Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

“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.

W e 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 miles an hour if I can find a racing sailboat. 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.

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

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. I’ve seen these on the racing circuit. 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.