Arrival: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

37

She’d left Reno. The fact sank in as she looked around, trying to decide where to go next.

As paramedics, they had vowed never to leave each other behind. Reno had been there for her since the dome had come down. He’d made Maya’s priorities his own, putting his life at risk to try and get her out of the dome—to her children. He’d killed someone for her.

And she’d abandoned him.

She choked on her tears. Sometimes life presented an unfair choice—choose your children over your friends—blood thicker than water. Every parent in the world would have done the same thing. She knew it. Reno knew it.

This isn’t the last time you’ll see me. I promise.

She hoped he would be right about that.

But now, she had to focus on finding Laura and Aiden, on saving her children. If she couldn’t do that, Reno’s friendship, love, and sacrifice would simply be in vain.

To her left, a group of people came running and screaming out of a cloud of smoke. Her eyes fell upon a woman running barefoot, wearing a pencil skirt and a sleeveless blouse. She had been a young, beautiful professional before. Well, before all of this. Her wild hair matched her beet-red face now. She screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Maya watched as a ray of light shot through the smoke and hit the girl square in the back. The punishing beam instantly silenced her scream and incinerated her body. Ashes floated where she’d been standing.

The noises, the explosions, she thought. It’s the aliens, hunting us down.

Maya took off when an explosion ripped through the sky with enough intensity to knock her off her feet and send her flying. Maya flipped over twice, her arms and legs waving helplessly. She landed on her side in someone’s yard, rolling into a child’s plastic car that slowed her momentum and brought her to a stop.

Her ribs ached, and she wasn’t sure if she could stand. She looked at the road to see several cars on fire, most of them overturned or on their sides. Bodies lay in the street, some moving but most motionless. A cloud of smoke rolled toward her like creeping death.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up to see a balding man wearing a green shirt with a gray vest. He held a rifle in his hands as he ran over to her.

“Can you walk?” he asked with a Southern drawl.

Trying to clear the fog from her head and ignore the pain in her ribs, Maya nodded.

The man reached down and pulled her up. “Follow me! Hurry!”

Maya followed a chorus of screams and watched as shapes emerged from the smoke, seven feet tall and firing light beams at people as they tried to escape.

She turned back to see the armed man ten yards away, waving her onward.

Maya followed him past injured people begging for help. She bit her lip and ran by as their fingertips brushed her legs. Maya tried not to look in their faces.

Laura. Aiden. They are your top priority.

The man she had followed ran toward the entrance to a small industrial park. Nearby stood one warehouse, the bay door of its loading dock already beginning to open. The balding man gathered others who seemed calm enough to follow as he ran, bringing the group to a total of six people.

Four of the six bay doors opened, and armed civilians appeared on the docks. They fired their weapons over Maya and the others. Maya looked back to see three aliens coming towards them. One of the creatures fell as the people on the docks fired their rifles at it. Bullets hit the other two aliens, as well, but they managed to continue their pursuit of Maya and the others.

She turned back toward the warehouse and ran faster, despite the blossoming pain in her ribs. The man who’d grabbed her from the yard was the first to hop up onto the loading dock. Maya reached it alongside another woman, and a man above took their hands and pulled both of them up.

“Shut the doors!” a man yelled.

As the bay doors dropped, the people with the guns fired several last rounds at the aliens who had been chasing Maya and the others.

A hand appeared in front of Maya’s face, and she looked up to see the man who’d brought her here. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.

“Got all your fingers and toes?”

“Yeah. Last time I counted.”

“Good.” He stuck out his hand again, this time looking for a shake. “I’m Kenny.”

She shook his hand. “I’m Maya. Where am I?”

Kenny smiled, and raised his hands, performing a three-hundred and sixty-degree spin. He smiled when he turned to face her again.

“Welcome to the Shed.”