D. MacHale - SYLO

“What day is it?” Kent asked.

Nobody answered because nobody could remember.

“Why?” I asked.

“Must be Sunday,” he said. “There’s no traffic.”

I hadn’t noticed because I had been lost in my own thoughts, but once he said that, I started looking around. We drove through a fairly rural area but every once in a while we’d pass a row of shops or a gas station. Not once did we see another car moving on the road.

Or another person.

When we turned onto the interstate, the lack of activity was even more obvious. There were no other moving cars. None. Several were pulled over to the side as if broken down, but nobody was with them. The stretch of I-95 outside of Portland wasn’t a typically busy interstate, definitely not like the section that runs past my old home in Greenwich, Connecticut, outside of New York City. Still…

“I’m getting a creepy feeling,” Kent said.

For the second time that day, I didn’t disagree with him.

We switched from I-95 to I-295, which went past downtown Portland. Since we were getting closer to the city, I kept expecting the traffic to pick up. Or to see another person—or any sign of life, for that matter. I didn’t. Portland may have been a sleepy city, but on that day it was downright comatose. The only increase in activity was the growing number of abandoned cars on the side of the road.

“My God, look,” Olivia said.

Tori struggled to sit up. She needed to see what we were seeing.

Not all the cars were abandoned. Olivia pointed to one that had driven off the highway and slammed head-on into a tree.

“Pull over,” I said.

Kent eased the car off the highway and came to a stop.

I got out to see if anybody needed help. It was a horrible wreck. The entire front end was caved in and wrapped around the tree. All the doors were still closed, which meant whoever was in the wreck was probably still in there. I slowed down and approached cautiously. I could only imagine how gruesome the scene would be. I got closer to the car, squinted, and looked inside to see…it was empty.

“Are they dead?” Kent called.

“They’re not even here,” I replied.

I felt the hood of the wreck. It was stone cold. There was nothing more to do so I hurried back to the car.

“How could they have gotten out?” Tori asked.

“I have no idea, and I’ll tell you something else—the engine is cold.”

“So what?” Olivia asked.

“So that means it didn’t happen during the sea battle. That wreck’s been there for a couple of days. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.”

We all exchanged looks but nobody knew what to say to that.

“Can we please keep going?” Olivia asked nervously.

I got back in the car and Kent got us back on the highway. We passed several more wrecks like the one we first saw. It seemed like the people had driven off the highway, hit something that destroyed their vehicles, and somehow magically disappeared.

“Things are not right in Portland,” Kent said ominously.

“You think?” Tori said. “Look at that. ”

She was pointing to the side of the highway, where a hole the size of a swimming pool was cut into the ground on the edge of the forest.

“Is it a construction site?” Kent asked.

“Doubt it,” I said. “What would they build on the highway in the middle of nowhere? It looks more like a— look out !”

There was another crater in the center of the road.

Kent looked forward in time to yank the wheel and swerve around it. We missed falling in by inches.

“Hell of a pothole,” Kent said nervously.

“Or a bomb crater,” I said. “There were missiles flying everywhere. Some of them must have hit land.”

Tori said, “So does that mean Portland was attacked too?”

Nobody had an answer to that, but we’d find out soon enough.

As we traveled closer to the city, we passed several more craters. Not all were harmless looking. Some still had smoke drifting up from within. Not all the stray missiles had hit empty stretches of land. We passed an industrial building that was on fire and another that had been reduced to rubble.

“This was recent,” I said. “It must have happened during the battle.”

Olivia said, “So where’s the fire department?”

Good question.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement and looked toward the far side of the highway. What I saw seemed impossible, yet it wasn’t. It looked like a giant jellyfish moving across the barren landscape.

“What exactly is that?” I asked.

It moved slowly, its tentacles brushing against the ground.

“It’s a parachute.” Kent answered with dismay.

The large, white half dome of silk was full of air, which made it float gently on its own. The tentacles were the lines that hung down to the ground.

Kent stopped the car to let it cross in front of us. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as the soft breeze gently pushed it along, its silk skin rippling. It was a strange and haunting sight.

“So where’s the pilot?” Tori asked.

“Keep driving,” I said to Kent.

We were nearing downtown. I looked ahead to the skyline, fearing that I would see buildings going up in flames. Thankfully, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

“I don’t think the city was attacked,” I said. “Everything must have happened out over the ocean.”

“Almost everything,” Olivia said soberly and pointed ahead of us.

There was another wreck. This one was in the center median. It wasn’t a car.

It was a gray jet fighter.

“I guess that tells us where the parachute came from,” Kent said, numb.

The plane must have slammed into the ground going full blast because there was little left of it but wreckage. Flaming wreckage. This plane hadn’t been down for long. There were a few recognizable parts, like the tail fin and…

“The cockpit,” Kent said. “I gotta see.”

Before anybody could protest, Kent turned onto the median and drove right up to the largest piece of the wreck.

“The canopy’s gone,” Kent said. “They must have ejected before they—oh, man .”

Of course we all looked…and wished we hadn’t. Kent was right. One of the pilots must have ejected because the front seat was empty. The rear seat wasn’t. We could clearly see the outline of a charred body slumped forward, still strapped into the seat.

Tori turned away and buried her head in my shoulder. I looked forward, already regretting having seen it for only a brief second. Kent did the same.

“I…I’m sorry,” he said as he jammed on the gas and peeled out.

The only one who didn’t take her eyes off the grisly scene was Olivia. She kept staring back at the poor victim until we were far past it. I couldn’t tell what was going through her mind. Was she in shock? Or fascinated by the horror?

“We are so stupid,” Tori said, battling tears. “How could we have thought that everything would be normal here?”

“Because that’s what we wanted to think,” I said.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Kent said. “We’ve still got to get the word out.”

“We’ll go to Maine Medical Center first,” I said. “Tori’s got to—”

“No!” Tori shouted. “There’s plenty of time for that,” she said as she struggled to sit up. She may have been in pain, but she was still stubborn. “I’m okay. Go to the TV station on Congress Street. WCSH.”

Olivia turned around and in her best mothering voice said, “We need to get you to a doctor.”

“We need to do what we came here for,” Tori said adamantly. “Until then I’ll be fine.”

End of discussion. We were going to WCSH.

“Do you know where Congress Street is?” I asked Kent.