Jayla tried to estimate how long the food they had brought and what she found in the hospital would last them, but kept coming up with wildly different answers. She tried to think it through logically, like her Daddy would have, and finally just recorded what they ate, or in Jada’s case, didn’t eat, over a few days and decided they had enough for three months.
What to do then? They were safe in the hospital, but once they ran out of food, they had to go somewhere else. She remembered all of the bombed out houses, rock and debris from the meteor having destroyed them, and if the occupants were killed or fled, perhaps they left food behind. She worried about finding any former occupants if they had been killed. She saw what the meteor debris did to buildings, cars, and trees. She didn’t want to know what it did to people.
Leaving the hospital to forage for food would be scary. Jayla felt safe most of the time, but at night she still barricaded the door to their room with hospital beds and slept with the shotgun beside her.
If she waited until they were completely out of food before trying to find more, and she didn’t find any, she’d go hungry and eventually starve to death. She’d seen pictures of that, little babies with distended bellies, flies buzzing around their eyes. She shivered to make the image go away. She didn’t want to die that way.
Maybe when they had a month’s worth of food left, she’d pack up as much as they could carry, and she would try to find more. If she didn’t find food in one direction, she and her sister could come back to the hospital, get more, then head off in another direction.
She didn’t know how far she could travel with Jada, but maybe the girl would recover by then. On good days, when Jayla raced her around the hospital in her wheelchair, Jada smiled and laughed and Jayla thought she was getting better. At nighttime, when Jayla had to wash her and sit her on the toilet and wipe her butt for her, Jayla thought her efforts were pointless.
On a particularly bad night, Jayla decided to leave her sister behind. She found some protein drinks she could leave for her, and maybe, without someone tending her every need, the girl would snap out of whatever state she was in and fend for herself.
Or maybe she’d starve to death.
In the morning, Jayla felt better and changed her mind. She couldn’t abandon her sister. What would her Daddy think? And how would she ever find her again if Jada left the hospital and Jayla came back for her with help and Jada wasn’t there?
They had to stay together. When it came time to leave, they’d drive the jeep for as long as the battery would hold out, although, when being logical, Jayla knew the battery would be drained before she left anyway. Their SUV would never take them anywhere again. You couldn’t let electric cars just sit around for weeks at a time. But she fancied it would take them a long ways, then they’d take the wheelchair and head farther south.
North was back up into the mountains and the mountains held terrors. Monsters worse than any bigfoot. She wasn’t going back into the mountains.
They’d head south.
The people who evacuated the town must have gone south anyway. If they’d gone north, Jayla would have run into them. Besides, in the winter, south would be warmer. Going to the cabin at Christmas with her family was fun, but Jayla had never been colder in her entire life. Without power, she’d have to light a fire, and even her Daddy had been terrible about getting a fire going in the fireplace. He must have tried for hours. She’d never heard him cuss much, but he cussed that Christmas Eve.
She wouldn’t go back north. South it was.
Jayla felt surprise at how liberating it was to make a decision. She wished her phone worked so she could look at a map and figure out how far she had to go, but she would just pack up as much as she could and take off. The wheelchair would help. She could pile food and water on it, and maybe even find a backpack to attach to the back of it to carry more. She could load up her backpack and wear it also.
She felt confident. She had met the end of the world and she was succeeding. She was keeping her sister and herself safe and alive, and they would survive.
Her confidence ended one morning on the stairs coming up from the basement, her arms loaded with food and water from the kitchen, her shotgun far away in the hospital room with her little sister, and the sound, echoing down the stairwell, of clipboards falling to the ground in the hallway by the emergency room entrance.
And a gruff voice swearing.
Eva and Juan cruised I-5, Eva’s MP23 loaded and ready, more ammunition and grenades in the back. They hadn’t had any trouble in days, except the brief incident in Victorville, but she stayed ready nonetheless.
There’d been no sign of the Hrwang other than a strange airplane flying overhead. It looked more like a miniature space shuttle, was painted completely black, and Eva decided it had to be alien. They’d tried following it. It headed south in the general direction of Los Angeles, then it disappeared.
“Faster,” she urged.
“It’s gone, ma’am,” Juan insisted again, but he didn’t slow down.
“It’s just using stealth technology. It’s still there, we just can’t see it.” Eva, crouched up on her seat, held her hand up to the brim of her baseball cap, a pink St. Louis Cardinals one she found in a sports shop in Palmdale, and tried to detect heat waves or something coming off the back of the airplane. Stealth was never a hundred percent. “I wish I had IR goggles,” she added.
The Agency didn’t have many reports of the Hrwang, at least not many that Director Marceline would share with her, but a few hinted of alien ships disappearing and reappearing, catching human combatants off guard. There were no known kills or even hits on an alien ship, but plenty of kills going the other way. The air war had been as one sided as the meteor war.
As of yet there had been no reports of landings.
“You know, ma’am, if it is there,” Juan mused aloud while driving eighty down the empty freeway, “and just invisible, like you seem to think, then it’s probably watching us drive pell mell after it. It’ll know we what we’re doing.”
“Questioning my tactical judgement again, Juan?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Yes, you are. And it’s okay. We need to review our plans with each other. It’s what partners do and how partners stay alive.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Juan slowed down to seventy. Eva sat back in her seat properly, dejected.
She looked over her shoulder into the cargo area.
“Let’s just head to Los Angeles and see what we learn.”
“We’ll burn a lot of gas, ma’am.”
“You got anything better to do with it?”
“It doesn’t grow on trees, ma’am. With no refineries running, it won’t last forever.”
“Juan, we have to learn something about these aliens. We can’t just hide for the rest of our lives in Palmdale. We have to do something.”
“I agree, ma’am. Sincerely.”
They were quiet for a while, Eva reading the familiar freeway signs to herself. Her father had taken her to LA after her parents’ divorce, and she lived there a few years until she went back East to college. Anything to get as far away from them as possible.
“Burbank, ma’am.”
“I know. Just stay on 5.”
“It could get dangerous again, ma’am.”
“Like Las Vegas?”
“I hope not, ma’am. But we should be ready.”
“Agreed.”
Eva took her seatbelt off and crawled into the cargo area of the top down yellow jeep. She braced herself on the floor and readied the MP23, loading it with grenades as well as regular ammo. Locked and loaded, she scanned the horizon, the buildings, the parking garages, the freeway overpasses, anywhere around them an ambush could be launched from.
The clouds depressed her.
California was supposed to be sunny. Sunny California was the definitio
n of the state, and it was what she had enjoyed when she moved there. Now there was no sun. They hadn’t had sun in over a week.
They didn’t see any evidence of the tsunami yet. She’d seen aerial photos of the destruction and she couldn’t even imagine what kind of people could be responsible for causing so much death and pain and destruction. Despite looking human on news videos, the Hrwang weren’t human. They were monsters.
In Glendale they finally saw the results of the flooding and Eva resolved to strike back at the Hrwang. Even a futile gesture would be something. How could the aliens, how could anyone, get away with something like this?
Juan had to slow down to avoid the occasional overturned car. They avoided looking inside as they passed.
Eva scanned all around them, turning on her rear in the back to keep her center of gravity low and the MP23 ready. She almost missed a flicker of black in the sky, like something appearing out of nowhere.
“Slow down!” she yelled. “Stop!”
Juan stopped.
“Cross the divider. There.” She pointed to a spot the jeep could cross. “We’ve got to go that way.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Juan navigated over the earthen divider, crushing yuccas and ice plant that had survived the massive tsunami.
She watched for signs, then told Juan to follow Los Feliz Boulevard.
“I remember this place for some reason,” she added.
She tried to navigate for Juan and scan for ambushes among the flattened and wrecked buildings at the same time. Somehow, she knew they were on the right path, but she couldn’t figure out why. But she had seen an alien aircraft. She knew it. But why here?
They cruised the boulevard, sometimes driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid damage. But for the most part, the boulevard had been swept clear of debris, houses on their right mostly still standing, houses on their left completely washed away. Nature was fickle.
Then she saw it.
“Stop!” she commanded.
Juan stopped.
“Pull us behind that tree. Quick.”
She jumped out of the back of the jeep once Juan had parked it and ran behind a tree. Juan joined her.
“What are we looking at, ma’am?”
“Up there. On the hill.”
“What is that place?”
“It’s why I remembered this location. That’s Griffith Observatory. My Dad took me there when we moved to LA. There’s hiking and running trails all over these mountains.”
Juan watched with her quietly for a few minutes, then asked, “So is this a trip down memory lane?”
“I saw one of the alien airplanes over it. At least, I think I did. I’m watching to see if another one shows up.”
“Oh. So we could be here a while?”
“Who knows?”
“I’m getting lunch out then, ma’am. If you don’t mind.”
Eva huffed. “Go ahead.”
It didn’t take long. Thirty minutes or so after she started watching, a black airplane, shaped a little like the space shuttle, appeared in the sky over the observatory and slowly sank out of view. They never saw it take off again.
Juan waited patiently while she watched and thought. She liked that about him.
She brought out a small camera and watched through the viewfinder. Knowing that one appeared gave her confidence in filming. Ten or twelve minutes later, another one appeared, and she had the whole sequence on video.
“We gotta get this back to the Director,” she said, putting the camera away and heading for the jeep.
“Those planes give me the creeps. I’m ready to head back home.”
“Not yet. We gotta check one more thing out.”
Juan didn’t complain but he looked like he wanted to. She instructed him to drive slowly along. Right before the road turned sharply left, she saw evidence of what she was looking for. A barricaded street.
“Take the next right. We’ve got to follow the foothills.”
Juan didn’t even say ‘yes, ma’am.’ She thought he might be too scared to speak, or simply didn’t trust himself to express his opinion. That suited Eva. She just needed him to drive so she could keep her eyes peeled and figure out the next step.
They turned right on Franklin Avenue and passed several more barricaded roads, concrete highway dividers closing the streets off. They wouldn’t keep people out, but they were effective in keeping vehicles out.
Canyon Drive was unblocked, so she told Juan to turn right up it.
“Nice homes,” he muttered when they got past the stores on the corners of the road.
There was a roadblock at Foothill Drive. A man holding an ancient AR-15 walked out from behind a makeshift shelter. Eva kept her hand on the MP23 and kept her Glock nearby.
“Ya’ll turn around and go back now. Ya got no business up here,” the man said, waving his rifle at them.
Eva turned on her sweetest voice. “We saw something. Maybe you know something about it?”
The man seemed to notice her finally and she caught the suppressed smile. She wore a tank top, mostly for comfort and utility, but if it helped her sweet talk a man with a rifle, it wasn’t a bad thing.
“Have you seen anything strange flying over the observatory?” She sounded the word out to make it sound like she had a hard time pronouncing it and had to give each syllable some thought. She stretched her arm out, leaning out of the jeep a little, to point. The man lowered his weapon and walked up to her, ostensibly to see where she was pointing, which made him turn slightly away from her.
If she’d had ill intent, he’d be dead. Amateur.
“We think they’re the aliens,” he said, turning back towards her and trying to get as good a look at her as possible without being obvious. Eva pretended not to notice.
“Aliens?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes, sirree. They’ve been coming and going up there all day. We saw one of them take out a helo-copter,” he pronounced it strange, ”right up thataway.” He pointed with his rifle back up towards the city behind them. “It just appeared right over that helo-copter and then some kind of death ray, like a lightning storm, came out of it and the poor guys never had a chance. We done checked out the wreckage, but none of them survived.”
Eva wondered if it was another Agency helicopter or some other poor victims who never had a chance. Someone had to figure out a way to fight these aliens.
“Did you say it just appeared? Like from nowhere?”
“Just like a magic trick.”
“Then what happened?”
“It just disappeared again like it’d never been there.”
“That’s something,” Eva offered.
“Yes it is.” The man stared back at her, less concerned about keeping his ogling secret now. He probably thought he was bonding with her.
“So tell me, why such tight security up here?” Eva kept a straight face.
“We’re just protectin’ our own.”
“I see. I get that. I bet they appreciate your protection.” Eva put her hand gently on the man’s arm, hoping suddenly she wasn’t laying it on too thick.
“Yeah, there ain’t many of us, only about...”
“Kase Landry will you shut up and stop flirting with that woman!” a voice yelled from behind the shelter and a woman followed the voice, a bolt action .22 in one hand and a baby in a sling cradled by the other. Eva hoped the woman never tried to fire her rifle while holding her child. People were so stupid with guns. They think they and everyone around them are invincible.
The woman was in her mid to late thirties and had fuzzy, dirty blonde hair.
“That’s enough of you all. It’s time to get going.”
“I think they’re right, honey,” Eva said to Juan. Kase suddenly deflated. “We should
be going.”
Juan started up the jeep and turned the wheel sharp to make a U-turn.
“Thank you for your time,” Eva said, her voice dripping with honey. She half winked at Kase so he could take it either way, depending on what he wanted to believe. She wanted to be on his good side. She planned on coming back.
As soon as they were out of earshot, she said to Juan, “I’m gonna need a truck.”
“How are you going to get close to the guards?” Olivia Marceline, Agency Director and now Eva’s supervisor, asked.
“Tank top and neon green running shorts, ma’am. And if that doesn’t work, sports bra and neon pink. Works every time.”
The Director shook her head. “I wish I were twenty-three again.”
“I’m twenty-seven, ma’am.”
“I know. But you look twenty-three.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Director Marceline rubbed her hand on her face, staring at Eva the entire time. She finally spoke.
“Going undercover is a dangerous game.”
Eva replied solemnly. It’s what was expected of her. “I understand, ma’am.”
“It’s not like we’ll disavow you or anything if you get caught. We simply won’t have the resources to rescue you. You’ll just disappear and never be heard from again.”
Like hundreds of millions of people on the West Coast. Not to mention all the casualties everywhere else in the world.
“I understand, ma’am. I wouldn’t want you risking anyone else anyway. If I get caught, I’ll probably be dead before anyone would know I was gone.”
“As long as you understand that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So many things, little things, can go wrong. Keep your stories simple so you don’t trip yourself up. If they ask about training, tell them about the year of ROTC you did at Ohio State. That way they can look up records, if the records still exist, and you have a semi-plausible and verifiable excuse.”
“You know about my ROTC?” Eva asked, surprised.
“I know everything.” The Director smiled.
“Yes, ma’am.” Eva thought she sounded like Juan suddenly, and she wanted to laugh at the mental image of herself in his shoes. But she kept a straight face, kept her voice solemn.
“Honestly, I’d love to tell you no,” the Director said. “But we need something. Anything you can provide, just like the few minutes of footage you shot today, could make all the difference. You never know.”
Eva nodded.
“But Eva, now listen to me. You are not in this alone. This is a team effort. You get something useful and you get out. There’s a lot of us to take that information and put it to good use. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re not James Bond.”
Eva giggled. “I know, ma’am. I won’t do anything foolish.”
“We’re past that point. I just don’t want you getting yourself killed. I’d never hear the end of it from your partner. Either one of them.” She rubbed her face with her hand again and yawned. “Sorry. I’m so tired. Running a city is a lot harder than running a field operation.”
“Speaking of which, ma’am. I need a truck.”
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