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."