Alien Invasion (Book 1): Invasion (8 page)

“West,” was all he said. His look was at once stern and almost condescending. He had his chin mostly down, his light-green eyes rolled up to meet hers. The grim expression of an authority —
explaining
rather than bargaining, asking, or attempting to justify.

They were going on a road trip. Discussion over.
 

She decided to weigh in anyway. Straightening, fluffing her hair where the seat had flattened it, she said, “I still think it makes sense to go back to New York. What are we going to do out here in the open, Meyer?”
 

“Drive west.”
 

“You think something’s coming.”
 

“I’ve thought it for a while.”

“Then we should be home. Not out here in the boonies.”
 

“Nobody’s going into the city right now. There’s a reason. New York is always a target. Of everything. Nobody wants to be there right now, unless they literally have nowhere else to go.”
 

“We
don’t have anywhere else to go.”
 

“Vail. LA. London.”
 

“Yes. Let’s fly to the London apartment. That makes just as much sense. Hell, Meyer, it’s probably about the same length as flight. We can make it on the plane that’s grounded!”
 

“Keep your voice down. The kids are asleep.”
 

“
You
need to sleep, too, Meyer.”
 

“We can take shifts keeping an eye on the road. I’m not stopping at a hotel.”
 

“It’s not just about being physically able to sleep. We all need a break. If we just stop for a while, finish the night … ”
 

“The further west we get, the … fuck.”
 

The road had been making a gentle turn. Meyer paused, exhaled, and swore. The van moved to a courteous stop behind the rear of a car that, in the dark, appeared to be a light-blue Toyota electric.
 

“How has it been?” she said. “Traffic, overall?”
 

Meyer shook his head. They’d been driving along steadily when Piper had woken, but now the road looked like a parking lot: red lights as far as the eye could see in front of them, and nothing but white to the left.
 

“On and off. I keep thinking we’re free and clear, but then something happens. A few accidents with no clear cause, like people are just rushing, going manual to try and get past blocks, then running into each other. A few cars off the road, and everyone stops to rubberneck. This just looks like traffic. There’s a city ahead. One with more than two freeway exits. Maybe everyone wants McDonald’s.”

“Can we go, Dad?”
 

Piper turned. Trevor met her eyes for a moment then flicked rapidly away, focusing all attention on his father.
 

“We’re going.”
 

“I meant to McDonald’s.”
 

“That was a joke, Trevor.”
 

“I’m hungry.”
 

“There’s a bunch of dry stuff and bars in the back.”
 

“I don’t really want kelp bars and soy burgers.”
 

“I didn’t pack soy burgers, Trevor.”
 

“Okay, I don’t want kelp bars.”
 

Lila was stirring in the back seat. “Are we talking about stopping to eat?”
 

“No,” said Meyer.
 

Piper shrugged. “Might not be a bad idea, Meyer.”
 

“No. We have to get to Colorado.”
 

Lila sat up. “Wait. You were serious about that?”
 

“There’s an exit right there,” Piper said. “Let’s take a break. This traffic isn’t going anywhere anyway.”
 

“We’re staying on the road. Don’t you remember what I said about outrunning the panic? Something like this happens, speed is the only advantage. We have a bathroom, food, water, even entertainment. We stay on the road until we’re there.”
 

“That’s like three days, Dad.” Lila shook her boyfriend. “Wake up, Raj. We’re driving all the damned way to Colorado.”
 

“Try Raj’s parents again,” said Meyer. “He’s not going anywhere.”
 

“So you’re just going to drop him off at a gas station and hope he isn’t attacked by bandits and rape gangs?”
 

“There are no rape gangs, Lila,” said Meyer.
 

“Not yet,” said Piper.
 

Trevor smirked. “Nobody’s going to rape Raj. Maybe we can use him to shoo rape gangs away.”
 

Raj rubbed his hands across his chest. “You’re wrong. Everyone wants a piece of this.”
 

“We’ll
call his parents,”
said Meyer.
 

“Because they’re out here, right, Dad? Not in New York or anything. They can just ride out and get him.”
 

“I offered him the Beetle.”
 

“Well, that didn’t work out, though, did it?”
 

Trevor made a face at his sister. “Oh, like you wouldn’t have thrown yourself in front of the wheels if Dad had pushed him into it and those people hadn’t come. You’re not letting Raj go anywhere.”
 

Raj was still rubbing his hands across his chest sexily. “Can you blame her?”
 

Piper looked at Meyer, then shot Lila and Raj a look. She understood; she’d been a stupid teenage girl in love once, too. But Lila’s father hadn’t been, and somehow Piper imagined Meyer’s teen dalliances as more calculated and strategic than head-over-heels foolish in love.
 

“Try them now,” Meyer grumbled, half of his attention still on the tablet. Piper hadn’t seen what he was looking up, but now he was using it as a crutch to avoid facing his children head-on. Probably afraid he’d snap at them.
 

“Who?” said Piper.
 

“Raj’s parents.”
 

“They won’t be awake yet,” Raj said helpfully.
 

Eyes still on the tablet, Meyer said, “I’m okay with waking them.”
 

Piper could hear his restraint. Meyer needed sleep. He was as thin as the rest of them, but refused to rest and recharge. He was always a tempest. All that changed, between his calm and anger, was the strength of internal armor holding it back.
 

Raj shrugged, then tapped at his wrist. Piper had a strange desire to ask if she could see the device because she’d never used one before, but now wasn’t the time.
 

“Nothing,” Raj reported.
 

Meyer still seemed to be seething.

Piper said, “They don’t answer?”
 

Raj shook his head. “No signal.”
 

“The network is down?”
 

Trevor: “Probably just flooded.”

“We should get a hotel,” Piper suggested. “Let traffic clear out. Maybe the networks will open up.”
 

She looked at Trevor, the last to use a phone. He looked away as if angry. Maybe he resented her for something. Piper didn’t know, and had been trying for weeks not to be bothered, but he sure had been acting like it.
 

Lila said, “People aren’t going to make fewer calls as the aliens get closer.”

Raj wrapped his arm around her, and pulled Lila closer. “You don’t know they’re aliens.”
 

“Just empty ships from outer space, then,” Trevor said. “That are flying themselves.”
 

Piper thought,
Flying
.

“That doesn’t mean that … ”
 

Piper turned to Meyer, but she spoke loud enough to stop Raj in the back seat. “Wait. How far are we from Morristown?”
 

“Like, nine or ten hours.”
 

“How
far
.”
 

“Thirty, forty miles?”
 

“Well,” said Lila, verbally pouting. “I guess we’d better settle in for a long trip.”
 

She pushed her body even harder against Raj, then glared at the side of her father’s head. Lila and Trevor got along with Meyer, but they were still teenagers. Piper, recently a teen herself, tried to understand, but often there was no use. Somewhere around your twenty-second birthday, teenagers started sounding like melodramatic idiots no matter what you did.
 

“That’s another reason to get a hotel room,” Piper said. “They might let planes fly again. We can take the Gulfstream.”
 

“They’re not going to unground flights. Not any time soon.” He shook his head. “I knew they’d do it, too. Only makes sense. Something coming from the air, military craft heading up in droves, people down here freaking out and storming the airports because
everyone
has to go
somewhere
when panic strikes, even if it doesn’t make sense … ”
 

Lila said, “Good thing we’re smarter than that.”
 

Meyer seemed to consider shouting, but only mumbled. “This is different.”
 

Lila laughed. But when Piper shot her a glance, she settled, having made her point.
 

“We’ve all talked about this,” said Meyer. “Whenever I’m … well,
when I think about it
… it’s been clear to me for a while that
something
was coming.”
 

“Come on, Dad,” Lila said.
 

He’d talked all their ears off about this. The maddening thing was that coming from Meyer Dempsey, talk about the end of the world never really sounded crazy. He put it in terms of change and inevitable consequences and how it was stupid
not
to be prepared when you had the financial means to do so. Piper didn’t understand where Meyer’s mind went when he went on his Ayahuasca trips and had never wanted to partake herself, but there were two things Piper knew for sure: Meyer believed what his inner eye showed him, and she trusted him no matter what.
 

Trevor said, “Kind of hard to say Dad’s full of shit right now, Lila.”

“Trevor!” Piper snapped. “Watch your mouth.”
 

“We have to get to Colorado,” said Meyer, returning his eyes to the road. Cars were starting to move — slowly, but steadily. Piper could see the singularity of purpose and knew the futility of arguing. “The ranch is mostly done, and the part that matters most, in the vault, has been finished for over a month. I had it stocked last time I was there. We have an isolated power source, air filtration, plenty of supplies in food and water, concrete walls and lead doors … ”
 

“Everything the modern paranoid survivalist needs,” Lila said.

It was hard to call anyone paranoid when his fears came true, and hard to argue with the need to survive.
 

The cars stopped again. The van, still on auto, stopped without ceremony. Piper watched Meyer’s eyes, seeing how they were scanning the roadsides and median. She didn’t know if the JetVan could do off-road, but knowing Meyer, he may have had it specially equipped.
 

A diffuse red light appeared on the horizon behind them — the first rays of a pre-dawn morning. In the dim light with her night-adjusted eyes, Piper could see the cars ahead casting scant shadows.
 

Car doors in front of them opened, and both the passenger and the driver got out. The same thing was happening across the stopped traffic, one car at a time.

“What’s going on?” said Meyer.
 

But Piper saw. She pointed.
 

“That,” she said.
 

CHAPTER NINE

Day Two, Morning

Las Vegas Outskirts, Nevada
 

Heather was alternating between cigarettes and joints in the small cabin of her PriusX, wondering if combining a stimulant and a depressant was somehow a bad idea, like driving an old-fashioned car with the brake applied. She’d done that once, back when she’d been learning, when most people who rode in a car alone still had to be driving it.
 

Driving with the brake on for most of an afternoon had done incomprehensible levels of damage. Her father’s mechanic had told her that he’d never seen four brakes stripped so completely. Her father had made Heather pay for it out of her part-time income, and had suggested that she spend a bunch of time praying for salvation. Not from God, but from him.
 

She’d smoke a cigarette to its butt, toss it out the window rather than into the wet-compactor below the stereo, then start in on one of her pre-rolled joints. The smokes kept her alert, and the pot made her not care so much about whatever the cigarettes had caused her to notice. It was a perfect combo.
 

She picked up her phone. Dialed. Was told that the party she was trying to reach was unavailable at this time.