Invasion

14

The first glimpse of sunlight appeared on the horizon, and even though Maya had gotten a few hours of rest, her heavy, red eyes made it difficult for her to stay focused and awake. She’d cracked the window and allowed the cool but moist Tennessee Valley air to fill the cab. Maya could detect the usual rural highway odors—moldy hay and manure. But she could also smell smoke and the unmistakable stench of burnt plastic, and that reminded her that this wasn’t a typical early morning drive.

Her driver coughed, but Maya wasn’t in the mood to talk to her yet. She didn’t trust Cameron, and that more than the extra-large pot of coffee they’d brewed before leaving Gerald’s house helped to keep her alert.

Maya looked out her window as they passed through a southern suburb of Bowling Green. Even after seeing what the aliens had done to Nashville, the degree of destruction almost took her breath away. Few of the office buildings or structures along the highway had remained intact. Several continued to burn, orange flames emitting billowing, black smoke filling the sky like a cursed sunrise. Cars and other vehicles sat in twisted heaps of metal as if dropped from the sky, and bodies could be seen everywhere, none of them moving. Maya hadn’t seen any people since they’d left Midnight Avenue, but she heard the distinct pop of gunfire and wondered who, or what, they were shooting at. The scale of the damage didn’t appear to be as severe as what she’d witnessed in Nashville, though, which made Maya wonder if it had been caused by the aliens or by the panicked citizens of Bowling Green.

Maya grabbed her travel mug from the cupholder and took another sip of her coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cameron’s expression in the window’s reflection. The woman’s eyes bulged, and her jaw had gone slack. She had both hands on the wheel and was leaned into it, looking from left to right at the damage.

“Are you all right?” Maya asked.

“I don’t know. This is all a little overwhelming.”

“You mean you haven’t seen any of this?”

Cameron shook her head. “I’ve stayed in the house ever since it started. Gerald made sure we had plenty of food, and he told me not to leave. So, I didn’t. I heard the chaos outside, and I was too scared to go out there.”

Maya understood how Cameron felt, but she had already acclimated to the situation after everything she’d been through in Nashville. Maya had seen the dome bring constant darkness, aliens filling the skies like angry, intergalactic hornets, and the utter destruction of a city in days, when it had taken hundreds of years to build it. And the death. Even as an EMT, that was not something Maya would ever acclimate to or forget.

“There are bodies just lying in the street. But I don’t see any survivors” Cameron said. “Where are they? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” But she did. Sort of. Still, Maya decided not to overwhelm the young woman so soon after leaving the house she’d locked herself inside of while the invasion had gone on.

Cameron’s head turned from left to right and back again as she drove, trying to maintain the truck’s speed while rubbernecking at the endless blocks of fire-scorched rubble that had been her town. Maya reached for Cameron’s mug and then handed it to her. Cameron took a sip, cleared her throat, and then smiled at Maya.

“I’m sorry about how I talked to you back there at the house. I’ve been scared shitless, especially since Gerald left.”

Maya felt a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth and she dampened it before Cameron would notice. “Look, you don’t have to pretend like we’re friends. We’re not. We’re just two people stuck in a shitty situation who just so happen to be connected to the same asshole.”

Cameron sat up straight in the seat, took another sip of coffee, and then shrugged as she kept her eyes on the road ahead.

“He’s not that bad, you know. He’s changed a lot since you two were married.”

“People don’t change. And the fact that he left you behind is proof of that. Trust me.”

“Yeah, well, even considering that, he still treats me better than a lot of other men have.”

Maya swallowed, the weak coffee now churning like an acid bath in her stomach. She felt feverish and jittery, and much as she wanted to attribute it to the caffeine, she knew it probably had something to do with sitting next to her ex-husband’s girlfriend while driving down a highway in a post-apocalyptic nightmare—which wasn’t a dream at all.

They weren’t friends. Far from it. Just a few hours ago, they’d been treating each other like punching bags. But if anyone in the world knew what it felt like to be entangled in the mess that was Gerald Waller, it was this woman. And she’d had the same experience with him as Maya had.

“Have you ever talked to anybody about that stuff? You know, like, a professional?”

“You mean a fuckin’ shrink?”

Maya shrugged. “Yeah, for lack of a better word, I suppose that’s what I mean.”

Cameron laughed. “Honey, no person, whether it’s some therapist or my boyfriend’s ex-wife, is going to be able to fix me.”

“I don’t mean that, and I didn’t mean to offend you. I agree that no one is going to be able to fix you. But maybe someone can help you cope with things a little better.”

Cameron looked straight ahead, her knuckles white on the top of the steering wheel. With the reflection of the rising sun reflecting off the rear-view mirror, Maya noticed a single, silent tear rolling down Cameron’s face from the corner of her right eye.

“My dad abused me as a kid. No, he molested me. And all through school, I was bullied because I was fat and had bad acne. When I was 17, I had a miscarriage which was the result of a date-rape. Ever since, I’ve found myself in one bad relationship after another. And even though it might be hard for you to believe, Gerald has treated me very well. For once in my life, I’m fairly happy. I have a man I love. I make good money tending bar in a dive while wearing a low-cut Wildcats t-shirt. Men tip me more than what they put into the Sunday collection basket at church. I’m not sleeping behind a dumpster and I don’t have to knock cockroaches off my burritos before I eat them. That might not sound like the exciting life you’ve been leading, but to me, it’s something. But all that ended when this shit started.”

Maya watched Cameron swipe at another tear, wiping away her haunted past and her uncertain future. From where she sat, Maya could see a purple and black bruise forming on the woman’s face where her fist had landed a few hours earlier.

“I’m sorry that I punched you and tied you up in the basement. My emotions have been running high, and I’ve been through a lot. I just want to get my kids back.”

“Don’t be sorry. I deserved it for acting like a fucking brat.”

Maya laughed and shook her head. “You weren’t. You were trying to cope with this shit, like we’ve all been doing.”

Cameron took her foot off the gas as two deer crossed the highway. One dragged a limp hind leg behind it, the doe’s fur blackened and scorched. While waiting for them to get to the other side, Cameron turned and looked at Maya with red, bloodshot eyes.

“I’ll tell you this much. Gerald has your kids here in Kentucky.”

Maya leaned forward, staring hard into Cameron’s eyes, but not saying a word.

“But I’m not telling you exactly where until I’m sure you won’t throw me out of the truck.”

Maya felt a flutter in her stomach, and the news accelerated her heartbeat more than the coffee had. They were already in Kentucky, which meant they couldn’t be more than an hour or so from wherever Gerald had them.

Maya smiled. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, you can thank me when we get there.”

She hit the gas as the injured deer took one last look at the truck before hopping the guard rail. The engine roared as they continued heading west.