Arrival: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

38

The Shed?

The place had obviously been some sort of distribution center. Steel shelving stood fifteen feet in the air with three levels of storage that were all filled with pallets of stacked boxes in clear wrapping. But the boxes didn’t interest her as much as the fact that the overhead lights illuminated the entire place.

Kenny stood with his back to Maya, checking on some of the others who’d come in.

“How do you have power?” Maya asked.

“This place has some pretty powerful generators,” Kenny said, turning around. “It was a distribution center for home improvement stores. They’ve got everything from doors to lawn mowers in this place. That’s why we’ve called it the Shed. Get it?”

Kenny waited for Maya to laugh, and when he only got a half-smile, he shook his head and continued. “Anyways, it ran 24/7 when it was open, and I guess the owners wanted to make sure their workers never had to stop fulfilling orders. So, they installed back-ups. And with this place being what it is, with all the power tools and such, there’s quite a supply of gasoline to run the generators. That said, we don’t run them all the time. But yeah, it’s a good set-up.”

“Hope you’re hiding that gasoline well. Fuel will be in serious demand, the longer this goes on.”

Kenny grinned. “Don’t you worry ‘bout that. Ain’t no one getting in here with how heavily we’re armed.” He raised his eyebrow. “That’s not why you came here. Is it?”

“I’m not sure if you remember, but you came and got me and told me to follow you.”

He laughed and lightly slapped Maya on her arm with the back of his hand. “I’m just messin’ with you. And yeah, I’m glad you made it.” He turned to face everyone. “I’m glad you all made it here. That being said, I think it’s time to cover a few ground rules.”

Crossing her arms, Maya scanned the room. Two dozen people of varying age, sex, and ethnicity stood around. At least this Kenny seemed to be interested in helping people, no matter what they looked like. There were a few children in the group, but most of the people looked to be in their twenties and older. She turned her attention back to Kenny when he started talking again.

“First off, in case you didn’t hear me before, my name is Kenny. I’m the one running this operation. Now, that don’t mean I think I’m some kinda dictator or somethin’. But in situations like this, someone’s got to be responsible for making decisions, and that just happens to fall on me. If you need anything, please feel free to come to me or my wife, Carly.” Kenny pointed to a dark-haired woman raising her hand in the air. “We’ll do our best to take care of you.”

The portly woman couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but Maya immediately liked her warm smile, and her sharp eyes beneath bangs dyed platinum blonde. The woman’s deep tan came from the Tennessee sun, not a fake bake from some overpriced fitness center.

“Carly is also going to be taking an inventory of your skills. So if you know how to do something that might be of use to the Shed, you’ll want to let her know. Moving on, let’s talk a little bit about food. Yes, we do have some, but not a lot. We keep it in the offices on the other side of the warehouse. We’ve been sending teams out to find more, but that’s going to be harder now that those things are running around out there. We have scheduled meal times and said meals will be rationed out. If you are caught trying to get food when it is not meal time, we will ask you to leave. If you have any special requests due to medical needs, just see Carly.”

Carly raised her hand again in case anyone had missed her the first time Kenny had mentioned his wife by name.

“Sleeping. These floors aren’t much, but they’re basically all we’ve got. We do have some blankets, and you’re welcome to find an empty pallet to lie on or something else suitable you can find around here. But just be glad you’re not out there.” He lifted his gun, pointing it towards the bay doors which led outside. “Now with all that being said, do you have any questions?”

Maya hadn’t wanted to create problems within Kenny’s group, but she felt like he either didn’t know or chose to ignore what she had witnessed out there. She made a statement instead of asking a question. “You didn’t kill those things.”

All heads turned to Maya.

“You kidding me?” a man holding a shotgun said. “We pumped dozens of rounds into them while you were high-tailing it up here. You must’ve been too busy running to see them falling down behind you.”

“I have no doubt that you took them down, but that doesn’t mean you killed them.” She pointed to the bay doors. “Why don’t you have a peek out there and see for yourself?”

A woman with a shotgun jogged over to the door and looked through an opening.

“What do you see?” Kenny asked her.

The woman pulled away and shook her head. “She’s right. There’s nothing out there.”

“Bullshit,” the man with the shotgun said. He went over to the door and looked through the small hole. His mouth dropped, and he turned to face Maya. “How did you know?”

“I saw some men take one down earlier. I thought for sure it was dead. But a few minutes later, I heard it yell out, and then I watched it stand up and walk away. There were no signs it had even been shot. It was like the wounds healed all on their own, or maybe they never even broke the thing’s skin.”

A woman with a child next to her said, “Well, then how are we supposed to survive if we can’t kill them?”

The floor of the warehouse erupted in shouting as everyone tried talking over one another until Kenny whistled. Everyone fell silent.

“There’s no point in arguing. We’ll get together and try to come up with some ideas as to how we might be able to kill these things. But for now, you’re all safe. Let’s take a breath and have a bite to eat.”

As good as food sounded, Maya couldn’t stay. She had to leave and try to find a way out of the dome—those creatures were on the loose, and time was ticking away. She headed for the door.

“Lock up,” Kenny said. “Make sure those doors are secured. Until we know exactly what’s going on, nobody in and nobody out.”

A man holding a rifle locked the door just as Maya got to him. He turned around and shook his head.