"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.
