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.