Jim Thorn - Invasion

“So, you don’t know where my kids are?” Maya threw her hands up, placing them behind her head as she exhaled.

“I didn’t say that.”

Maya stared at her, raising her eyebrows.

“I don’t want to die here. Alone. Please don’t leave me here with those aliens and their damn laser beams. I’m scared. Don’t leave me.”

“Why didn’t you take his truck earlier?”

“Gerald’s been having problems with it. Says it sometimes don’t start and what would happen if I’m deserted on the highway? By myself.”

She rolled her eyes, wondering if Cameron was really that weak or simply playing the role. Maya was a mother, a paramedic, and a healer. And as much as she wanted to leave this piece of white trash with the other dirty laundry in the basement, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Although, bringing along such a weak person could cost her. Unless…

“You know where he is? Where he’s taken my kids? No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.”

Maya looked into Cameron’s eyes. The woman appeared scared, and maybe it was just an act, but Maya would never find her kids on her own, not without any knowledge of where in this crazy world Gerald had taken them.

“Okay, then. Let’s pack some stuff we’ll need and get out of here.”

She turned and climbed the rest of the stairs, and Cameron came up behind her. Maya went to the kitchen for some dry goods and canned food while Cameron packed a few sets of clothes, things either of them could wear. Maya had also told her what she needed to assemble a makeshift first aid kit and the woman did what she was told, not saying a word or even looking Maya in the eye. That badass stripper act had run off with Cameron’s makeup and now Maya saw her for the frightened little girl she really was.

Once they had Gerald’s pickup truck loaded, Maya walked to the driver’s side and held her hand out.

“Give me the keys.”

Cameron crossed her arms. “You can’t be serious.”

“What?”

“You’re not driving.”

“Yes, I am.” Maya put her hand on her hip and shifted her weight to one leg.

“Once you know where your kids are, how do I know you’re not going to throw me out of the truck in the middle of nowhere or leave me on the side of the road for those disgusting aliens to probe me or whatever?”

Maya rolled her eyes. “I drive an EMT rig. It’s what I do for a living. I know how to drive under chaotic conditions and extreme pressure. If we get into any kind of trouble, I need to be the one behind the wheel.”

“Fine.” Cameron slammed the door shut and stepped back from the truck. “Good luck finding your kids on your own.”

Maya sighed, and looked away. The girl had street smarts, she’d give her that. Cameron knew how to use what little leverage she had to protect her own ass.

Maya shrugged. “Okay, you win. Let’s go.”

She walked around the back of the truck to the passenger side while Cameron got in on the driver’s side. They shut the doors at the same time.

Maya looked down the street as Cameron pulled out of the driveway. Faces appeared at the windows of several houses as they crept along at about ten miles per hour. Cameron turned off Midnight Lane and headed toward the highway. Heading out, Maya had a feeling that the eerily empty neighborhood would be her last respite from the inevitable violence awaiting them. And she was right.

The first glimpse of sunlight appeared on the horizon, and even though Maya had gotten a few hours of rest, her heavy, red eyes made it difficult for her to stay focused and awake. She’d cracked the window and allowed the cool but moist Tennessee Valley air to fill the cab. Maya could detect the usual rural highway odors—moldy hay and manure. But she could also smell smoke and the unmistakable stench of burnt plastic, and that reminded her that this wasn’t a typical early morning drive.

Her driver coughed, but Maya wasn’t in the mood to talk to her yet. She didn’t trust Cameron, and that more than the extra-large pot of coffee they’d brewed before leaving Gerald’s house helped to keep her alert.

Maya looked out her window as they passed through a southern suburb of Bowling Green. Even after seeing what the aliens had done to Nashville, the degree of destruction almost took her breath away. Few of the office buildings or structures along the highway had remained intact. Several continued to burn, orange flames emitting billowing, black smoke filling the sky like a cursed sunrise. Cars and other vehicles sat in twisted heaps of metal as if dropped from the sky, and bodies could be seen everywhere, none of them moving. Maya hadn’t seen any people since they’d left Midnight Avenue, but she heard the distinct pop of gunfire and wondered who, or what, they were shooting at. The scale of the damage didn’t appear to be as severe as what she’d witnessed in Nashville, though, which made Maya wonder if it had been caused by the aliens or by the panicked citizens of Bowling Green.

Maya grabbed her travel mug from the cupholder and took another sip of her coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cameron’s expression in the window’s reflection. The woman’s eyes bulged, and her jaw had gone slack. She had both hands on the wheel and was leaned into it, looking from left to right at the damage.

“Are you all right?” Maya asked.

“I don’t know. This is all a little overwhelming.”

“You mean you haven’t seen any of this?”

Cameron shook her head. “I’ve stayed in the house ever since it started. Gerald made sure we had plenty of food, and he told me not to leave. So, I didn’t. I heard the chaos outside, and I was too scared to go out there.”

Maya understood how Cameron felt, but she had already acclimated to the situation after everything she’d been through in Nashville. Maya had seen the dome bring constant darkness, aliens filling the skies like angry, intergalactic hornets, and the utter destruction of a city in days, when it had taken hundreds of years to build it. And the death. Even as an EMT, that was not something Maya would ever acclimate to or forget.

“There are bodies just lying in the street. But I don’t see any survivors” Cameron said. “Where are they? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” But she did. Sort of. Still, Maya decided not to overwhelm the young woman so soon after leaving the house she’d locked herself inside of while the invasion had gone on.

Cameron’s head turned from left to right and back again as she drove, trying to maintain the truck’s speed while rubbernecking at the endless blocks of fire-scorched rubble that had been her town. Maya reached for Cameron’s mug and then handed it to her. Cameron took a sip, cleared her throat, and then smiled at Maya.

“I’m sorry about how I talked to you back there at the house. I’ve been scared shitless, especially since Gerald left.”

Maya felt a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth and she dampened it before Cameron would notice. “Look, you don’t have to pretend like we’re friends. We’re not. We’re just two people stuck in a shitty situation who just so happen to be connected to the same asshole.”

Cameron sat up straight in the seat, took another sip of coffee, and then shrugged as she kept her eyes on the road ahead.

“He’s not that bad, you know. He’s changed a lot since you two were married.”

“People don’t change. And the fact that he left you behind is proof of that. Trust me.”

“Yeah, well, even considering that, he still treats me better than a lot of other men have.”

Maya swallowed, the weak coffee now churning like an acid bath in her stomach. She felt feverish and jittery, and much as she wanted to attribute it to the caffeine, she knew it probably had something to do with sitting next to her ex-husband’s girlfriend while driving down a highway in a post-apocalyptic nightmare—which wasn’t a dream at all.