At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (17 page)

On swift feet, she leapt, springing high,
and as she came down, she stabbed the alion in its skull. She
rolled over the beast. Flopping to the solid ground, she
groaned.

The door to the chamber slid open. At the
mechanical sound, I jumped in the air, spinning. A smaller alion
entered. It studied the room and its commander, eyeing the blood
draining around the knife, dripping from its face to the floor. It
roared a monstrous, deep-throated cry that quaked my stomach. As
the door shut, the beast ran to the dead alion.

Full of trepidation that the new alion would
discover us, I aimed the foreign weapon, then squeezed both
triggers with all the might I had left. The canisters at the end of
the barrels started to rotate like a skill saw. The weapon pumped
hundreds of black globes into the beast within a mere breath. I
exhaled, letting go of the triggers. The force from each shot
propelled it backwards, until it hit the wall, collapsing in a heap
of burnt flesh. A black, oily liquid began to leak from each wound,
mixing and pooling with crimson blood.

The shots from the weapon had been
relatively quiet to the rate of fire, but it was still enough to
draw attention to any alion walking by, maybe even farther; it was
hard to guess with their cat ears what they could pick up. We
didn’t know how far away their sensitive hearing could detect our
ruckus, if they could at all with the weapon cloaked under the
invisibility shield.

We took no chances of waiting around to find
out. I helped Penelope to her feet, then wrenched the yellow disk
from around the Admiral’s neck, popped it into the port on the door
panel, hit the yellow bar twice to lock the door, and threw up a
little when I finished. “I wasn’t made for this work.”

“Surviving?” Penelope asked after she
swigged down some water.

She handed me the bottle. My throat was so
dry that it scraped when I swallowed, and I swallowed a lot, to the
point where it felt like blood-blisters were about to burst along
my esophagus. “If that means killing alions, then yeah, surviving.
I don’t have the stomach to do the real thing.”

“You’ve done the real thing already. You’ve
got the stomach for it.”

I took a drink and spied the puke in the
corner of the room. “Not according to that.” I pointed to the mess
of stomach content.

“You’re not the only person to throw up
after taking a life. Come on, we have to get out of here.” She
climbed atop the desk, poking the paneled ceiling.

“What are you doing?”

She eyed me. “Trying to find a loose panel
so we can get the hell out of here. They’ll bust through that door
eventually, and I don’t want to be here when they do. We can still
make it to a hangar.” Done, she went back to her work.

I touched the screen of the Admiral’s
computer, or whatever it was. I couldn’t read anything, which made
it impossible to navigate. I quit when I realized it was utterly
hopeless. We scooted the desk to the left, and Penelope tried
lifting more panels. At the edge of the room, one popped up,
unsecured.

“Can you boost me up?” she asked.

I nodded. The wide desk allowed for both of
us to stand comfortably. I squatted and wrapped my arms around her
legs. “Ready?”

She grabbed ahold of the edge of the
ceiling. “Yep.”

My arms and knees shaking, I hoisted her
with all the strength left in me. She pulled herself into the duct,
just as my knees buckled. I fell flat on my rear.

“You okay?”

I raised my eyes to her. “I don’t know
anymore.”

“No time for talk like that. Get up here,
and toss me the weapons.”

I obeyed, no heart to argue or defy.

“All right, I’ll help pull you up,” she
said. She offered me her slender hands. Huffing, she helped pull me
up, squeezing my arms, as I climbed into the duct. Once far enough
in, I collapsed, and she fell back, giggling.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I feel like a spy,” she answered. “I never
thought about being a spy . . . it’s just crazy the paths that life
takes you on.”

“I guess it really is unpredictable.” I
smiled at her.

“We probably never would have met if the
alions hadn’t come,” she mumbled.

My lustful eyes lingered on her butt as she
turned around and planted herself against the left wall. “Well, you
never know. I planned on going to U-Dub. What about you?” I slid
forward and pushed up, situating my body next to her.

“Yeah, I did too. I wanted to go into
graphic design, or computer science, or something interesting like
those.”

“Those are slick. I’ve thought about
writing, maybe journalism. I guess it doesn’t matter now . . .” I
sighed and hung my head.

“You should put the panel back, so they
won’t suspect we’re up here,” she advised.

“Good idea.” I reached over and slipped the
panel into its place. The ducts, made for alions, spanned a meter
high, if not taller, and a meter wide. I could move around easy
enough. I returned to my spot next to her. We locked eyes for a
moment. I cleared my throat.

She leaned closer, our shoulders
touching.

Nervous, my mouth trembled. I had never
kissed anyone before. I didn’t want to disappoint her with my
cracked and dehydrated lips, not to mention my fetid breath. She
really was brave.

But then desire took hold. I leaned over
until our dry lips grazed.
Magical
was all that came to
mind, completely magical. No part of me believed the kiss was
really happening.

She pressed harder upon me, and I slid
against the wall. I threw out an arm to brace myself against the
duct floor, but my hand didn’t touch what I had expected.

Thick fur tickled my fingers.

At that moment, I knew my end had finally
come.

Maggy

I
n my peripherals, I
spied a flash of blue light in the main part of the store. “Did you
see that?” I spun on my heels.

“The blue light?” Tortilla asked. He halted
and turned back.

“Yeah. Where is Jelly? And Penelope, I
thought they were right behind us.”

“Guess not.” He jogged over to the door
leading to the front room.

I followed. Two alion corpses lay on the
floor in smelly heaps. I waved a hand in front of my nose. “Wow,
they stink.” We surveyed the room. There was no sign of either one.
“They’re not here.”

“Darrel? Penelope?” Tortilla yelled. “Where
are you guys?” He crept from bed to bed, throwing up sheets as he
searched under the frames. Soon he was frantically tossing bedding
towards the back of the store as he made his way to the front,
shouting their names the entire time.

When Tortilla checked under the last bed, I
stopped beside him. “They’re not here, Tortilla.” I spotted tears
rolling down his flushed face.

“I don’t understand . . .” He plopped down
on the bed. “They killed the alions. Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. Penelope wouldn’t just leave
her sisters behind, so they didn’t run off together, that’s
certain. Maybe they were taken the same way everyone else was
taken. We still don’t know how they do it.” I sat beside him and
placed a gentle arm around him. “They’re probably up on the ship
above Seattle.”

His surge of tears quit as abruptly as a
fleeting rainstorm. “Then that’s where we have to go.”

“How?” I asked.

“What’s going on? What happened?” Amanda’s
serious voice echoed in the open expanse.

The sweet voice of Jane followed. “Where is
Penny?” The two rushed to us, eyes seeking their sister as they
ran. Without a trace of Penelope, Jane started to sob
uncontrollably, devastated by her sister’s absence.

Jelly had been good at comforting them. I on
the other hand had no inherent motherly or sisterly tenderness; it
was hard for me to console them. Surprisingly, Jacob pushed Jane
into his stomach, her tears soaking his shirt. He patted her on the
back. “It will be okay, Jane.” His voice was not as soothing as
Jelly’s, but it lightened her despondent, sorrowful heart. It was
easy to see that Jane needed Penelope most of all, and she was
broken without her guidance and loving hand.

“We should leave,” I urged. “No telling how
many alions are here.”

Jacob lowered his eyes to me. “Not very good
with children, are you?”

“She’s right,” Tortilla spoke up. “If more
are roaming around, it will not take long for them to find us.”

I smiled at Tortilla for defending me. “I’m
sorry that my words do not always comfort. I’ll try to be a little
gentler in tone, but right now, we have to get moving.”

Jacob clenched his jaw. He gazed down on the
crying twin. “Jane, we have to go now. We’ll find your sister, I
promise, but right now we have to go.” He picked her up with
trembling arms and shuffled off towards the back. Amanda strode
behind him, as Tortilla ran ahead, and I tailed them all.

Tortilla held the back exit door open for us
by the time we caught up. Dark rainclouds frowned upon us in the
sky, promising to weep beside Jane for the day.

I stopped at the edge of the curb and
scanned the parking lot for viable rigs. “There’s a bus.” I pointed
south to a bus with a large banner for Intercity Transit spanning
from front to rear. As we sprinted forward, I stopped them every
few meters to scope out the area. When Tortilla reached the bus, he
pried open the doors, wedging a knife between the rubber.

Once loaded, I took to the driver’s seat. I
found the key in a combination box under the dash. My first seven
tries were failures, but then I saw the bus number on the
right-hand console and entered them. The lock clicked and the lid
popped up. I powered on the motor and slammed the GO pedal to the
floor.

Tortilla hovered over my shoulder, nervous.
“We still going south?”

“I don’t know of a better plan. We have no
way to get to the ship, but Jacob’s father was working on unmanned
fighters, so maybe we can use one of those to get aboard.”

“Why don’t we try an airport?”

“You want to take the twins up to the ship?
Come on, bromigo, that’s a bad plan.” I steered left onto a main
road.

He sighed and sat down in the seat behind
the stairs to the bus. “That’s a long time for them to be up there,
alone. What if—”

“We don’t know what they do to the taken,
let’s not assume anything right now. I just want to focus on
getting us down to Pasadena.”

“We both know it’s not anything pleasant.
More than likely . . .”

“I know, Tortilla. I know. Just let me
drive, okay?” I found the on-ramp for I-5 and cruised along for a
while, until we hit congestion, and I had to bump several cars out
of the way.

Tortilla brooded, gazing out the window.

In the back, Jacob comforted Jane and
Amanda, giving them water and some chocolate bars that we had found
in the Apocalypse Room. I couldn’t hear all that he was saying, but
a compassionate sweetness resided in his tone.

When night struck, I didn’t pull off into a
city, as that hadn’t worked so well the last few times. I shut down
the bus in the far left lane.

I glanced back at Jacob. He was sitting up,
staring at the lights outside, shivering. The twins slept, huddled
together in the seats across from him.

I nodded back at Jacob. “You think he’s all
right?” I asked Tortilla.

He studied Jacob. “His skin is pretty pale.
It looks like he’s getting sick.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” I grabbed a
granola bar from a food pack. The wrapper was noisy as I peeled
away the artificial skin. “I hope it doesn’t get bad.”

He sighed. “And if it does?”

“We find a hospital.”

“And pray that someone is still there who
knows about medicine?”

I nodded. I had no words. The rest of the
night went by without any disturbances, though I did not sleep as
well as I had on the bed. Tortilla wrapped his arm around me as I
leaned against his shoulder. I stared out the window in long gaps,
periodically drifting with heavy, heavy eyes.

The sun crawled over the Cascades in the
east. I could see Mount Rainier, clear and snowcapped, and dazzling
in the morning light.

Tortilla twitched awake. “Sorry. I didn’t
mean to jerk like that.”

I smiled up at him. “We all twitch these
days. I’m sorry I jabbed your stomach during the night.” I had
really elbowed him in the gut.

“Forgiven. Are you hungry?” He stood up and
stretched.

“As a bear fresh out of hibernation.”

He laughed. “I don’t know if we have enough
food to appease that kind of appetite. Turkey Jerky?” He offered me
the bag after he plucked a few pieces for himself.

“What else could I want? I certainly don’t
want nice warm pancakes.”

“Who would when turkey jerky is on the
table,” he said, smiling.

I wanted to kiss him for lifting my spirits,
but the others shifted awake. The twins ran over and seized their
own breakfast, munching down peanut butter chocolate bars. Jacob
didn’t move; he just stared at us, sweating and shivering.

I walked back to give him water and jerky.
“Hey, you okay?”

He gently rocked back and forth. “I think
I’m getting sick. It feels like I’m getting bronchitis. I’ve had it
before, the doctor said it was Asthma-induced bronchitis.”

“Yeah, I’ve had that before, too. You need
steroids,” I told him.

“Guess I’ll just have to tough it out. I’ll
be fine in a few days, no problem.” He gave a sliver of a smile. He
accepted the water but shunned away the food. “I’ll eat something
later. I’m not in the mood right now.”

“All right, but you have to eat,” I pressed
him. “Even if you don’t want to.”

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about
me.”

I went back to the front and powered on the
motor. The day crept by irritatingly slow. I bumped hundreds of
cars out of our path, breaking small bits of the front of the bus
with each impact. In the afternoon, Jacob began coughing, softly at
first, but then it morphed into a hacking, lung-puncturing
cough.