Arrival: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

47

Maya didn’t look back.

She knew Jack would most likely die in vain and the dome would still be here, keeping them trapped like zoo animals. She didn’t have the heart to crush his hope, but something told her to see this plan through to the end—to head for the dome’s perimeter while Jack made a run at the obelisk.

The city had fallen apart around her, and yet she still thought of her children—like most mothers would. She’d lost time in the warehouse, but it had been worth it. She now knew how to kill these things, and Crazy Jack just might get the dome to fall.

But the question Carly had raised was an important one.

Even if they could destroy the dome, how were they going to kill all of the aliens?

Without the internet or modern mass media—both of which seemed to be disabled by the dome—getting critical information out could be nearly impossible, so there was no way to tell people that it was just the masks keeping them safe from light, even once the sun’s rays were available to finish the job. Also, she had no idea how far the invasion had spread. What if the aliens had knocked out the power grid and internet, globally? If hitting them in the face with light killed the aliens, where was that light going to come from, and how could they mobilize it into a weapon of galactic mass destruction?

Maya would have to worry about all of that later. Right now, her main objective was to get to the dome and hope Jack could do what he’d said he would.

However, that could be challenging, given the chaos and darkness caused by the dome and the subsequent alien invasion. Maya felt vulnerable running through the streets as people died all around her. The only light beneath the dome came from explosions, house fires, and burning automobiles. Perversely, it was the light from the destruction which would have to guide her from the warehouse district to the dome’s edge. Jack had aimed Maya in the right direction, but that had been as helpful as telling someone to hold their nose as you pushed them into a lake—blindfolded.

She kept running, though, and she didn’t stop until she heard a scream nearby. Maya ducked beneath the low-hanging branches of two oak trees, kneeled, and observed her surroundings. The scream had come from a woman not more than forty yards away. She’d crashed her car into a brick mailbox and four aliens surrounded the wreckage. One of them pulled the woman from the front seat as she thrashed about.

Maya’s instinct and experience made her want to help her, but she knew she couldn’t. One of the aliens took aim and blasted the woman. Her body exploded into ash. Maya turned away, realizing that the alien that had toyed with her in the warehouse had probably been an anomaly, a single creature with a streak of curiosity among one of the thousands of creatures dropped from the ship’s hatch. Everything she’d seen since that time supported the theory that the dome had been dropped for one reason, and one reason only—to exterminate all humans beneath it.

Her foot slid forward and pushed a handful of dry, crinkled leaves against the trunk of the tree. She peered around the tree and saw the aliens looking in her direction. Maya held her breath, trying not to make another sound. After a few seconds, the aliens looked the other way and headed down the street, away from her.

Maya sighed. She stood up, careful not to rustle anymore leaves.

She’d taken a step out from beneath the branches when she heard snarling behind her. Maya spun around and saw two aliens approaching, only thirty yards away. And they were coming right at her.

Run.

She leaped into a full sprint, no longer worried about making too much noise. They had seen her, and were now in close pursuit.

This was Maya’s first encounter with the aliens in the open. Fighting them in the tight confines of the warehouse, she’d had no idea how fast they could move. For all she knew, the aliens could be as fast as horses, and she didn’t want to turn around to find out. Sprinting through almost complete darkness and through a heavily-wooded area, she had to pay close attention for obstacles that might trip her up.

Finally, though, Maya couldn’t stop herself. She had to turn around and see where they were. The aliens had gotten to within fifteen yards of her, but it seemed like they struggled to maneuver through the trees. With so many branches, it also explained why they hadn’t used their self-propulsion jets to fly toward her, as she had seen them do when they’d first entered the dome.

She saw a concentrated beam of light hit the ground to her right, followed by the now-familiar hum of the alien’s blaster heating up the molecules as it sliced through the air. She cried out and turned away as if that could protect her from the violent destruction wrought by the laser.

The concentrated beam blasted a trunk to her right, cutting through the massive tree and dropping it, rattling Maya’s teeth. The force of the old-growth tree slamming to the ground knocked her off balance and she landed on her side, slid across a leaf-strewn slope, and then went tumbling down a steep hill.

Maya couldn’t control her fall. She rolled and tumbled, her injured shoulder throbbing with new pain. Without any light, Maya had lost all sense of direction, rolling head over heels and hoping she wouldn’t slam into a tree head-first. And then all motion ceased. Her back had slammed into something hard and unmoving, her ears ringing, and a knot formed in her stomach that made her feel like she needed to vomit. Maya had leaves in her hair and blood dripping from several cuts on her arms and legs. She put a hand on her shoulder, where fresh blood seeped from the wound she couldn’t seem to keep closed. Maya rolled over, pushed herself up onto her knees, and turned to look up.

The aliens stood at the top of the hill, black silhouettes cut from the orange, backlit sky. Billowing smoke from fires raging across the city of Nashville floated in the air like angry rain clouds. The aliens above her screamed, piercing the air and most likely alerting other alien invaders of her location. Maya had to get to her feet and run.

She remembered the penlight in her pocket and pulled it out, happy to see that it had survived the tumble down the hill. The end piece had broken off, but it worked when she flicked it on and off quickly.

“They know where you are now. No use in hiding the light.”

She stood and shined the penlight around her feet, spotting a trail leading to the west. She was just taking a step when her elbow brushed something solid. A shot of purple light ran down her arm.

“The dome!”

Maya stood there in shock, bruised and battered at the bottom of a hill with aliens at the top who had alerted others of her location. But the dome forced her to go in one direction on the trail, and she had no idea where the trail would take her. She shined the light around, checking to see if she had any other options. Maya saw only the trail and trees. No tunnels. No drains. No way out.

“C’mon,” Maya said looking at her watch, estimating she had less than two minutes until it was time. “I might not have two minutes.”

At the top of the hill, the aliens screeched as their numbers grew. What had started as two or three now looked to be closer to ten. One of them fired their destructive beam and it missed Maya by a foot. She ducked and hid behind a wide trunk.

Trapped.

The dome was right there. Her children on the other side of it. And yet, she might as well have been gazing across the Grand Canyon.

“Be early, Jack. Please!”

An orange fireball lit the sky and Maya looked back in the direction of the obelisk. It stood out as a massive black tooth, superimposed on a fiery sky. The explosion rumbled through the sky like thunder as the ground shook beneath her feet. She waited, holding her breath and looking from the obelisk to the aliens on the top of the hill.

Maya reached out and felt the pulse of the dome’s surface. The obelisk remained and the dome held. Jack had failed.

And then she felt a buzz on her skin, a touch of electricity that raised the hair on her arms. Maya turned and saw the blackened surface of the dome flickering, the sunlight and Tennessee countryside coming in and out of view as if through the lens of a broken film projector.

The aliens on the hill let loose with another volley of shrill screams, but when Maya looked up, she noticed that they had backed away from the edge of the hill’s decline—and several had run away entirely.

She reached out and extended her hand—through the dome’s wall. It pinched, and she yanked it back, but clearly her fingers had been on the other side. The dome wasn’t down, but it wasn’t full-strength, either.

A burst of energy exploded against the dome above her head, blue and purple lightning scattering across the unseen surface. She turned to see one alien remaining on the hill, the same one who must have fired his destructive beam at her.

A second explosion came from the obelisk then, and the natural sunlight on the outside of the dome took the edge off of the darkness beneath it, and Maya felt the sun’s warmth on her face. The aliens on the hill had taken cover, no doubt hiding from the light now penetrating the darkened surface of the dome. The wall wavered like a funhouse mirror. Maya made sure the Glock was tucked into her waistband and took three steps back. She inhaled, crouched down, and sprinted right at the dome’s wall. Maya closed her eyes and leaped, feeling the sting of the dome’s energy on her face as she passed through.