Unexpected Complication

Like gargantuan windchimes distantly jangling from a skyscraper in a frigid breeze, the background clamor of alien speech suffused the otherwise familiar neighborhood with an unsettling auditory backdrop.  Lamps lit the surrounding streets, revealing normal buildings seemingly untouched by the ongoing crisis.  Except for the dread soundscape and lack of any human activity, everything seemed as if it were in pristine order.

Since the three of them had gathered, they had fallen into a silent, but uneasy focus as they traveled along.  With very little desire to discuss what they had gone through, they were heading towards Lucas' parents home.  It was, by sheer luck, the closest location they knew which might shelter them from the malicious darkness from which any number of hostile forces could spring.  It would have been more relaxing had they not had to walk there, but sustained alarm was rather impossible to sustain as the minutes pressed on uneventfully.

Now at the final stretch of familiar roads and feeling more than ever that safety was quickly coming in reach, Lucas could feel his heightened state of tension easing.  Striding along in the middle of the road, they still maintained a studious eye on their streetlamp-lit surroundings.  Other than the relative silence in their immediate vicinity and the cold, something else seemed subtly out of place.

Ryan was the first to dare break the silence among them.  "Hey, Lucas, isn't that your mom's car?"

Down the street, lit by a nearby streetlamp was an achingly familiar vehicle.  Without a doubt, its orange body and contrasting yellow band along the back was quite distinctive in most environments.  But parked within its expected area, it was definitive even from the distance they viewed it from.  "Huh.  Yeah.  It is."  Lucas spoke with mild bewilderment amidst a sudden silence.

The jingling, and surreal alien speech dropped into echoes of itself for a disquieting interval.  Misting breath was lightly restrained and even Ryan's thoughts were held in reserve as their travel continued amid the absence of the peculiar white noise.  Just as it seemed as if it was gone, a solitary fluting whistling signaled the beginning of a newly growing chaotic swell.  Still faded from distance, the alien voices resumed whatever facsimile of meaning they ever resembled.

Lucas had grown somewhat accustomed to the erratic nature of the sound rising or falling in the background like a stormy ocean surface.  But the troughs between peaks still came with a mindful awareness of their helpless vulnerability.  It was amid this recent resurgence that he realized what seemed off about the neighborhood.  Most places that would contain vehicles were empty.  On a normal night, those cars not in garages would be parked in neighborhood driveways or the street.

"Maybe we can use the car?"  Ryan resumed his thought.  "Go back to the highway."

"Evan!"  Jennifer whispered with sudden urgency.  "He's going to drive right into that!  Into..  Those things."

"The aliens, yeah.  With a whole bus load of people."

"We shouldn't have left the freeway.  We have to go back!"  Jennifer replied with purpose replacing anxious fear.  "We've got to warn them!"

Lucas kept up as the other two hastened their pace, despite already being right beside the house.  He struggled to retrieve his keys for the front door.  A growing panic overcame him, to think of something to justify denial of the growing notion between the other two.  In his urgent alarm, he couldn't think of anything but a rather weak excuse.  "They won't be able to get that bus around the cars.  So they're not even going to be following the highway like we were."

"Then we should hurry to meet them back at the cars, before it's too late."

"I think there was enough space, though."  Ryan trailed off.  "I don't really remember very well.  Something was really messed up and weird about that place."

Key in hand, Lucas worked the front door while the other two kept their attention focused on their immediate vicinity.  He bit his lower lip, struggling to think of something plausible to halt their train of thought and redirect it into something more immediately useful.  "I don't know..."  ...if it's a good idea to go back there.  Trailing off as he pushed open the door, he failed to complete his initial thought.  He just couldn't think of a plausible excuse not to go back and do exactly what they wanted.

"Dude, we gotta do something."

"I'm not going to do nothing while Evan and everyone else runs into that without warning."

Flicking on the light in the entryway, Lucas paced inside uneasily, straining to think of an excuse to delay the urgency felt by the other two.  Briefly glancing up the stairway to the second floor, he avoided looking at the set of keys that would be resting on the living room coffee table.  Instead, he advanced further inside to near the kitchen side of the living room.  He picked up the phone with inspired alacrity.

"There's a dial tone!"  Lucas said as he looked back with some distress to see Ryan retrieve the keys on the table.

"I think these are the keys to that car."  Ryan handed them off to Jennifer.

"Then let's get-"

"Guys, wait!"  Lucas dropped the receiver and moved back towards the pair already out the door and walking through the yard.  "There's a dial tone!  We can call someone for help!"

Jennifer turned back to address him directly.  "You do that, then.  We'll be back after we-"

"No!"  Lucas called.  "We should all stay where it's safe, and call someone better prepared to handle this situation."

"There's no time!  Evan's already-"

"He's not coming!"  Lucas shouted out the door into the cold night air.  He huffed out the cloud of vapor as the other two stood beside the car.  "I lied about the bus, okay?  There's no other cars.  Nobody is following us!  We're the only ones out here!"  The shocked silence was only broken by the eerie distant babble floating in the breeze.

"What?"  Jennifer replied after what felt like an eternity.  She stared at him with either outrage or shock on a face clearly lit by a nearby neighborhood streetlight.

Ryan spoke only after Jennifer.  "Whoa.  That is-  Are you serious, man?"

Lucas nervously adjusted his glasses, the alert awareness of their surroundings had been completely shattered.  Both of the others were only focused on him.  A zombie could- No.  Lucas stopped that train of thought and spoke again.  "Come back inside.  It's not safe to be standing around in the open like that."

"Why did you lie about that?  Was Evan killed?"  Jennifer stared at him.

"No.  He's...  Alive-"  Lucas hesitated, looking at the yard between him and the others.  He knew his next words would be critically important.  The shock of their abruptly halted escape and the urgency of their situation had left him without time to consider the scenario taking place.  It was unexpected and happening too fast.

"Did Evan get trapped?"  Ryan speculated.

"Why wasn't Evan with you?"  Jennifer regarded him with sudden suspicion.

"Evan never would have agreed to leave."  Lucas sighed.  "But we needed to get somewhere safer."

"So what?  You just abandoned him somewhere?  Stole the car and made up a story about a bus so we'd go with you?"

"Evan's okay!  You know he'll be fine on his own."

"You can't know that!"  Jennifer shouted at him.  Her voice echoed in their immediate vicinity, but didn't seem loud enough to overcome the volume of discordant, almost musical tones echoing from a great distance.  "Where did you leave him?"

"Between the convention center and the mall.  It was a parking garage.  I don't know the street name or anything.  But it was safe.  We didn't see anything the whole time we were out there."

Jennifer opened the car door and slung the rifle she had into the back with an exasperated sigh.

"Wait!"  Lucas lost his fear of outside as he bounded partway into the yard.  "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to try looking for Zack, then I'm going back to the others."

"Wait.  You're not thinking clea-"

"Don't you dare start that."  Jennifer pointed at him angrily.  "You can shut up and come along, or you can stay right here.  I'm not going to get lectured to by you about what's the smartest thing to do right now."

"No.  Come on-"  Lucas stared in disbelief at Jennifer as she slid into the driver's seat and closed the door, starting up the car without any hesitation.  He refocused his attention on his other friend.  "Ryan...?"

Ryan hesitated with the passenger door and shook his head.  "Not cool, dude."  He entered.

"But we- The phone-"  Lucas stammered, bewildered at the sudden turn of events.  "It's safe here!  There's food and supplies."

"I don't want to be anywhere close to those freaky aliens."  Ryan paused for a moment as if he expected Lucas to reply.  "Are you coming?"

Lucas made a sound as if to speak, but didn't.  Staying here for tonight seemed like it should have been self-evidently the most sensible choice.  Even given that he had lied about the bus, he had no way of knowing their escape would have ended up as disastrous as it was.  Here they had electricity and a working phone.  They could get news from the outside world.  Maybe once they calmed down a bit they would realize that they were acting stupid and come back.  He shook his head.  "I'm staying."

"Okay."  Ryan paused for a moment to set his scavenged rifle and ammunition on the sidewalk beside the car, then closed the door.  The vehicle moved along the street and turned out of sight.

The alien babble briefly halted again as Lucas nervously ventured to the sidewalk to retrieve the rifle then ran back inside and locked the door.  Once he was inside, a piercing scream of a whistle indicated the return of the chiming babble.  Muted by the interior, he could at least pretend it was something more mundane.  He waited a few minutes in quiet solitude at the living room window, watching for the others to return.  They did not.

Delayed Action

The horde strained itself aggressively upon whatever barrier was foiling its progression.  Underneath the parking structure bracing the nearby entrance to the mall, the shadowy cluster was impossible to resolve into individual members.  The size of the throng was obscured within the shadowed interior of an already murky winter daylight.  With their number in that enclosed space, the chorus of their droning call echoed and mingled together, resolving into a voluminous, almost steady low hum with an odd characteristic.

From his vantage point within a shiny red luxury car, Evan studied the roiling mass from a safe distance.  He had brought the vehicle to a careful stop on the other side of a small park, beside a pair of transit tracks running along the center of the split street.  Beyond the park greenery and sparse structures, he could see movements of the assembled crowd.  Occasionally, one figure would move in a way to distinguish themselves as an individual before melting back into the crowd.

It was difficult to estimate the size of the assembled mass from his vantage.  As best he could discern, there had to be at least a couple dozen but no more than around a hundred at the most.  He had briefly considered driving along the road just on the other side of the park to get a closer look.  But he figured the risks of getting the horde's attention wasn't worth the meager precision of an accurate guess he might acquire.  There was no way to tell how well the car could withstand a stampede of that many attackers.  Certainly with how many he thought were there, the windows or windshield would eventually break and expose him to attack.

Something did seem to be keeping the zombies transfixed as their chorus remained steady.  They saw survivors, if Leon's statement about their vocalization was to be believed.  And he had little reason to doubt that was the case.  Apparently at least one or more people were trapped inside and would be in need of rescue.  Other than the continued presence at the precipice, it wasn't really possible to tell how well set up any impeding barrier was.  Evan didn't know the layout of the entire complex very well, but that particular opening was into a department store and not one of the main entrances into the wider interior.  He would only have to hope that the choke point would hold up to that many aggressors.

Returning his focus to his immediate surroundings, Evan geared the car into motion.  Investigating if there were other such clusters blocking the rest of the entry points.  Carefully driving at low speed he circumnavigated along the nearby roads, keeping as far as possible from the mall's outer walls.  Skirting the perimeter, he drove slowly around the streets in a broad loop, stopping occasionally to gaze towards any openings he could identify across parking lots or from an intersection a block away.  He was extremely cautious not to get very close during his survey, until the loop was eventually completed.

He did see other figures, rare individuals moving alone beside the walls or gathered in tiny numbers between two and six around other entrances.  Undoubtedly, it would not be possible to approach without being noticed by at least one collection.  And if it was true that sound they made drew the others' attention, being seen by one would ensure an avalanche of trouble would arrive from nearby.  It would be no simple matter to approach the building.  Nor to liberate the people contained.

Within the safety and mobility afforded by the vehicle, escape was finally within reach.  Yet the only question on Evan's mind was what he could do to help with this new situation.  If the people trapped within the mall were somehow removed, presumably the surrounding figures would begin to scatter in all directions and resume actively seeking new victims.  Until that point, however many were currently gathered here were at least not attacking anyone else.  They might even be drawing others from the surrounding area to gather here as well.  In the short term, it might be keeping the surrounding area safer.

So any attempt to help those trapped inside should probably begin with an effort to destroy every one of the zombies lingering at the various openings.  Yet to enact any plan, he would have to spend considerable time preparing.  He didn't have the ammunition to destroy nearly that many with the pistol, but it might be possible to scavenge more.  But lacking sufficient weaponry was not the only problem a rescue attempt would have to grapple with.

Although they did destroy a number of zombies the previous day from within the shelled safety of a car, he doubted the same tactic would work as well in this circumstance.  They had simply waited until the few undead approached the vehicle and fired in a trajectory up and away from the dormitory where people were congregated.  Against several times more and with the layout of the mall, it was doubtful there would be a way to guarantee that the direction of shooting would always be away from the hiding survivors inside.  Additionally, he wasn't sure if the car would hold against several dozen of them piled up against the windows while he destroyed them each one at a time.

Besides that, firing the guns off in the confines of the car hurt like hell, so he would definitely have to get ear protection before another such attempt.  Although he couldn't be certain about the best course of action right now, he was certain enough that any reasonable attempt would take considerable preparation time.  And possibly to follow through with as well.

As Evan passed the minutes ruminating over possible options, a garishly yellow sport vehicle pulled up alongside him.  Its passenger window rolled partway down, and Minoko looked out at him from an otherwise empty, but lavish interior.  He obliged by lowering his window enough to hear her.  "What did you find out about the noise?"

"It's several dozen of them, at least.  I think it's just that with so many of them in one place, combined with the echo in there, it's making them sound a bit different than we're used to hearing."

Minoko nodded, without commentary and looked across the park on her left.  The possibility of that was anticipated, so she wasn't surprised by the revelation.

Out of habit, Evan motioned across the empty park to the covered area.  "There's other groups of them around the whole place.  Looking for a way in.  I think that means there's people trapped in there."  He paused after that, waiting for Minoko to look back towards him.  "Anyway, how's everything else going?"

"So Leon and I went back to Mansfield.  Jennifer and the others are missing.  They didn't go to Blackwood either."

"Lucas probably took them with him when he left."  Evan replied after a moment's consideration.  He might have retained enough sense to at least take Jennifer and Ryan out of harm's way when he left.  "Us four have known each other since grade school."  He could at least hope that they were already somewhere safe.

She hesitated before responding to his casual suggestion.  "Anyway, everyone else was still there.  We brought some of them back to pick up more cars.  Then we're going to figure out which direction to travel.  Are you coming?"

"You go on ahead.  I'll figure out what to do about this."

Minoko gazed towards the mall, as if considering the situation for herself.  She returned her focus to him.  "I can't see them, but there must be a lot.  I don't think-"  She exhaled nervously.  "I'm not sure there is much that can be done if there's dozens gathered here."

"I can't just leave when those people are trapped."

"They should have plenty of supplies.  More than we had, at least.  They might not need to leave for a while.  At least until we get someone to come back for them."

"But they haven't done anything about the zombies being all clustered around the building.  Whether or not they have supplies, that's still dangerous."

"Maybe they're leaving them there on purpose?  Making sure all of them in the area are gathering in one place until someone can do something about them."  Minoko paused, during which time Evan didn't respond.  "Anyway, they probably have a better idea of their own situation than we do.  I think if they really needed to do something about it, they would."

Evan didn't know what to say to the series of statements but wanted to protest.  "I don't think it's a good idea to just leave this dangerous situation as it is."

"Right now it seems pretty stable.  If there's nothing you can do about it, then the best thing you can do is just trust they know what they're doing and not get involved.  Especially if someone in there decides that you're the one really in trouble.  Besides, it's not like you can do anything about it right this moment."

Even though she raised a valid point, leaving would still be abandonment.  Evan sighed as he considered the situation in relative silence.

Minoko seemed to realize what his thoughts were.  "The best thing you can do for them is to make sure the rest of us escape so that we can get emergency help to come back.  A whole team of people will be better prepared than just yourself."

Evan tore his attention away from the mall with a concerted effort.  He looked at his hands as he thought about the people who he had already freed.  They now had access to enough cars, vans and trucks to transport everyone remaining in the dormitories.  They were prepared to drive safely out of the affected area.  It seemed to him like there was little point to involving himself further in their plight.

But all of the others might not easily trust that this was the end of their days-long ordeal.  Maybe Evan could still provide a calming voice to smooth the evacuation process.  It didn't seem likely to be necessary, but it was the notion that he felt he needed to justify leaving.  Maybe Minoko herself was nervous, and it was what drew her here to convince him to go.

"You're right."  Evan smiled to Minoko.  "Let's get out of here."

Survivors

Lights shifted in distant symphony, their faded echoes dripping from distant reaches too vast to comprehend.  A conduit in the Earth burst regularly, spawning swirling rivulets of traveling, icy energy.  It gathered along invisible skeletal digits, coalescing and escaping into the emptiness beyond, becoming something new.  Chimes pulsed commands with a regularity like a heartbeat, some absurd nugget of purpose buried inside.  The sum of these forces conspired to produce a fissure in the thin veil of interpretive cognition, inflicting a kind of malevolent rawness.

Meaningless noise interjected rudely.  An intruder stirring within the structured cacophony of meaning.  A shambling thing snared in the imprecision of flesh.  Its scaffolding overlaid with stretched skin and hanging, fibrous material.  A sheen of moisture glistening over a smooth off-white sharpness.  Embracing tightness clasped as a dull greenish scent injected itself.  Teeth had finally arrived to deliver terrible, vigorous animation.

But then it was gone.  Withdrawn, lurking within a concealing membrane.  The hint of its presence still dominated, blotting the choral message of the twinkling void.  It floated aimlessly, revealing itself in glinting flashes, delivering rancid bites to the air.  Aggressive little punctures clotted the melodious, distant cracks and rustling chimes.  Infecting the world with aimless, malicious gnawing.

Time slowly clawed back into coherence, bringing with it a world of tangible, plausible things.  Cold wormed from the ground, pressing up into weakened flesh.  Weight pressed down upon dulled nerves as a sense of self coalesced.  Thoughts jarred upon an unusual encounter with something unreal, the lingering shock of survival replaying a strange event.

Lucas rested on his back, staring up at the clear night sky with unblinking eyes.  Ryan was whispering and looking at him with fear.  He could feel the cool grassy ground around him, bristles of bush pressing against bits of cold-numbed skin.  The restless piping chords still reached out  towards them, carried by the breeze.

An insensate pressure of time gradually bubbled up, forcing thoughts to turn towards plausible, practical things.  The reality of the situation was beginning to sluggishly flow through Lucas's thoughts.  Escape was still critical, but the means to do so and how was evidently more problematic than initially thought.

Lucas laughed, suddenly and loudly.  As he was laying there wondering what to do, something terrible had occurred to him.

Ryan regarded him with a wide-eyed mix of relief and shock.  "Lucas!  You're okay!"  Ryan whispered to him, kneeling low to the ground.  "Shhh...  They're still nearby..."

Lucas couldn't stop.  Nervous anxiety and his horrible epiphany had prompted a fit which demanded laughter as the only release.  He couldn't even will himself to stop while listening to the aliens still speaking to one another.  Ryan spent some time frantically trying to calm him, but before too long he seemed to have given up and moved away.

Finally, the spastic fit passed and Lucas was able to relax.  Just for a moment, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.  Muscles stirred as he rustled against the bush he was partially shrouded within.  He blew out into the frigid night and pushed himself upright.  He could smell the faint odor of plant life about himself.  Then he straightened his glasses.

Looking around, Lucas found himself within a broad, grassy field.  He could not see the offramp for the highway from here, but could make out the bridge of an overpass.  The road meandered off to the left and led downhill towards Hillsboro.  Amidst him the scattered remains of their vehicle was evident but he saw nothing moving unprompted by the wind.  After a moment, he rose to his feet to step out of the bushes.

It wasn't long before Ryan approached from somewhere.  "Lucas!  Are you okay?"

"Yeah."  Lucas resisted the urge to laugh again as he realized there was only a single tree to hit in this entire grassy lot.  As if the field itself was another enemy thwarting their escape.  "Did the aliens get Jennifer?"

"I hid under the car.  I didn't see what happened to her or Zack."  Ryan replied in a lower voice.  "What do we do now?"

Lucas hesitated.  "I- I don't know."  He considered against standing up on the hill so he could get a view along the highway.  "But the radio mentioned a boundary.  I think the aliens have set up some kind of border zone and we're inside it.  They won't let us leave."

"So we go back, then?"

"It's too far to walk."  Lucas wasn't sure of the exact distance, but many minutes of driving at high speed translated into many hours of walking.  "First, we find Jennifer."

"Dude, whatever happened, she's long gone.  Zack too."

Ryan was right.  Whatever the situation, there were only the two of them now.  "Okay...  Then let's find some weapons and a place to hide."

Ignoring the scrap, Lucas used the starlight to scan the immediate area, finding some ammunition and a single rifle.  The echoes of alien chatter continued to resound from a place too close for comfort.  Ryan seemed flighty and not very attentive until Lucas handed him the rifle he found.  They hastily progressed downhill together, away from the noises without a further exchange.  If those things crested the hill and saw them in the darkness there would be nothing they could do.

"So do you think anyone else is out here?"  Ryan ventured as they met with and followed the nearby road, continuing in a general southwards direction.  They passed a scattering of buildings.  A gas station, convenience store, some fast food places and other businesses.  Soon they would be walking in a suburban area more familiar to Lucas.  Notably, there were much fewer abandoned cars upon these streets than in Portland.

"No."  Lucas recalled the phone call from his mother.  "This whole area has been evacuated.  I think it was before the aliens set up this...  Perimeter."

The sounds of chatter still hovered about them although their distance increased.  Lucas ventured a look backwards and didn't see anything suspicious.  The invaders spoke very loudly; it wasn't too surprising that their voices carried.

"So if nobody's here who left all the lights on?"  Ryan asked.

Lucas hesitated mid-step, peering about with a fresh eye.  "I..  Uhh.."  He wondered why he hadn't noticed it before.  These streetlights were lit!  "There's still power!"  He gasped, suddenly excited.

"Hello?"  Came a familiar voice.  "You're alive!"  Jennifer came out from around a corner ahead, running to join up with them happily.  She was still carrying one of the weapons from their vehicle.

"Dude!  We thought we lost you!"

"Do you know what happened to Zack?"

Solemnly, Ryan shook his head.  "I didn't see anything."

"The aliens took him."  Lucas blurted out.  They couldn't waste time looking for someone.  Especially someone who was already injured and probably gone anyway.

Jennifer and Ryan shared a look of resigned sadness.  They continued onwards without needing to exchange any further words.  They all knew they needed security before any other concern.

"So, we're going to your place, right?"  Ryan asked as the group moved with alacrity, making turns along increasingly familiar roads.

"Yeah,"  Lucas replied.  He had no idea what to do once they got there.  Unless they bypassed something similar to the cars on the way there, he had a suspicion that they would still be firmly within alien claimed territory.  At the very least, they would be accompanied by that inhuman, musical chiming.

Helping Strangers

A sugary smell erupted from the display case.  After a momentary consideration of a pastry, Evan selected a ripe banana instead.  He returned to the table with the others and sat, gazing out at the business across the street.  Leon polished off the last of a beer while Minoko nibbled on the remains of a pastrami sandwich.

Leon was in the midst of a story.  "...holding it all wrong, like he doesn't have any clue what he's doing.  So Ernie just says, 'Give me that!' and just grabs the guy's wrist and wrenches the knife free.  Then he grips the knife properly and points it right back at him and says, 'No!  You give me your wallet.'"

Minoko laughed.  "Oh my!"  Minoko almost took a drink of her bottled tea, but halted once a fresh giggle broke free.  "What happened then?"

"What do you think?  The guy threw his wallet at him and ran off."  Leon laughed and made a bending motion with his hands.  "Then Ernie broke the knife and tossed it in a bush along with the guy's wallet.  Then he just staggered back home and passed out."

"No way!  That's too crazy."

"When Ernie told me the next day, I figured he made it all up.  But later on when I went out drinking with a few of the other guys, we happened to pass through the same area.  I actually found a bush with a wallet and broken knife."

Evan chuckled along with Minoko as they finished their selected meals.  Other than the carefully selected fruits, the food was a bit stale, but the drinks and the idle banter led to a pleasant morning.  After the laughter settled, Evan took a drink from a bottle of water and gazed at the business and lot behind the showy, but short fence across the street.  Now that they were finished, thoughts began to return to plans and goals.

Evan tossed his refuse, then approached the windows for a good view of the street layout.  A slow inhale led to quiet contemplation for a moment.  "Everything looks okay out there.  Is everyone ready to head out?"

"I'm good."  Leon tossed an empty bottle into a nearby bin as he walked past, then hesitated in mid-step and changed course.  "Oh.  I guess I should've recycled that."

Evan turned back towards Leon with a quizzical expression as he dug the bottle out and tossed it into another nearby bin.  Minoko laughed at the effort.

They collected their various weapons and gathered around the stairway leading back to the entrance.  Evan descended after everyone indicated they were prepared, and while the others watched the doors, he pushed aside the overturned tables and chairs to clear a path.  Glass crunched underfoot as objects were rearranged to accommodate the bypass.  Beyond the immediate, the eerie distant sound lingered.

Leading the way with his hands tense, Evan stepped through the broken doorway and into the nearby intersection, keeping watch along the streets.  After the others emerged and took grip of their rifles, he led them towards the building opposite, moving around the open gate and into the lot.  They proceeded slowly, carefully squatting to check under parked vehicles and peering around the cars dotting the area.

The path was clear.  The building, featuring more of the locally common wide windows had a broad but shallow front room with chairs lining the window spaces.  In the back there was a desk with an assortment of signage nearby.  Evan knocked on the chilly glass doorway, waiting for any kind of reply to materialize.  Nothing did.  He stepped aside for Leon, giving a silent nod.  Everyone was familiar now with their break-in procedure.

Leon let his weapon hang from his shoulder strap, promptly approaching and nudging the door.  He looked back at the others as it opened without difficulty and shrugged, then went inside.  As Evan followed, he was careful to remain vigilant.  "Looks like the lock here is by key only."  Leon said once they were all inside.

"Someone left it unlocked on purpose, then?"  Evan inquired as he walked the length of the room and eyed the few doors leading elsewhere into the building.  He didn't trust the unexplored chambers.

"Looks like."  Leon stood by the doorway, surveying the street.

Minoko disappeared behind the desk and rose to her feet a moment later holding something.  "Hey, the safe is open!  There's a bunch of keys here.  It looks like they're all numbered."

In that moment, Evan felt a bit of happy kinship with whoever had left this place.  "Get one for each of us and let's get out of here then."  Evan backtracked cautiously, still wary.  Glancing outside he observed the vehicles all bore a license plate with two letters and a double-digit number.

"Already on it."

They retreated quickly enough, Leon returning outdoors ahead of the others with Evan trailing.  Minoko eagerly distributed keys once they were all together.  Performing a quick count of the remaining vehicles, Evan attempted to recall the number of refugees requiring transport.  It seemed adequate.

"So, I guess we head back now and get ready to leave."  Leon ventured as the trio walked into the lot.  A click emanated from a black, boxy SUV not too far away from the front entrance.  That strange, persistent sound still lingered from somewhere unseen.

"Okay, that one's mine."  Minoko said as she approached, swinging the rifle onto her back.  She opened the driver's door and jumped inside without hesitation.  Soon, the window was rolled down just far enough to exchange words.  "Are we going back together?"

Leon took a step towards the SUV and spoke.  "That's probably a good idea."

Evan glanced at the key in his hand, his thumb lingering over the unlock function of the fob.  He found himself barely vocalizing a thought.  "We're going to need to come back here."

Surprisingly, Leon replied to his thought.  "Yeah, I think so."

Evan spoke at a more even volume.  "Actually, you two go on ahead.  I should go check on something."

Heading towards a click, Evan confirmed the identifying plate of a typical 4 door red car.  Leon followed after, speaking out with a delay as if he had to consider his reply.  "There seems to be a popular idea that the zombies do their moaning to attract others."

Evan paused beside the car door to look at Leon.  "We haven't seen any zombies out here."

"But we have been hearing something."  Leon finished.  After a moment, he added.  "There was a rumor going around that they only make that sound when they see someone."

Recalling his own encounters with the monsters in the dark, Evan nodded.  "Yeah.  I've been wondering about that..."

Silence followed between them while the eerie babble lingered in the air.  The smooth, almost uniform sound of that peculiar ambience implied a considerably more sizable threat than any he had seen before.  Even as escape for everyone was on the horizon, Evan felt like he had to know if there were yet more people who needed assistance.  He couldn't turn away from that kind of possibility, especially considering the safe.

Close Encounter

"Alien activity appears to be limited to the boundary region."  Came a dry voice in an echoing cadence.  Or perhaps a spontaneously generated thought formed from pieces of the fragmented radio signal.  Sharp whistles and a clicking rasp suffused the air.

Lucas stared in shock, his heart pounding in his chest.  Before them, splashed in the vehicle's bright headlights, was a squat purple thing standing in the middle of the freeway.  It was large, with a central, tightly domed carapace covered in ridges and spines.  Sturdy appendages, fiercely jagged jut out from the structure of the monstrosity at a wide angle, granting it a reach either a lane or two lanes wide.  It had no discernable head and bore only the vaguest resemblance to a giant, stout crab.  Its many legs nimbly flickered and flexed as some nimble, strange dance made it twist in place, growing.  No!  It ran!

A shriek came, words mingling with the otherworldly noises as the aberrant thing twisted and charged.  "It's coming!  It's coming!"  Terrified hands tried to grab at controls as a tumultuous uproar pulsed.  Brakes locked as tires skid upon pavement.  A hard erratic twist made them whirl around and skid into a concrete barrier.  Glass rained inside, snapping and chiming pierced the cabin as the shape of the frame buckled.  It drew closer.

Fighting for coherent thought as much as grasping, terrified hands, metal scraped and tore as tiny pebbles flew about.  Lucas closed one eye against swirling grit as he directed their vehicle to turn away.  They crept forwards as the engine sputtered.  The radio, untouched, was just barely audible beneath shrieks and the monstrous noises outside.  Ice enveloped exposed skin, but it hardly registered in the moment.  Anonymous voices were trapped with him.

"Faster!  It's coming-  It's closer!"

"Oh god, there's more!"

Adrenaline forcing a zealous focus, Lucas dared not to look backwards, at whatever was producing the crescendo of riotous madness.  His entire leg ached as muscle overstrained to depress the accelerator.  Biting air found its way around his glasses and licked at the edges of his eyes.  Yet the intrusive sounds did not falter into the background.  Their maximum speed had been viciously attenuated.

"They're so close!  Speed up!"

"It can't!"  Lucas screamed as loud as he could, hoping to be heard above the furor.  He could hear the stampeding footfalls of their pursuer.  Pursuers.

"Our guns!"  Came an identifiable scream.

The sounds of movement and mechanical clicking prompted something inside Lucas.  Either another reconstructed memory or a fragment that was just coming through the radio now.  "Do not approach or use firearms against the alien creatures."  The black note!

"No!"  Lucas screamed as he forcefully swerved the vehicle, weight grinding hard into the safety restraints.  Vicious thumping came from behind as deafening gunfire roared.  Expecting a world-shattering flash to strike, Lucas grit his teeth.  Regretfully, the frantic bid for survival mercilessly progressed.

"Hold steady!"

"Keep firing!"

Swerving across the lanes, Lucas could only hope to retain critical distance.  "Stop!  Stop!  Stop!"  Lucas chanted with furious madness, uncertain if his vocals could amount to anything.  Perhaps it was already too late.  Although his throat hurt, he wasn't even sure if he could hear himself over the bleeding feedback from his own ears.  Words materialized out of the piping, crackling chaos.

"-are you do-"

"-it's reaching!  Oh go-"

"Hold still!"

Hands once again tried to grasp the wheel, but Lucas struck out as hard as he could and they withdrew.  Weaving from side to side, heavy belts tightly pushed into his body.  A thin line of cloying air came through the chasm where formerly there was a windshield.

Despite his best efforts, the overwhelming shriek of close proximity gunfire continued.  Still conscious, aware and in a terror-stricken moment of lucidity, he recognized that either the gunfire had somehow all missed their marks, or these aliens did not defend themselves with it.  He could not gamble on the latter.

Struggling with rational thought, Lucas sought any desperate means of escape.  There has to be a way off this damned freeway!  In his panic, he wasn't sure if he had bypassed any exit and had only veered along the direct path.  He knew he had traveled under some overpasses, but which ones and when?  Lucas wracked his mind, attempting to do everything at once that could ensure precious seconds of continued life.  I have to find an exit while going at top speed and fighting the others and swerving the- the- car- car before-

The moment of coherence fractured as despair flowed free.  I can't get around- I can't even look at those wrong cars!  Without awareness of his steering, the crumpled front bumper tore through a frail metal barricade.  The front of the car rocked upwards harshly in a steep ascent up a grassy hill.  A pummeling whiteness filled Lucas's vision and kicked his head and arms forcefully.

A reverie, the world had become a weightless, tensionless haze.  Aches registered in limbs and joints.  Black shapes swam through vision as fingers slipped away.  One way or another, everything was finally ending.

Battering forces interlaced randomly, forcing joints to move in uncomfortable ways.  Fabric stroked over skin, and moving shapes registered.  A weight pushed his spine against the material of a seat.  Still moving!  Not over!  Tension returned to the world.  Both legs were stiff, as if each had been locked in place by an omnipotent entity.

As the sensation of acceleration rushed back, fingers groped blindly for purchase upon the wheel.  Craning his neck to look to his side, Lucas tried to use what he could see to guess where the road might be.  Both legs ached with tautness, it was impossible to recall which foot was depressing the accelerator.  Induced tinnitus and fierce battering made the world a disorganized, isolated place.  But Lucas thought the others were still close by.

Eventually, a sudden expulsion of air from lungs arrived alongside a dizzying haze.  A rough column of brown lay ahead, unchanging.  Barely able to function, Lucas managed to spit out a word as eyes turned to gaze behind.  "Run!"  He wheezed and pushed at his door.

Lucas fell onto grass and crawled away.  By the time his body refused to move any more, he discovered he had somehow ended up inside a bush.  Gasping and wheezing, Lucas rolled onto his back, utterly alone and waiting for an event to end him.  Spying a sudden movement, he fell deathly silent.

Beyond the jabbing, scratching overgrowth, something huge lurked in starlight.  Its multi-limbed exoskeleton twisted as it moved, approaching the wreckage in a quarter-spiral.  Three smaller, grasping appendages unfolded from beneath its central body.  Each one ended with an absurd amalgamation of sinuous tendrils and long, skeletal digits.  Between the spaces where each elephantine limb emerged from its central body were spiny protrusions inset with pairs of little black dots.

It halted briefly, during which Lucas could feel a stare like his own coming from those dots, piercing him.  A compulsion to run fought, but fear induced a paralysis so intense he couldn't even breathe.  Staring with wide eyes, he was locked as an observer in his own body.  Underneath the hallucinatory ringing in his ears, Lucas could hear echoing notes, as if gargantuan chimes were ringing in a distant hall.  There was motion of something like mandibles or a beak protruding slightly from where the arms had been folded underneath.

Once the alien thing resumed motion, odd exoskeletal digits and tentacles traced upon the vehicle as if inspecting it.  Violet carapace idly shifted one way, then the other, spinning nimbly as it beheld the abandoned object.  With an intense grip, it moved the entire wreck several feet away from the tree in one powerful motion.  Thumping transmitted through the soft dirt and into Lucas's useless bones.

Then those strange appendages began prying apart the car.  Hinges protested, but ultimately gave in to superior force.  Pieces were ripped free twisted in the air and ultimately discarded carelessly as the alien voice blew out its surreal, musical tones.  Movement traced the periphery where there was nothing to see.  Sensations echoed as severe light-headedness clouded his perception.

Or perhaps those were the others?  Gathering to inspect their kill.

Eyes locked in place, Lucas only witnessed one working at deconstruction of the car.  Its purple legs were marked with harsh black patterns of sudden stripes and slashing swirls.  As time pressed on and he thought he had his hearing again, the rustling boom of distant chimes only continued.  It rang out like a madman's participation in a chorus of one.  Accentuated with the piercing snaps of a spectral giant's fingertips.  The sounds came from nowhere at all.  They just were.

Unable to hold his breath any longer, Lucas gasped.  His breath billowed forth in a dense cloud.  Closing his eyes, he could feel the alien grip enveloping his frail body.  When no further motion came, he opened his eyes to the stars.

The alien thing was gone.  The car was gone.  Everything was gone, but the stars above.

Shivering, Lucas was alone laying in a bush beside a tree.

Unknown Unknowns

Daylight came in through the tiny windows of the impromptu shelter, falling over Evan just enough to wake him.  He deftly arose, careful to allow the other two a few minutes more rest underneath their heavy winter coats.  Immediately inspecting their surroundings, Evan found the overturned table and folding chairs just as they had left them the night before.  Outside appeared to be unchanged save for the morning daylight casting aside the memory of shadow.

He collected the holster and pistol discarded last night, then found the stairs and ascended.  Brisk air greeted him on the rooftop.  Although his breath was coming out in visible puffs, the feel of the sun on his skin and clear skies suggested the coming day would be warmer.  Although their plan was to return, it couldn't hurt to look around and consider other options, if there were any worthwhile ones.

The surreal emptiness still enveloped their refuge like a sinister presence.  Desolated streets, the occasional abandoned car or bit of debris on the roads.  The unidentified white noise was still persistent and ongoing.  Across the street lay a large office building with a modest parking lot.  Flickering flags perched atop its considerable peak.  Another parking structure on the other side from the one where they had come from.  Another parking lot beside them serving the nearby collection of businesses.  Not too far away lay the tracks for the city's trolley.  The surroundings were liberally accompanied by a smattering of skeletal trees.

From this vantage point he could see the collection of buildings and bridges crossing the river, but not the river itself.  The curved edges of the convention center and the pointed glass spires surmounting the indoor sports arena drew particular attention.  Apartment buildings, office buildings and hotels of varying sizes dotted the mid-distance.  Not too far away, the pavement of a highway lay inert like an empty vein.  Although the brisk air was fresh, traces of a faint acrid odor wafted in with an occasional breeze.

Although Evan had visited this area of the city before, he only had a vague idea of the general layout before now.  There didn't appear to be any defensible location nearby for them to consider.  He remembered there was a coffee shop not too far away, along the path they had taken to arrive.  Perhaps before starting their walk, they could break inside to see about acquiring a bit of food and water.  Something for the hour's walk ahead of them.

By the time Evan had satisfied his own curiosity and descended, Minoko and Leon were up.  They were in the process of collecting what little gear they had when Evan opened the door.  He jerked back slightly as a rifle was quickly raised, then lowered to aim at the floor.  "Sorry, just a bit jumpy."  Leon said.

"Just seeing if we're clear."  Evan replied as he flexed his arms and legs to limber up.  "It looks okay.  I think we can probably check out the shop nearby, see if there's something there we can take for our walk."

"Water, at least."  Leon examined his rifle for a moment, then swung it over his shoulder.  He hesitated before pulling the overturned table away from the door and listened.  "That sound is still there..."

Minoko had a worried look on her face, but didn't speak.

"Well, the sooner we start."  Evan could feel the lingering remnants of various minor aches from yesterday's activity.  He could trace his finger slightly over the fading evidence of a scratch above his eye from the tumble he had taken on pavement two days earlier.  But he was as ready for this as possible.

Confidently striding outside, Evan thoroughly inspected each direction from the intersection and suspiciously regarded the parked cars.  Turning back the way they had arrived, he led them downhill just beyond the parking garage where they had been abandoned.  Beside it there was an enclosed square with greenery placed in brick-sided planters.  Capping the far end was a squat, almost overly glassy looking structure.  Its architecture was accentuated with sharp lines of white metal and its second floor was on the ground level with the square they had bypassed.

"Hey, this place says it's a café."  Evan walked into the intersection and took a good look in each direction as Leon approached the building at the corner.

"Looks good to me."  Leon tested the handle, then hammered at the door with the butt of his rifle.  A vicious cracking spread over the surface.

Minoko approached Evan, a look of distraction on her face.  "Is- Is that a car dealership?"  She pointed to a modestly sized fenced-in lot with a building at its center just across the street.

Evan turned to look at the building, stunned for a moment.  "I...  Uh, I think it's a...  Car rental..."

The glass shattered, and Leon looked up.  "Damn..."  He broke into laughter.  "How did nobody notice that?  It was right by us this whole time."

Evan shook his head in disbelief.  "I thought it was a bank."  The gate for the fence had been left open.  The cars inside were luxury, in good condition and varied in model and color.

"There's still a lot of cars in there."  Minoko observed.

"Okay, new plan.  We eat something, then go get ourselves a car."  Leon chuckled.

"Yeah.  Or three..."  Evan was still rather shocked at the fortuitous nature of their discovery.  Maybe there were enough cars there to move everyone at once.  Even though their original plan was a work of clever ingenuity, the sheer happenstance of accidentally finding this relatively mundane place could prove to be of far greater benefit.  Though drawn by the allure of hunger and thirst, they were compelled to check out the café first.

The glass had shattered into a slicing rim of daggers, but the opening was almost as big as the door's frame.  After reaching inside to check on the lock, Leon instead pounded away the few larger remaining fragmented edges and cautiously ducked inside.  He waved to the others.  "It doesn't have a deadbolt."  He moved up the stairs on the right, weapon in hand.

Evan followed the taller man inside, his shoes crunching on shards of glass.  He peeked through the door ahead just inside, quickly concluding it led to all the back room areas of the business.  The stairs to the side led to the dining area and the front desk where orders were made.  The upper level was ringed with glass-adorned walls, presenting a good view of their surroundings.

Just after Minoko cautiously navigated through the opening, Leon had brought a table to the hallway entrance to serve as a barricading obstacle.  Together, they worked at establishing a barricade that satisfied all of them and quickly navigated through the whole place to ensure it was secure.

The interior of the café was cold due to the frigid temperatures of the past days.  The pastries and prepackaged sandwiches were a bit stale but still readily edible.  There was a nice selection of fruits to eat.  A broad selection of bottled drinks complemented their available choices of foods.

After they gathered their meals and sat around the table, the trio again looked out across the street.  They discussed how they might find keys in the abandoned building and just simply drive everyone out in one big convoy.  Spirits were high as they recovered from the previous night's dour mood.

"Hey man, that friend of yours just might have accidentally saved everyone."  Leon laughed between sips on an alcoholic beverage.  "You know, if he can do that then maybe he's not really so bad."

Despite his feelings, Evan smiled.  Betrayal or not, it was Lucas's ideas that had brought them out here and given them real hope for escape.  That was something evidently at the forefront of all of their minds.

Into the Fire

The highway swerved gently through the wooded hilltops, weaving through a valley out of the city.  A lone car made its way along the curved path, bright beams sharply cutting into empty darkness.  Occasionally, an odd bit of refuse littered the side of the road, but there were no obstructions upon the road itself.  One car rested along the shoulder of the freeway; abandoned for no reason that could be intuited quickly.

A slight misting had begun to build upon the windshield, but the traces of growing heat seemed to be keeping it from getting much worse.  As Lucas allowed himself to ease up on the accelerator his sense of nervous tension melted away.  As scenery changed, the extremes of the evergreen dotted hills gradually gave way to gentler slopes.  This freeway led westward out of the city and away from the northward bound river.

The survivors listened in silence as buzzing static came through the speakers.  When comprehensible words finally emitted from the radio within the static, a collective welcome sigh of relief passed through each one.  Evidence that the civilized world was still out there.

"I got something!"  Exclaimed Ryan as he adjusted the dials.  The occupants listened with hopeful fascination as a thin voice became audible.  The signal was interspersed with static, even while the voice came through in decipherable bursts.

"...curfew enforced for those within fi..."

"...limited to the boundary region..."

"...not approach or use firearms against the..."

"...activity within the quarantined zone..."

"They mentioned a quarantine!  That's going to be a safe place, isn't it?"  Ryan exclaimed.

"We're inside it.  We just need to get out of it."  Zack replied.

Something rankled as the words rattled in Lucas's mind.  He grit his teeth, dismissing the sensation as the lingering guilt of a betrayer.  Nothing could avert the course laid out.  The entirety of his being needed to concentrate on the final resolution of their nightmare.  It must end.

Shapes ahead prompted Lucas to first ease his pace, then halt.  There were a number of cars obstructing the route.  Each one rested perfectly within the guiding lines of the freeway in both directions.  Side by side they sat in a pristine row, suggesting deliberate placement.  Beyond, another row sat.  And another.  The path leading up to this point had been mostly devoid of vehicles.  From what the headlights revealed the area ahead was also clear.  Although he could observe no dents or scuffs, something had apparently been punctured inside.  Large pools of oil stretched over the pavement.

Lucas examined it all studiously, as if a critical answer were hidden within the spectacle.  Yet there was something subtle underneath it all which forced a blink.  An attempt came to wipe his glasses free of smudges.  Then another view without glasses.  A whine and a scraping of the windshield.  Nothing worked.  The bewildering impulse could not leave, yet the compulsion to examine only intensified.

Something is very wrong with those cars, blew a chill like a whisper.  A gnawing terror grew, consuming his heart as it enraptured him.  His mind strained in agony, reaching for something concrete to resolve his senses into.  Struggling to create something comprehensible, a label for the strangeness, just so he could blink again.

The oily blackness ahead was a nothingness leaking into the world.  The voids within each car sang harmoniously.  The mundane road beyond became a grotesque painting.  The emptiness surrounding them glistened with malice.  Only the cars existed.  All of it was true for an instant, then it all fell apart.

 A label finally arrived.  "Go back!"  Jennifer.

"No!"  Came a scream.  Or was it a thought?  Maybe within the proximity of those cars, there could be no sound.  It was impossible to know.

A sudden jolt of activity pulsed as air surged back into the universe.  Gasping, Lucas hammered the accelerator and veered off road, careful to avoid seeing the anomalous discovery.  Shaking, riotous movement slammed into him as wheels jounced on wildly inappropriate terrain.  Thunderous screeching.  Screaming could exist again.

"What the fuck was that!?"

"We have to warn Evan!"

"Bad...  Really bad trip..."

"We're past it now!  He'll get past it too!"

Their vehicle swerved from side to side as bodies throttled into restraints.  Somehow, the wheels found a strait path and tore down the freeway.  The cacophony of screams continued, growing louder as bewilderment became terror.  Whatever strange affixion that place held over Lucas, it had apparently impacted all of them.  Ignoring the others, he steeled his mind upon his task.

Ryan's voice cut through the maelstrom.  "It's not following us!"  Nobody questioned the usefulness of the statement.

Recovering from the encounter, it was difficult to tell how long it had been or how far they had traveled since that blasphemous thing.  At some point, Lucas became aware of the radio, producing flurries of speech between intervals of static.  He begrudgingly allowed the car to slow to a more manageable speed.

Lucas realized with a start that he was still upon the familiar highway.  But even better, somewhere ahead was a tiny smattering of dots.  Lights.  He couldn't tell how far away they were, only that they would soon be there.  Checking the fuel gauge, he felt a confidence they would make it.

Then the high-intensity beams illuminated something large standing in the road.  Something moving.