Invasion

10

Maya sped north on I-65 and into the gaping maw of another dark, uncertain night. Her mind wandered as she kept a tight grip on the steering wheel, her hands locked into the 10 and 2 positions. The adrenaline surge from her escape had subsided, but her paranoia had not. In fact, she seemed to be more worried now than she had been while stuffed into the supply closet with Gill stalking around the shop looking for her.

She realized that she’d been glancing into the rearview mirror every few seconds, looking to make sure Gill and his men weren’t following her. She shuddered when she thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten away, and then pictured Alice’s face as she thanked God that she had. Although Maya feared for Alice and her unborn child, she understood that there wasn’t anything that could be done about them now. She could only hope that the woman had been able to outsmart Gill and cover up the fact that she’d helped Maya escape. But then again, outsmarting Gill didn’t seem to require much intellectual heavy lifting. She’d keep her promise to Alice, too, but finding cops out here didn’t seem likely anytime soon. And she had other important concerns.

Laura. Aiden.

How were the kids? What would the situation be like when she arrived at Gerald’s?

Maya wanted her kids back and to take them somewhere safe. That was it. Somewhere away from their bastard of a kidnapping father and the alien invasion—not being sure which one was worse. Maybe the situation at the school had been what she’d needed to get her adrenaline pumping and give her the confidence to know that she wasn’t just as strong as a man, but stronger. Stronger than several from White House, anyway.

A flash of light reflected from her rearview mirror, pulling Maya out of her thoughts. When she looked again, she didn’t see the source on the highway behind her. Rolling down the window, she stuck her head partially out and quickly saw where the light had come from.

It had come from the sky.

From an alien ship.

Her hands shaking, Maya turned off her headlights. She kept her foot on the gas, but decided she needed to hide. If the aliens spotted the vehicle on the road, they might destroy it.

Maya pulled over onto the side of the road, slamming on the brakes. She jumped out of the car, staying low and keeping her eyes to the sky. Hopping over the guardrail, she slid down the hill on her stomach, moving into a ditch and out of sight.

A beam shot light into the trees as the ship slowly descended. She had witnessed smaller crafts monitoring the rural areas and towns in order to find and eliminate the people who they couldn’t trap inside of the domes.

She’d just looked out from around the trunk of a tree when the spotlight blinded her. Maya slid down and out of sight.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Her heart raced. She lay face down and didn’t move. If they saw her, she was dead.

The sound of the ship’s engines roared and the dirt and leaves swallowed Maya like a surging hail storm. She put her hands over her head, just waiting for the burn of the laser that would incinerate her instantly. But, instead, the gale force subsided, and when she opened her eyes, the area was again encased in darkness. She looked up and saw that the ship had flown higher, its light now shining to the west.

Maya sighed as she climbed to her feet and crawled to the top of the hill.

She jogged over to the truck and started the engine. Then she hit the gas, spitting gravel into the air as the tires squealed when they grabbed the asphalt of I-65.

Within minutes, she had crossed the Tennessee-Kentucky border, making it one mile closer to her kids.

When Maya arrived in Bowling Green, Kentucky, she took the second exit, pulling up to a gas station and parking the truck at the edge of the lot.

Bowling Green felt like a ghost town. Even though it was the middle of the night, there should have been more people out, especially at a rest stop gas station. She didn’t see any fires, and none of the nearby buildings looked damaged, leading her to believe that the aliens hadn’t swarmed and destroyed the city or domed it the way they had Nashville. Perhaps most of Bowling Green’s citizens had fled town, or else they hid from the aliens.

Maya pressed her hands against her temples with her arms resting on the steering wheel. Not only did her head throb from everything she had been through over the past several days, but she couldn’t remember where Gerald lived.

She had refused to bring the kids to his house for his court-appointed times with them, instead forcing him to drive to Nashville. He’d moved several times over the past couple of years for different reasons, usually because he was running from the back rent, let alone the front rent. That had come as no surprise to Maya. She would wait at the mailbox on the third Monday of each month, mentally taking odds on whether his child support check would be in there. He pretended to have the best intentions for his children at heart, but what he said with his wallet showed what really mattered in Gerald’s life.

The mere thought of having to drive up to this shithole town and get her kids only made the veins in her head pulse more.

She punched the roof of the cab with her right hand and then leaned back against the headrest, closing her eyes. She took two deep breaths.

“Where is his damn house?”

She opened her eyes and looked around. Parked on the other side of the lot sat a slick-looking, brand new Mustang.

I swear that car is better looking than any man my age. Even the new ‘Stangs.

Her mind drifted as she thought about the cherry red Mustang she’d been saving money to buy, although this one looked really good in midnight black.

Then it hit her.

“Midnight Avenue.”

That was the name of Gerald’s street. Now she had remembered the name, but she still couldn’t remember how to get there and there was nobody around to ask. And even if there had been, the chance that they would be able to give her directions to one specific street in this town would be slim. People couldn’t navigate on their own anymore even without the threat of an alien invasion.

Her eyes drifted to the convenience store, then down to the crowbar in the passenger seat, and the idea hit her. She grabbed the crowbar and jumped out of the truck.

Maya looked around as she jogged to the front door. She pulled on the handle, but the locked door didn’t open. She reared back, then swung the heavy end of the crowbar into the glass door, shattering it. No alarm went off in the store, which didn’t surprise her. She reached in and unlocked it, then pushed the door open.

The item she needed sat in a cradle on the front counter. She took the Kentucky map from the display, and grabbed a bottle of water from a nearby cooler and a package of beef jerky from a rack.

A small flashlight sat on the counter next to the maps, and she grabbed it also before spreading the map flat. She shined the light on what she thought was Gerald’s neighborhood, finally seeing Midnight Avenue. She circled it with a pen she found on the counter. Maya dropped a twenty dollar bill on the counter and then headed back out to the truck.

Maya stopped in front of the house and stared at the front door. The place sat cloaked in darkness, and the blinds on the windows had been drawn. Gerald’s pickup truck sat in the driveway.

He was home.

Maya took a deep breath, closing her eyes and leaning back against the headrest. She made sure her ponytail was tight, then grabbed the crowbar and stepped out of the vehicle.

Her heartbeat sped up as she walked up the driveway, around a primered Chevy Nova on cinderblocks, and past a garbage can overflowing with fast food wrappers and beer bottles. She scoffed, shook her head, and then continued to the back of the house.

Maya thought Gerald’s bedroom was on the front side of the house, so she figured she’d have a better chance of breaking in without waking him if she used the back door.

As Maya stepped over white plastic buckets and painted garden gnomes, she approached the screen door on his back porch. Her hands trembled. She still didn’t know what she was going to do when she saw him, though she was confident it involved the crowbar, which was itching for action in her sweaty hands.

She’d wedged the crowbar’s edge into the doorjamb when the back-porch light came on and the interior door rattled. Maya froze as the door opened and she found herself staring into a one-eyed beast—the barrel of a shotgun aimed at her face.

The person holding the gun lowered it and stepped forward into the light.

“Cameron?” Maya asked.

The young woman snorted, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“You can come on in. But he’s not here.”