Alien Invasion (Book 1): Invasion (14 page)

“I see you’re happy to be awake,” Piper said.
 

“I’ll be happy when we’re driving,” he said, rising.
 

“The kids are still asleep,” she said. Her fingers were walking across his chest, down his flat belly.
 

“That doesn’t matter,” he said.
 

Her walking fingers reached his erection. Grabbed it.
 

“It matters a little,” she told him.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Day Three, Morning

Rural Indiana
 

They were on the road a half hour later, the curtains back, the bunk reconverted. As predicted, the kids hadn’t stirred even a hair. Piper had peeked through the partition, and Meyer, a little concerned by the close quarters, had looked back too. She’d told him that no matter what, he needed to relax. She’d joked that if aliens were really coming, they might have to tend to the continuation of the human species. He’d reminded her about his vasectomy, but she’d climbed atop him anyway, promising to be quiet.
 

They were out of the RV park (no need to pay this time; people had simply packed in like refugee sardines) and onto the two-lane road below the highway before Lila, Raj, and Trevor so much as lifted their heads. Meyer had traced the road’s course last night after they’d pulled into the park, theorizing that they might be able to get down and around the obstruction through some tricky turns and creative navigation. It would cost them distance, yes, but might save them time.
 

They didn’t need to test that hypothesis; the highway turned out to be entirely clear. Piper worried that it would simply fill later, and that they’d find themselves stuck between exits if it did. But Meyer, having traced the long route around, decided the gamble was worth taking. The sooner they made Chicago, the sooner they could get past Chicago — something that, due to the metropolis’s sheer enormity, gave him pause. But once they solved Chicago, they should be home free. There would be people who decided to cross the flat heartland bound for nowhere, sure. And once they reached the mountains, it was true that a blockage could be crippling. But chances on those roads — to Meyer at least — seemed far better. They’d be over the hump with maybe sixteen hours left to drive at highway speed. Plenty of room to spare if they ran into trouble.

They’d slept later than Meyer would have liked (he chided Piper for not waking him earlier, but it was hard to stay mad when he could still taste her), and by the time they were on the road the sun was strong behind them. Meyer let the van do its own driving, turning into the cabin to avoid the light flashes in the rearview. Then he waited, content for the first moment in what felt like forever.
 

It won’t last,
he thought.
 

But
nothing
lasts,
said a countering voice inside.
 

There was something else, too. Something about what he saw rather than felt — about reality rather than lasting and persistence. Maybe something from his dream. Maybe something to do with the haze of his latest ayahuasca ceremony still percolating in his blood. It was the only drug Meyer took, but it was plenty. The effects lasted, and lasted, and lasted. Months afterward, he’d feel above the fray, looking down on his life, able to see connections that were obviously true, but that had somehow remained invisible before.
 

This was like that. He’d been putting something together behind a curtain for years, it seemed, but he had no idea what it was. He was like an inventor working with a blindfold. He knew he was building a grand contraption (in this case, a vision of previously unknown truth), but until the blindfold came off, that contraption would remain invisible, and the truth unknown.
 

With the thought, he thought anew of Vail. Of the compound he’d been compelled to have built. Of the van he’d been compelled to purchase and stock — a second vehicle to his everyday ride. Of the plans he’d been compelled to make. Of the move from New York he knew they’d make once school was out. Of the paranoia he’d felt for too long.
 

Had he really known this was coming, or was it coincidence?
 

“Hey, Dad,” said Trevor, blinking awake. He yawned and stretched. A strange thought struck Meyer: For almost two entire days, Trevor had been sitting in that same chair, rising only for the bathroom. None of them had even left the van last night. They’d locked down, and someone had stayed awake at all times. Even at gas stops, Meyer had been the only one to exit the van since Jersey. Could it be bad for Trevor to sit for so long? He was a growing boy, after all.
 

But that was just morning reverie. Dream hangover. Nostalgia, perhaps. Meyer was forty-three, and sometimes it was hard to believe he wasn’t twenty years younger. And yet he’d somehow aged, with a daughter nearly as old now as he felt deep inside.
 

There was another vague flash from his dream — something to do with Heather’s nakedness, her skin, his skin. But it was gone like dandelion fluff in a breeze.
 

“Hey, kid,” Meyer said to Trevor. Then he looked at Lila, who’d woken in Raj’s arms. She straightened. He added, “Morning, princess.”
 

“Dad,” she said, smiling. “Don’t call me that.”
 

“I can call you anything I want.” He returned her smile.
 

“Dad,” said Raj.
 

“Don’t call me that,” said Meyer. But for some reason Raj’s joke struck him as funny, and he laughed a little. They really must be exhausted. Not spent in terms of needed sleep, but emptied by fear. When you heard an alien invasion was on the way, you freaked out. But as nothing new happened hour after hour (except for people in cities losing their shit — different issue), that freak-out state became harder and harder to maintain. A person, it seemed, could get used to anything in time.

They drove all morning. Through noon. The kids demanded to stop for food as they had the past two days, but Meyer still refused. The van was stocked, and they could add to the stores whenever they found more opportunities to stop for gas. The idea that restaurants would be doing business now was ludicrous anyway. Was he just supposed to pull their survival van up to a McDonald’s drive-thru, roll down the window, and order four value meals? Anywhere they stopped would be closed at best, likely raided, and possibly lousy with desperate people looking to take what they had the moment the Dempsey family gave them a chance.

They picked at the van’s provisions, complaining. Watched more movies and TV shows from the van’s juke, bored and restless.
 

Finally, as they began to skirt Chicago and traffic started to swell, Piper said what Meyer had already been thinking.

“Maybe it would be a good idea to check in on the news. Just a little.”
 

Meyer nodded. He didn’t need convincing.
She
was the one who kept trying to protect them from unpleasant truths.
 

Piper touched the screen, then tapped the news station. An announcer’s voice filled the van in a rush, and she jabbed frantically at the console to lower the volume. Apparently, whatever they’d been listening to last had been low, and they’d turned up too far to compensate.
 

“ … in scattered locations,” the announcer began midsentence, “but the National Guard reports that incidents of crime have been ‘within expectations and manageable.’ Spokespeople for the Guard have praised the population in general for their ‘restraint and level-headedness.’ Still, fires continue to burn out of control in Las Vegas and parts of Chicago. Here’s William Quincy, National Guard.”
 

“Chicago?” said Raj.
 

Meyer shushed him. He was more interested in what they had to say about Vegas, as a heavy ball of guilt returned to his gut. He wasn’t a superstitious person, but suddenly his dream of Heather last night felt like an omen. When was the last time he’d dreamt of Heather? Her appearance in his dream now seemed ill timed. Was she dead? Was she a ghost, returning to warn him like Jacob Marley shaking his chains?

It’s just because she’s on your mind. Don’t be stupid.
 

And that, at least, was true. He couldn’t go five minutes without thinking of Heather and what might have happened to her. It was a real-life cliffhanger. He found he didn’t enjoy them nearly as much in the flesh, and needed resolution much more desperately. And the worst thing? If something had indeed happened to her and she didn’t show at the ranch, he’d probably never know. What news outlet would report on one woman shanghaied when the planet was crumbling?

The station cut to another speaker — apparently a snippet of a previously recorded interview.

“We believe several fires were set deliberately — particularly in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the Luxor. Due to its pyramid shape, the Luxor fire seems to have remained within the hotel’s walls, but the Hard Rock fire spread readily, caught dry vegetation outside, and was deliberately perpetuated as rioting increased, building upon itself. Now it’s kind of become a free-for-all. Police and Guard are focusing mostly on containment and crowd control, and a staged plan to isolate one area at a time and allow fire crews to do their work.”
 

The station cut back to the original announcer.

 
“Meanwhile, the president’s office has issued a statement promising the ‘full cooperative powers’ of all aerospace and space agencies to the United Nations. The UN is meeting today to enact emergency measures not just to prepare for contact with the approaching objects, but to ensure that all civilian needs are attended to globally, and that citizens are given ‘all appropriate assurances’ that this matter is being looked into at the highest levels.”
 

“That’s a lot of words that say nothing,” said Trevor.
 

Meyer couldn’t help but smile. His thoughts exactly.
 

“Further analysis of the approaching objects by NASA scientists have revealed new information about their shape, size and number. NASA has reserved some of that information in the interest of national security, but appears to be sharing data globally. Here’s NASA Spokeswoman Holly Fletcher.”

“At this point, we can tell that there are approximately two hundred objects approaching Earth, each about the same size, spherical, and thus far seemingly featureless, with a diameter of around two or three thousand feet each.”
 

“Shit. That’s about a half mile,” said Meyer.
 

The radio continued. “At this point we’re unwilling to speculate as to the origin or nature of the objects, other than that they first came to NASA’s notice about the same time they were spotted by Astral Laboratories and disseminated broadly to anyone using the company’s application, just beyond Jupiter’s orbit. It’s unclear at this time whether the objects were in transit beyond that, but as Jupiter itself is made of gas and exhibits a rather strong gravity well, it seems unlikely that the objects originated from Jupiter itself, as some Internet ‘experts’ have claimed. We can neither confirm nor deny whether they came from one of the moons at this point and are unwilling to speculate.

“However, given their tremendous speed — somewhere between three and five million kilometers per hour — it seems possible that they may have a source external to our solar system. Among the questions we’re similarly unable to speculate on are whether the objects are manned, and if so, how beings with a constitution remotely similar to ours could survive such a trip. In space, relativistic considerations aside, velocity itself is trivial, but it’s clear already that the objects are decelerating, and the G-forces on anything braking that fast — plus any effects that whatever is
causing
them to slow (boosters, rockets, whatever) might have on Earth — would be exceedingly arduous for … ”
 

“That’s enough,” said Meyer.
 

“No it’s not, Daddy,” said Lila. “I want to hear about the aliens.”
 

“They said they ’won’t speculate’ on aliens.”
 

“There
have
to be aliens,” said Raj. “What, they’re just giant space marbles? Someone had to build them.”
 

“What if they are just giant space marbles?” said Trevor. “You know, nobody in them, but … ” He made a marble flicking gesture with one hand and then made the other hand appear to blow up — a remarkable demonstration of someone cue-shotting Earth from the sky.
 

“It said they’re slowing down,” said Raj.
 

“Maybe they’ll just slow down enough. Then … ” Trevor made the flick-explosion gesture again.
 

“They’re only a half mile across,” said Raj. Not big enough. Although if they were moving fast enough … ”
 

“And there’s two hundred of them,” Trevor said.
 

“Could be like with the dinosaurs. How big was
that
meteorite?”
 

Trevor: “I thought it was a comet.”
 

Raj shrugged. “Well, whatever, same deal. They could just raise a big dust cloud. Kill all life on the planet.”