story. We didn’t know they were here still. Honestly, we’ve been moving as fast as we could. We had to come from Russia, and have been on a full tilt, twenty-four-hour schedule to get here. Took a damn boat across the ocean non-stop to Colombia. Just landed last night and here we are,” Magnus said.

Without the worry about being spotted by the ships, they made it all the way from Russia in four days’ time. I was impressed by their ingenuity. They were obviously good choices for recruitment.

“You may have been lucky, then. I was with my group until yesterday. I was in front of them with Carey in my own Jeep, and a ship hovered directly before me. I didn’t think it spotted them, since they were just another stopped van on the road. I bolted and drew its attention away for a while. I went back the next day and the van was still there, but they weren’t. I’m hoping they kept going and was thinking I might be able to catch up to them,” I said, the words sounding desperate as they left my mouth.

We arrived at the Peru border, and it was larger than the Panama one. Cars were parked everywhere, and the pass was open. There was a small town on the other side. Magnus elected to just push the cars out of the way where needed. The Jeep had a large grill bumper and I was surprised to see how easily we made it through. Where I would have tried to get around, a big man like him just pushed his way through.

“Tell us your story, my friend,” Magnus prompted.

I started from the beginning. About the day the ships arrived, my adventures to get the pendant; about James and being left alone. I told them how I went and got Carey from Susan’s house, and I noticed Carey look at me when I said his name in the story. I added the parts about Janine, her getting sick, and the deathbed promise I made. I kept some of it private; moments between me and my wife. I went on to my challenges of getting into New York, Yankee Stadium, then finding Ray near Central Park. Magnus seemed surprised by the bank’s safety deposit box. He said he knew the details of the location already, trusted to them by their friend before he died.

This irked me a little, that Janine didn’t feel she could tell me everything, but maybe I would have forgotten the details, or just not followed through. I told them about hearing someone on the CB radio and eventually meeting up with them. I retold the rope story, trying to pull Ray up, and Natalia’s eyes were wide as I shared the story about Vanessa sniping that man down at the pier. Then I talked about the boat, the storm, and landing in Panama. From there we caught up to the ship finding us on the road, and my racing down the mountain with a ship in tow.

“And then I found you,” I finished.

“That’s quite the story, my friend. You’ve been through a lot. What of Vanessa? You’re saying she is one of them? An alien?” he asked.

“From what I understand, she’s a hybrid born in a lab. They all were, even my wife, I suppose. They were bred to be able to live on Earth for a time period and recruit people to help. Vanessa told us that something about the equator was poison to them. Their job was to get people invested enough to save. She said there were around a hundred of them brought here almost a decade ago.” The thought that my wife had been one of these hybrids really hadn’t sunk in until I said it aloud.

I think Magnus could see the pain, and he patted me on the arm with his right hand. “It’s okay, Dean. It’s all about the greater good here now. You were chosen to help save the planet.”

Should I tell him? I wasn’t sure. I did anyway. “I wasn’t the one,” I said quietly. “He was a military guy. She was meeting him on a blind date that night at the Boathouse when I met her. She chose me, I suppose, but they didn’t.”

He smiled to this as we drove through the small town. “That’s even better. She did love you and gave her life to save our planet. Will you do the same if you have to?” he asked as he stopped the Jeep.

Would I? My thoughts went back to my instincts to save the others when the ship surprised us, and I realized that I was ready to give everything up to help them and to save the world.

“Yes, I will.” The words came out louder than I’d intended.

“Good. Let’s get some supplies and gas while we’re here. I have a siphon pump kit in the back. Do you mind? Natalia and I will grab some food. Anything in particular you want?”

I got out of the Jeep and Carey hopped over the console and onto the seat I had been occupying. “Anything but mangoes,” I answered with a laugh.

They headed to a small market and I ran the siphon line from a car beside our Jeep. In a couple minutes, fuel was transferring through the tube, and I hit the valve as soon as some gas dripped back and down the side of the Jeep. Carey was nowhere to be seen.

“Carey!” I called out. He didn’t come running to me; no bark to tell me where he was. I packed up the hose in its bag, sealed it, and put it back into the Jeep.

“Carey, where are you?” Still nothing. I glanced back to the market, and Magnus and Natalia wandered around filling up paper bags. The street was dusty, vendors’ carts lining the side of the street. They would be used to tourists coming from Colombia coming into Peru, and here they sold maps, magnets, authentic Peruvian food, and anything else you could think of to make money. Peru’s flag waved all over the place too, two solid vertical red stripes separated by a white stripe in the center.

I crossed the street, wondering if Carey had found some sort of food source, but he wasn’t behind any of the food carts either. I heard a distant bark down the road, and that turned into a cacophony of barks from all around the small town. No doubt there were countless outdoor dogs around here. I only hoped we could get their owners back soon, and that they all had a water source. But that first bark had sounded distinctly like my little friend.

The side street was littered with overflowing garbage bins, and a grease bin from the restaurant out front. I heard his bark again and called out to him, jogging down the cramped alleyway. My shirt was already unbuttoned, and still it was stuck to me everywhere. The heat was getting to me and I wished that the dog could have just stayed put.

I heard something behind me. Footsteps. I turned and heard more steps come from where I’d just been. I was surrounded. They looked just like the man who’d been shot at the pier by Vanessa: identical twins. The man at the waterfall, who’d called to me after chasing me down in his smaller ship, looked just like them too. Maybe one of these was that man. They were tall and thin, with matching brown hair that looked like wigs. It was a seriously peculiar sight.

Carey growled as he ran to my feet and lifted his paws up onto my thighs. I scratched his head and looked up at the men. They hadn’t said anything yet, but they both raised their hands in an attempt to show a calming demeanor. Whether they were trying to tame me or Carey was unclear.

“Mr. Parker, we aren’t here to hurt you. Quite the opposite,” the first one said.

“My friends are going to come find me, and they have big guns.” The threat sounded weak as I said it.

“You can’t turn that device off. It will doom your planet. We want to help you,” the second one said, in the same voice as the first.

“How will it doom us?” My voice felt shaky as I asked. Both other cases of seeing these guys, they had started to say much the same. It was time to hear them out.

The first one paused as if to weigh his words and choose them carefully. “Janine was one of us, Dean. She stood against them. That device was indeed planted here centuries ago, by us. That much is true. But it is not a device to bring your people back. It is there to stop the Kraski from setting foot on your planet.”

“What the hell is a Kraski?” I asked, pulse racing.

“Kraski are a species from far away. They take over planets, expanding their reign of the universe. The half-breeds probably told you a story about the planet being poison to them. That’s only true because of the device being on. Janine and the others were created with human DNA and bred to fulfill the Kraskis’ motives. They’re a patient race. The plan has been in the works for a long time.”

My mind was reeling from this information. Were they telling me the truth? They seemed to know who I was, and who my wife was. But Vanessa’s story was so compelling. Was she using us to meet the Kraskis’ needs?

“So, what… the Kraski convince loved and loyal ones to turn this device off for them after they beam the people off the planet?” What this meant for Earth just crossed my mind. “This means there’s no way to bring everyone back, is there?” I could tell from the looks on their faces I’d hit the nail on the head.

“Not the way they told you, Dean. But there is a way. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. Get to the device first. You can’t let the others turn it off. All hope is lost if this happens. And keep an eye out for infiltrators. You never know who has been turned, and who you can trust.” They turned and started down the alley, running away from us. The first one turned and called to me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll be there when you need us.” And with that, they were gone down another alley.

Minutes passed and I just stood there sweating, my head aching from the heat and the news I just heard. Voices started calling for me, and Carey ran down the road, back toward the Jeep.

“Come on,” Magnus called. “Quit messing around; we have time to make up.”

I followed him back to the vehicle and got in, keeping my silence. The whole time I was wondering if I should tell the big man about the twins I just spoke with. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I heeded their advice.

EIGHTEEN

“What would you like? We have dried meats; a jerky of some kind. Maybe alpaca?” Magnus shrugged. “It’s Peru. Variety of fruit, but you’ve had some of that today.”

I spotted some bread, butter, and cheese. It looked so good at that moment, but my stomach was feeling extra heavy after the conversation I’d just had. Hunger for some good food won the quick battle. I grabbed my pocket knife and went to town on a sandwich, whipping one up for the others too. There I ate what I claimed to be the best post-invasion sandwich the world had ever seen.

The terrain was beautiful here and we moved down what must have been a secondary road, with few cars sitting on it. We kicked up dust as we made for the southern part of Peru. Grass greener than any I’d seen before scoured the landscape for miles, and we laughed when we saw the alpaca roaming on the hills beside us.

“You were right, Magnus. Unless those are llama. Then you’re so far off it’s not even funny.” I even said it with a straight face. I glanced back to Natalia and got a scowl for my trouble. Not only did she not talk, apparently her funny bone was malfunctioning too. I instantly let it slide, knowing what horrors she must have been through. I gave her a soft smile and started to turn back. Carey was staring at his new friend in the back seat, and I saw her give him a piece of meat and a pet. She did have the ability to melt the ice on occasion. I wondered if she and Magnus were more than friends, and felt a moment of jealousy that they got to go through this quest with someone they knew before it all happened.

“You okay there?” Magnus asked, and I realized I was sitting staring out the window with a half-eaten sandwich in my hand.

“I’m good. Just a lot to think about,” I replied, wishing I could share the burden I just heard back in town.

“Why Machu Picchu? Kind of a messed-up place to put some crazy alien device, don’t you think?” he asked.

“It actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. It’s one of those bizarre phenomena. They think the Inca built it for some emperor or something. Maybe he was really one of those hybrid guys and his magic, or technology, made them think he was a god. Also makes sense to put it somewhere it’ll be protected. Do you think any group of fanatics could go up there unnoticed? Probably not. Not a busy tourist destination that you can’t desecrate. Although they claim to have put it there hundreds of years ago. If by ‘hundreds,’ they meant the fourteen hundreds, then that would put it spot on with the building of the mountaintop city,” I guessed.

“How do you know so much about it? All I knew was the picture I once saw on a calendar.”

“Bit of a History Channel buff.” He looked at me sideways. “I know. I haven’t got out much the past couple years.”

Natalia tapped Magnus on the shoulder and passed him the GPS unit she had in the back with her. She pointed to the map and he veered off after a few minutes.

“That should take us around the next valley and save us some time. Thanks, Nat.” He winked through the rear-view mirror at her.

“What do you figure, Magnus? We have about two hours of light left now. I know you guys have been going through the nights, but do you think it’s more dangerous now?” I asked, trying to see where his gut was at. I wanted to get there tonight to see if we had any sign of Mary, Ray, or Vanessa.

“I have yet to see a ship, and we’re making good time. Have about what, three-fifty to go here?” Natalia must have given him the nod from the back seat. “Thanks. Let’s do it. Should get there by nine. With any luck, your buddies will be there and we can do this thing. How do we get up to the top?”

“It’s so remote out there. Tourists usually take a train to this little town, Aguas Calientes; from there it’s up the mountain via switchbacks. We researched this… or Vanessa had researched this. If it’s raining there, they say the roads can be treacherous. Hence the trains are the most used way to get there.” I was surprised they didn’t have any of this information. “Didn’t you guys know where this thing was? I thought your buddies told you all of this.”

He looked a little ashamed. “They told Natalia and asked her not to tell me until it happened. Really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess they didn’t want anyone to go early, tamper with it, and maybe break something?”

A lot of things weren’t making sense to me. On one hand, Vanessa told us that they were brought here to save the world. That the bad aliens, who remained nameless, were going to whisk us all away, kill the majority, keeping a handful as slaves. Like her people. But if they trusted her people so much, how had they planted this device and then come here to warn us?

Then I had the lookalike aliens, who claimed the Kraskis couldn’t survive because of the device they’d planted here in Machu Picchu, of all places, known for its speculation of being tied to aliens. They also told me Janine was in on it. Was that why she chose me instead? She picked a battle side and thought maybe that I would figure it all out? Did she have that much faith in me? Why hadn’t she just outright told me all about it?

I had far too many questions and none of the answers. The way Vanessa so coldly shot the first one, and the fact they did nothing to harm me each time I saw them. I just needed us to get there before the others, if there were others still, so I could try to make the right decision. All of the military, mercenary, air force, and engineers, and the accountant was the one who had the fate of the world on his shoulders. My head hurt. It felt like tax season.

“They told Natalia, assuming she wouldn’t tell anyone, hey?” I felt suspicious of everyone at the moment. Maybe I was the only one who was really human. Mary felt human, but so had Janine. “We’re woven deep into this web of mystery. Natalia, I’ll take another chunk of emu jerky, please.”

Magnus and I laughed as we cruised down the road in the Jeep, the sun sinking on our right as we went.

_______

For the first hour after the sun went down, Magnus accepted my suggestion of keeping the lights off, but as we got close to our destination, the terrain was terrifying at moments. The narrow roads often flirted with the edges of hills that turned into small mountains. It had recently rained, and everything was covered in a thick, gooey layer of mud. A few times, I had to ask that he slow down. “We need to make it there alive to do this,” I’d said.

At seven thirty, he put the lights on, and I was sure that it saved us a dozen times on the last stretch there. Natalia got him to change course a few times, and everything looked great. Then the storm hit. Flash floods hit fast down there, and in mere minutes, not only could we hardly see out the Jeep’s windows, but the roads were washed out completely. We fought it for a while and tried to find routes to get us to the little town at the base of Machu, but it was hopeless.

Magnus pulled over and rested his head on the steering wheel. Carey whimpered in the back seat as lightning flashed, followed by the booming thunder, telling us we were close to the source.

“You said there were trains, right?” Magnus asked, looking excited.

“Yeah, right to town,” I said, picking up on what he was suggesting. “Natalia, can I see the GPS, please?” I asked, moving to the east to look for the tracks. There they were, heading from the northeast. “Looks like there’s a side road over there, back a couple minutes. It’s going to be a crapshoot heading down there in this storm, but it looks like we’ll intersect the train tracks in a couple miles.”

Magnus lifted his head from the steering wheel and slowly looked at me, his blue eyes intense even in the darkness. The Jeep was lit up by the glowing orange lights coming off the dashboard, and I felt the desire to scan the sky for a ship. Did they not know we were here? It seemed to me there were two sides, and they both knew exactly where the thing was. If that was the case, why wouldn’t they just blow the damn thing to smithereens?

“Let’s do it! Train tracks it is!” he shouted, throwing the Jeep into reverse. We splashed and slid down the muddy road, making a sharp turn at the road that would lead us to the tracks. Lightning flashed a few times, and I saw how deep the water on the road really was. I said a little prayer that the lightning wasn’t going to hit the water and shock us. I couldn’t remember if that was an old wives’ tale or not, but I made sure I wasn’t touching any metal.

“I can’t slow down! I won’t be able to get started again in this mess!” Magnus yelled over the storm.

We raced down the road mostly blind, water beginning to seep in the bottom of the doors.

“We better get there soon, or we’re going to be stuck,” I shouted.

The tracks elevated slightly from the ground beside them, and the Jeep climbed the incline eventually after sliding down the slick, muddy hillside. Once on top, we stopped to regroup. The storm was still raging; raindrops the size of quarters were falling hard on the windshield.

“Here we are, Dean. On the tracks to our second-to-last stop before the big moment. There’s no turning back now,” Magnus said as he put it into drive. The ride was an extremely bumpy one, even with the twenty-two-sized tires and suspension on this beast. We bobbled up and down like marionettes, and it wasn’t the first time I’d felt like the aliens’ puppets today. I checked to see if Carey was okay, and he was firmly sitting in Natalia’s lap. It was quite the sight.

“What happens if there’s a train ahead?” I asked.

“We try to go around it. Should be simple. Let’s just hope there’s not, and if there is, that it’s firmly parked outside town so it won’t matter,” Magnus said.

Our headlights shone up and down and all over the place as we jostled about on the wet tracks. The clouds made it pitch black out at this point, but there was no sense in worrying about the aliens seeing us. We were all in. Committed to the job. Just what that was, was beyond me.

I could tell we were climbing some elevation, as my ears popped. Lightning flashed and I looked out the window, to see nothing but a cliff beside us to the right.

“Whatever you do, don’t veer to the right. Straight down to Deathsville that way,” I said, trying to sound like I was calm, completely betraying the hysteria I was fighting inside.

The miles piled on, and my back was already sore from bouncing up and down. We had mainly been riding alongside the mountain for the past hour, and Magnus had slowed down a bit. The rain still fell, but not as ferociously as before; the thunder and lightning duo only came to visit every few minutes now. We slowed down, and my stomach sank. There was a train on the tracks, a few hundred yards in front of us.

“Is there anywhere to pass on the left?” I asked, hopeful.

“I think there might be, but it’s pretty steep over there too.” Magnus clenched his jaw.

“Options?”

“Not many. Go around, or we climb over it and start to hike. Not an idea I want to explore much further. If we were only ten miles, I might say it’s a good idea. I figure we have another fifty or so.”

We didn’t have the luxury of time. I needed to beat the others there. “We go around with the Jeep,” I said firmly. He nodded at me and pulled off the tracks. We instantly tilted to the left twenty or so degrees. We followed the train for a hundred yards, and then we saw something that was going to ruin our whole plan. The mountain jutted up, and the train was in a tunnel. There was absolutely no way around the thing now.

“Damn it!” he yelled.

I racked my brain for ideas, but nothing was coming to me. If we walked, we were committed to the tracks. If we went to find a road, they could all be washed out, and even if we found a car out in the middle of nowhere, we might not be able to get through.

Natalia drummed her fingers on the console between the front seats. We both turned to her, and she rolled her brown eyes at us, like we were so obviously missing something simple. I’d seen that eye roll before. It was saying, “Men!”

“What? Do you have some brilliant plan, lady?” Magnus asked her softly, like he knew a secret about her and didn’t want to share.

She just pointed at the train and got out of the Jeep.

“You heard the woman. To the train.” Magnus got out of the Jeep and started to take his gear out of the back. “You coming, or you just going to sit there and have a nap?”

Carey had already jumped out and was running around, getting soaked again. I guess he was in on the joke too. We were going to take the train there? It sounded kind of crazy, but maybe it wasn’t. I guessed that by not talking, Natalia had a lot of good thoughts going on in that head of hers.

I got out and helped grab the rest of the gear. Natalia was way ahead of us, walking in the dark with a flashlight lighting her path. When we had everything we needed to bring, we followed her. Carey walked over to me and jumped on my leg with his wet paws. He looked happy, like he was on the biggest, most fun adventure of his life. I supposed we all were. I bet Carey couldn’t wait to get home and tell his mommy Susan all about it, if we could get her back along with everyone else.

“You ever driven a train before?” I asked the big Swede.

He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve driven a lot of things, but not a train. How hard can it be? You don’t even have to steer,” he said with a laugh.

“You have me there. If anything, we’ll show up in style.”

We approached the front cab of the train, and saw that Natalia was inside it.

“She doesn’t waste any time,” I said.

“Never has,” he replied and climbed up the steps to the doorway. The train was bright blue. I hadn’t been able to tell until we were right up close and I saw it in the flashlight beam.

“Nice looking train too. Looks brand new. Check out the cow catcher on this thing,” I said, nodding my approval.

“You’re some sort of train expert too, I take it?” Magnus asked.

“No. Grew up in farm country, and we had a lot of trains passing through when I grew up. My dad loved train sets and took me to a couple museums about them when I was little. I always laughed at that name. Cow catcher. I was sure they didn’t catch cows as much as kill them and toss them to the side. Probably more wild animals than cows too. I knew two people that were killed walking the tracks. Murray Lindberg died when I was in high school. He’d been listening to Guns N’ Roses on his Walkman at the time. My parents didn’t let me listen to Axl in the house after that, because the town called it devil worship. Sorry, I’m rambling.” I had no idea what drove me to go on like that, but maybe it was just the pent-up nervous energy I was harnessing.

We were in the cab now, and I was surprised by the amount of room in it. Natalia was looking around, and in a moment, she hit something, waited for the light to come on, and started the engine.

“Diesel, I guess,” Magnus commented.

“Think so. These days most are a hybrid of diesel and electric, and this thing looks new.”

When the train came to life, so did some small lights in the cab, and we could see around. Carey barked outside and I went back out into the rain, and we entered together on the car behind. The door pried open easily, and we got in to see leather seats. There were even a few bottles of champagne sitting warm at a serving area. First class train ride in Peru. Things could have been worse, like me flying around the passenger seat of a Jeep in a storm.

The cars connected, and I knocked on the window when I found it locked. Magnus hit some lever and it opened. Carey ran right to Natalia and licked her hand.

“Nice arrangement back there,” I told them. “Nat, you think you can drive this thing?”

She looked back at me and smiled. Soon we were starting to move along, lights showing our path on the tracks.

“I guess that answers that,” I muttered, and Magnus slapped me on the back.

“You should see her fly a helicopter!” he barked, and had a good laugh at his own joke.

I was sure that Mary would have a fast friend in this Natalia if they got the chance to meet. I really hoped they would, and soon. Time was running out on us, if what Vanessa said was true. A week before they were to dispose of most humans, the rest to be slaves for eternity.

NINETEEN

We were cruising down the line on our way to Aguas Calientes. Lightning still flashed occasionally and I kept a watchful eye out the window, trying to see if I could spot a ship among the dark clouds. The train was moving at a good pace, and I was thankful we were almost at our destination. I walked toward the engineer’s room exit, the door sliding open as I moved in front of it. Carey trotted along beside me and we moved down the hall to a washroom. The lights came on automatically as I entered the single restroom. Carey stayed outside the door like a little police guard dog. I appreciated the love.

I looked in the mirror and saw myself more disheveled than I’d been in a long time. It brought back flashes of myself a week after Janny had died: me not showering, not shaving, and hardly eating. The similarities were there, but now I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before. I’d survived the loss of my wife, the loss of the whole world basically, and now I had a mission.

After scrubbing my face in the sink, I lathered up and did the best job I could to bathe in the sink. It wasn’t pretty, but in a couple minutes, I was smelling a lot better, and felt ready to make the trek. The deep bags under my eyes were still there, but I saw a little extra sparkle in them that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Come on, Carey. Let’s find some food.” His ears perked up at this, and he had a little more jump in his tired step. We made our way down a couple cars, and there was a lounge. Behind the bar, I found some trays of food in the cooler. The temperature was still fairly cool in there. This state-of-the-art train had some good backup power. I found a still slightly chilled cheese and cracker tray, and grabbed a couple of apples. I filled my bag with some more miscellaneous foodstuffs: granola bars, potato chips, and the ever popular peanuts and pretzel mix. I tore a bag open and gave Carey’s drooling mouth a few pretzels before finding a bowl and filling it with “mountain fresh” water. He slurped it up, and I loaded a few of those bottles into my now heavy pack.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s go share with the others,” I said.

As the door opened, I heard Magnus talking to Natalia. “Uhm, Nat, do you know how to stop this thing?” Magnus asked her.

I looked out the windshield and was shocked to see us already approaching the station ahead.

She just shrugged and pulled the throttle back in an attempt to begin slowing down. It wasn’t slowing us down fast enough. We were still cruising at twenty with the station coming up fast.

“Dean, any clue?”

I scanned for the brakes and didn’t see the lever I’d seen in trains when I was a kid. The old trains all had them, but I’d never been on one this new. For all I knew, there was an app that controlled the damn thing. The distance was closing quickly and I jammed at a button on the dash in a wild last-minute effort. A loud train-whistle sound bolted out of a horn, blasting our arrival to anyone within twenty miles. Cursing, I hit the button next to it, and we jolted forward as the emergency brake took hold. The brake grabbed the metal rails and slammed us forward, hard.

The car slid and scraped, and I picked myself up off the ground, rubbing my head where it hit the dash. We were going to hit! We all braced for the impact, and time paused as we were about to make impact. I looked at Natalia, who was now bleeding lightly from her forehead. Magnus’ face was scrunched up in an animalistic snarl. Then time started again and we smashed into the car on the tracks. The lights flicked off as we went tumbling. Thank God we found the e-brake, because we couldn’t have been going more than ten miles an hour when we hit.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and leaned back against the wall. “Just like I planned it.”

“Yeah, Nat, next time we do take the copter. You know how to land one of those.” He placed his huge hand on her back and rubbed it lightly. He moved in close and whispered something in her ear. It was a tender, touching moment in this time of stress and pressure, and it reminded me of my wife, but this time a comforting reminder, not a desperate feeling of loss. Maybe all of this was making me grow as a person.

“Let’s get moving. Still a ways to go to get up to the top. And in the dark, no less,” I said, walking back to the second car and out the side entrance. My bag of food was heavy on my shoulder, but I was happy to have some rations again. There was a small fire at the front of the trains, and I thought about putting it out in case someone would see it from the sky. Then the urgency took over and I just wanted to get to the top to do what we had to do, if only I could determine exactly what that would be.

Carey and I looked for a vehicle to bring us to the top. I checked my watch; it was ten thirty. There weren’t many cars out here, but there were a few of the tourist vans and buses. I really didn’t think us driving a bus up the switchbacks was a great idea in the dark, especially when none of us had ever been here before. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to come to this iconic place. Did aliens really build it? I doubted it, but now I did believe they might have had a part in its creation. I imagined an alien coming down, looking human in the fourteen hundreds. The people here were so isolated from the rest of the world at that time, he would have seemed like a god if he had shown them any sort of technology. They would have been astounded. That being said, they did seem to have advanced building techniques for the time. It also made me wonder about the rumors of aliens in Egypt, and what about Roswell? I had some serious questions for those twin guys… if I ever saw them again, and if I found out they were being truthful.

I turned on my flashlight and checked the first van. No keys. Checked the second. No keys, and it smelled like fish in there. I needed the third one to have some, or it was off to search the buildings for spare sets. I was in a hurry and didn’t think crawling around in the dark for keys was a good use of my time. Third van. No keys in the ignition, but when I was about to slam the door in frustration, I spotted something shiny in the cup holder. Bingo. I shooed Carey into the door and I got in and fired up the engine. It made some interesting noises, but I just needed the thing to get me to the top. I backed up and pulled over to the train, where the other two were waiting for us.

“Not the prettiest ride, but it should do the job,” I said as I got out and helped throw the few bags in the back seat. I took a handgun, made sure the safety was on, and tucked it in my pants.

“What are you expecting up there?” Magnus asked.

“Hopefully, nothing. But I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” I had so many questions, and I still had no answers. Was I going to turn the damn thing off? We had to find it first too. Did Mary, Ray, or Vanessa even make it there? Maybe they were behind us, trying to make it here themselves.

“If you’re bringing that, I’m bringing this.” He hefted out a semi-automatic with the firepower to take down more than an alien or two, if that was who we were going to be fighting.

Natalia grabbed one too, smiling at us. “She’s the happiest with a weapon in her hands. You have no idea how many times I’ve told her I’m thankful she’s on my side. Whatever we find up there, be glad you have us with you.” Magnus grinned back at her.

I wasn’t so sure. What if I told them we couldn’t turn this thing off? Would they just do it? Would they blink an eye at disposing of me to fulfill their dead buddy’s wishes? I had just me then. The gun sitting in my belt suddenly felt much heavier.

“I’m driving,” I said, and took the driver’s seat, Carey in the passenger seat beside me. The other two climbed into the back and rolled the windows down. The air was cooler in this part of Peru, especially with this high elevation. It was going to get much cooler as we climbed the switchbacks. The first few miles were fairly straight as we made our way in the dark down the road. I was extremely nervous, sweat dripping down my back despite the cool air blowing in through the windows.

“Looks like the climb starts just ahead. We’re so close I can smell it,” Magnus said, and I could almost hear his smile.

“How do you speak English so well? You are Swedish, right?” I asked, wondering why it took me this long to find it strange.

“I get that a lot. Actually, I speak five languages well, and a couple more are passable. I’m what you would call an army brat; dad ranked high, and we moved all around the world when I was young. I spent three years in Anaheim when I was eleven. I remember going with my dad to the beach, and there were those guys who always worked out at those outdoor muscle beaches. Something drew me to it, and that’s where I first got the idea to become a builder.”

As he spoke, I drove up the small sections of roads. They reminded me of seeing those horse trails on the sides of hills: grass worn out in paths carving up the hillside. It took me back to a trip to Montana when I was a kid, riding a horse for the first time. Now I was climbing a much larger, steeper hill in a van, carrying a gun, with a huge dilemma at the end of the road. As if to reiterate my fears, flashes of light crossed the sky, presumably from Machu Picchu.

“What was that?” Magnus asked from behind me.

“No idea. Maybe lightning again? No rain, though.” It caught me off guard, and I’m sure my voice cracked a bit. I didn’t think it was lightning. I thought it was coming from one of their ships. “I think we only have about five more miles to go,” I said, and kept driving in the dark, the dim headlights the only light on the narrow pathways. The van was groaning constantly now, its life probably hanging in the balance. I just wanted it to get us up top; we hadn’t seen any other vehicles on the way up so far, and I doubted we would.

“Is this bucket of bolts going to get us there?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I hope so.”

We made it another mile before it crapped out, black smoke rising from under the hood. It gave a final gasp and lurched to a halt just as I turned up a sharp bend. This time it was me who rested his head against the steering wheel.

Light still shone from above, sometimes flickering. I knew we didn’t have much time to do whatever I was going to have to do. We needed to get up there quickly. I left my bag and just started trekking up the road like a man on a mission. I could hear Magnus calling to me but didn’t have time to wait. I had no light to guide me, but the clouds had cleared up here, or we were now above them. I wasn’t sure. The beam from a ship shone down, giving me enough light to see the road, and I ran. I heard Carey catch up to me, and when he did, I got a little yip from him. I think he thought we were playing, and he raced past me, determined to win the race. My feet pounded the ground and I kept running.

I thought I heard a gunshot, but it could have been my imagination. I was picturing so many crazy things that might be happening up there that I didn’t know if it had really happened. I must have run a mile when I started to breathe a little more heavily, my legs tight from sitting in cars so much for the past few days. Carey kept pace with me now, still happy to run alongside me up a steep mountain pass. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth by mile two, and I didn’t blame him. I think mine hung out for a while too.

I assumed the other two would catch up to me soon, but I must have been running like I’d never run before, because there was still no sign of them back there. I thought I heard my name being called but couldn’t be sure. I was in the zone, and just focused on getting to the top. If I still had the option, would I deactivate the device? Images of Janine flashed on the back of my eyelids every time I blinked. The first day we met at the Boathouse, the way she looked sitting there drinking a scotch, the archway behind her covered in twinkle lights. I thought she might have been an angel, and I guess I’d been right that she wasn’t from this world. I saw her when I proposed to her, eating a bagel outside on the bench. It was our bench from then on. Our wedding day, standing in front of all our loved ones. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful than in that moment. There were so many days after that where I treasured her. That face was so engrained in my mind. Our trip to Hawaii, skiing in Aspen, all memories, but gone for good. I remembered her face as I looked into her coffin. It wasn’t the same face I’d known all of those years, yet at the same time, it was. The little laugh lines by her mouth, the tiny birthmark above her lip… all telling me it was her. All of these hit me as I ran with all my heart to the top of the road. Tears streamed down my face, and I knew it wasn’t from the pain of the non-stop sprint I was on.

This was all about to end one way or another. Either I was going to save the world or end it, and I had just enough guts to give it a try. I was slowing down as I rounded the final bend, and was on the last section of road leading up to the ruins of the Inca city. There was a car parked at the end of the lot, and a path leading up even higher. Carey stopped and fell to the ground, rolling on his side. He lapped at some water in a small pool on the road, and this time, I didn’t stop him. I had half a mind to join him, and instantly regretted not bringing my own water. I searched the car and found a half-empty water bottle in the cup holder. I drank it without hesitation; not something I would normally do, but my lungs were burning and my legs aching from the few miles’ uphill run. My treadmill at home didn’t have incline quite this intense. I tossed the bottle to the car floor and started the trek to the city. I still couldn’t see much and crossed through a stone archway that led to a steadily inclining pathway. There was still an intense light ahead, but it was pointed away from me, so I stumbled a few times on rocks or steps that I couldn’t quite see.

Carey followed along again, stopping every now and then to drink from a puddle. He didn’t seem to mind the muddy water too much. “Almost there, little guy,” I said. His tail wagged at my voice.

I heard my name and saw Magnus and Natalia a few hundred yards behind. I kept going. I didn’t want them there to decide for me. I picked up the pace and started to move at a jog. My thighs fought me every inch of the way, but a few hundred yards of paths and stairs later, I entered the Incan city of Machu. Even in the darkness, it was beautiful. I finally had a vantage of what was going on. One of the ships was hovering near the ground at the far side; Wayna Picchu loomed behind everything like a gravestone in the dark. It was an eerie sight, making the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Which aliens were here, the good ones or the bad ones? Not that I knew which side was which.

I walked toward it all and tripped on something. I fell and landed on my right elbow, pain exploding up my arm. I rolled to my side, and I was staring straight at a body.

It was Vanessa.

I rolled her to her back and checked for a pulse. Nothing. She’d been with us on this huge journey, and it was terrible to see her lying there. She was so small. If she was here, that meant… “Mary!” I called out. “Don’t do it!”

I reeled and ran to the ship. If the cheap tourist maps were accurate, they were over in the Sacred Plaza, an area that looked like a large room with parts of the wall missing and no roof. No doubt it had been a town square of some sort in the Incan times. I tried to take in everything I was seeing as I ran to them. The ship was there, with the two twins’ backs to me. I knew it was them just from the way they were standing. As I got closer, I saw Mary with a rifle aimed at them. Ray was nowhere in sight.

“Mary! Don’t do it! Not yet!” I yelled. She glanced at me and almost smiled through the terrified, angry look she was giving the aliens.

I passed by them, holding my gun in my hand. My elbow was aching, but at this point, so was the rest of me. I stepped between them and Mary. “Mary, hold on.” I tried to catch my breath. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I think Heckle and Jeckle may be telling us the truth.” Images flashed in my mind. Janine and one of the alien twins, sitting at a table.

“It’s too late, Dean,” she said, lowering her gun. A bright orange light shone from behind the plaza’s largest wall. There was a crack in the foundation large enough for a man to fit through, and that was where the light emanated from. A whirring noise sped up and then slowed down, the light dimming with it. “Ray turned it off.”

The twins fell to their knees and yelled in anguish. Another ship came quickly from the sky, and now I could see the differences in them. These were slightly larger and had more of a curve, whereas the others were smaller and more linear. A red beam shot out of it and destroyed the ground around the twins. They disappeared down the crevice.

“We have to turn that thing back on! Now!”

TWENTY

Five Years Earlier

My head felt so strange, and I wondered what she’d put in my coffee. This man had shown up at our house and Janine had instantly become nervous. I had never seen her like this before, and I didn’t like it one bit. She asked if we could talk in the kitchen and went to get us all some coffee. The man never said his name and our small talk went nowhere. I asked him where he was from. He said “quite some ways away” in a voice that literally had no accent, if that was possible. Everything about him was monochrome. Even his hair looked like it was a doll’s hair. None of this bothered me much once I drank that first sip of coffee; after that, I just sat there like an open-mouthed fool. I thought about trying to interject, but my brain didn’t want to participate. Instead, the fool thing made me drink more of the obviously drugged beverage.

Janine and the man argued about a few things, and they pointed at me a few times. She was telling him that she was already in their bad books. That they were still upset about me not being the chosen target, but that she was more than likely under severe scrutiny. I heard her mention Bob, her cousin from our wedding that we hadn’t seen since that day he’d come here.

After a few minutes of this back and forth my brain didn’t let me comprehend, he came over to me and put his hands to my temples. He repeated some words I didn’t understand and then Janine’s face came in front of mine, inches away. I could smell the spinach omelet she’d eaten for breakfast, and the coffee she just had been drinking. Out of all of that, it felt like a very intimate moment for some reason.

She held my hands and spoke softly. “If the day comes where you end up at Machu Picchu, don’t turn the device off. Wait there for this man, or a man that looks like him. Turn off that device and they’ll swarm the planet. Most likely, they’ll send a scout to confirm it’s off. They’re patient. Once confirmed, they’ll destroy it, and Earth will be theirs. No humans, no device to kill them. Do you understand?”

It took me a moment to realize that she had been speaking to me, even though her nose was touching mine. Tears fell down her face; I wanted to wipe them away, but my hands didn’t listen to me.

“Dean, do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to.

“Trust no one but a man who looks like this.” She stepped back and his face hovered before mine.

“Okay,” I said.

She then repeated a numerical code over and over, until I was repeating it back to her.

After, they talked for a while longer, and by the time he left, I was falling asleep on the couch, with no memory of anyone ever being there.

_______

I pushed my way to the crack in the wall, Mary trying to grab me on the way over. “What the hell are you doing, Dean?” she yelled, grabbing my arm. “You don’t actually believe those guys, do you?”

It had all come back to me. That strange visit from years ago. Janine’s tears at the prediction I would be here at this moment. I’d failed her. I’d failed everyone.

“They were right! Vanessa is one of the bad ones! This device is here to keep the aliens away. Those guys were trying to help us keep our damn planet,” I said, fighting to make her let go of me. “Trust me, Mary. It’s true. Do you see our people beaming back down?”

The new ship hovered a hundred yards away, and something was beaming down from the green light. Magnus and Natalia were right behind the ship, and I could see them moving out of the way, trying to get between us and the new arrivals.

“Dean, what gives?” he asked.

“Just keep whatever comes out of there from coming over here!” I yelled. Mary let me go and I clambered through the crack in the wall. There was a tunnel back there leading to some dusty stairs.

“Ray! Turn it on!” I yelled while running down. There was no reply.

A small amount of light lit the way from down a tight passageway, and it led me to a small room. Ray was sitting on the ground with his back to an advanced-looking machine; soft orange light glowed off its controls.

“Ray,” I said, stepping lightly into the space, “turn it on now.” Tears were falling down his face, and it twisted into something I’d never seen on the usually affable man.

“Can’t do that, Dean,” he said raising a gun to me. “They said my family would be spared, and I could live alongside them as an ambassador. All I had to do was make sure to shut it off.”

My heart was racing, but I tried to keep the worry from my voice. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You would sacrifice all of those lives just for yours and your family’s? That’s not the Ray I know. Put down the gun. There’s another way. I know how to save them and get rid of these bastards. Trust me.” It was a bit of a lie, but I was grasping at straws.

His hand shook; his finger was on the trigger. “It’s not possible. They’re too powerful. They won’t stop until they have this planet.”

Gunshots rang from above, and Ray’s eyes left me for a moment to look upwards at the noise. I kicked out, knocking the gun from his hands. I pulled my own gun from my pants just too late. Ray’s large frame was on me quickly, tackling me to the ground. My gun went off as his full weight pressed on top of me. I panicked, trying to feel if I had been shot. My stomach felt wet, but there was no pain.

“I’m sorry, Dean. Remember that. You’re a good man… you were a good friend,” Ray said, coughing blood out beside me. “Take care of them if you can. Don’t tell them about…” I rolled him off me, sure he wasn’t going to be breathing for long. I ran to the machine and looked for the on button. Instead, I found a lit key pad with numbers on it. With bloody fingers, I pressed a sequence I knew – though I wasn’t sure why – and it came to life. Light enveloped the room and I had to close my eyes tight, covering them with my arm to keep it from blinding me. Soon the light dissipated, leaving me standing there in a dim room, machine whirring away, and Ray’s body in the doorway. The gunfire had ceased.

I stopped to see if Ray was alive, but he just lay there, unmoving, eyes still open. I shut them with my hand and a tear rolled down my dirty face. I really couldn’t trust anyone. If they had gotten to Ray before all of this, how could I trust any of the others? Maybe Mary was in on it. Maybe Natalia would shoot me on the spot and come back to turn this thing off. I grabbed Ray’s gun and put it in my pants, leaving me holding the gun Ray was killed with. I choked back a gag as I thought about the fact that I’d just murdered a man. A man I’d known. A man I had really liked. This was war, I told myself, and if I hadn’t done it, we had no hope of survival.

It didn’t help. I vomited in the doorway, staggering out of the small room and down the tight hall. I raised my gun and crept out of the crack leading to the ancient plaza.

Mary was over by the ship talking with Magnus and Natalia. Were they conspiring against me? I put my gun up and called out to them. “Put your weapons down!” I walked forward, doing my best SWAT team impression from the movies I’d seen. I was sure I looked a fool, but they all turned wide-eyed and slowly lowered their weapons.

“Dean, what are you doing? What’s happening? This ship came down, and three of them beamed down, shooting at us. Magnus here shot one of them as we ducked behind that crumbled wall,” Mary said, voice shaky.

I could see all of the damage. Holes were missing all around us, and the ground was cut open where the ship had ripped the land open like a can opener over the twins. I moved to under the ship and there lay three large creatures. They were almost humanoid, with small black eyes, no hair to be seen, and pale white skin, like a worm whose whole life had been spent under a rock. Green ooze pooled from their mouths. Janine had been mixed up with these things? It was hard to imagine.

“Vanessa lied to us, Mary. They all lied to us. Bob, Kate… Janine. They were working for these bastards. The device was planted here by those guys.” I nodded to the twins’ smaller ship, still hovering there. “They were the race taken over. Most of them are dead, but they kept a few enslaved to use as diplomats. Or maybe just fodder for war. I’m not sure. Some of them broke free and came here centuries ago. This whole place was built to hide this thing. Those pale aliens can’t be near it. They wanted Earth but couldn’t come while this was turned on. So they sent expendables to convince us this was the right move. What more dramatic event than all of humanity being whisked away could make a bunch of skilled humans come to their race’s aid? We had to believe it was true.”

They just stood there listening to my story. I wasn’t actually sure if I was being a hundred percent accurate, but I knew I was damn close. “Did Vanessa die when she came close to here?” I asked, sure of the answer.

“Yeah, she wanted to come up, but she was so weak. She collapsed and vomited some green liquid, and was gone. I see those things did the same.” Mary pointed at the dead aliens.

“I think these guys have zero tolerance of the device. The hybrids could live for years if they were far away from it, but the closer Vanessa got, the worse off she was,” I said.

“Dean, where’s Ray?” Mary asked quietly.

The pressure build-up in me came to a boil and I crouched down, worried I might vomit again. “He was with them. They told him his family would be safe. He just had to make sure it was shut down. He was with them the whole time.”

Mary crouched down beside me and put her hand on mine. “I’m sorry, Dean. But I’m glad you’re here. How did you know? How did you know all of this?”

“I didn’t. After I ran from the ship on the hill in Colombia, I saw a guy that looked just like the one Vanessa had shot when he was trying to warn me in Florida. Then I saw them again when we entered Peru.”

Magnus cut me short. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us? We could have helped!”

“I didn’t know what to believe or who to trust. I’m sorry, guys. It was just too much. Janine was their mole. She chose me instead of the guy they intended for her, and I just had a memory of her meeting with one of the twin guys in our house. They gave me the code to turn the device back on, should it fall. I had no recollection until I came here.” It all sounded so crazy.

“What do we do now? They’re going to retaliate.” Magnus ran his hands over his close-cropped hair. Natalia was almost pacing around us. I handed her the gun by my feet. She took it and smiled at me.

“We give ‘em what they deserve,” I said with a smile.

We heard some noise from the hole in the ground by the twins’ ship. A hand grabbed the rock and we ran over to it. One of them had survived, though he looked worse for wear. His hairpiece had fallen off, and he was bleeding all over. Magnus grabbed his arm and hauled him up.

The alien’s back against the dirt, his eyes closed, he spoke in his monotone way. “We hit them up there, and end this today.”

TWENTY-ONE

“The man was communicating with them somehow. Find it,” he gasped.

The computer! When I’d met him, he kept going on about his computer and how he needed batteries and other things from the electronics store in New York. That had to be it. He’d sold out humanity for his life and his family’s, and I almost couldn’t blame him for it. I wondered if I would have done the same for Janine’s life, under different circumstances. It was easy to judge someone else, but harder to look in the mirror.

“Where’s the computer?” I asked Mary.

“I think it’s in the car still,” she quickly answered.

“Nat, can you run back and get it?” Magnus asked, but she was already making her way back down the ancient city of ruins.

“What’s your name?” Mary asked the alien.

“Teelon. We’re called the Deltra. We won’t have a lot of time. They’ll be wondering why they haven’t heard back from their ship or the human soon. They’ll want news of the device,” he said.

“Can you get up?”

“Yes. I think so.” Magnus helped him to a sitting position.

“What’s the plan, Teelon?” I asked, wondering if he was thinking what I was. I glanced at Mary, and hoped she was as good a pilot as I thought she was.

“First things first. We need to get that device out of its hiding place.”

“I’m on it. Dean, you with me?” Magnus grabbed my shoulder. I dreaded going back down that tunnel to see Ray’s dead body.

“Yes. It’s going to be a tight fit down there; I hope we can get it out.” My stomach was already queasy.

“I have a plan for that.” He walked over to the dead aliens and grabbed one of their blasters. He tested it, firing a red beam into a wall. It tore a hole the size of a basketball in the rock. “I think this will do the excavating trick.” He slung it over his shoulder. Natalia was running back with a computer in her hands.

Teelon was already working at it as we headed to the crack in the plaza wall. We were soon back down the stairs and hall. Magnus went first and slid Ray’s body to the edge of the space.

“I didn’t know him, but I’m sorry it came to this, Dean,” Magnus said calmly. I could tell he meant the words. For a big guy, he wore his heart on his sleeve. I patted him on the arm and thanked him. The device appeared to be built into the stone, almost like a screen on a wall.

“I don’t know how big it is, or how deep it goes. Whatever you do, don’t turn the thing off,” I said as he grabbed an edge and slowly tried to pry it free. It moved, and dust sifted to the ground as the large Swede rocked it back and forth, eventually loosening it. It was only two feet from side to side, about one and a half feet tall, and when he got it out, we saw that it was about three feet deep. He grunted, sweat pouring down his face, and soon he had it resting on the ground beside Ray.

We each took an end and carried it up and out to the crack in the wall. Carey barked as we struggled to fit it through.

“Stand back,” Magnus said, unslinging the laser from his shoulder. I ducked back and crouched over the device to keep it safe. He fired two rounds at the entrance, and rock crumbled around us. He groaned as he lifted the huge stone blocks out of the way, and then we were back to carrying it through and into the night air. It was still whirring away, a constant alien repellent.

Teelon’s eyes went wide at the sight of it, and he muttered something that sounded like a mantra over and over. This was from his ancestors, and I was sure he’d been waiting for this moment a long time. He was helping save a race, and at the same time, hopefully helping his own.

“I used Ray’s computer to tell them there’s been a setback. We have to get into their ship and reiterate the message,” the alien said as he struggled to get to his feet.

“Just how do we do that?” Mary asked.

“Easy, follow me.” We went with him to where the ship was hovering above us. It was about fifty feet in the air, and had to be two hundred feet long, another fifty wide. Twice the size, at least, of Teelon’s ship. He muttered as he grabbed something from each of the three aliens’ collars.

“The three of you will go in this one. One can come with me in my ship.” Carey barked at this.

“Don’t worry, boy. I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.” I petted him for a moment.

“Teelon, can you show Mary how to fly this thing?” I asked. Mary’s eyes went wide at first, and then a smile slowly spread on her beautiful face. At that moment, I wanted to go over to her and kiss her.

“I think so,” he said. “Come.” He pinned one of the things from their collars on Mary’s shirt, then one on Natalia’s and his own. “We’ll be right back. Please bring the Kalentrek over here. We will come back for it.”

“Kalen… what? Is that what you call it?” I asked.

“Yes. Roughly translated to shield in your language.” He tapped each of their collars and a green light shone down, starting to lift them up to the ship. My pendant began to burn hot, and I could see everyone else’s light up too. They still lifted, and Mary even gave a whoop as she entered the ship like a ghost. They were gone, leaving Magnus, Carey, and me alone on Machu Picchu in the dark.

_______

We sat on the ground as light from the sun peeked over the distant horizon. It was amazing up here, and I felt like I was on the top of the world. It had been hours since the ship had left with our friends in it. We had nothing to do but wait. We’d gone back to Ray and Mary’s car and found some food for us and Carey to share, along with some water. Magnus puffed on a cigar he found in Ray’s bag –the ones I’d asked him to get in Florida before Vanessa had shot one of our allies.

Had Ray and Vanessa known about each other? Had they been working together from the start? I thought about the ships knowing where we were, seeing them while in the boat during a storm. They hadn’t meant to stop us, just to drive us here to disarm the device that meant their death. The shield, as Teelon had called it. As fitting a name as any, I supposed.

“I do hope they come back. This isn’t over yet. Do you think we can really do this?” I asked him, accepting a cigar when he offered one. I puffed it while he held the lighter to the end, and I coughed when I inhaled the first blast of smoke. It had been a while since I’d had one of these, but soon I was puffing at it like an old pro.

“They’ll be back. Those ladies will know how to fly that thing in no time. Natalia can fly just about anything,” he said.

My gut told me to trust Teelon, but what if he’d just taken them to separate us. I stubbed out the cigar, my gut feeling all of a sudden queasy. I changed the subject.

“So are you two… you know…” I left it unsaid.

“I love her, yes. She’s a tough nut to crack. I think she loves me too, though she would never say it.” He laughed as if he’d made the biggest joke of his life. “Not that she says much.”

“Have you ever heard her talk?”

“Never. I think before everything, she did, but something snapped in her when she was taken. I don’t know what those guys did to her, but I have an idea.” He looked down at his hands as if to see if they still had blood on them. I was pretty sure I knew what had happened to those men after Magnus had found those girls being transported.

“You’re a good man, Magnus.” I clapped him on the back and we sat there as the sun rose over the hills in the distance. For the first time, I got a good look at Machu, and it was breathtaking. I could see why so many people were drawn here. I wondered what they would think if we got everyone back to Earth and told them humanity’s savior had been hiding here all along. As long as we could make this work.

My heart jumped as I saw a ship coming in at full speed towards us. I desperately hoped it was our friends and not the aliens coming to pulverize us. It slowed abruptly and came to a stop, hovering above us. Green lights lowered and Mary, Natalia, and our new friend Teelon sank to the ground. Mary rushed over to me and kissed me firmly on the mouth.

“Someone was smoking,” she said, grabbing my unlit cigar and putting it between her teeth. “That was the most awesome thing of my life. A girl could get used to a ride like that.”

She was talking excitedly and even Natalia was grinning ear to ear.

“Let’s do this! Time to kick some alien ass!” Mary yelled, the word ass echoing down the mountain valley.

It was exciting to see her all ramped up like this, and I could still feel her lips against mine. I hoped no one noticed my red cheeks. This was no time for my emotions to get all stirred up. We had the human race to save.

“Natalia will come with me in my ship. You two go with Mary.” He clipped two small metal broaches on our collars. It was only then that I realized I hadn’t had a real shower in a few days, and my shirt, along with the rest of me, was utterly dirty.

“Nat, are you okay with that? I can go with him if you like.” Magnus walked over to her and took her hand in his. She looked tiny next to him.

She nodded and kissed him softly. I glanced over at Mary, and this time, I swear she blushed a bit.

Teelon moved to his ship. “She may have to do the flying. My time might expire before this day is through. I think I have internal bleeding, and I fear the worst. She seemed to have great understanding of flying, and I know she’ll be capable. I also showed her the weapons system, should the need arise. We’ll be able to communicate between ships; I’ve programmed that one to my frequency, which is hidden from the Kraski. You know the plan. Now let’s see this through.”

Mary explained how Teelon had implanted knowledge of the ship into their brains with a small cable. There was a small dab of blood on the side of her forehead. I couldn’t believe they could just download data into a human like that, but Teelon assured us the process had been tested, since the hybrids had need of the technology as well. Apparently, the data transfer wasn’t perfected, because Mary said there was a lot of it she didn’t quite understand, like the translation was cut short. Natalia nodded as she explained it.

“But you’re confident enough to fly it, right?” I asked, hoping we didn’t need to rely on the dying alien beside us. I wished there was something one of us could do, but we weren’t doctors, and internal bleeding wasn’t something we could help with.

“Yeah, I can do this for sure,” she said confidently.

“You got it, Teelon,” I said. “We’re ready.”

We lifted the heavy Shield to underneath the ship, and on Teelon’s word, we pressed the little metal buttons pinned to our shirts. The green light shone down again, and I was glad I had moved the pendant from under my shirt. It was glowing red hot. I could see Mary’s ring around her neck, plunging down her dirty tank top. It burned a hot green too. We floated upwards and it was the strangest feeling.

So this was what everyone had felt when they were taken less than a week ago, only for them, it was massively terrifying. For me, it was only mildly terrifying. I’d never been a huge fan of heights, but I could deal with them. I didn’t mind being on the Empire State Building or at the top of a ski hill, but the feeling of floating up, with no control and nothing under my feet, was a whole new level of odd.

Magnus seemed to be doing okay, and he was carrying the Shield device by himself, his huge arms bulging at the weight. I felt embarrassed to just be carrying the pack with water and food, and Carey nestled into my neck. He panted scared breaths on me as we rose. Mary was smiling wide, like it was the best ride ever. The view from here was undeniably gorgeous, but it was hard to focus on it at the time. Moments passed, the ground got farther away, and then we approached the ship. My instincts were to stretch my hands out over my head to keep from hitting myself on the ship’s underside. Instead, my hands just went through the wall, and soon my head did too.

TWENTY-TWO

It was the strangest feeling to move through matter like that. It was a technology Earth had never seen before, and I wondered when this was all over if we would have a new ally with Teelon’s people, the Deltra. There was so much we could learn from them.

My body emerged into the ship, and before that moment, I hadn’t really thought what the inside of one of them would look like. It was dimly lit, and the only detectable scent was the musk of us humans. The room we came into was quite spacious and had storage compartments lining the metal walls. The floor was also metal, polished smooth and shiny.

“Teelon adjusted the air levels to be breathable to us. They and the Kraski have similar breathing element percentages as we do, which biologically is extremely interesting. My father would love to learn more about that.” Mary paused at that, as if she just remembered her father was somewhere up in space at that moment. “I hope he’s okay. This way, guys.”

“Dean, wanna give me a hand with this thing?” Magnus asked.

I grabbed an end and we lowered it to the ground, away from the tractor beam, or whatever it was called. Anywhere on this ship would be safe. All we had to do was make sure it stayed turned on, as long as we got it onto their mother ship.

We followed Mary down a hall. The whole place had an ominous, sterile feeling to me, and I had a flashback to Janine’s time in the hospital. I shook it off as we approached what could only be described as the cockpit. There were two seats facing a large dashboard of glowing controls. Otherwise, there was room to stand, and not a lot else.

“How do we see out?” I asked, and Mary hit a button, causing the wall in front of us to go transparent. The viewing port was at least ten feet across and four feet high. We could see for miles down the mountain, and the Peru day was shaping up to be a beautiful one with clear skies, but we wouldn’t be here to enjoy it.

“Wow. Are you sure you can fly this thing?” Magnus asked.

“I’m Air Force. Of course I can,” she said with a smirk. She was sexy when she went all cocky like that. She tapped a button and told us it was for communication. Magnus settled into the seat and held it down.

“Nat, Teelon, we’re ready to fly the coop. Are you guys good? Over.”

There was no crackle, just a clear, crisp voice. “We’re good. Follow us up. We’ll lead the way.”

The smaller ship hovered above us and soon we were jutting after it. The ride was a little bumpy.

“Well, I said I can fly it. Just takes a while to get used to the thrusters. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. No visible exhaust points… it’s almost like there are little thrusters all around the ship, so you can hover and move any direction, with more accuracy than a helicopter. It’s amazing,” Mary said, excited.

We rose up and the land below us got smaller and smaller.

“I always wanted to become an astronaut someday. I know it sounds silly, but a lot of them come from an Air Force background. I didn’t have the required degree to make the switch, but it had always been an idea I’d had. That maybe one day I would go back to school. The government would pay for it. Then I’d apply with NASA.”

“Well, now you get to do something even better. Fly in space and save the world. That’s all in a day’s work for Mary Lafontaine.” I could tell she smiled when I said this just by the movement of the back of her head.

We rose higher and higher, picking up speed as we went.

“Why are they going to just let us board again?” Magnus asked.

“Teelon used their communicators from the ship and told them there was an issue with the device being shut down. That the three Kraski were coming back because they were exposed to it and needed medical attention. He’s sure they’ll send another ship or two down to investigate things, but by that time, we’ll have dealt with them.”

“They must really think Teelon’s people are docile if they let them roam around in their own ships,” I suggested.

“From the sounds of it, they’ve been playing at being weak for centuries, waiting for the right moment to strike. You show your belly to a predator for enough years, they forget that you also have teeth. I’m just glad they decided to show them when humanity needed it,” Mary said.

“I wonder how many of his people are aboard that ship. And will they all help when the Kraski are down?” Magnus asked no one in particular.

“Let’s just hope they do. First things first, we have to stop them, then save our people. Then we can worry about what happens after that.” I believed the words as I said them. It was all too overwhelming if we thought too far into the future. We’d been led to believe all we had to do was shut this thing off and we would be done. After the journey halfway across the world, we had done what we’d thought was necessary. It wasn’t done. I thought about Ray, and how it was done for him. I would find his family and tell them he was a good man. That he had cared for them very deeply. I couldn’t blame him for trying what he did.

We raced through the atmosphere, and the ship jostled around a little bit. Mary kept focus, and she let out a whoop as we broke out and into the blackness of space. My jaw fell open as I saw Earth from above for the first time. It was a moment I knew I’d never forget, but I’d been having a lot of those lately. Magnus looked back at me and smiled. “Now that’s something you don’t see every day!”

We followed the smaller ship away from Earth. I had no idea what direction we were heading because to me, that all went out the window in three-dimensional mapping. They sat, and I stood in silence as Mary navigated us a safe distance behind them. I didn’t know how far out the so-called “mother ship” would be, but for some reason, I had expected it to be closer than the moon. I also had no idea how fast we were going. There was nothing for me to gauge this against, and it wasn’t like I could read the speedometer.

I took the time to look around the ship a bit as we rode through space. Carey followed behind, nose sniffing rapidly at everything. They must have had something to create artificial gravity, because I stepped along the floor with my feet firmly planted on it. It felt a little lighter than Earth, and I tested it with a small hop. I was sure I had a little longer hang time than I would on the surface at home. The ship was plain, with metal walls and floors. Nothing decorated it; everything appeared to be about function, not fashion. To the left of the cockpit there was a small room with two bunks in it. They had shiny silver bedding. I felt it between my hands and the material was softer than anything I’d touched before. They were so similar to us, yet so different.

I pictured one of the pale humanoid aliens sleeping here only a day before, and it struck me that we were about to kill a lot of them. I knew we were just defending ourselves, but the idea of genocide of that level… of any level… was going to be tough to do lightly. They were Janine’s people. Well, partly her people. She was a hybrid, after all. It was hard to feel for them, since they’d taken our entire population and we still didn’t know where they were.

Next to that room was another identical one, then what must have been a washroom, though I hadn’t the vaguest idea how anything inside it would work. Maybe it was engineering, not a bathroom.

I made my way to the front of the ship as the moon sailed by us through the viewscreen.

“That was amazing,” Mary said quietly, hands still firmly on the controls.

“How much further do you think we have to go?” I asked, hoping she had an idea.

“Let me ask,” Magnus said. “Teelon, do you know what our estimated time of arrival is? Over.”

“We should be able to view the mother ship soon. Don’t be alarmed when you see it. We mustn’t seem out of place. When they try to communicate, signal me and I’ll reply through our connected systems. Over.”

It was only a few minutes before it came into our sight. It was tiny at first, but I had no idea how far away it was. The closer we got, the larger it started to get. Soon we spotted two ships coming toward us. My heart hammered as they approached. Mary said they couldn’t see through our viewscreen, and I hoped she was right. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see? Three humans coming at them, jaws hanging to the ground.

The communicator buzzed, and we heard a strange language come through the smooth speakers. Magnus buzzed Teelon, who proceeded to reply in their language. He must have been disguising his voice as one of the sick Kraskis, because it didn’t sound much like his usual monotone self. They spun around us and flanked us on either side.

“I guess we get an escort in,” Mary said.

“Teelon was hoping most of the fleet was in the hangars on their main ship. Less to deal with afterwards,” I said, scanning the space for signs of more ships.

The massive Kraski ship grew immensely as we closed in, though I still had no idea how big it must have been. I tried to do the math, thinking about the thousands of ships that had hovered over Earth, then the huge black cubes that had lowered, taking all the humans with them. That was a lot of ships and a lot of space to hold all of those people. Where were the cubes now? A ship to house the Kraski along with their fleet would be astronomical in size. I figured we would be making it to a docking station in a few minutes, but it turned out to be closer to forty minutes. Forty minutes of us nervously talking as the unbelievably huge ship took over our viewscreen.

“We’ll be arriving shortly. I told them we came along as an escort for the Kraski on board your ship. The device’s potency almost killed you all. I think they bought it, but they’ll be arriving on Earth soon with their backup ships. It’s only a matter of minutes before they find out the truth. If the ships beside you do anything odd, you have to make for the blinking green lights at two o’clock from here. Mary, do you understand?”

She pressed the comm-button and said she did. I really hoped it didn’t come to that. The last couple minutes went by as we sat there sweating bullets.

“Are we sure we thought this through? I mean… what if it doesn’t work?” I asked.

Magnus looked back at me, his eyes hard as steel. “It has to, my friend. It’s the only shot we have.”

Word must not have gotten back to them from back on Earth, because everything was still smooth sailing. The Kraski home ship was smooth on the outside and shaped much like a rounded rectangle. A panel slid open into a hangar; it wouldn’t even have been noticeable from a few miles away, the ship was so large compared to us. As we neared the slit to enter, the ships beside us turned and tried to get in between Teelon’s ship and the hangar. Before we knew what was going on, Teelon veered left and up, red beams firing from his ship at the guides. The first shot glanced off some sort of force field on the ship, and so did the second, but the third in quick succession made it through and the enemy exploded into a million pieces in front of us. The second ship chased after Teelon, its own red beams firing quickly.

Magnus tensed, but spoke calmly to Mary. “Honey, get inside this ship and beam me down. As fast as you can!”

The ship jerked around as she tried to slow it down and avoid any debris still floating nearby from the explosion. Red lights flashed all around us now, and a blaring alarm rang as we came up to the hangar. The door that had opened to let us in as friends only a few minutes before was now trying to close on us, to keep us out. Mary clipped the bottom of the ship on it, but we made it through, crashing into at least five of the hovering ships inside.

“Teelon said we need to get this thing out of the ship! Something about the ships having a little immunity to pulse or some crap. Inside here there’s no protection from it. These purebred will wither away! Mary, stay here and wait for us. I have a feeling we’re going to need a quick exit!” Magnus was yelling as he ran down the hall to the transport room.

I followed him, and when we had the device in our arms, we hit the buttons on our collars. The green light surrounded us and we lowered through the ship and down toward the smooth floor of the hangar. The Shield we held hummed as we neared the ground, and we set it down, standing behind it. A door hissed open across the room from us and someone tumbled down the stairs. It was a Kraski; green vomit came from its mouth and it stopped moving. More poured into the room, all reacting the same way.

“Do we just stay here? This ship is huge. Didn’t Teelon say something about a hall?” I asked, knowing Magnus wouldn’t have the answer.

“Let’s stay put for now,” he said, pulling his gun out. We moved behind some crates, and found a wall lined with armor and weapons. “Can’t hurt,” he said, and threw a vest over his chest. He also grabbed one of the guns he’d tested on Earth, slung it over his shoulder, and passed me one.

Another door opened and more Kraski came in. They all died in seconds. Word would get out what was here, and they’d retaliate. We had to think of something.

“We need to get out of here before they open that door, and remove the barrier field to space. For all we know, we go flying along with that shield into oblivion.” His logic was sound. I threw one of the vests on, and a helmet for good measure. It almost fit. It was creepy how similar our two races were.

It was hard to see in the room, with the red lights flashing and the alarms blaring in our ears. I let Magnus take the lead, and he crossed from storage unit to storage unit so smoothly that it would have been hard to spot him if you were watching from either of the entrances. I tried to do my best impression of him and almost tripped a couple times.

“We need to get to the center of this ship. Teelon said there would be levels within levels on here, like ventilation ducting, only larger. I guess every few floors has space for Teelon’s people to get around, out of sight of the Kraski,” Magnus said, back pressed against the far metal wall. I had to ram my ear right up to his mouth to even hear him over the noise.

“We just have to find one of them!” I called back as a few more pale aliens entered the room and fell to their deaths, spewing the green mucus as their bodies gave out. I felt the urge to spew myself, but fought it and spotted something twenty feet across, on the opposite wall. We would have to pass by the doorway, but from the looks of things, the Kraski weren’t going to have much time to fire on us before they would expire in proximity to this thing. Even now, the furthest of them on the ship would be weakening. Janine had lasted years on Earth, but she was mostly human, and thousands of miles from the thing. Up here, they had no chance. But the longer we waited, the bigger the chance of something messing up.

“Over here! The rest of the wall is smooth, but that part isn’t. Looks like a vent… and large enough to get through,” I yelled to his ear. Magnus nodded, took a moment to think, and ran out, firing the gun he’d pilfered. The red beam blew a hole in the wall three feet across and we could see a dimly-lit passageway beyond.

“Let’s grab the Shield and head down the tube,” he said. “And hope it leads us near the center somewhere.”

We rushed back near the ship, grunted as we lifted the heavy device, and made for the hall as fast as we could. One of the Kraski fired at us from the entrance, creating a crater in the floor in front of us. He died right after, and we narrowly missed hitting the hole. Once back on balance, we entered the opening Magnus had blasted and kept moving.

“Maybe such an obvious escape wasn’t necessary,” he said.

“I think we’re committed now. They know we’re here. I just hope if this all goes well, that we can find out way back to Mary. You don’t have any bread crumbs, do you?” I asked.

Magnus slowed and shifted the Shield so he was only holding on with his right hand. With his left, he drew his knife. “No, I don’t have any bread, but I do have pants.” He lifted his leg and cut his right pant leg below the knee. I took the full weight of the device for a minute and was amazed that Magnus was able to walk with it alone. My knees almost buckled at the weight of the thing. He hurried, and soon he was dropping a small piece of cloth in the hall. “Just like Hansel and Gretel, hey, Dean? Let’s just hope there’s no witch at the end of this tunnel.” I almost laughed but couldn’t. Not yet.

We kept moving, and since we hadn’t shifted direction, we knew we must still be heading toward the interior. “How big do you think this ship is?”

Magnus’ face scrunched up. “I was never the mathematical type. We had that guy in the crew, though. His name was Otter. He could look at anything from any distance and know the size of it. To be honest, I think he may have had magical powers.”

“Why did you call him Otter?”

“He swam really well. What do you think?”

I didn’t reply and couldn’t tell if Magnus was just having fun with me or not. I couldn’t believe how calm he was, but then again, he had probably been through countless terrible situations in his line of work. What was the big deal? Just invading an alien mother ship with a device that would kill them all.

“I think I heard Teelon say there were about thirty hangars along the sidewall. The ships hover in them, and I would say that room was about eighty feet high. At minimum, this ship is twenty-four hundred feet. I would say closer to three thousand, accounting for the floors between each hangar, and the space above and below the top and bottom hangars. We’re looking at a mile tall. It looked at least twice as long as it was high, so a couple miles wide. As for depth, I would just throw a guess at close to a mile as well. We only have to take this thing half a mile.” I had no idea as to the accuracy of my guess, but I knew we were close to that target.

The hall was about eight feet across. Unlike the floor on the ships and the hangar, it was a metal grate-like composition. There were dim white lights illuminating as we moved on, then turning off as we passed by. It reminded me of those fancy grocery stores we’d gotten last year with the occupancy-sensor freezer section. A routine task like grocery shopping seemed a lifetime ago at that moment, and I wondered if there was ever any going back to that life after all of this.

My back was killing me as we trudged this thing down the hall. Soon we stopped and set it down. We stood back to back with it between our legs, and we held our newfound guns up in front of us. Alarms still blared from all directions, but the floor and walls muted the noise down here.

“What happens now? This ship is big, but there’s no way everyone from Earth is on here. Where are those massive vessels? Teelon didn’t seem to share much about what we do after this,” I said, nervously waiting for something bad to come down the hall.

“I’m not sure. Didn’t you mention Vanessa told you a story about the Kraski and her people? What did she say happened to them?”

“I couldn’t trust her; she was saying she was from the race abducted thousands of years ago. They kept five percent and killed the rest. How they achieved that, I don’t know. I have a feeling she was just retelling Teelon’s people’s story for sympathy.”

“If they were beamed out, for all we know, they took our people away, or to another planet,” he said.

He was right, but I didn’t think it was going to be that complicated. I just hoped we weren’t too late.

We stood like that until my arms got tired and my leg started to cramp up. I thought about Mary in the ship in the hangar and Carey sitting there with her, both of them probably sick with worry. I assumed the worst for Teelon and Natalia, out there alone. Teelon had said he would have allies here among his people, and this would double as their race’s first strike of liberation against their oppressors. Just how many were back at the Kraskis’ home world was anyone’s guess.

The machine’s constant hum slowed, and I panicked, turning to look at it. The lights on it were dimming, the noise getting softer and softer. We stared at it blankly, horrified it might be turning off and leaving us for dead in the middle of the enemy’s territory. It whirred on for a moment and then, like a flashlight running out of battery power, it stopped completely. The alarms ran on, and we could hear footsteps coming from down the hall.

TWENTY-THREE

Magnus got to his knee and held his gun up, ready to blast anyone coming at us. I moved back a ways and aimed from my feet, hoping to catch another angle. My hands shook at the anticipation of having to shoot someone else, and visions of Ray’s dying body crept into my mind. You’re a good man. You were a good friend. I could still hear him gasping his final words. I blinked quickly to clear them and felt sweat drip down my forehead. When did it get so hot?

The occupancy lights were coming on now to match the footsteps coming closer. The louder the steps, the closer the lights were getting to us. My finger shook beside the trigger, ready to pull if I had to, but scared to do it.

“Dean, Magnus!” a monotone voice called down the hall. “Teelon sent us to help you.”

We lowered our guns and Magnus fell back, resting his back on the wall. Sweat was dripping off him too, and suddenly, I didn’t feel so foolish. We were in this together.

“Did we win? Are we good?” I said as they approached. They looked like the twins, no visible hair, and plain jump suits on.

A small, almost invisible smile crossed the alien’s face. “They are all gone. We are finally liberated!” Dozens of them came down the hall and soon they were all cheering loudly. We even threw a couple whoops in with them until I remembered why we were really there.

“Where are our people?” I asked.

The cheering stopped quickly as the man speaking to us raised an arm. “Come with us. We will bring you to them. I am called Drendon, leader of the Deltra.”

We followed them back towards the hangar a way, but made a turn at some point before making it all the way back. He wouldn’t respond to any of my further prodding, only saying all would be clear soon. He praised our skills and tenacity at accomplishing something so miraculous. I was beaming as I thought about all I’d been through in the last week. I couldn’t wait to be reunited with everyone I loved. My mother was probably scared to death. I couldn’t wait to find James and see the look on his face when he found out I’d helped save them all. He would owe me beer and wings for life after all of this.

Drendon led us to a metal staircase and we followed behind, coming out in a large room. It was large and open, bright with soft white light, and computer consoles were everywhere. The bridge of this ship maybe, though I couldn’t see any viewscreen or windows. I was sure all of that was available through some sort of camera or sensor system.

“Where are they?” I asked, looking around. It would be hard to hide seven billion people.

Drendon went to a computer screen on the wall and swiped his hands across in a few quick movements. The wall moved and a massive screen appeared. On it were dozens of cubes, maybe as many as a hundred.

“That’s them? How do we get them back?” I asked, suddenly feeling queasy.

The camera zoomed out, and the ships shrank to a tenth their size. In the near distance, the sun roared hot. “You don’t, human.”

“You son of a bitch! What have you done?” Magnus grabbed my shirt, pulling me back, and raised his gun. I looked around and saw dozens of their weapons pointing at us. We were helpless but continued to stand resolute in the large silent room.

“In a few hours, your world’s population will be disintegrated, and we will be the sole heirs to Earth. Redemption for the centuries of oppression under the Kraski. They were so arrogant. I can’t believe it was this easy. All we had to do was convince them to come here, so many years after we planted the Kalentrek. We had been building it to protect ourselves from their imminent invasion but hadn’t finished in time.” Drendon’s thin lips curled up in a hideous smile.

“Why tell us this?” I asked, hoping to keep him talking.

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done. We orchestrated the emancipation of our race and gained a planet in doing so. Hidden away, our savior finished the Kalentrek, with every intention of freeing us from them, only he couldn’t find us. He came upon this world, planted it, and sent us a message. Centuries later, we’re finally here. We played the long game but won in the end.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. We can coexist. Just help me get our people back and let’s go back down together. We have so much we can learn from one another.” I pleaded my case.

He looked at me, head slightly turned to the side. “There is nothing you can teach us. Your race is deplorable, human.” He turned to an armed guard beside him. “Kill them.”

I tensed, knowing this was it for me. We had come so close, but not close enough. It was all an intricate game, and we had been played by both sides. As I closed my eyes, I heard someone drop beside me. Turning to the sound, I saw the guards dropping one by one. Magnus started to fire and we ran to the back of the room, ducking fire every step of the way.

“Over here!” someone yelled at us. It was Mary! She was firing volley after volley of red beams into their group, dropping them like flies. We rushed to her and Magnus turned, joining the firing frenzy. I climbed behind them and ran down the stairs and into the passageway that would lead us back to the dock.

“Let’s go!” I yelled, and soon Mary was running down the cramped cavity, I was in the middle and Magnus was bringing up the rear. We almost passed the Shield we’d left sitting in the hall and decided we might still need it. Adrenaline was the only reason Magnus and I could find the energy to haul the thing all the way back.

We made it unimpeded for a few minutes but could hear fire behind us. As we approached the bay we had landed in, one of them stepped into the entranceway and fired a shot at us. It grazed Mary’s leg, and she stumbled before firing a kill shot, dropping the alien in the doorway. We hopped over his body and ran at the ship. Pressing the buttons on our shirts, we lifted up in the green light and toward the ship’s belly, red beams shot around us, and I could swear one went right through me. Soon we were back into the sterile ship, and Carey was jumping on me, trying to lick my hands. I gave him a quick pet as we rushed to the cockpit, where Mary fired up the ship.

“There are no bays open,” I said, turning my head to the sound of laser fire pulsing against the shields.

“Hang on to your socks, boys. We’re going out with a bang.”

The ship lifted in the bay, red alarm lights flashing in our view port. She paused over some controls, and with a confident keystroke, a massive pulse shot out of the front of the ship. We hovered there as the wall to the stations crumbled and space’s vacuum sucked everything around us out. Teelon’s people floated past us, dead.

“Let’s get the hell out of here. We have no idea how many of them are around,” Mary said.

Our sensors showed green dots emerging from the massive cube behind us.

“Shit! I see at least four. I have a feeling there weren’t a lot of the Deltras on that thing. I really wish I knew if Natalia was okay. We could use her help right about now, if Teelon didn’t harm her.” I stood behind the pilot’s seat trying to hide my adrenaline-riddled shaking hands.

“We do what we have to do, gents,” Mary said as our ship lurched to the side. She let out a yell and started firing at the Deltras. Their shields held for the first few blasts, but with her unpredictable pattern of shots, three of them exploded and burned out in quick order. Mary raced past a cluster of four ships, firing in all directions as she did. One of the ships just went dark and floated there, while the others chased after her, firing shots at us. We took a few, but she also evaded many, red pulses continuing on past our front view port.

“Bogey coming up quickly from our left!” Magnus called, sitting down beside Mary. He took over the weapons as she spun through space, like a bat out of hell. Meat Loaf’s song raced through my mind as another ship was destroyed. I felt like I was holding my breath, and gasped when I saw a couple more green lights appear on our screen.

“There’s more of them.” I knew Mary was good but didn’t see how we could possibly get out of this.

“We don’t have much of a choice. Their ships are the same, and I’ve no idea if this Kraski one is any faster than their smaller ships. There’s no running.” She gave a quick glance back at me. “We stand here, for all of humanity.”

I almost laughed at the cheesy line, but she was right. The Deltras that we had been fighting had eased off and limped back behind the fresh ships coming in. There were five in total, and I hoped that was it for their fleet. We were only one.

Mary eased the ship forward as they began approaching, red beams firing at us. The strangest thing happened. One of the ships in their cluster exploded and took two others down with it.

“What was that?” Magnus asked.

Mary had taken the controls back, saying she’d be more in sync with where she was going and would be more accurate. She ignored him and fired away, cutting down another.

We took another shot and red lights flared up inside our cockpit. That was a severe shot… our shields weren’t going to last. This was it for us.

Then we saw one of their own ships in the back firing away at them, two more exploding before they turned and fired back. With their rears open, Mary fired a volley of shots at them, flying over top. Between us and the ship that was helping us, we finished them off once and for all.

We cheered and I threw a fist pump into the air.

“Mary, you’re amazing!” I yelled to her through the cacophony of screeching sirens and celebration.

We looked at the ship still left floating out there, and I felt my pulse race with uncertainty. Magnus hit the comm-speaker and we went quiet. He found the alarm silencer, and the room was eerily still for a moment. “Nat? Nat, tell me that’s you, babe,” he said into the speaker.

For the first time, she spoke, accent thick. “It’s me, Magnus. It’s me.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Tears flowed down the big man’s face openly, and he laughed as he sobbed. Mary put her arm around his shoulder and he leaned in.

“How… what happened?” I asked through the comm.

There was a pause, and her voice poured through at us, crisp Russian accent marking her long-hidden words. “Teelon has died. He’s succumbed to his wound from Earth. He didn’t betray his people, but I felt something was off. He staggered away when we arrived, lay on a bed, and avoided me. I had to speak to ask him questions. He seemed quite surprised by my voice. He was in pain, and I saw a small mask in his hand. He took a last look at me, said ‘I’m sorry,’ and took a deep breath in the mask – his last breath.”

I stood there in silence, still trying to wrap my head around Natalia speaking. Magnus just nodded slowly.

“They turned on us, Nat. The bastards all used us. The Kraski thought some alien race built the Shield to stop them from coming, but it was the Deltra the whole time. They both just wanted to kill us all. Are you okay?” Worry crept out of his voice in thick droves.

“Da, I’m okay, Magnus,” she said softly. “It was time anyway.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Magnus just nodded again. I checked the scanner, and there were no green blips anywhere. I hoped they didn’t have another force out there waiting to trap and destroy us. “I think we should get out of here.”

Mary turned back to me and smiled. “Not until we do something to the bastards that did all of this.” She flew toward the huge Kraski vessel and fired at it without mercy. Natalia duplicated her pattern a few hundred yards beside us. They did a full loop and repeated it on the other sides of the vessel. Fire erupted all over the place, and by the time we sped off toward the sun, I knew their huge vessel wasn’t going to be in one piece for too long. So much for the invasion. I wondered if there were some Kraski ships still flying around on Earth, but knew I had to focus on the task at hand first.

“What are our options?” I asked.

“We sit here and do nothing. We go home, and the four of us restart the world’s population,” Mary paused and gave me a sly look, “or we fly to the sun and try to save our people.”

“I vote sun,” Magnus said quickly.

“Sun.”

Carey jumped up on my legs and let out a bark.

“Then it’s settled, gang.” Mary had the frequency open to the smaller ship, where Natalia was alone with a dead alien. “Let’s go get them back!”

We began flying toward the sun in the distance.

“Do you think these things have a warp drive or something?” I asked.

“I have no idea how fast this thing can actually go. Teelon did say there was a hyperdrive built in, but the details from the data transfer were unclear on this part.”

Natalia’s voice poured through the comm. “I think the control to the left of the throttle, for lack of a better word, might be it. I pressed it when I circled back to catch up to the ships and to sneak around them. Stars blurred for a brief second and I was a thousand yards closer.”

“I’m worried that we press it and end up hitting an asteroid, or an old satellite. Maybe I can’t come out in time and we run into the sun. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. This must be part of the download that didn’t transfer,” Mary said.

I remembered the image of the huge containers full of humans, approaching the burning heat of the sun, and knew we didn’t have time to fly there. It took us long enough to get to the Kraski ship from Earth, and this was much farther.

“I think we have to try. Mary, what if we frog-hop?” I said, thinking of the frogs from the swamp near our farm growing up.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What if we press and release, doing small jumps like Natalia did, as we’re flying at full speed? We could avoid any debris that shows up on the sensors. We can probably make much better time.” I was an accountant, not a physicist, but the logic made sense to me.

“Da. I think it will work,” Natalia said from the other ship.

“Let’s give it a test and see what we’re working with. Nat, stay a few hundred yards beside and a way back, so we don’t cross each other’s paths out here.” Our ship accelerated as Mary urged it to full speed. “I’m going to press and release and see what happens.”

The ship lurched forward, but by the miracle of the Kraski technology, my feet stayed planted and I didn’t even move back from inertia. It was astounding. For a moment, the view port was lined with stars, and I wanted to say a cheesy line from my favorite childhood sci-fi TV show.

Just as fast as it happened, we slowed and were running at regular speed. From the sensor map, we could tell that Natalia was a few miles behind us. She jumped and her icon flickered, reappearing much closer to us.

“I’d say it works,” Natalia said.

Magnus stood and stretched. “Let’s hightail it and get there before it’s too late.”

I put my hands on Mary’s shoulders and gave them a light squeeze. “I’m going to go get my pack and see if there’s anything in the way of food.” Carey’s ears perked up at this. “I’ll also see if there’s anything else we might be able to use. We have no idea what we’ll be up against when we arrive.”

Mary reached up and squeezed my left hand. “Sounds good. I’ll keep frog-hopping along. Nat, let’s do this.” The stars lurched again, this time for a slightly longer period. I turned and headed out of the room, into the small bunk room. I searched the compartments on the wall and found some Kraski clothing. It was much too large for me to wear and had a strange odor to it, unlike anything I could really describe. I pictured the Kraski we’d seen for brief moments as they died. Pale, bald, beady black eyes; a genocidal species. They’d killed the Deltra without guilt, it appeared, and if I was to believe anything Teelon had said, then they had killed many other races out there too. Earth was just another on their list of conquests.

I almost didn’t blame the Deltra for what they’d attempted. It was a smart plan, after all. Convincing the Kraski to come to Earth, knowing that the device that would save them was hidden away. I wondered how many of them had perished trying to find Earth and escape the clutches of the Kraski before giving up and lying docile for centuries, waiting for the perfect moment. I also thought of Janine’s big heart. She was probably convinced to help the Deltra. I knew she wouldn’t be able to ignore an injustice to a race like that. I also doubted they’d told her the whole plan about killing off the human race.

I found nothing I could realistically use in there, so I continued down the hall. I approached one of the doors and the components hissed as the door slid to the side, opening quickly. The lights came on softly as I stepped into the room. I smiled as I saw the suits hanging in what could only be called a locker room. There was unintelligible script above each of the three suits; their names, I figured. I checked the cubbies and found what appeared to be a winch-style rope, made of a linked metal. The links were tiny and heavily interwoven together. I tugged at it and wondered how much weight it could handle. There were also hand-held thrusters, and ones you strapped to yourself. Most likely this was all for space walks, for repairs, or for getting to other vessels.

I moved on to the main cargo room we’d entered in. Carey followed beside me and barked when he saw my pack sitting there. I rummaged through it and found some food tucked away, apples and granola bars. My stomach almost ached as much from worry and stress as from hunger at this point. Ripping open a bar wrapper, I told Carey to sit and gave him a piece off it, checking first that there was no chocolate in the ingredients. I thought about his owner, Susan, and wondered what she’d think of her little buddy trekking around trying to save the Earth. I took a bite and gave him another piece.

A couple of water bottles sat there, and I opened one. With nothing else to pour it in, I took a deep drink and let him drink from the bottle top. Dog germs were the least of my concern. We sat there, my back against the shiny metal wall, him right beside me. I gave him some much needed attention and just talked to him for a bit. I knew if this ever ended and we succeeded, that it was going to be hard for me to give Carey back to Susan. But I would. At least I could see him all the time; I did live next door to them.

Would I really stay there, though? After all of this – the house I lived in with Janine? I doubted it. A fresh start would do me good. And then there was Mary. Maybe there was a future there.

Thinking of her, I realized they must be starving too.

“Come on, buddy,” I said as I got to my feet, “let’s go share our plunder.” He followed me, happily wagging his tail.

“I found some Kraski space suits down there. There are a few weapons, and some lanyards and rope for safety. Never go on a space walk without one. How’s progress?” I asked.

Magnus was walking around the room and accepted a granola bar that I handed to him.

“We’re going along quite fast. I’m using the hyperdrive, or whatever you want to call it, for periods of thirty seconds now. Our scanners seem to be aware of any space debris at a range of twenty thousand miles, so as long as I have my hands on the controls, I have enough time to react. So far, I’ve only had to stop and move around some floating rock twice. At thirty seconds, with full speed, we’re travelling fifty thousand miles.” Mary took the water bottle I handed out and took a deep drink.

I did the math in my head. “From what I know from school, we’re almost one hundred million miles from the sun. At that speed, we should be there in seventeen hours.”

Magnus piped up. “If the sensors are telling us of danger ahead, can’t we just stop skipping and keep going at full hyperdrive?”

Mary took a moment with this. “Nat, what do you think?”

A voice spoke back from the ship following behind us. “Da, that should be safe. I think we’ll actually go faster that way too. The ship appears to hit maximum performance at around twenty seconds, and we’re only doing top speed for ten each hop.”

I thought about this and the math gave me hope we might reach them in time. “If that’s true, we’ll most likely be there two-thirds faster! We might be able to save them!”

“Let’s give it a try. I’m not sure if I have seven hours left in me with no sleep. I honestly don’t know the last time I closed my eyes for more than a second,” Mary said.

We were all feeling the events of the past week on us, and the severe lack of sleep wasn’t helping the pressure we were under. Magnus sat down beside Mary and watched what she was doing closely.

“I can fly this thing, I think. Just tell me everything. I’ve pretty much driven any kind of vehicle out there. Nat did all the flying when we needed it, though. Isn’t that right, my little Russian princess?”

Laughter came through the speakers. “There was that one time you took over the helicopter, remember? I’d been shot through the glass and was bleeding all over the seats. You told me to be careful because it was a rental.”

I didn’t know what had changed in Natalia to make her talk, but I was glad for it. Her past had obviously caused her a lot of trauma and pain, but I was glad she was with us, even if it was in another ship. I could also tell Magnus thought of her as more than his little sister, judging by the way his eyes lit up every time she spoke. He was laughing now at their little shared memory, and I thought I saw a tear roll down his cheek before he wiped it away.

“Okay, Mary. Teach me everything I need to know so you two can go get some rest before whatever it is we’re heading into.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The bunks were long and narrow, to accommodate the Kraskis’ bodies. What I really needed was some sleep, but lying in the small room with Mary on the bed a few feet away made me realize I probably needed a shower just as badly.

Carey was on the floor beside me on his side, snoring away lightly. Mary’s eyes were closed, but I didn’t think she was out yet. “Do you think they knew about the Kraskis’ plan to kill everyone?” she asked, eyes still closed.

“Janine and Bob were born out of test tubes and brainwashed by the Kraski to do their bidding. I think all they knew was there was a device on Earth that would stop their parents, or whatever they thought of them as, from coming and finding a safe home to live. Even if they knew that humans were going to be destroyed, could you really blame them anyway?”

She opened her eyes and looked across the small room at me. “I don’t think so, but it’s just hard to think of Bob without being angry, and a little sad for him at the same time.”

“I know what you mean. Janine had evidently changed sides and worked with the Deltra. I like to think she had a soft spot and that they swayed her with stories of Kraski killing whole species and invading other worlds. It also makes me wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t turned, if she hadn’t met me, if she’d gone on that first date all those years ago in the Boathouse with that Army guy. Would the Kraski be on Earth right now? Would the Deltra? It almost gives me hope that we’ve twisted destiny and that everything will somehow all work out because of it.”

“It’s impossible to know. For all we know, her choosing you has set us on a path to the destruction of the human race. Maybe the other man would have foiled the whole plan and stopped them from coming in the first place.” She said this with a straight face, and for a moment, I didn’t know if she was playing or being serious, until she gave me an ear-to-ear grin. “You know there’s no way some guy could have stopped them from beaming everyone up, right?”

“Yes, I know. I just think I’m glad that I’m out here and not in a massive storage container heading to the sun. Then again, we have no idea if we’ll get there in time, or how to stop them from burning up if we do.” Carey was snoring heavily now, and his breaths were lulling my eyes closed. I don’t know if Mary was falling asleep, because in moments, I had drifted off.

I woke some time later with Carey up on the bed beside me, snuggled up close to my chest. Feeling much more rested, I swung my legs off the bed and noticed Magnus had replaced Mary on the other bunk. I quietly walked out and left Carey snoozing away with the big Swede. The door hissed lightly as it slid back closed. The hall lights flicked on when they sensed movement, and soon I was at the bridge.

“Mary, I hope you got enough sleep. How are we doing?” I asked her as she looked intently at the monitors.

“It’s been about six hours. I woke after four and tagged Magnus out. I’m glad you got to sleep for a while. It was needed and well deserved, Dean,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

“Not great, but alert enough. We’ve only had a couple times we needed to stop. I can’t believe this technology exists. This can change everything. We could get across the solar system in days. I mean, humans could travel to other systems! And we know that we aren’t alone out there now.”

“For a CPA from upstate New York, I can’t imagine being out here in the great expanse. That said, I always believed we weren’t alone. All the movies were right, though; the aliens wanted to destroy us. Is Natalia still live with us?” I could see her smaller ship as a green blip behind us.

“Da, hello, Dean,” Natalia said through the speaker.

“I’m sorry you’re all alone over there. You must be exhausted,” I said, knowing she was tough, but we all had our limits.

“I’m running on low, but I’ll be okay. I actually prefer to be alone most of the time.” Her voice was more than tired-sounding.

The sun was growing in size in the viewscreen, and I could tell the heat was drastically increasing, but the ships seemed to have automatic temperature control. Cool air emanated from multiple sources on the ship.

Stars streamed quickly by on the screen, but the massive glowing orange ball of gases stayed steady, slowly getting larger as we moved toward it. I assumed that at any point we would come across our people. With any luck, they were still here, and still alive.

“From what I understand, there’s an awful lot of radiation as we near the sun. Does this thing have any gauges on the danger?” I asked, worried we would get close and die of poisoning.

Mary touched her head where the implant had been. “Yes, according to the information we were fed on the ships, all of the ships are built to withstand almost any amount of radiation. The suits in the cargo bay as well. Seems they had some serious problems in other systems and found ways of protecting themselves.”

“Thank God. One less thing to worry about… as if we don’t have enough,” I replied, actually happy to hear I wasn’t going to die a horrible death by an invisible ray.

The ship’s sensors beeped, and Mary hopped out of hyperdrive instantly. Natalia appeared behind us on the screen. Something red came into view on the screen and we stayed back, trying to figure out what it was.

“Go get Magnus, Dean,” Mary said. I quickly ran back and woke the large, slumbering man.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Not sure. Something’s registering on the sensors. We’re only about ten million miles from the sun now. It could be them,” I said as we rushed back to the cockpit.

“What are we looking at, Mary?” Magnus asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Take a look for yourself,” Mary said quietly. I looked up and squinted at it. The view screen had an auto-tint to protect us from the sun’s burning glow. Sitting in the middle of our view was a large rectangular box, like the ones that had lowered into Earth’s atmosphere. It looked much like the Kraskis’ mother ship, but less square and much smaller, though still quite large if my depth perception was making any sense out here.

“Is there just one? The image the Deltra showed us had at least a hundred of them out there.” My voice came out gravelly, and I took a mostly dry swallow.

“That’s all the sensors show. Nat, what do you think? Any chance this is a trap?” Magnus asked.

“I don’t think so. Want me to go in for a closer look?” she replied, full of confidence.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but what choice do we have?” Mary said. “Let’s move in. I wish we knew if there was a way to scan for life signs, but there’s no instruction manual. And let’s face it, if there was, we wouldn’t be able to read it.”

My heart raced as I thought of the people that might be in that container. Would they have oxygen? Could we save them somehow and still make it to the others and stop them too? People could survive up to a week without water, Mary had told me. We were there now. Most would perish well before that.

“How the hell are we even going to find out if they’re in there?” Magnus asked.

“I have an idea. We’re going to have to get close. Really close.” I had no clue if my idea would work, but I didn’t really see any other options. I ran to the locker room and picked the smallest suit. I truly hoped the air levels would be suitable for humans, or else this would be a short trip. I started to pull it on, and Magnus walked in.

“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard… and I once walked through a minefield wearing nothing but my boots,” he said with a smile.

“I’m going to coax that story out of you over a beer, but for now, suit up.”

“This thing is loose even on me. And you look like a little kid putting on daddy’s pants. Imagine the looks we’ll get if this plan works. We look ridiculous. Come to think of it, I’d better use the bathroom, or whatever that strange room is over there.”

“I’ve used it. No way to flush,” I said.

I scooped up the metallic rope rolls and attached one side of the first roll to my suit’s belt. The suit was surprisingly light, nothing at all like the space suits from our Apollo missions on the moon, from what I remembered from the old documentaries about them. Magnus came back in and I hooked his rope to the suit and passed him the helmet.

“I’ll try it first.” I put the dome over my head and it clicked in, mechanical clasps auto-connecting it to the suit. The helmet was dark, but a clear square appeared in front of my face, giving me crystal-clear vision out of it. It had a small grid layout in light green lines. I looked at Magnus, laughing at the sight. Here was the massive man in a silver alien space suit, sleeves bunched up so his hands would fit into the gloves of the long arms. As I put my own hands into the gloves, I realized there was only room for four digits in there. Luckily, their hands were larger, and my two middle fingers easily fit into one space.

“Nothing more of a reminder that we’re in an alien’s suit than a four-digit glove, hey?” I said, my voice cutting out in the small helmet.

“You got it. I can hear you in the helmet, so I guess we’ll be able to communicate, at least. Good thing these guys weren’t telekinetic or something, I only know a bit of sign language.” From the smirk he gave me, I had the feeling he just knew the dirty words. “Do you really think this can work?” he asked.

I didn’t know, but we had to try, and it was the only thing I could think of that gave us a shot at saving everyone. I decided to be the positive one and told him I did think it would work. He clapped me on the shoulder, and we grabbed the handheld thrusters and strapped them to our wrists. Soon we walked to the cargo bay we’d first entered the ship in.

Mary stood there watching us. Her face had never looked more serious.

“I see the air is breathable?” she asked and I nodded. “Good. I’m twenty feet over the container. I’m going to move in closer to land on it. You know what to do then. I’ll yell at you when you’re good to go.”

Magnus grabbed his metal-linked rope and clasped the other end to a firm-looking anchor point in the bay. There were three, side by side, and they had to be made for this purpose… I hoped. I clasped in beside him and pulled on it a few times to make sure it was secure.

I knew Mary was worried and had every right to be. I was petrified, but at the same time, relieved to finally be nearing the end, one way or another. Taking her hands in my alien space suit gloves, I looked her in the eye. “We’ll be back shortly. Hopefully, we’ll have good news.” I found the helmet’s release, and it hissed open. Cradling it under my arm, I leaned in and kissed her deeply. My inevitable bad breath, and any other thoughts, pushed down below and I opened myself up to just being with her for a moment. She kissed me back, not with a fervent passion, but with a soft, caring effort that left my knees weak and my heart pounding. I almost didn’t hear Magnus clear his throat, and I’m sure I turned a little red as Mary leaned back and smiled at me. “Just come back to me,” she said, and turned to walk to the cockpit.

“Well, well, well. Looks like we have ourselves an old-fashioned love connection.” Magnus grinned ear to ear in his helmet. I donned mine once again and walked to the center of the room. We’d moved our pinned buttons to the outside of the suits, mounting them on a loose pocket on the breast. For good measure, we also each strapped one of the Kraskis’ powerful guns to our backs. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us out there.

My heart pounded and a bead of sweat ran down my back as I waited for the word from Mary. I was about to willingly alter my matter to get to the container. The idea that I might materialize half in the container, or that the rope wouldn’t come with me and I would float out there forever, crossed my mind as she called to us, telling us it was time.

Magnus, looking as calm as ever, pushed his button and was enveloped in a green light. Following suit, we both glowed as we used a rail above us to push down gently. I didn’t feel my legs moving through the ship wall, but soon I was neck deep in ship and after a quick eye closing and opening, I was out in space. Then, just as quickly, I was entering the huge black container, rope still firmly in place. We entered into a small room with dim lights on each wall. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust – then I saw the bodies.

The room was about thirty feet square, and maybe a hundred people lay on the floor, unmoving. I knelt down to the nearest person, and saw her chest rising and falling slowly. She was alive!

“Magnus, she’s alive! Check the others! Are any of you awake? It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” I called out. A few people moved around along the wall, and one of them hesitantly stood up.

“It can’t be,” the skinny man said. “We’re dead, don’t you see?” He stumbled forward, stepping on some unmoving bodies to get to us.

“No, you’re not. We’re human like you. Here to save you.” I gripped him as he stood in front of me. His face was gaunt, and dozens of others were slowly getting to their feet. Some stayed unmoving, and I feared the worst for them.

There was a door at the far end of the space; Magnus was already moving for it. It hissed open, sliding to the left, and he motioned with his hands for me to follow.

“We’ll be back. Does anyone know if there’s a control room or something with computers in this thing?” No one answered. I breathed deeply and felt the cool, fresh air hit my lungs. Guilt hit me right in the gut seeing these struggling people, dead or near death, and here I was with full oxygen. I needed to have it so I could help them, though.

Magnus waved me forward from the next room. Dim lights flickered softly as I stepped over and around countless people. I wanted to stop and check on them, but I knew that we needed to keep moving.

“Everything seems to happen at the center of the Kraskis’ cubes, so let’s make a line for the middle of this thing. And do it fast. There might be some air control – maybe thrusters or something,” Magnus said.

We moved past countless thousands of humans, all piled on the floors in the dozens of rooms we went through. There were hallways every few rooms deep, like they made these containers just for storage and only needed limited access to them.

“Should we hit the middle of this cube, like on the mother ship?” I asked.

“I think you have the right idea. Let’s hit these stairwells and climb our way up.” Magnus walked up to the door, and it slid open for him. We could now tell the stairwell markers on the doors, because they had a small image of a ladder on them. Pretty universal. We climbed for what we assumed was halfway, and after a few minutes, we took one of the hallways and followed it a while before it intersected with another hall going perpendicular to it.

“If I remember anything from old shoot-em-up games, you see a path like this, you follow it to the big bad guys,” I said, remembering my days playing Doom in my parents’ basement.

I tried to forget about the other containers just like this one, filled with people and heading for the power of the sun as we were walking around this one. It felt so hopeless, but we had to try our best. I wished we had a radio right now so we could check in with Natalia and Mary and let them know we were okay. I heard something coming from down the hall and turned, straining to hear it through my suit.

“Wait!” a pleading voice called. A thin woman struggled toward us, her clothing smudged and stained. Magnus stood firm, holding his gun, and watched the other end of the hall.

“They’re in there… well, one level up, actually. We tried to fight them off at the start, but they shot and killed a whole room. A thousand of us dead in an instant. We’ve kept our heads down ever since.” She could barely stand.

“How many of them are there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There were at least ten that I saw. But this place is huge and we think all halls lead to the central control room. Three days in, a group tried to take over and break down the doors, but there was no way in. Most of the rooms filled with a gas early on. Some sort of sedative. It just knocked them out. They eventually just went back to wait for their deaths with the rest of us.” Her shoulders slumped forward, hair spilling over her pale face.

“I think we have a way in. What did they look like?” I asked on a hunch.

“Like you and me. Human.”

“How did you know we weren’t with them, then?” Magnus asked tensely.

“Because they all look like the same woman.”

“Hybrid clones, maybe? Makes sense. Why ship your purebreds off to die when you have already proven dispensable hybrids? The bastards.” At that moment, the guilt I had for destroying the last of the Kraski from the universe drifted away into the cosmos. “Stay back. We’re going to go in and take control of this place. Magnus, let’s double back to that stairwell and get moving. Remember how we got on the ship? I think that the technology allows us to pull through solids toward the power module of each ship. In this case, that should be through the doors upstairs.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Dean. Let’s move. Lady, you might want to find a room down the way. Can you try to gather everyone who’s well enough to fight and bring them up a flight in ten minutes? We may need the backup.” Magnus swung his gun into ready position.

The woman nodded lightly and took off down the hall. We turned to the stairwell and worked our way up a flight. Were they watching us with cameras? Did they know we were on our way to them? Maybe they were too smug and cocky to even be worried.

We exited through the sliding door out of the dimly lit stairwell, and into a hallway with softly flashing lights. It occurred to me that maybe something behind the doors at the end of the hall was pulling energy from the breaker or whatever they used on these things.

Magnus took the lead, and soon we were at the door, each standing at either side of the metal slab, guns raised. I took a moment to calm my breathing, which was getting labored as adrenaline surged through my body. I looked up to Magnus and gave him a smile that more likely looked like a grimace. The pin on my suit felt heavy this time as I readied to push it. Magnus raised three fingers and slowly lowered them one by one. At zero, we both pressed our buttons and were pulled by a soft green glow. Magnus was heading upwards, so I pushed him forward through the door; he grabbed me and dragged me through with him.

TWENTY-SIX

We let go and rolled to the ground. Well, Magnus rolled and I kind of flopped, but I quickly recovered to my feet. They hadn’t been expecting us, so our fire took them a few of them down in a hurry. We didn’t have time to think or to feel bad about killing them anymore. We had to save everyone before they ran out of air or burned up in the sun. It was them or us. We kept firing in the open room, and soon there were at least a dozen of them on the ground. Magnus moved left and I went right, each of us attempting to clear a side of the engineering room. It was a large space with glowing pillars and metal everywhere. The floors were a metallic grate much like the rest of the container, and the pillars gave a lot of places for someone to hide.

Something moved ahead, and I paused, motioning to Magnus to stop too. He covered me, pointing his gun in the direction of the noise. I stepped lightly over to the pulsing power source and raised my gun. “Step out!” I yelled.

Before I could act, I heard a foot plant down on the metal flooring behind me. I cursed as I spun to see my wife pointing a gun at me. “It’s too late,” she said, her voice unmistakably Janine’s. “We have won, and your planet is ours. Why bother fighting us?”

We stood in a stalemate, pointing guns at each other. I’m sure my jaw was hanging open as my brain tried to understand what it was seeing. “Janine?” I asked quietly, knowing it wasn’t really her. I scanned the bodies on the floor, holes torn through them from our blasters. They were all her. Janine’s dead face looked at me from a few yards away.

“Thing is, we didn’t lose. The Kraski are dead. All of them.” I gauged her reaction and saw her eyes go wide.

“That’s impossible. They couldn’t have been defeated. That would mean…” Realization crossed over her face. “You brought it up to them? Then we were betra–” A beam cut her down before she could finish her thought, but from behind me, not from Magnus.

“I’m going to come out and lower my weapon. Don’t fire. I’m here to help you,” said another voice, identical to Janine’s.

“Be sure that you do.” Magnus appeared at my side, gun still raised.

She stepped out and, as promised, she lowered the large weapon to the floor, a heavy clink as the gun tapped the metal floor. She was wearing a black jumpsuit like all the others: a dozen Janines floating in space with me. Of all the crazy things I’d been through in the past week, this was quickly reaching the top of the list.

“You said you can help us? How?” I asked.

She smiled at me, tears forming at her eyes. It reminded me so much of my long-dead wife that I almost broke down right there. I stuffed the emotion down, thinking about the people we still had to save.

“Enough smiling! My people are going to die if you don’t hurry the hell up!” I yelled, heart racing.

Magnus set his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ve been waiting for a moment I could help but couldn’t find it. I’m the one who cut the engines in the first place so the hauler wouldn’t make it to the sun. I knew your wife, Dean. I’ve seen pictures of you. Tell me what happened, and then we can help your friends out here.” She looked straight into my eyes as she spoke. There was no looking down to the left, or nervous twitching. I wasn’t a cop, but I felt like I could trust what she was saying.

“Your creators, the Kraski, sent hybrids like yourself down to Earth a decade ago to infiltrate us, and convince us to turn that damned Shield off. Turns out their little slave race, the Deltra, were the ones who planted the thing there centuries ago, right when their planet was taken over,” I said, gauging her reaction. She twitched at the Deltra part, just enough for me to notice. “They spent the next few centuries trying to find a way to get the Kraski to come, so they could execute their plan. They became trusted enough, but somehow convinced the Kraski that they would also die by the Shield. No one could get close to it without rotting away, or at least that’s what the Kraski thought. I use the term thought because from what I understand, they’d packed up and abandoned wherever the hell they were from to take over our world and leave us for dead.”

She kept still and didn’t say anything, so I continued, my blood still pounding in my ears from all the built-up frustration of the whole scenario. “Thing is, the Deltra had plans of their own, and they stopped me on Earth to tell me they could help, and that the Kraski were bad news. We took the Shield up to the mother ship, landed, and turned the thing on, melting them all from the inside out.”

Janine’s double gasped at this, trembling slightly at first; then she crouched down, looking like she was going to be sick. “It’s true, then. They’re all gone?”

“Yeah, we killed them and flew here in Deltra and Kraski ships. Two more humans are outside now waiting on us. So what can you do to help us?” Magnus asked.

She rocked back and forth in her crouched position, but slowly stood up after a few moments. A wide smile crossed over her face and she waved us to follow her.

“Those arrogant bastards created life where it wasn’t meant to be created. Human-Kraski hybrids like me just weren’t meant to exist in the universe. Then they get us to risk our lives and die for their cause, telling us that they would live in harmony with the other half of our genetic makeup, the humans. Close to a hundred died while on Earth, some within minutes of setting foot on the planet. Each of us had a different tolerance for the Shield, and those that lasted the longest were cloned even more. Janine was one of the first to have the gene of survival, even though she died after a few years. Hence why you see so many of us fitting her description.” She was typing away at a central computer, sliding digital scales up until they turned from red to green.

I suddenly felt bad for killing them all when we entered this room. As if she read my mind, she said, “Not all of us had empathy for humans. Every one of these on the floor here were Kraski to the bone. They obeyed like the animals they were. I tried to reason with them, to tell them that what we were doing was wrong, but they wouldn’t listen. I was lucky they didn’t kill me.”

“What are you doing now?” Magnus asked.

“Turning the air back on, on all floors. We also have water and food stores. Not enough to keep everyone fed, but enough to distribute to those still alive out there. This was a one-way mission, so they didn’t give us a lot. But the Kraski had been planning on bringing their own people in these units… only that wasn’t to be.” I was still hesitant, but she wasn’t giving us a lot of reasons to not trust her at this point. And she was hinting at an even deeper conspiracy that I wasn’t ready for.

There was a pounding at the door, and I remembered asking that lady to bring people for backup. I ran over to the door and tried to open it. Nothing. “Is there a trick to this?” I yelled.

“Sorry, fingerprint recognition only.” She hurried over, and before she opened it, she extended her hand to me. It shook lightly as I clasped it. “I’m Mae. They gave us all human names.”

We shook, and I had to remind myself this wasn’t Janine, but a very convincing replica. “Dean, but I guess you knew that.”

The door slid open, and she ducked behind me as dozens of people flowed into the room, looking weak and hungry, but angry too.

I stood before them and noted that they saw the bodies on the far side of the room. “Mae here is going to help us. No one lays a hand on her.” I motioned for the woman we’d seen one floor down. “Miss. What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Alley,” she said, her gaze like steel. She would be able to help lead the survivors; I could see it in her eyes.

“Well, Alley, there’s a bit of food here, and water. Mae here will show you the storage facility. I want you to distribute it through each floor. Send some of these people to go room to room looking for doctors, nurses – hell, veterinarians… anyone who can help the sick or dying. Get a triage set up near here.” My gut sank as I thought about the lifeless bodies I’d seen in just a few rooms. “You’ll also need to set up a room for the dead. Start to separate them from the rest. Can you do that? Water first, then the rest. We’re going for everyone else. We’ll be back. Do you hear me? We will be back for you.”

She looked up at me, her brown eyes glistening. She took a gulp and nodded.

“Mae, I take it you guys had some medical supplies too?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ll show Alley the way.” Mae motioned for the other woman to follow her, and two men followed along, ready to help.

I smiled to see people still alive and ready to help each other. Magnus walked over and leaned in to my ear. “You know what people will do when they hear there’s food? I’m worried there’ll be a riot.”

He was probably right, but I had to have faith in them. I motioned for a couple of big men looming by the door. They looked like bouncers at a nightclub scanning for trouble. Perfect. I crossed the room to them. “Gentlemen. Alley will be getting some leaders together to hand out food and water and to set up a functional hospital. I need you two to get a few more men you trust, take weapons from the fallen over there” – I nodded at the bodies on the ground – “and just make sure no one does anything out of hand. People are desperate, and they’ll do anything when they’re desperate. You get what I’m saying?”

“You got it, boss,” one of them said. The other gave me a salute and it made me smile. An accountant being saluted in a metal cube in space was quite the sight. “What about that one? Isn’t she with them? Should we… dispose of her?” He said it with a twitch of his eye, like he was trying to act the role but was terrified if I’d say yes.

“She’s with us. Caught on the wrong side of the battle.” They visibly relaxed and moved on.

Alley addressed the people and was giving directions. They all eagerly listened, ready to help, with hope on their side now. People could do miraculous things with just a little hope. Mae came over carrying some food and water and tossed them in a bag, slinging it over her shoulder. She also had an EVA suit over her other shoulder; her gun still hung there too. “I’m coming with you. I’ve changed the thrusters on this thing to slow it and to make a wide turn, sending it back toward Earth. We’ll have plenty of time to get to the sun, do the same for the others, and get back to this one, at the slow speed it’s heading.”

I smiled at Alley and the group of survivors. That’s what they were now, survivors. We had no time, and I knew Mary and Natalia would be worried about us.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said. We ran through the halls, making our way back to the floor we’d arrived on. People milled around the halls now, word of help passing through the container. We urged them to help where they could and that directions were coming. Soon we were in the room we’d started in. Half the people were gone from it now, the other half dead or too weak to move. I had a new resolve to help the rest of the containers. The image we’d seen on the Kraski mother ship looked like there were about thirty of these containers out there.

We zipped our suits up, put on the masks, and clipped ourselves back on to the tethers. Hopefully, Mary was still there.

“Mae, we’re heading to a Kraski ship here. Do you have a pin?”

She looked confused until she appeared to realize I meant the button on our suits. She nodded, and we all pressed them. Glowing green, we pulled ourselves up and briefly into space as we passed through the walls and into the ship where Mary was waiting.

She was in the cargo bay waiting for us. Relief crossed her face when I looked up at her, but it quickly turned to aggression when she saw Mae with us.

“It’s okay, Mary. She’s with us now,” I said.

She came to me as I took off my helmet. Unexpectedly, she grabbed my head in her hands and leaned her forehead against mine. While our few kisses had been wonderful, this was more intimate and special. I could feel my face reddening as we shared this moment with two others standing a couple feet away from us. She pulled back and I stood there breathless for a moment.

She gave me a light kiss before letting go and blushed a little when she looked over at Magnus and Mae. “I was so worried about you. What happened down there?”

We moved to the front of the ship so Natalia could hear it too. We told them our story, and about Mae being a Kraski-human hybrid. Mary had met Janine, so I knew she was aware this woman was a spitting image of my wife, but she didn’t say a word about it. We ate a little dehydrated something from Mae’s bag and drank water. Our aching bellies needed the sustenance, and I knew it would give us enough energy to get the job done.

“I think we should get going, da?” Natalia asked from the smaller ship, through the speaker.

Magnus shifted from side to side and shrugged at me as if he’d decided something. “Nat. Bring your ship over here. I’ll do the same tether business and make my way into your ship. I think you could use the company, and if I’m being honest, I miss you. I’ll bring some food and water for you.”

She agreed, and I helped Magnus get hooked up in the cargo room. In a matter of minutes, Magnus was across and with Nat on the other ship. I was on the bridge with Mary and a clone of my dead wife, and we were accelerating for the sun. We devised a plan on the way. I sure hoped it would work.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The sun was blazing at us from the viewscreen from quite some distance. We were moving at full speed; stars in the distance didn’t quite streak as move slowly along our view. We were close to where the ships would be, according to Mae’s last intel. The last leg of the trip was upon us, and all I could do was hope that we weren’t too late. Would our plan work? It seemed the only logical move, and we’d find out very soon.

“Are you sure this ship is linked in to their communication systems?” Mary asked Mae, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at the other woman.

“Yes, the Kraski ships are all linked to the transport vessels. We’ll be upon them in moments.” Mae stepped toward the screen and pointed when multiple lights blinked up onto it.

The stars slowed in the viewscreen and I was once again amazed that we could go from super-fast to a stop and not feel the inertia at all inside. These guys had some serious engineering capabilities. All the science fiction I’d read or seen on TV had engines that required massive power sources and crash couches for the bone-breaking sudden lurches of space travel. This was nothing like that, and I was glad for it.

“Mae, we’re trusting you here,” I said as I put a tentative hand on her shoulder. My voice wavered slightly when I spoke, and I felt bad for not trusting her all the way. I wasn’t sure I would ever trust anyone fully after Janine.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about me. I want to save your people and live among them, free, instead of a slave to the Kraski.” She sat down and keyed in something to the control panel.

I tried to count the containers I saw out there and figured there were around ninety. To think there were more than seventy million people on each of those cubes was mindboggling. We figured the huge cubes were about seventy rooms wide and tall. I wondered how many of the people were still living on these things. Even if this worked, I knew the Earth would never be the same; its population would be sorely depleted.

Natalia and Magnus pulled up beside us, their smaller ship a blue blip on our screen.

“Attention, all loyal to the Kraski. The war is over and we have been ordered to return the humans to their planet. An agreement has been made for their lives. I say this with the orders from the Supreme Legislation’s full authority. Feed the oxygen back through the rooms, turn the thrusters on, and work your ways back to Earth. K53251 over.”

We waited for someone to reply, and I had to tell my brain to keep me breathing. My heart was pounding in my chest.

“Roger that, K53251. We are turning around now. N32154 over,” a voice called over the speaker.

“Roger that, K53251. We are also turning.”

Mae turned it to mute, and we all cheered loudly. Magnus was cheering and I could hear Natalia laughing. We watched as dozens of the cubes started heading toward us slowly.

“This might actually work!” Mary said excitedly.

About ten minutes later, most of the containers had changed direction, and we were ready to get help to our people. I noticed there were a few units hanging back, and at this point, they were extremely close to the sun.

“What do you think they’re waiting for?” As soon as I asked, one of them sped up and headed directly to the sun. It happened so fast that we didn’t have time to react. Just like that, a whole cube of our people snuffed up in a flare of hot orange light, hardly visible since we were so close.

A new voice cut over the comm-system. “Do not listen to these traitors. There is no way the Kraski would renege on this. This is what they lived for; Earth was their last hope. We were created to serve them, and this is our ultimate sacrifice. Let us do what we were made for, and end this!” The voice was full of venom, and Mae visibly paled.

“I know that one. He was always a bully but was more than happy to lead this endeavor.”

“What do we do now? Do they have any weapons?” Mary asked.

As if her words were a curse, a green blip appeared on our screen and headed quickly toward us.

“Yes, he had a Kraski ship, like this one. For emergencies. I think this constitutes an emergency to him,” Mae said.

Thoughts raced through my head, and I tried to make some sense out of what we were seeing here. A couple of the containers had turned around, presumably persuaded by the newcomer’s words.

“I have an idea. Natalia, you know where the guns are on that thing, right?” I asked.

“Da. Teelon showed me. I think in case the Kraski figured it out and we needed to shoot our way out of there.”

“Good. Can you lead this guy away, keep him on his toes? We need a few minutes.”

Without saying anything, Natalia’s ship raced in front of us, firing at the incoming ship. She veered off and he followed, firing on her. I silently hoped she could evade him long enough for us to succeed.

Two other containers started their thrusters to full speed and were crashing into the sun’s deadly heat. They too faded in massive flares as we sped toward the rest of them. Millions of lives snuffed out like nothing. I had to push the pain down for the time being. I would have time for mourning them later, after we saved the rest of them.

“Mary, you get in close. Mae, where are all the thrusters?” She hesitated, unsure of what I was asking. Another cube was starting to head into the sun. The ships were insulated, but beads of sweat fell down my face as we were so close to the massive burning ball of gas. Any closer, and its gravitational pull was going to drag us down. “Dammit, Mae! Where are the thrusters?”

We gained on the cube closest to us, and she directed Mary to each of the glowing thrusters. Mae took it upon herself to fire away at them, blowing them up with precision. We followed suit on the rest of the cubes nearby.

While she was firing, she called out on the open line to all of her hybrid people. “The Kraski are all dead. We are now free to do as we will. I’ve met some humans and they are more than willing to let us live side-by-side among them. Stop what you’re doing, and we can have lives for ourselves!” she called, her passion obvious to anyone listening.

The last few containers still nearing the sun stopped and turned around. I wiped my forehead and kissed the top of Mary’s head.

Our ship shook, and Carey began barking loudly as we were tossed around. Apparently, we could still get shaken up in this thing. The other Kraski ship flew by us, lasers blasting, Natalia close behind him. There wasn’t much more frightening than a gun-wielding man with nothing to lose. This was one of those things that was. Sensing his new focus, I realized what he was going to do. The beams cut into one of the nearby containers and ripped the sides to shreds. We were close enough to see people floating away by the hundreds.

Mary was already heading after him, Mae firing their weapons, hitting his shields a few times before he veered off. But his work was done, and we saw small explosions starting throughout his target.

“Mary, get the hell away from that thing!” I yelled, and as we flew down and away from it, the whole thing exploded violently. The concussion shook our ship, but we were otherwise okay. Another chunk of human lives gone. The weight of all the lives lost was pushing me down, and I felt like gravity had doubled. I thought about Ray, and Janine… the Kraski we’d destroyed – a whole race of beings. I thought about the hundreds of dead people Magnus and I had walked over to get to the center of the container we found Mae in, before we proceeded to kill her companions. So much death. I slid to the ground and looked at my hands. The hands of an accountant. A man who liked to have a cold one with his buddies, and watch the Yankees play for the pennant. I almost expected them to be covered in blood as I peered at them, my vision narrowing as my pulse raced. I could hear voices, but I didn’t know what they were saying. I looked up to see Janine staring at me. I’d missed her so much, but that felt like a dream; a time so long ago, so full of lies, that it was never truly my life. Then I thought of Mary, so strong-willed and real.

Something wet licked my face. Carey, the ever-loyal dog I’d hardly known until a week ago, was stepping on my lap and licking me. I snapped out of it. I realized that it wasn’t Janine with me there, it was Mae.

“Nat, I’m going to cut under him and pop up hard in front. You cut down and we’ll have him between us. We both fire, neither of us can miss. Got it?” Mary’s voice called out.

I was still on the floor and stayed there, trying not to pass out. The panic attack had subsided, but I was still lightheaded. Not quite the hero of the books I’d read, either.

“Now!” Mary called, and Mae let out a whoop. I pulled myself up to catch the tail end of their battle, the Kraski ship exploding into a million pieces.

Everything went quiet for a moment. I looked to the computer and saw the cube dots all moving away from the sun. The ones we’d fired on, taking out the thrusters, were still sitting back, slowly and surely heading into their imminent demise.

“We have to do something about those guys,” I said quietly, suddenly ashamed of my fall from grace a few minutes ago. They didn’t seem to notice or care a whole lot, not that I blamed them, since they’d had their hands quite full at the time.

I pulled my suit on and locked in my helmet again. “Mae, you’re with me. I have an idea.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

The tethers we wore were made of some linked material that seemed to be indestructible. I knew there were more of them in the cargo bay, and I took all of them that I could find. We clamped the longest ones we could find on our suits, and I took a deep breath as I thought about what we were about to do: float into the great abyss that was space, a couple miles from the sun. Mae assured me that these suits could handle the temperature and heavy radiation, but only for a few minutes. We had to do this fast.

The container farthest away was still moving; its two thrusters were on the same side, so it was slowly trying to spin around. Mae had called over to the ship and learned that three of her people were tied up and gagged. The rest were happy to cooperate and make it out of there alive. They rotated the thrusters and had placed themselves away from the sun, with the other two cubes between them and the sun.

It was show time.

“Mary, are we close enough?” I called to the front of the ship. She didn’t answer, but in moments, she was running into the room.

“Just be safe. I want you to come back to me in one piece.” She stared into my eyes. “Mae, take care of him out there, would you? He’s somewhat important to me.”

“Somewhat?” I asked with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” I petted Carey on the head; the dog was looking at me like I was a stranger in a space suit. I was looking forward to getting him home safely.

I squeezed Mary’s hands and let go, pressing the pin on my suit. I glowed bright green and pushed myself through the bottom of the ship, and into the great, blazing hot expanse.

We emerged outside of the ship, the red-hot sun threatening to devour me the instant I was out. It was massive this close, and even though the suit was designed for massive heat blasts, I was instantly sweating. We didn’t have much time.

My helmet screen had darkened, the lens polarizing from the light. I still had to squint as I looked at Mae, who was calling to me from the comm-link we shared in the suits.

“Dean, follow my lead. Squeeze your fingers together on your left hand like I showed you.” She started flying away toward the big, black cube, her tether waving behind her.

Pinching my forefinger to my thumb, I felt the suit’s mini-thruster activate, and I jetted off after her. It took a bit of moving my hand up and down to level off, but once I got the hang of it, it was almost fun. If only I wasn’t burning up in an alien space suit, trying to stop millions of people from dying in a fiery crash, if they weren’t already melted from the heat.

We neared the cube, and I was amazed at the sheer size of the thing. I had no object I could really compare it to, but it looked like a city on its side. The metal walls were black and matte-finished. Mini-cubes covered the whole thing. From afar it looked smooth, but up close it was extremely textured. They weren’t aerodynamic, but I guess that didn’t matter for what they were built for. I had to figure they were really transport vessels for people and perhaps livestock, almost as if the Kraski had planned to relocate their entire population here but something had happened.

I shook the thought from my head as Mae waved me over. We were near the center of the cube, and I unraveled two tethers from around my arm and latched them to a metal eye hook that presented itself by a thruster opening. We mounted four of them in total and quickly made our way over to the next cube in line, securing the four tethers to it. There was a little bit of give, and we could only hope that they would hold up to the immense weight. I had no real idea of the physics of it, but we didn’t have much time to figure out other options.

We raced around the massive middle container and repeated the process, adding the full weight of a third cube. When we were done, I could hardly see, and I felt like I was melting. I looked to my suit and was sure it was melting.

Mary had been following along, making sure our tethers had enough slack, and we now reeled ourselves in fast.

We approached the ship, and I was about to green myself through the cargo door when Mae stopped. She unhooked her tether and smiled at me.

“Dean, I have to go activate one of the thrusters on the left side of that first cube. There’s no other way. The damage looked minimal, just some debris blocking it, I think.”

I didn’t know what to say. Janine’s duplicate watched me with wide eyes, and I reached up to her face. My glove sat on her face-mask for a moment. “Godspeed,” I said, and she floated out after the first cube. My suit was about to expire, and I pushed my pin. Green light enveloped me and I pulled my rope, emerging into the cargo bay.

Carey barked as my head came through, and when I solidified lying down and took my helmet off, he licked me fervently.

“Okay, boy, I’m glad to see you too.” I worried about Mae and ran to the front of the ship as I peeled off the suit.

“Did you know she was going to do that?” I asked Mary.

“Someone had to go in there and run the show.” Her voice was quiet. We zoomed in the screen on Mae and saw her struggling with the debris. She pulled free a hunk of it and the inertia pushed her away from the wall. I knew her suit would be breaking down, and I looked down to my own. It was almost melted and blackened all over. Peeling it off, I kicked it to the side, and didn’t feel much better in my sweat-soaked clothes. They were dirty enough at this point, and the smell just kept getting worse.

“Mae, come in. Get inside!” Mary yelled into the comm. There was no reply, and I figured the suit’s comm-system had worn down from the heat. I held my breath as we watched her, a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

Mae’s small form floated away from the cube, and for a moment, I thought it was over. She was dead. Then she started to glow green and thrust at the wall. She passed through it.

“Everything good?” Magnus’ voice came through the speaker.

“We think so. We’ll have to see if Mae got to that thruster. If so, we might have a convoy,” Mary replied. “How are things with the rest of the containers?”

“They seem to be receptive to keeping our people alive. There are a couple of the Kraski hybrids that seem to know what they’re doing – doing the air, food, water, and triage business like we set up with the first one we crossed. I think this might have worked.” Magnus paused, and I was sure he was thinking about how many people would be dead in these things, and how many we’d seen die in their crashes with the sun.

“It’s okay, Magnus. We did everything we could. Now we just have to make sure we get them home.” Then I thought of something that apparently had slipped our minds up to that point. “We have, in these things, the whole world’s population. Scientists, engineers, astrophysicists… all of NASA. I mean, we can get some help now. It isn’t all on our shoulders any longer.” As I said the words, I felt some of the pressure lessen, and I also felt every minute of the past week hit me. I needed sleep. We all did.

“Come in, Mary,” a familiar voice came through the speaker, though there were many of the clones that sounded the same. I could only hope she had made it.

“Mae?” Mary asked tentatively.

“Yes, it’s me. You guys better get over here. Bring weapons!” The transmission cut off.

TWENTY-NINE

“Carey, stay here. We’ll be right back,” I said, knowing he would be safer on board than whatever we were heading into. He looked at me, probably doubting my words, but slumped down to the ground, head between his outstretched paws.

Mary and I both had suits on as a precaution, and we exited the ship into a massive cargo bay. Mae had told us where the dock would be, but she wasn’t sure if the wall was breached or if it would be safe to breathe there or not. The room was empty and just a couple of lights were on, giving the room a quiet, eerie feel to it. It was much the same as the Kraski mother ship, which really didn’t surprise me.

We made our way to the far wall, where I guessed there would be a hall leading to the middle of the container. My guess paid off, and I was glad they’d kept some of the same plans as their own large vessel.

“We should be able to get to the heart of the ship from here. Magnus and I didn’t even think of this when we visited the first one we found stranded a way back. Now we know better. It sounded like Mae needs our help, and quickly.” I led the way, gun unslung from my shoulder and firmly in my grip. Mary followed suit, looking much more at home with a gun in her hands than I did.

“I’m guessing the hybrids weren’t too happy about us blowing out their thrusters. They were ready to run into the sun – the ultimate sacrifice to a race that never really cared about them. Mae might be in over her head. She didn’t even have a gun,” Mary said, hurrying down the hall. The floors were the same metal grating from the Kraski ship; our runners made almost no noise on it.

We kept moving until I saw a symbol I recognized from when Drendon had brought us to that central bridge room.

“This way,” I called, and we exited to a set of stairs. Doors slid aside for us and I almost retched at what we found. Bodies were piled high in the large room. There must have been thousands of dead just in this room alone.

“Over here!” we heard someone call. “It’s me, Mae.”

Mary’s jaw was set firmly, obviously affected by all the death surrounding us. We walked over, guns raised at the hybrid. She looked worse for wear, hair partly singed and skin a shade of black.

“Mae, what’s going on here?” I asked, voice thick.

“Since we stopped the crew from running into the sun, they’re moving room to room, killing everyone still alive. I’ve been hiding but made it to a comm-station so I could reach you,” she explained.

Hitting some triggers on my suit, I moved my suit’s comm to Natalia’s ship.

I explained the situation to her and Magnus, and when Magnus said he was coming to back us up, I had to calm him down. “Listen, buddy, you’re the only two out there who know what the hell happened and how to get us back now. We’ll try to contain things down here, and we’ll see you soon. I’ll keep you posted. Get every one of those damned containers some sense of stability. When we’re done here, we’ll want to start moving everyone away from the sun, before it does long-term damage to these hulls.”

“Never thought I’d be taking orders from some bean counter, but here we are. You better keep me posted. See you on the other side. Over,” Magnus replied.

Mae was unarmed, and we kept her behind us.

“How many are there? Same as the other ship?” I asked, sure there were about a dozen. I could see their lifeless bodies when I closed my eyes for a deep breath. We were about to do it again, but this time, their threat was more than imminent.

Mae urged us forward, pointing down the hall. The hallway had no air flowing down it, and it smelled stale, and I could have sworn there was blood in the air. In a few minutes, we could hear screaming. Mary dashed ahead of us, gun raised. She looked like a superhero from the comics I’d read as a kid as she ran for the doorway and opened fire. I caught up and saw that she’d caught the hybrids unaware and from behind. Shooting someone in the back wasn’t the most glorious way to do it, but every second saved a few more of our people. They were huddled in the back of the dim room; the dead were spread across the floor. I wondered how many rooms were full of bodies thanks to these monsters. Then I fired.

I shot at them as they turned to see what was happening. Five were down before they could get a shot off, but red beams blazed at us moments later. The doorway crumbled from the impact, and Mae and Mary ducked back the way we’d come. I dove and hit the ground on the other side of the entrance. Beams bore down on the hallway walls as the last couple still standing tried to clear the way.

We held our fire for a brief time, waiting to see what was coming. Our positioning was poor, as we would be in each other’s crossfire. Not sure what the best move was, I decided to slink down to the ground some way, and fire to the right side should they come out. My mask was still on, and my heavy breathing was beginning to fog it up. I wanted to take the damn thing off, but every moment was precious here.

I could hear groans from the room, but they had ceased firing, at least. Mary looked at me, worry etched in her eyes. Her mask was off, and her gaze at me was only for a few seconds. It hit my gut like a ton of bricks. She started to walk into the doorway, gun aimed forward. She paused, jaw hanging down. “Bob?” I heard her whisper.

There was no way I was going to lose her. I ran for her as the first red beam flew from her gun. A volley of shots came from inside the room as I tackled her down, sending my gun flying down the hall. We hit the ground hard, and something didn’t feel quite right on my back. I could hear footsteps clanking down towards us.

“Not going to happen today!” I heard someone yell, then more fire sprouted around us. Mary was beside me, shooting at them. I felt her get up to her feet, but I was still face down on the ground. I couldn’t seem to move for some reason. Mary was screaming now, a primal shout I hadn’t known was possible from her.

After what felt like long minutes, the firing stopped. All I could hear was heavy breathing and the clatter of something falling to the ground. I struggled to turn my neck, but a searing pain shot through my body.

“Mary, it’s over. That should be all of them. It’s okay,” I heard Mae tell her.

A hand pressed on my shoulder, and Mary rolled me over carefully. She looked at me with her big brown eyes and tears were falling down on me. “Dean, are you okay?”

“I think so,” I lied. Truth was, I could hardly move, and something was definitely wrong.

“You fool. I was going to be the one to save the day, sacrifice myself for you guys and all the people here. Then you had to go ruin it and keep me alive. I can’t believe you did that running tackle.” Her voice was soft as she spoke.

“Some of them are alive!” Mae rushed down to the next room, where a head poked out of. The face was dirty and gaunt. I remembered that much. “We’re here to help you. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay. We’re going to bring you home.”

Hesitantly at first, groups of people began to emerge from the container’s storage rooms. Soon the halls were filled with people, and Mae was barking orders. Mary was still holding my hand and before my vision went black, I saw her beautiful face smiling at me. “We did it, Dean. We did it.”

THIRTY

I awoke in a dark room. My back spasmed, and I realized I must have slept on it wrong. What was I supposed to be doing today? I tried to recall and couldn’t. I had a tax file for the O’Sullivans to do, and was I meeting James later for beers and the Yankees game on his new sixty-incher?

I heard a dog bark in the distance and wished that Susan wouldn’t let Carey do that so early in the morning. It had to be dark out still; otherwise, light would be seeping through my never-quite-closed curtains. I reached out for my alarm clock and my arm kept moving through the air. Where the hell was my nightstand?

When I tried to turn, my back screamed at me and failed to comply. I started to panic. My eyes were adjusting, and now I could make out the outlines of the room, and this wasn’t my bed. My mind felt groggy, muddy with images. Ships coming out of the sky, big black cubes lowering in the dawn skyline, and green light, grasping at my friend as he was pulled through the ceiling.

“Hello! Is anyone there?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I tried to move again, and this time pushed with my left hand. I propelled myself to my side, my back in agony the whole time. I fell forward and was too late catching myself. Before I knew it, I hit the ground, my hand coming up just in time to protect my face. I didn’t know what was wrong with my motor skills. I heard a hiss and what sounded like a sliding door. Light poured in and the clink of metal headed toward me.

I tried to look up and got a face full of dog tongue as a reward. “Carey?” He yelped a bit and licked me some more.

“Dean, what happened?” a voice asked. Hands grasped me under the arms and helped me back onto the bed.

“Janine?” I asked, looking at my wife. My memory flickered and I saw the hospital, and that final moment in our bed, then the coffin at the service.

“No, Dean. It’s Mae.”

“What happened to me?” I asked, still unsure where exactly I was.

Her face was grave. “You were hit. In the spine.”

“Dean?” a new voice asked from the doorway.

Seeing her standing there, with light pouring in behind her, I felt my heart flutter.

“Mary,” I said, remembering all of a sudden. I recalled seeing her ready to sacrifice herself to save us and the people in that room, and then she’d seen a hybrid who’d looked like her husband Bob. That pause was enough to almost get her killed, and apparently almost enough to get me killed too.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Well, I’m confused and my back hurts like hell, but I’m alive. What’s happened?”

“We killed them all and brought you into the bridge. You were out, and it wasn’t good. It seems you took a shot right in the spine. We got you onto a cot and scoured for a doctor. This ship picked up its load from Egypt, so we had a hell of a time finding someone who understood us. Once we had a translator, we found a doctor.” She paused and held my hand. “He said if you didn’t die, you would be paralyzed.”

I wiggled my toes and fingers just to be sure, and they all moved. “But I’m not,” I said, maybe a little too defiantly.

“No, you’re not. We did the only thing we thought might help.” Her eyes told me she was scared to tell me something.

“What is it?”

“We injected you with hybrid blood. Mae had heard of some of the hybrids on Earth healing their partners of illness or ailments without them knowing, using their own blood. We didn’t know if it would actually work… but it seems to have.”

Hybrid blood. I really didn’t know what to say. How could having an alien transfusion be any worse than being paralyzed? It seemed a fair trade-off to me.

I looked at Mae. “Was it yours?” I asked quietly.

She nodded. “It was mine.” I could see she looked drained, even a little pale in the dark room.

“Thank you. How long have I been out?”

“Four days,” Mary said.

“Four days! What’s going on? Are we on the way home?” I couldn’t believe I’d slept through so much.

“Calm down, Dean. We have the world’s best and brightest at our disposal. We’ve appointed leaders to each container, and the dead have been isolated to a few floors on each ship. Mini-hospitals have been made, and we’ve distributed the small rations we found. More are going to die on the way home. We simply don’t have enough food and water, and we’ve had more than a few incidents. Bad people are still bad people even in crisis, it appears.” I left it at that, because I understood what she was implying.

“How many? How many are dead?” I needed to know.

“Dean, don’t worry about that now. You just worry about resting and getting better. In a couple hours, you can come and see our progress. We’re only a couple days away from home,” Mary said.

Her avoidance of the question was enough to know that we’d lost a lot of them. Earth would never be the same.

She kissed me on the lips, and I was self-conscious of how dry mine were. And how my breath must smell like a rotten tomato, but she lingered on them for a moment and smiled at me after, a cool hand on my face.

“I’ll come back in a bit with some food. Have a rest. Carey will stay with you.” She walked away, and Mae followed her.

Carey jumped up onto the small cot with me and curled up between my legs. I lay there in the dark, my mind reeling at everything that had happened. Closing my eyes, I could swear I could feel the other blood coursing through my veins. But even now, my back felt better than it had when I woke up. Slowly, I drifted into sleep.

_______

Four Years Ago

I was on the couch watching the Pirates destroy the Yankees on a cool fall Sunday afternoon. “Sunday in New York” was blasting from the Yankee stadium speakers and the announcers were talking over the song, complaining about the weak bullpen this year. I agreed with them, but I always laughed at the overweight, middle-aged guys telling the world how a team should play better.

The doorbell rang, and Janine hurried from the kitchen to answer it. I took a sip from my now warm Brooklyn Lager, and the room started to spin. I glanced to the door and saw Bob step in, looking frantic. Bob, the name almost came out of my throat, but it refused to emerge. Was there something in my beer? Maybe food poisoning?

They spoke in hushed voices, and I didn’t put much thought into it as my eyes closed and the hum of the commentators shrank in my eardrums.

“Don’t worry about him, Bob. I put something in his beer. You know I hate doing this to him. Can’t we just talk when he’s at work?” Janine’s voice carried over to me.

“It couldn’t wait.”

“Well, what is it?”

There was a pause. “Plans are changing. I think we need to move to plan B. Teelon’s plan.”

Silence. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. The Kraski are desperate, and they won’t stop until they find a new home for themselves. I know some of us feel like we owe them, like they’re our parents, but the truth is, they’ve done nothing but grow us in a lab and send us out to do their dirty work. The Deltra want to help the humans. We have no choice but to trust them.” Bob’s voice was a hurried whisper. The kind that wasn’t really a whisper at all, but I could hardly process what they were saying. The room was still spinning.

“So it’s true? The Kraski homeworld is gone?” Janine sounded like she was on the verge of spilling tears.

“Yes. It’s true. Billions of them were killed before they could board the transport vessels. Word is the Valiant got away, and they took the vessels with them.”

“Why take the transport vessels if they don’t have the population to move any longer?” Janine asked, voice strained.

“Take a guess. Humans. They’re going to take everyone off the planet, turn off the Shield, and voila. They have a new world. Sounds simple enough, right?”

“So we play along, but in the end, switch sides and do what Teelon says. Get our people… our spouses,” she paused, “to get to the Shield, bring it to the Valiant, and kill the Kraski. Then the Deltra will bring the humans back, and everyone lives in peace and harmony. Sounds like a long stretch, but I do trust Teelon. He hasn’t given us a reason to not believe him.”

I heard their words, but they seemed to flow in one ear and out the other.

“Will Earth be safe from the Kraskis’ enemies?” Janine asked. “They’ve destroyed billions of lives, countless planets.”

“The Kraski think they have technology to prevent leaving traces to follow, but they’re worried about being crossed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Deltra, the Kraski, or even one of us has been turned. If that’s true, then there’s no hope. Earth’s destruction will be inevitable.”

I tried to cling to their words, but I was falling deeper into sleep. Soon I drifted off fully, and when I woke, I shook my head clear, and saw the game was well over.

“Was someone over, honey?” A vague recollection that was probably nothing more than a dream stuck in my brain like cobwebs.

Janine walked in smiling and set a cup of coffee down in front of me. “No. You just dozed off watching the game.”

_______

My eyes sprang open, remembering that fall day like it was yesterday. I struggled to get up and managed to get on my feet, looking like nothing more than a surfboard, I was sure. I tried to walk but ended up moving my feet like I was “walking” an appliance. Slowly, I made it to the door, which slid open for me. Carey followed closely as I made my way down the hall.

“Mary!” I called, until someone came to me.

“Who are you looking for?” a young boy asked me with a thick accent. His clothes were dirty, but I couldn’t help feeling relieved to see another human standing and healthy.

“Mary? Do you know her?”

“Of course, we all know her. She saved our lives. Does that mean you’re Dean?” he asked, smile growing wide.

“That does. Do you know where she is?” I asked, feeling my back twinge. It was much looser than it had been, and moving seemed to help.

“This way.”

I followed slowly, and soon we were in a room where Mary was sorting through supplies.

“Mary,” I said, and she turned to me. “Son, can we have a moment?”

The boy blushed and ran down the hall.

“Dean, what are you doing up?” she asked.

“I don’t think it’s over. There’s another threat.”

THIRTY-ONE

The Jeep stopped in front of my house. There was so much to do, but I had no doubt we couldn’t pull it together as a whole. From rotten food in everyone’s fridges, to worrying about pets, things would get back to normal for many of us. The past couple days had been hard but wonderful at the same time. Over half of the world’s population was dead, either by running into the sun or from illness on the vessels, like dehydration and lack of sustenance. It was horrific. Stories were coming out about everyone’s time on the vessels, and references to great wars, and hiding on boats to come to America were compared. But there was no real comparison. Earth would never be the same again.

Carey trotted along with me, and I felt tears welling in my eyes as I remembered looking over the lists. Susan, my neighbor, was among those lost in the Event. That was what they were calling it now. The Event. As if there was any name that could justify the real truth of it all. Most people still didn’t know what had happened, they were just glad to be alive and back home. Some ships fought to land elsewhere, not willing to go back to their countries if given a choice. With so much open space now, it was agreed that Canada, the US, and some European countries would take in refugees at this point. I wasn’t sure that the whole world wasn’t in refugee status now.

Carey started to go to his old house, and I knew I would let him in soon enough, but for now, I urged him to my house, and he happily obliged. I grabbed a few things, clothes mainly, and locked back up. This wasn’t my home any longer, and I doubted I’d ever live here again. I had a new life lined up. I went back to the Jeep, where armed guards were waiting. It was a couple hours’ drive to New York, even though they’d already begun the highway clear-up. The vehicles had been left with keys in them, most running out of gas, so they’d had to bring tankers, fill them up and drive them away to large fields. I would let the bureaucrats worry about the logistics of getting people their cars back.

A few hours later, I walked into the UN building in New York for the first time. Magnus, Natalia, and Mary were waiting in the lobby and I ran to them, enveloping my partners in crime in a massive group hug.

“Am I ever glad to see you guys,” I declared.

Everyone looked well-rested and clean. Magnus almost looked a different man, clean-shaven and with a tie on. I supposed I probably did too. I looked down and saw Nat and Magnus’ hands intertwined, and I gave them a grin.

“Are you guys ready for this? We tell our story, then the world tries to start over,” Mary said.

“I’ll just be glad when it’s all over. I want nothing more than to disappear and let the government worry about everything now. Don’t we deserve that?” Natalia asked, and I was still surprised to hear her voice.

I had a feeling that it wasn’t quite over for us but kept it to myself. We headed into the UN General Assembly Hall, where massive screens were set up, playing live feeds of the largest mass funeral in the world’s history. From around the world, we were sending the dead back into space on the vessels. I had been amazed at the support for the idea, with so many conflicting religious beliefs out there, but everyone seemed to be okay with it. Cleanse the planet instead of burying three or so billion people.

We watched as the containers, as we had called them, lifted into the sky and were remotely sent out of the atmosphere and into space. This took over an hour, and many were openly weeping. I thought of my mother, who hadn’t made it, and countless others who were huge parts of my previous life, now floating in space. I was glad to know that my best friend James was among the survivors, and I was looking forward to seeing him again.

In the room filled with the world’s top surviving leaders and ambassadors, we spoke our side of the Event. Everyone listened with wide eyes, and many times, there was clapping, as if we needed the praise. We didn’t. When it was all done, they spoke of forming a world government. It was the only way to have a unified presence in a universe much vaster than we ever knew. NASA spoke of duplicating the technology we had now, and then hours after we started, I was finally asked the question I’d been waiting for.

“Dean, can you please describe this threat you mentioned?”

I swallowed and spoke what I knew about the Kraskis’ enemy. In this case, I didn’t think the enemy of our enemy would be our friend. My pulse raced as I talked, my new hybrid blood coursing through my body. I knew it wasn’t over for me. I reached over and squeezed Mary’s hand.

The End of The Event

The Survivors Book One

New Threat: The Survivors Book Two

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About the Author

Nathan Hystad is an author from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada. When he isn’t writing novels, he’s running a small publishing company, Woodbridge Press.

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Books By Nathan Hystad

The Survivors Series

The Event

New Threat

New World

Red Creek

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 Nathan Hystad

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover art: Tom Edwards Design

Edited by: Scarlett R Algee

Proofed by: BZ Hercules

Content

Nathan Hystad
THE EVENT

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

New Threat: The Survivors Book Two

About the Author

Books By Nathan Hystad

Copyright