Exodus

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The SUV had barely come to a stop and Emily was out, sprinting to where she had seen the children tumble into the darkness. She was vaguely aware of something black and sticky smeared from the front wheel well all the way along the driver’s door. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she took deep satisfaction in knowing she had caused such grievous harm to the creature.

“Rhiannon? Ben? Where are you?” she yelled, her flashlight dancing through the darkness.

An almost silent whimpering came from just up ahead, and Emily flicked the beam of the flashlight to the source. Benjamin and Rhiannon were huddled together in the open mouth of an aluminum drainpipe used to direct flash floods along a culvert and away from the house. Rhiannon had the little boy pulled close to her, his head pressed to her chest as they cowered in the shadows.

They were both alive. Thank God. They were alive.

“Are you both okay?” she asked, her voice breathless. Ben’s head swiveled to focus on Emily, his big eyes like two bright moons above dirty, tear-streaked cheeks. “The bad thing hit me,” he said. Then, “Where’s Daddy?”

How do you tell a little boy his father is most likely dead? She couldn’t be sure if Simon was, but she wasn’t about to go over there right then and find out. So she chose to ignore the question, instead offering her hand to the children. “Why don’t you two get out of there and we’ll go back to the car, ’kay?”

Emily pulled them one by one from the mouth of the drainpipe. Ben flinched a little as she pulled him to the grass beside her, but Thor instantly began licking the boy’s face, which seemed to brighten him up a little.

“Did the”—she searched for the right word—“the bad thing hurt you, Ben? Let me see.” She gently took the quivering boy by the shoulder and turned him around, lifting the back of his shirt. She could see a small bruise just below his right shoulder blade, a small red bump at its center, barely visible in the light of her flashlight. It wasn’t anything serious. She pulled the boy’s shirt back down and tucked it back into his pants.

“You’ll be fine, kiddo. We have to get back to your house now and pick up the stuff we left there.”

“I don’t—” he began to object.

“It’s okay, dweeb,” his sister interjected, her voice rattling from her throat as she choked back tears. “We have to go with Emily and help her.”

“Don’t call me that,” the boy snapped back. The insult from his older sister seemed to pull him back to reality. “You’re the dweeb.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Emily took a hand of each of the children and walked them back to the waiting SUV, leading them to the passenger side so there was no chance they would see the dead creature, then bundled them inside. Thor jumped in with them and sat between the two kids, who had lapsed back into a stunned silence.

Emily climbed into the driver’s seat, glimpsing back at the shadowy outline of the dead alien, its limbs sticking up like huge broken twigs from the ground, a faint steam rising still from its spilled fluids.

Beyond the creature’s remains, Emily could see the outline of Simon’s body. He was lying in the same crumpled position as when the creature had released him. One arm rested across his stomach, the other was draped across his face, his legs splayed on the wet grass. She stared at his still form. She knew she should get out and check whether he was still alive, but she knew already that Simon had been dead long before she’d found the kids.

Her hands were trembling as she gripped the steering wheel of the Durango, pulled slowly away, and swung the vehicle around toward the gravel road leading away from the house.

Simon had said he was taking another shorter route to get to the Jeffersons’. Emily scanned the trees ahead of her for any hint of a turnoff as she slowly advanced along the same road they had left along earlier; the darkness was repulsed by the SUV’s high beams. She had been too focused on keeping the big vehicle on the road when they had first traveled this road, speeding away from the creature. Now she saw the turnoff, a gravel path leading into the woods to her left. She turned on to it and accelerated gently up to twenty, still nervous and unsure of her driving ability but more concerned with the way the hand tremors had turned into a case of the full-on shakes.

The children sat quietly in the backseat; Rhiannon stared directly ahead and Ben cuddled up to Thor. The dog’s head rested in the boy’s lap.

Shock. Disbelief. Horror. Each time Emily glanced in the mirror above her head, she would see a new emotion on one of the children’s faces. If things had been normal and something of this emotional magnitude had occurred, there would be people to turn to, experts to help. Someone would know how to deal with the turmoil these kids were about to experience. Emily had no idea how to handle their feelings. God! She was only now beginning to get a grip on her own. What was she expected to do? She couldn’t stop, couldn’t hole up with them and try and explain what had happened. A storm was coming. A storm unlike any other ever experienced on this world. What was she supposed to do?

The trees disappeared, and Emily found herself bumping over a graveled road that followed the contour of the ridgeline; in the distance she could see the glow of the lights she had left on in the house to help guide them back.

She focused on those lights as they grew closer and brighter; this must have been how sailors felt. Lost on the sea, with only the stars to guide them until they found the light of some distant port to lead them back to safety.

She had to prioritize. There had been more orbs hanging from that tree, unopened; each one would contain one more of the creature she had just killed. They could be out there now, waiting, watching. Commander Mulligan had said they had twenty-four hours maximum before the storm caught up with them if they stayed here. The choice was obvious, she supposed, she had to get the kids out now and run. Right now. Run to anywhere that was not here.