Betrayal

As soon as Evan heard the burning squeal of tires upon pavement, he realized what was going wrong.  Without a moment's delay, he ran to obstruct the escape, but with an energetic swerve and a near-miss, the vehicle broke away at a good clip.  Futilely, he shouted, dashing down the asphalt and arriving at the ramp into the garage several seconds behind the car.

Pursuing after the sounds of frenzied, erratic driving, Evan believed he would sight the vehicle ahead until the moment he could see it tear onto the street.  Slowing his pace to a walk, then resigning himself to failure, Evan came to a halt midway towards the slope leading to the first floor.  Nothing he could do now but salvage the outcome.

As the sounds of the vehicle diminished Evan tried to set his mind on what could be done.  He warily eyed his surroundings and called out to the others.  "He's gone.  I'm coming back!"  A shout of recognition returned.  Now they were only accompanied by the low hum of the nearby river.

Evan had made a terrible mistake.  With uncanny clarity, the sudden shriek of rubber combined in his memory with Lucas's declaration that 'someone like him' could survive here.  In retrospect, the eagerness to help out despite the seemingly morose mood made a lot more sense now.  In his own way, Lucas had almost given a warning of his intention.  But as aggravating as it was to know his trust had been woefully misplaced, being angry with Lucas right now could not solve any problem.

Careful to remain wary of his surroundings, Evan ascended to the top floor of the parking garage.  The others were waiting anxiously just at the peak of the ramp, weapons drawn and ready.  Leon spoke out when he spotted Evan walking up the sloping ramp to the roof.  "Wasn't that guy a friend of yours?"

Evan exhaled wearily as he brought the white hood of his coat over his head.  "Yeah.  Lucas is- uh, he's a really good guy.  He's just..."  Sighting the keys he had been tinkering with on the ground, Evan moved to retrieve and pocket them.

"When things get tough, people show you what kind of person they really are."  Leon shook his head in exasperated fashion.  "Damn it, I left my backup ammunition clips in there."

Evan made a sound as if to reply, grasping for a response.  He believed his friend was better than that action would indicate.  Certainly, once Lucas returned to his right mind he would realize this was a terrible mistake.  Evan just realized it wasn't the time to tell that to the others right now.

"We don't have lights!  What should we do?"  Minoko spoke as she fidgeted with her blue coat.

Leon sighed heavily  "I don't think we'll be able to make it all the way back before the sun sets."  He gazed off in the direction of the university grounds, over the Willamette river and many city blocks distant.  "Shit, do you think zombies can see in the dark?"

"They have the same eyes we do."  Evan wasn't certain, but even at a quick pace he thought it would take about an hour to return the way they had come.  Lengthening shadows of evening were crawling across the landscape.  Glancing up, Evan saw dark clouds littering the sky in artful smatters, threatening rain.  "But it's still probably not a good idea to travel in the dark.  We should find shelter somewhere as soon as we can."

"Sounds like a good idea."  Leon approached the edge of the structure and gazed at the street below.  "I don't see any zombies down there.  But I hear something."  He gazed in one direction away from the river.

"That's not the Willamette?"  Minoko's eyes became wide with sudden alarm.  She turned towards the direction Leon had subtly indicated.  Evan knew there was a mall somewhere close by over a gentle hill, though it was obscured by trees and buildings from this vantage point.  He could see a big hotel and an office building over in that direction, though.

"It does sound like the river...  But it seems like there's something else too, I think whatever it is must be a ways off."  Leon added.

Now that someone had suggested something more sinister, Evan began to reevaluate what he had been idly dismissing.  Being more skeptical, he couldn't discern the direction of whatever the source was...  "Hurry then.  First thing that might work, we go for it."  Evan glanced sideways towards Minoko, giving her a chance to speak.  She shook her head, remaining silent, apparently content to let him and Leon decide their course of action.  She still seemed genuinely uneasy with the firearm she carried, nervously inspecting it now and then.

"Well, if either of you see somewhere that might work, say something."  From their vantage point, Evan examined the nearby blocks in the direction they had arrived from.  They didn't have much time to delay, so he scanned hastily.

They needed somewhere suitable to hide from whatever would be lurking in the dark.  The majority of structures in their vicinity were considerably smaller than the dominatingly large convention center.  Dismissing the larger structure, Evan examined what else laid around, reasoning that the smaller buildings would be more likely to be safe.  Yet as far as he could see, the businesses nearby were also broad-windowed in design, easily providing a view of the interior.

Trying to recall the recent sights upon their arrival to the area, Evan sighed.  Each business he remembered within a minor walk, from a bank to coffee shop to fast food restaurants and a marijuana dispensary all seemed unsuited to their needs.  Every place he could recall had big windows so they seemed impractical for hiding.  They might have to just return along their course of arrival and duck into the first suitable building they found.

Just as Evan turned back to face the others, Leon gave a cautious shout and waved.  The slightly older man had progressed a little ways along towards the further end of the structure. He pointed downwards, to something very close.  "Hey, what about there?"

Leaning over to better see what was indicated, Evan peered at a flat-topped squat building with crimson walls just on the other side of the street and hugging the far intersection.  The layout was rectangular with one section in the middle sticking out.  "What is that place?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't have huge windows."  Leon stood up tall and reclaimed his weapon from his shoulder strap.  "Just very small windows.  It looks like."

"Well, the sooner we begin..."  Evan motioned to the others as his voice trailed off.

Evan led the two at a brisk pace, keeping just enough of an eye upon them to make sure he wasn't leaving the others behind.  They progressed through the parking structure and emerged onto the street.  Leading them along the center of the road hurriedly, Evan turned towards the near corner.  Hastily edging forwards he proceeded into the intersection, checking in all directions before waving the others towards him.

Directing his attention towards the structure, it appeared as if it had been closed for a while.  Something about the exterior coat of paint looked old, but it wasn't yet cracking or peeled.  The tiny fraction of interior he could see through the small window on the door had a peculiar air of disuse.  A sign on the door indicated it was available for lease.  Evan tested the handle before facing the others.  "This could work for tonight.  Given the window, I think we can keep the lock intact."

"Got it."  Leon stepped forwards and motioned the others away.  Evan watched him take steady aim at the window and deliver a crack of violence to the glass.  Once more, and the spidery web that had formed had a secondary webbing.  Leon frowned and took another step back, firing twice more.  Then he raised the butt of his rifle, bringing it down hard on the tiny window with heavy blows.  "We're lucky we have these guns.  Sheesh."

Evan looked around, pausing to nod confidently at Minoko, who seemed quite anxious.  He didn't like the way that cascading series of echoes had seemed to fill the city.  But there was nothing he could do about it but remain alert.  Still nothing in the area from what he could see.  When Leon finally forced a few chunks to loosen, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Leon paused briefly to inspect the tattered, uneven fracture, and turned to look at the others.  "Shit, anyone have gloves still?"

Evan flinched slightly as Minoko replied.  "They were in the car."

"Right."  Leon set down his rifle carefully and flicked off his heavy sweater.  Now with the grey thermal undershirt, he wrapped the black fabric quickly over his arm and hand.  Gingerly pushing through the opening of glass, an audible click came after a moment.  Withdrawing his arm just as cautiously as he had pushed it through, he shoved the door open and stepped back.

Although Leon had already ventured his hand in there, Evan was ready for the signal; entering the small structure with his pistol drawn.  Quickly walking through the open, dim interior, he looked around what corners and hidden spaces there were in the mostly open structure.  Slightly discolored regions on the white walls were the only shapes he saw and there was nothing moving he could see.  There were a couple of doors, but Evan only checked they were secure before moving on.  A faint scent of musty paper wafted in the air as he stepped over a few scraps.  A fine sheen of dust laid on basic furnishings too old or cheap for the former user to want.  As he turned back, Leon and Minoko were already inside the doorway, alert but hopeful.

"Safe.  Looks like it's been empty for a while."  A look of eager relief passed over the others.  Leon reset the lock and walked inside to look around.  Minoko placed her rifle aside, taking a breather against the wall.  Evan exhaled slowly, suddenly aware how it felt easier to breathe.

Holstering the weapon, Evan proceeded to a worn but sturdy table and tested its weight with one arm.  Zombies seemed to capable of operating door knobs and handles, but he wasn't sure if reaching inside a door's broken window to twist a deadbolt lock would be similar instinct.  It seemed at the very least to require a little thought to be capable of such a thing.

As if knowing what he was thinking, Minoko had come to the other end of the table and positioned herself as if to move it.  After a moment of what must have been a confused look, Minoko spoke.  "Just in case, right?"

"Right."  Together, they effortlessly moved the table into the entryway at an angle to obstruct the door.  They worked with it until it was wedged tightly against the door and wall, creating a barricade for the door.  Minoko took a step back and leaned against the wall.

Just in time, Evan thought as he looked around.  Although it hadn't been too long, they had just about lost the last of the light.  Shuffling over and standing up tall, he peeked through one window.  From it he could see the parking garage across the street, but visibility was very poor.  It was definitely the right call to find somewhere to shelter during the night.  In a few more minutes it would probably be almost completely dark.

Leon returned and set up a few folding chairs.  "Looks like this used to be an art gallery.  I found a storage room in the back.  Also, there's an access to the roof."

Evan slumped into one of the chairs, allowing nervous tension to fade which he had not realized was present.  Hopefully, Lucas would survive on his own until he either escaped or decided to return.

Leon carefully checked on the door, ensuring the lock and barricading table was in place.  He took a scrap of paper he had found to the tattered, torn sections of bullet resistant glass and taped it to drape over the cracks.  The extra effort made them completely concealed.

"So what do we do in the morning?"  Leon's barely visible outline returned to a chair.

"Probably head back.  Let everyone know we're okay."  Evan replied.  "How much ammunition does everyone have?"

Leon checked his pockets and tossed something against the nearby wall with a jingle.  "Whatever's left in the rifle.  I think it's something like six or eight bullets.  The rest was in the back seat."

"I only fired a couple times."  Minoko added as she watched the door.

"I think I have a couple shots left."  Evan sighed as he unclasped the holster for the pistol and set it aside.

"What do we do with the keys we still have?"  Minoko whispered.

"That was just a trick to get us out here to steal the car."  Leon gestured.

"Maybe..."  Evan briefly considered the idea.  Lucas had once told him that the best deceptions were the ones partly based on truth.  "But I don't think he would have suggested it in the first place if he didn't think the plan was reasonable."

"We have less than half of what we started with."  Leon continued.  "Good idea or not, we're less likely to get a hit now."

"On foot, it would take us longer to search..."  Evan began, but shook his head.  "No, I think we should head back in the morning.  Maybe we can come back to this when we're better prepared."  Or maybe, Evan thought to himself, if Lucas returned with the car they could get back to their plan.

The three of them sat in the dark quietly for some time, listening to the steady white noise in the distance.  Idle talk came now and then in whispers before they finally decided it was time to try sleep.  Evan tried not to think too deeply about the soft noise that lulled him to sleep.

Necessary Action

Despite a pervasive twinge of unease, Lucas knew the hard task which laid before him.  He just had to keep his wits about him and seize the opportunity when it came.  He just had to make sure to do it right.  He'd only have one chance.

With his thoughts coming into focus, Lucas examined his surroundings with new awareness of his situation.  The others were speaking to Evan as they loaded bags into the car.  Still lounging in the vehicle, Lucas took in a deep breath of air and adjusted the positon of his glasses.  Although they were exposed here, he knew Evan would be well alert.

The others finished loading the trunk, sending the carts clattering to a noisy rest in the entryway of the store.  They then piled inside the car, continuing a conversation which had been going on briefly away from Lucas's attention.  The doors were locked, windows raised until only a slim crack of air was allowed through.

"So if this whole area is under some kind of quarantine, what's the new plan?"  Leon asked after he locked his front passenger's door.  "We can't fit very many people in here."

"Everyone who can walk, gets out on foot."  Evan replied from the driver's seat, turning so he could look at the others.  "Use the car to make sure the path ahead is clear, and everyone follows behind with something to defend themselves."

"You can't be serious."  Minoko replied with a hint of emotion in her voice.

"I am."  Evan regarded Lucas with a solemn look.  "If we can't rely on outside help, that's the only option we have."

"I don't like that idea."  Leon shook his head.  "How many of us even know how to defend ourselves?  One mistake and we're all in trouble."

Evan hesitated.  "Well, it's either that, or there's going to be a lot of people left behind.  They'd have to raid the nearby stores and malls for supplies.  With the hope to wait it out until this is all over."

"Maybe," Leon tentatively began, "We use the car to take a lot of shorter trips?  Find a relatively safe place five miles away and return.  Transport everyone a short distance in small groups, then go on from the new point."

"I think we've got about fifty people in total..."  Evan paused.  "And we don't know how far it is we have to travel.  We'd run out of gas before getting very far."

"When we run low on fuel, we should be able to salvage something from all these vehicles around, then continue."  Leon speculated.  "Make short hops like that in a secure car instead of having all of us outside in one big group."

"Um.."  Lucas didn't like where the conversation was going, but what could he say?  The plan seemed fundamentally sound as it was coming together.  Just too slow and indirect as far as a tolerable solution went.  Although, maybe Lucas could direct their focus.  "We could look for other cars to use."

There was a brief exchange of glances as those gathered were clearly confused by the proposition.  "You mean, like hotwiring?"  Evan asked.  "Do you know someone who can do that?"

"Uh-  Someone might, but I wasn't thinking of that."  Lucas pointed to the keys in the front seat.  "I mean, those..  Well, those don't have it, but you know those beeping things keys sometimes have on them?  So the car makes a sound?  Some of the zombies may have those..."

"So we go search the-"  Leon hesitated.  "Remains, then if we find keys with those, we bring them with us..."

"And try using them to find other cars."  Evan added, but shook his head as he turned to look at Lucas in the back seat.  "But even if we do find keys with those remote chirpers, the car it goes to could be anywhere.  I don't think those have very good range."

"When I watched the news on that first day, there were a whole lot of people trapped in the convention center.  Some of the zombies we've seen may have come from there.  Probably a lot of them, even."

"Oh, so it's likely any keys we find would be for something parked close to the convention center."  Evan concluded.  "In one of the lots nearby..."

"Even if we just find one car, that would cut our time to escape in half."  Leon looked at Evan, clearly regarding him as the one in charge and his own thoughts as mere advice.  "It's worth a shot."

"Aren't there going to be a lot more of the- things there?"  Minoko had remained silent until now.

"They seem to walk around randomly if they don't see anyone."  Leon suggested.  "If we're lucky, there might not be many of them around."

"What about the aliens?  If we've been abandoned, isn't this their territory now?"  Minoko crossed her arms over herself, though not because of the freezing air.

Evan turned in his seat to address Minoko.  "We've seen no more signs of them since those black notes hit us.  But if we do see anything strange or hear something, we'll head back."  Evan paused a moment, then thoughtfully added.  "Since we don't know anything about them or what they want, we can't really know how to avoid them.  So, worrying about it won't help at all.  Right, Lucas?"

Lucas held his tongue, nodding silently.  Privately, his mind weighed the unknown threats against the possibility of escape.  The only certainty was that the black notes were last fired when there were a lot of people exploring the immediate area.  If his wormhole theory was accurate, by venturing elsewhere in the city, they might accidentally stumble across something and trigger another black note.  And with it, an uncertain fate.  But as far as he was concerned, any risk that would get him out of this zombie-infested zone was a required gamble.

The others made plans without his input, and began to go about their heroism.  Lucas had nothing to contribute to their ideas for proceeding, nor the execution of their ideas.  He merely had to tag along, helping, while remaining vigilant.  Evan would keep them safe, so he merely had to concentrate on not seeing the things passing in front of his eyes.

With clarity of purpose, Lucas saw the actions being taken as if he were even watching himself.  The group brought supplies to the Blackwood dormitory.  Weapons and food were given, although Simon still regarded Evan with a dark gaze.  Plans were discussed both with the people in Blackwood dorm and the few remaining in the Mansfield building.  If there was any objection, the arguments from others were seemingly minor and brief.

Finally, bloodied remains were examined for keys.  That last step before the crucial plan was laborious, eating up a great deal of daylight.  Numerous bodies in front of each dormitory were searched with gloved hands while their safe haven was parked nearby.  Knowing he would be useless on lookout Lucas forced himself to search, frequently gagging or vomiting when he accidentally saw too much.  Then they drove to a few other locations with a number of downed figures and searched through those.

Keeping his mind singularly focused upon imminent escape, Lucas worked through every unsettling sight and rancid odor.  Eventually the others decided they had what they needed to make the attempt and indicated it was time to proceed.  Lucas discarded the grimy gloves he had been using and returned to the car.  Leon offered him a squirt from a bottle of hand sanitizer as Lucas finally allowed himself to see.

The size of their collection of keys with the remote beepers was really quite surprising.  As Evan drove the vehicle down the street and began their journey to the convention center, Lucas felt a gnawing discomfort of internal tension.  Considering the shock of greater success than he anticipated, niggling doubts coalesced.  Thoughts whirled around for brief moments before Lucas arrived at a renewed, resolved confidence that this could only be a good thing.  Considering his friend's capabilities, this meant his envisioned ultimate outcome was only more certain.

When Lucas returned to his senses, they were already over the river and in the midst of crossing a smaller bridge over a highway, the sprawling convention center ahead on their left.  The sounds of keys jingling filled the vehicle as the others handled multiple sets.  Leon's voice was coming from behind.  "...until then."  Lucas realized with a momentary sense of bewilderment that he had been sitting in the front passenger seat.  He grasped a couple of the keys and held them up, finding the beeper buttons with clumsy fingers.

The car slowed to a crawl upon nearing the adjacent intersection, windows lowering just slightly to allow sound to pierce inside.  Evan gazed intensely down the streets and along the sidewalks.  "No zombies yet.  Everyone stay alert."

"No sounds, either.  Moaning, anything."  Leon added, over continued activity with various keys.

Lucas exhaled tensely, gazing about with something else in mind as the vehicle edged forwards.  The convention center was surrounded on the edges with well cultivated greenery.  Though out of leaf now, at other times trees would color the streets and shade the pedestrian traffic.  Other than the convention center itself, the buildings around here were smaller in scale with some service business and several tiny lots, dotted with cars.  Parking areas were around the larger structure, but the population of cars currently present all were distressingly sparse.

Although the city was still eerily empty, rare signs of the peculiar malady and the resultant abnormality of their locale seemed slightly more common in this area.  One vehicle had crashed into another vehicle on the road; neither contained bodies.  Personal items such as purses, umbrellas and bags of collectable junk were dropped in abnormal locations.  Of particular distracting focus Lucas saw what appeared to be a sword stuck in a bush.  Not far from one motionless body slumped against the building there was a single severed arm.

Without any sounds other than their engine, Lucas felt a hitching moment of dread and excitement as he spied what was necessary.  He pointed off to the right, a short distance down a side street.  "There!"  He motioned to Evan, who drew the vehicle to a slow stop.  "Back that way!"

Evan glanced back to Lucas peering in the indicated direction down the street.  "What is it?"

"Parking garage."  Lucas paused briefly, then added.  "There's going to be a denser population of cars inside.  So we're more likely to get a good response there."

"Good thinking."  Evan turned the car around easily and guided them towards the three story structure in silence.  The others appeared to have no qualms over that particular tactic.

Lucas maintained fumbling with his share of keys as the car circled back around the block to arrive at the sturdy, square structure.  Strong wired rails lined the broad, open faces of the structure, occasional stony pillars of beige standing strong.  Although the deeper interior of the structure was difficult to make out in the evening light, a casual look suggested that Lucas's prediction was accurate.

"We should have brought flashlights with us."  Minoko commented.

"We might have to come back tomorrow."  The headlights came on as Evan drove carefully inside.

Evan drove within, bringing them deeper to some arbitrary point in the middle and idling the car in park.  Lucas breathed in deep to ease his nerves, listening and watching their surroundings as the others attempted triggering various beepers in safety.  From what reflected from outside and their headlights, vehicles were in maybe slightly less than half the spaces.  Better than outside lots, but not as much as it first appeared.

After securing a few keys in one hand, Lucas chanced to unlock his door and swing it open in one swift motion.  With alarm, Evan placed his hand upon Lucas's shoulder and hesitated.

"What are you doing?"  Leon asked from the back in alarm as Lucas threw open the door and swung his leg out.

Striding out a few steps into the dark garage, Lucas turned to face the others before replying, trying not to let his uncertainty come out in his voice.  "What?  If any zombies were nearby, they would have come to us by now.  Our car is the only thing that's making any noise in the whole city."  Lucas then held up a remote beeper and pushed at the button on it.  "Besides, I'll be able to hear anything better standing out here."

Disbelieving looks were exchanged as the others didn't seemingly know how to reply, but to Lucas's relief, Evan soon followed suit.  "Okay, but we still need to be super careful about this.  There's not much light to see by."

Leon and Minoko were more wary of such activity, but they seemed satisfied to let their oddball companions take the risk and be lookouts while handing off keys to be tested.  They tried each beeper in turn, keeping track of what had been used so far before entering the vehicle again and driving to the further end of the building, still on the first floor.

That time, with the slightly upward sloping street now cutting off the open walls, the only light they could see by was secondary; reflected shadowy dimness gleaming off of various surfaces.  Still, Lucas repeated his act, casually stepping into danger with a madman's confidence: only possible by knowing it was a required step in an important plan.

Nothing came of the second point, yet they all seemingly were marginally more at ease with what Lucas was doing.  But there were two other floors and rooftop to go to.  Lucas became silent again, waiting for the needed criteria as they proceeded to check the other locations.  Light was rapidly leaching from the sky as they came out onto the roof, providing a much clearer view of substantially fewer vehicles.  Success was least likely here of all, yet they began again.

Just as Lucas was beginning to despair that things would be inevitably postponed, everything fell into place.  While he had been searching through those mutilated, bloodied corpses, Lucas had numbed his mind and tried to become blind to his surroundings.  Activity became a deliberate and necessary awful thing he could not allow himself to linger upon.  If he had not done so earlier, he simply wouldn't have been able to function.

The moment right now was such a time, yet Lucas couldn't quite recapture the same sense of numb blindness to what he saw.  He was trapped in an inevitable flow with only one possible outcome and nothing could be done differently.  Yet he wasn't watching himself this time.  He was watching someone despicable betraying a close friend.

Lifting Up Others

The car door's slam echoed through the desolate streets.  Breath billowed out before him as Evan moved to the center of the nearby intersection.  Looking into the surrounding distances, he scanned for movement while straining to listen.  Whatever clues of activity which had been present before had since vacated.  A couple cars were visible which were in a crashed state, but nothing moved.  Except for the city's usual detritus, most of the visible streets were pristine.

"I think we're clear for the moment."  Evan called out as he relaxed his grip upon the pistol in his hand.  "I don't see anything out here."  He flicked at the safety and lowered the weapon into its holster.

"I see a couple of bodies.  Nothing moving, though."  Leon's voice became clearer as he emerged from the vehicle.  A rifle hung from his shoulder via a strap.

They had brought their vehicle a few scant blocks away; the distance to the nearest grocery store.  Parked along one corner, the engine was cut.  They had waited in silence like that for a while, slowly recovering from the ear-shattering gunshots fired within the enclosed space.  Nobody spoke to clarify why they were lingering.  Evan had been the first to be satisfied and emerge for a better examination of their surroundings.

Minoko tentatively exited from the vehicle, following the lead of her peers.  Pausing, she reached into the car and retrieved another of their scavenged rifles.  The sling was lifted and placed carefully upon her shoulder.  She did not speak or step far from the driver's door, instead keeping a watchful vigil on the streets.  Despite notable nerves, she held rigidly upon the weapon exactly as Leon had instructed.

The building had several stories, but they were only concerned with the immediate ground floor.  A heavy concrete pillar was positioned near the corner and on each side a few steps downwards led from the sidewalk into a small inset patio.  Along the left edge was placed a sloping ramp.  The sliding glass doors composing the store's front were closed.

Evan descended the stairs and tested the automatic doors with his hands.  "Locked."  He inhaled deeply as Leon sidled closer with a flashlight, providing light as Evan made a futile attempt at force.

"Doesn't look like that will work."  Leon approached, swaying the beam of light around.  "Do you think someone could be hiding in there?"

"It would be a good place to hide."  Evan pounded on the glass and waited, watching for any hint of movement or shadow to stir inside.  Calm silence persisted, nothing but the unreliable, low whistle of air sliding through lanes of brick, cement and asphalt.  "Seems no.  We'll have to break in."

"Step back."  Leon used the butt of the rifle to hammer repeatedly at the barrier.

Retreating to the sidewalk as Leon worked, Evan gazed along the intersecting streets.  Standing beside Minoko, she was still frantically gazing into the distances both up and down the slight incline as well as the transverse path.  She gripped her weapon in an agitated, nervous fashion.

Noticing that Lucas remained inside the vehicle, Evan retraced his steps.  He still wore the same startled, bewildered expression on his face from walking through the zombie slaughter.  Slowly, Evan waved his hand around in an attempt to draw his focus before rapping upon the partially lowered window.  "Are you coming?  Lucas?"

With his eyes wide, Lucas turned just enough to regard Evan.  "I- I.."  He forcefully exhaled.  "I can't-"

A nearby bang made Evan jump back with a start.  Frantically looking around, he calmed as he realized that Leon had fired at the door, and was continuing to pummel upon it.  After a moment, he resumed speaking to Lucas.  "Calm down, relax and tell me what's wrong."

"Before the power went out, I saw some videos online.  In one of them a zombie had its arm ripped off and it was still moving around.  It was- pretty bad, v- very bad, actually, but I could watch it.  I thought that meant I would be okay with...  But just now with the smell and stepping on..."  Lucas stared back at him so intently Evan thought something was behind him.  "Having to do this all...  I don't think I will survive..."

"You're not alone.  We are in this together."  Evan could sympathize with the lasting impact the carnage had upon Lucas.  After disposing of several zombies previously with an axe, what they had just done together was a lot less awful by comparison.  But even so, Evan could feel the visceral sensation of every strike clawing at his mind.  Stains lingered in memory, accumulating.

Lucas hadn't yet been directly exposed to such things, so it was likely even worse for him.  Leon and Minoko had quietly averted their eyes once their confrontation had ended.  Nobody seemed fully intact.  The others were simply too busy to let themselves feel it yet.  But once they were somewhere safe, all of them would likely witness those events again in their mind.

Perhaps once Lucas had other things to focus his mind upon, he would recover more quickly.  Evan rapped on the window again to maintain his friend's attention.  "Lucas, we need to help each other through this.  I know what just happened was very, very bad.  There's no way seeing things like this can't disturb someone.  But I came to get you because I know you are strong."

Lucas silently listened, watching Evan as he waited for a reply that did not come.  Warm breathing misted in the air as Evan contemplated his word choices.

"Lucas.  You're the smartest person I know.  And right now there's a lot of scared people who let their fear paralyze them.  People who are too scared to make sense of what they see happening around them.  But I know you.  You've been carefully examining everything you've seen so far and you've been thinking about it.  You will realize things other people won't, and right now that is the single most valuable thing anyone can contribute."

"I don't know anything."  Lucas replied in a monotone fashion.  "Not really."

Glass fell to the ground in a noisome crash.  Leon reached inside the hole to unlock the doors.  He stepped back and called out.  "It's open now.  If someone was in there I think they would have come out by now."

Evan replied.  "Give me a moment, I'll go in with you."

Minoko spoke nervously, moving incrementally towards the building.  "Actually, if nobody is inside, it might be better if you were the one out here."

"Yeah, I think I'd rather have you watching our back."  Called out Leon, before he addressed Minoko.  "No offense."  She indicated no objection as she entered with Leon.

Evan waved them on to begin their forage.  On their initial examination of the building, they had noted that the exterior facings of the structure were still intact.  He couldn't blame them for preferring the dark but presumably safe enclosure to uncertain daylight.  With the others on their task, he circled around the vehicle and entered it to sit beside his friend.

"Lucas, we've got a car now.  We're getting out of this."

"Good.  I can't-"  Lucas paused to inhale deeply a few times, easing his nerves.  "I- I don't want to be here.  I need to go."

"That's what we're doing.  We're leaving to get help, just as soon as we get food for everyone."

"Bring Jessica and Ryan.  They need to be with us."

"They're going to hide out and wait for the rescue."

"No."  Lucas spoke slowly, forcefully taking deep breaths of air between words.  "We all need t- To stay together."

Evan started to reply, but words failed him as he had a thought.  The focus with which Lucas was speaking was intentional.  If only a few would escape, he wanted to make sure they were the people he cared about.  "We're going to get help.  For everyone."

"We can't get help.  Nothing we d-"  Lucas hesitated, easing himself back with a deep breath before continuing to speak.  "As long as there is a single zombie remaining, there is reason to come here.  But they haven't come back.  Not since the- the mass knockout event."

"You mean the- uh- black note?"

"Black note?"

"Yeah.  Uh, Ryan sort of came up with that."  Evan admitted.

"Like a brown..."  Lucas broke into a chuckle, then a robust laugh.  A mad display of sudden, unnerving emotion that kept spilling out for far longer than it should have.  When Lucas finally settled down enough to be capable of speech, he seemed a bit more himself.  "Sounds like Ryan...  Anyway, after the blackou-  Err, those black notes- all those people, they're...  Keeping away.  Maybe some of them also heard the sounds you talked about.  Or saw something more..."  Lucas trailed off, an inquisitive look on his face.

Evan had no good idea how to talk about what he knew.  At the time, the sounds were just one additional surreal sensation during an avalanche of hazy experience.  Harried as he had felt at the time, he had almost neglected the noises for their duration.  "Whatever that thing was, it sort of...  Made a whistling and clicking which sort of partially overlapped.  Almost like wind chimes, or a pipe organ with loud snapping."  Evan briefly thought back to the street littered with metallic debris and the whine of squealing metal.  "I also saw a place where people should have been, but were just missing.  There was torn metal and things were left."

"Interesting..."  There was a moment of silence before Lucas continued.  "See, before the- the black note and anything else they may have learned, our rescuers were treating this like an ongoing natural disaster.  That made sense, because a natural disaster is random and undirected.  So once you understand the dangers, you have some idea of how to keep yourself safe while resolving the issue.  But now we know the real situation is fundamentally different.  This isn't just some random event."

"What difference does that make?"  Evan spent the effort to look around as he spoke.  The streets were still clear.  "Either way, we're still here."

"Because, what is really behind the zombie event is another civilization.  So the choices for how to respond to it need to happen on a broader scale.  From a scale where we, as individual people simply do not matter."

"So, you're saying we're not important enough to rescue?  That the zombies here aren't worth killing?"

"Right now, yes.  As long as they're around, it's the aliens that matter."  Pausing for a moment, Lucas inhaled deeply to ease his nerves.  "And there's only two responses I can think of for this kind of thing.  The first is to attack any footholds as hard and quickly as you can to prevent encroachment from the invading civilization.  And the second is to abandon anywhere you think is a lost cause so you might be able to defend yourself.  So you don't pointlessly waste resources.  Like what happened when the- uh, black note hit."

They sat in contemplative silence for a moment as Evan considered his friend's logic.  It felt like something had to be wrong with it, but he couldn't figure out what it could be.  "What if they wanted to establish contact?  Try to communicate instead of fighting?"

"That's- sort of covered by the second thing.  It would probably look the same to us, at least."

"So, you really don't think we could get help?"

"I think if we could, we would have already seen someone from outside come through here by now.  Someone's family would be motivated enough to try."  Lucas stared off through the windshield, still not seemingly focusing his attention on anything.

Evan frowned as he focused his thoughts.  If they really could not get outside assistance, what other options did they have?  "Is it dangerous to stay here for a while?"

"I- I don't know.  It's impossible to know.  Maybe if they're lucky, someone like you could survive here for a while, fighting the zombies and hiding until all this is over.  But I- I can't."  As Lucas's voice trailed off, Minoko and Leon appeared from the store with carts full of supplies.

Evan partially emerged from the vehicle, waving to indicate the area was clear.  As Leon and Minoko began to approach, Evan returned his attention to Lucas.  "It's going to be okay, we're going to get you out of here."

"All of us should leave..."  Lucas whispered as the others were hurriedly tossing things into the trunk.

"We'll do what we can."  Evan replied, thinking of Zack, weak with a broken arm back at the building.  Maybe if they had weapons and the distance to safety wasn't too far, they could get everyone out on foot.  Evan wondered if there was anyone else that would be better transported in the car.

Location Issues

Lucas stood before the glass doors at the front of the lobby, silently watching the roiling group of moaning bodies.  Traces of light filtered through the shuffling forms.  Eyes tracked his motion while hands and teeth tried to grasp him through the glass.  The monsters definitely responded to his presence.  Somehow, they knew he wasn't one of them.

One of the many zombies at the door had a grievous wound over it's chest.  Out of those present, it definitely fit its moniker more accurately than its peers.  Few of the others had prominent injuries except for minor nicks and scratches.  They all shared the same pale, partly frozen look to their skin from the overnight rain and cold.  The appearance of the things was sickening, but worse than that, the rank odor was enough to make Lucas glad he hadn't eaten anything.  A few moments' worth of observation partly desensitized him to the sight, but the stench would eventually drive him into retreat.

The solitary, shadowy chamber was rife with a feeling of palpable tension.  Although the zombies factored into the mood, Lucas was more nervous that Simon would assert he was pointlessly agitating them.  He watched the stairs, listening intently for any indication someone was moving through the halls or descending in haste.  He was primed to bolt down the one hallway and proceed up the other stairway.  Yet as the seconds became minutes and nothing came of Jorge's retreat, Lucas's nervous energy receded.

He seemed to have some time; there was only one observational experiment Lucas had in mind.  Taking one step back from the doors, he selected an unstained area and laid upon the icy floor.  Moving limbs continuously rattled upon glass while he moved.  They followed his movement, some of them splaying their fingers uselessly upon the lower portion of the doors and the large, full windows.  Their moaning calls droned on.

Lucas attempted to remain motionless, closing his eyes and settling his breathing into a slower rhythm.  The unholy stench seeping through the cracks made it difficult to relax.  Just beside the rattling doors, he was uncertain if he could remain motionless enough to feign sleep.  He wondered how long being inert would take before the droning monsters would lose interest in him, if they would.

Forcing himself to take slow breaths, Lucas recalled everything he could which might contain meaning.  For some reason, these zombies remained here at the door whether or not someone was down here for them to directly see.  He was uncertain of the intervals at which the group had sent an observer, but their continued presence outside could mean they remembered that people were inside.  If so, he wasn't sure if he could hold his position long enough to have them forget he had been moving.

Thinking back, he recalled how one zombie had passed over those struck by the blackout event, deliberately avoiding them.  They did not lash out at one another.  It was laughable to think they could see human consciousness, but with those anomalous facts and the strange animal immunity Lucas no idea what else could explain the behavior.  A far more sensible explanation might linger just beyond his imagination.  But maybe not.

If being conscious was not the fundamental distinction, then what could be?

As Lucas waited, other thoughts intruded.  Nearly a full day had passed and there was no indication of their rescuers returning; the power had not been restored.  He had little concrete idea what a dedicated response team's priorities would be, but it seemed that if they did not arrive by now then at least they should have restored communication.  The ongoing lack of power within the city was troubling.

The monsters and strange events known so far should be surmountable with clever engineering.  Anyone should realize these issues were solvable with the right approach and a bit of time.  There had to be some reason they weren't solved yet by the people whose job it would be to solve these issues.  They should have seen some indication of that by now.

Yet the only explanations Lucas could fathom were things like more z-rays burst events hitting Earth, or the blackout events spreading out to mask the travel of those unknown aliens into the wider world.  Maybe yet other forces were making their presence known.  Regardless, it was as if the outside world had vanished.  Something else was ongoing- something that kept people with resources and organization away- the immediate problems would have to be solved locally.

Distant, muffled sounds of voices drifted in from elsewhere- barely audible in the eerie silence.  Food was apparently running low for many of those in the building.  Soon the others would also realize they would have to take matters into their own hands.  Of course, safely leaving the building to search for supplies or flee would present problems, especially if they did not have good leadership.  It wasn't a pleasant prospect to consider. 

Lucas could be careful and smart about what he did.  But he could not control the choices of all the people he was with by circumstance.  Additionally, the zombie presence outside was increasing in numbers over time.  It was direct evidence that others were facing the same scenario and evidently handling their situation ineptly.

Lucas halted mid-breath, suddenly realizing that he had no longer been hearing the droning call of the undead.  The doors had ceased rattling in their frame; yet the foul stench lingered.  The only sounds discernible were muted voices participating in a lively conversation.  He couldn't hear the zombies any more; he couldn't see them.  Other than the smell, which could simply be lingering, he had no direct experience of knowing that they were still outside.  Could they have left?

With his head turned to face the floor-to-ceiling glass, Lucas opened his eyes.  Blank gazes returned through the translucent barrier, fingers spread and teeth gnashing.  The aggressive challenge of the door continued a moment later along with the familiar droning calls.  Lucas closed his eyes again.  The racket continued.  The undead were active once more, seemingly because he had became aware of their presence.  It was crazy, but how did they determine when to be quiet?  Lucas puzzled thoughtfully over the curious observation, speculating if it was further evidence in favor of the outlandish theory.

A firecracker jolt tore Lucas from his contemplative reverie.  Another came as he sat up, sending his heart into rapid motion.  Dead peeled away from the door in ones and twos.  Beyond, a jet of material shot into the air, coinciding with another heavy crack.  Beyond the bodies, he could see something fall.  Hastily, Lucas stood again and backed away.

For one joyous moment, Lucas discarded his thoughts, thinking that their help had finally returned, but the relief quickly faded as he realized the source was from a solitary civilian vehicle.  Still, the arrival was slaying the zombies.  He further backed away, almost into the hallway in order to help divert the undead attention.  Excited voices began to echo from above, steadily rising in volume as more people were drawn to attention.

As the final body fell, Lucas approached the doors to look outside.  Several people who had been hiding upstairs came down to gawk.  Outside, a few remaining stragglers revealed themselves from around the corner, only to be taken down once in closer proximity.  As the action settled, the vehicle was littered with bodies and viscera, but the occupants were seemingly alive.

"Did they come back?"  Jorge asked as he descended the stairs among a cluster.  A mingling roar came with him as excited voices spoke, some declaring their imminent rescue while others were quickly rebutting the optimism.  Many from the crowd brought with them their own light sources, giving the area a soft glow.  A few coughed at the reek in the air and withdrew.

"It's just one car."  Lucas called back.  "But they killed all the zombies."

Simon came down, passing by everyone without giving them much of a glance.  He approached the doors with an authoritative stance.  Others tentatively followed, most keeping close to the stairs or standing somewhere upon them.  Lucas sidled away to where the glass facing met the wall.  A combination of excited and disgusted voices filled the room as additional observers arrived.

Lucas's eyes widened as he witnessed Evan emerge from the vehicle and gaze slowly around himself.  He carried a pistol with him and appeared to have been sprinkled with the violence of the event outside.  Hushed silence fell over the throng as they watched his approach.  Lucas raised his hand to wave.

"No way are you coming inside like that."  Simon called out as Evan halted before the doors.

Evan shook his head and returned Lucas's gesture with his free hand.  "I don't want inside.  I'm only here to get someone."

In one awkward moment, Lucas realized the everyone was watching him.  A few voices protested to one another that more could escape with the vehicle, but the enthusiasm of that realization seemed to be tamped down somewhat by the visible carnage.  Lucas regarded Simon with an uncertain glance and tentatively approached.

Simon glared at Evan.  "Well, you don't need to be standing right there for any reason."  Simon scowled as he took the keys for the door from his belt.  Evan nodded and moved back, returning to his attention to the surrounding environs.

Tentatively, Lucas approached the doors and spoke.  "You'll let me back in?"

Simon regarded him with puzzlement before replying, as if he considered the question absurd.  "You'll have to prove you're okay if you want back inside."

"Okay.  I'll be back in a bit, I think."  A cold chill rushed to envelope exposed skin.  Ice felt its way through the cracks in his coat.  An errant breath of supremely foul air produced a gag.  A sudden force propelled him into a reflexive walk.

Rattling clatter, and muffled voices emanated from nearby as Lucas coughed.  Apart from a vague awareness of movement and fallen bodies with slimy spillage oozing forth, all he knew was his friend was there.  Outside, they were alone.  Events transpired whilst he struggled to sensibly interpret the essential elements of the scene surrounding him.  Sensations flickered, drilling into his skull and lingering in memorandum long after exposure.

Lucas exhaled harshly, muted awareness communicating place, scent and noise.  Safety.  He closed his eyes, feeling fabric beneath him and streaks of color upon glass.  Watching the slaughter from the interior of the building was one thing, as body after body fell in a horrid, yet comprehensible escalation.  Fluids gradually spread over the ground.  He had witnessed everything.  But he hadn't seen them.

Necessity had forced prolonged observation of things he now realized his gaze had unconsciously avoided.  If he hadn't really looked this time, he would have fallen.  To trod amongst the detritus was wholly otherworldly.

A repeated voice came to him.  "-okay?  Lucas?"  Evan had been waving his hand in front of his face.  They were inside a vehicle, its exterior littered with discolored smudges.

"Yeah.  I-"  Lucas stifled a wet convulsion in his throat and readjusted his glasses.  "I don't...  I'm okay."

"How is everyone in there doing?"

"Not good.  Running low on food."  Lucas idly glanced at the door beside him.  Someone had locked it.  Leon and the Asian girl he had seen only briefly a couple times before were in the vehicle as well.  Weapons and ammunition had been strewn about the interior.

"Okay, so we pick up some supplies."  Evan gazed towards Blackwood dormitory and the scared people riotously chattering inside. "Any ideas after that?"

"Leave?"  Leon suggested from the front passenger seat.  "To get help, I mean."

"That sounds good."  Said the girl as she rubbed at her ears.

Lucas stared at the back of the seat before him, silent.  Thinking they may be on their own was disquieting, but he had figured this situation was something he could handle.  Merely walking a few feet outside shattered that idea as the fragile delusion it had always been.  Taking useful action meant being capable of accomplishing what his friend had done.

"Lucas, what about you?"  Evan paused cleaning himself off with a towel to touch him on the shoulder.

"Yeah."  Lucas closed his eyes and tried not to breathe.  Once they left, he doubted any of them would return.  Likely, nobody else would venture this way either.  "Let's go find help."

There had to be a very good reason for their complete abandonment.  Whatever it was, nothing they could do would change those reasons.

Escape

Eerie wailing drifted through the long stone corridor, muffled by the glass frame at its end.  A wall of writhing flesh strained upon the cast iron portal.  Murky winter light filtering through dense clouds cast long shadows through the chilly environment.  Individual figures were only occasionally discernible from the mass, rendering any attempt to precisely count numbers futile.

"Whoa, there's a whole bunch of them out there.  Maybe over a dozen."  Ryan broke the silence as he scratched at patchy bits of brown hair on his chin.  He had ambled away from the doors as Evan entered, but still gawked from nearby in a winter coat.  "Where do you think they all came from?"

"Lots of people were trapped in the convention center."  Evan exhaled a warm, misty breath.  He gazed tensely at the moving shapes.  Some were making weak motions to climb upon the gate and one another, but inelegant, uncoordinated movement forbade any success.  "Maybe some of them were left behind like we were when the rescuers withdrew."

"Dang.  I guess they tried to escape on their own and it didn't work.  That sucks."

"Yes, Ryan.  That does suck."  Evan suppressed an impulse to audibly sigh, inhaling chilly air.  The victims were probably desperate to find food and water before low stocks and bitter winter nights weakened them to the point an escape attempt would be impossible.  All the more reason for them to enact their own exodus.

Gazing out beyond the glass at the mob, Evan steeled his nerves.  If they were going to retrieve the vehicle, he knew there would be no choice but to slice a sanguine trail.  Any such effort to reach that end needed to be before the clumsy, grasping figures became numerous enough to use each other as a grisly ladder to surmount the restraining barricade.

If they became numerous enough, Evan corrected his thoughts.  That single word felt critical.

While waiting for the others to rouse, he set out to gather what he would need for the task ahead.  The nearby rooms had more than enough clothing.  Ryan followed Evan and provided assistance, a signal he at least had some semblance of understanding the situation.  There were plenty of coats, gloves and knit masks available, so quickly building a protective outfit was trivial.

While adorning himself in heavy layers, Ryan spoke to Evan with an uncharacteristic tone of concern.  "You sure you don't want to just wait here until things settle down?"

Evan pulled a knit face mask and overlaid it with an abandoned pair of thick-rimmed glasses as he replied.  "So far, it looks like things out there have been getting worse, not better."  The large lenses of the frame distorted his vision only marginally.

"Huh."  From his tone, Ryan seemed unconvinced of the inherent plight of staying put indefinitely, but didn't press the issue.  A brief silence lingered as Evan finished wrapping himself in protective garments, then retrieved the fire axe he had used the previous day.  Examining the edge briefly, it had been blunted and scored; he could only hope it held as long as necessary.

Ryan spoke again.  "So do you think the zombied guy we have locked up brought them here?"

"I don't know."

"Are we going to- you know- put him down at some point?"

"I don't know."  Evan replied as he unlocked the front doors.  The room containing Robert's hazardous corpse had been meticulously sealed the previous night.  A sturdy wooden table propped on its side obstructed the hallway.  Pinned in place with an assortment of heavy objects, it provided an obstacle for the zombie that it should not be capable of circumventing.  Although the body was also restrained inside, it was wiser to not rely upon a single point of failure.  "Maybe before we leave."

Evan turned and strode through the gaping doors, frigid air spilling over him.  The unpleasant wailing death- held back with an iron lattice- awaited his focus.  A rapid cascade of swift, but careful strikes numbed his mind as heavy cracking and icy thumps resonated disturbingly.  Evan tried not to let his mind linger upon the handful of smaller figures amidst the clustering, reaching throng.  All amidst the crowd were an equal threat.

As undead bodies fell into a growing mass of reeking viscera, those remaining did not hesitate to step onto the corpses of their fallen peers.  Once the final target had been slain, an unpleasant heap blocked the entryway.  Eerie semi-silence reigned the desolate city streets; broken only by the distant wail of other monsters.  The bloodied implement clattered to the ground as Evan stumbled back, abruptly hitting the wall.

Damp clothing had been rumpled, but clean.  Despite an unhealthy pallor and a few minor scrapes, almost every zombie had shown no serious injuries.  Disposing of one or two pristine looking dead was one thing, but to mutilate so many human bodies in rapid succession had been exhausting in an intangible sense.  Echoes of the actions replayed in his mind, the way the vibrations travelled down the handle of the implement and into his arms.  The heavy thud as cleaving metal struck its target soundly.  What was necessary had been done, but lingered.

Exhaling harshly, Evan redrew his focus: his task was incomplete.  The next step would be to clear the gate.  Faint sounds echoed from an unknown distance, prompting nervous vigilance.  Moving closer, he looked about before wrenching the gate and slipping through for a better survey.  Finally satisfied the immediate vicinity was presently clear, he moved the mutilated corpses with heavily gloved hands.

The small one-way street was lined on the near side with an allotment of parking spaces.  Only a couple cars were still here, but not wanting to leave the inhuman detritus in plain sight, Evan opted to drag the horrific slaughter slightly up the street and deposit it on the far side of a two door junker with cracking blue paint.  Skin exposed to the hard pavement tore, leaving a grinding trail of red flecks and torn clothing to the accumulating pile.  Larger chunks of flesh were unceremoniously flung on top last.

Heavy quilts carefully placed would cover the worst of the carnage at the gate.  Though the lingering vile odor was probably impossible to mask.  Once finished, he sealed the portal and peeled away the slapdash hazard suit.  Cold air rushed against bare skin, seeping warmth.  New and old rust-spattered garments now laid along the corridor's side.  Laying the quilts afterwords only took a moment.

Jennifer parted the door with a heavy white coat ready as Evan strode inside.  The few inhabitants of the building were gathered together in uncomfortable silence.  "We're ready to go."  Nobody quite made eye contact as he spoke, or lifted their heads to see the results.

With great trepidation, Minoko moved forwards and spoke with an uneven voice.  "I am ready."  She was zipped tightly in a dark blue coat with the hood concealing her long hair.  Somewhere, she had found some tight fitting jeans to replace her black skirt.  It wasn't the most ideal of clothing, but the heavy materials and long sleeves should at least help resist a bite attack if they had to.  Keys jingled mutely in her clasped hands.

"Me too."  Leon took a deep breath.  "Another set of eyes, just in case."

"Dude, you don't have to go."  The light danced as Ryan moved closer to touch Leon's shoulder.  "Evan is a total badass.  He can handle it."

Disregarding Ryan, Evan directed an evaluating gaze to the slightly older man.  Leon appeared fit and had been able to keep a steady pace the previous day.  He was wearing a thick black sweater and heavy brown slacks.  Gloves adorned his hands so not much of his dark skin was exposed.  "Okay.  Let's go then."

Evan paused to give Jennifer a parting kiss, then departed, leading the way outside for the small party.  He briefly halted by the gate for a moment, then faced Leon.  "If you had to, could you- do you think you could kill one of them?"

Leon nodded wordlessly after a deep breath, a determined look on his face.  Evan hefted the bloodied axe, offering it.  Shaky hands gripped the handle, but settled into a tight grip after a moment.

Evan turned to check the gate's immediate proximity.  Faint wailing was audible, echoing from some unseen point.  Satisfied the immediate vicinity was clear, he pushed the gate open a crack and slipped through.  His companions ventured after him, Minoko trailing.  "It's not too far away", she whispered tensely.

"Okay", Evan motioned in reply as Minoko and Leon gazed around.  "Lead the way.  If you see something coming, let us know but keep going."

Minoko led them along the side walk beside the building and out of the university grounds.  There was a moment of hesitation before they crossed into the open corridor of the intersection, glancing around nervously for any moving figures in the distance before proceeding.

Onwards they trekked, walking in the street and into the open green space sweeping through the downtown blocks.  Wailing echoed from some distant place.  The echo of their own footfalls added to the surreality of lonesome emptiness.  Occasional motionless forms littered the area; remaining as vague, distant shapes.

As they proceeded hastily across another street, Evan noticed a heap of rubble and twisted metal on the sidewalk.  Scorch markings lined the near surfaces.  At the top of the building, a sizeable section of brickwork was missing.  Along another street, a bus was partly embedded into another building.  Luckily, the damage appeared superficial in both cases.  Few vehicles remained left abandoned on the road.  A moving figure was walking in the road a long way off, but didn't seem to notice them.

Minoko led them away from the park after traversing along them a few blocks.  Pausing just before entering the next intersection, she motioned towards the corner.  "Almost there."  She glanced at Evan and Leon only briefly, then advanced into the middle of the intersection.

Something just out of sight began a mad dash.  Minoko screamed out as she jerked back and almost stumbled in her haste to retreat.  A distinctive wail pierced the silence with the thumping feet.

Leaping forwards into the intersection, Evan moved to intercept whatever was coming.  A charging figure came into view; barrelling towards him, hands ready to grasp.  "Get behind me!"  A moment later, Evan kicked out and hopped away perpendicularly, connecting with a thump just hard enough to topple the attacker.  The momentum of its charge left it rolling onto the pavement, limbs flailing.  "Go!"  Evan shouted and waved as Minoko broke into a dash.  Leon hesitated, but moved quickly afterwards, keeping his distance.

Circling around carefully and walking backwards, Evan watched the zombie tensely.  Its frail form was wreathed in a heavily abused coat, its white, cold skin littered with cuts from the tumble.  It used to be a man, but its overall frame seemed small enough to not give it much reach.  Its messy, short dark hair was missing a patch.

It rose again and came for Evan in its mindless dash, both of them moving in the direction of their arrival.  Leading it away gave it plenty of time to gain speed, then once again Evan jumped aside, this time a strong kick down at one knee produced a wet crack.  A tense feeling gripped Evan's heart as he felt grasping at the arm of his coat, but fingers slipped away without purchase.  The figure tumbled once again.

Moving to catch up with his peers, Evan took a moment to quickly survey the environment.  One figure stalked in the far distance, but thankfully the immediate area seemed clear.  Nobody but them was running, in any case.  With luck, the figure behind them would no longer be able to run with the blow just inflicted.

Ahead, Minoko swung open the driver's door and unlocked the vehicle's other doors with an audible click.  A moment after, the engine flared harshly to life.  Leon opened the back and stepped closer to Evan, raising the axe as Evan ran.  Footsteps behind Evan came closer as he heard the unsteady moaning grow louder.  His leg ached as he moved with a faltering gait, the blows he had dealt taking a greater toll on his body than he had first realized.

Moving just past Leon, Evan halted to face his pursuer.  Leon's arms swung down, the axe just missing the skull and slamming blade down into the attacker's shoulder.  The strike met, sending the figure crashing to the ground.  Leon released his grip as the blade wrenched downwards, jammed deep in the monster's shoulder.

Leon hesitated as the zombie struggled in its efforts to rise again, its limbs hardly able to bear its weight.  Evan could see Leon's intent to retrieve the blade and pulled him away forcefully.  "Leave it!"  Together they piled into the back of the vehicle.  Minoko tore off, leaving the solitary straggling figure behind a corner after only a moment.

The engine idled as the three recovered their breath.  Each door was secured, but eyes still darted around nervously.  There was nothing moving again on the streets.  Only the scattered remnants of the city's former residents.

"So what do we do now?"  Minoko whispered.

Unreliable

"Hmm, maybe we can do something with this."  Lucas mumbled to himself as he scrawled another speculative equation.  Like a dozen other disjointed notes, he figured there was a chance it could be used in some way to assist with the interpretation of the gathered data.  There was no telling what might ultimately prove useful, so everything that came to his mind was added to the inchoate tapestry of science.

"Damn it, we can't get anything from this."  Chloe lamented.  Thoroughly working the sheet of scratch paper before her, the writing was neatly structured into sections and clearly labelled.  Sitting together in the otherwise abandoned common room at a broad circular table, notes had been laid out over the table's surface.

The curtains were drawn wide open, revealing the stark emptiness of the rain-slicked walkways outside.  The windows themselves could only open partway along the top edge, which Lucas had done earlier in the day.  The only sounds perceptible through them so far had been the patter of the day's variable rainfall.  Lucas and Chloe were dressed in light coats; thankfully the moisture outside prevented the temperature from falling unbearably low.

"Huh?" Leaning over, Lucas examined the strictly ordered calculations.  A big graphing calculator beside Chloe displayed a lingering calculation he couldn't quite read in the gradually dimming light of the setting sun.  "You having trouble figuring out an angle from what we have?"

"Yeah."  Chloe looked at Lucas with weary frustration of a long fruitless day lining her face.  "We can't do anything with what we have.  All that effort going around talking to everyone, measuring distances and it's fucking useless."

"No it's not.  There's an area near the walls where people passed out and everyone on the other side remained conscious.  All we have to do is figure out where the dividing line is."  A casual initial observation revealed that those present anywhere on the sixth floor for either event had passed out, while a couple on floor five did not.  So that more or less confirmed about two floors of shielding was needed to keep one from being knocked out.  "Since we have a rough idea of how much shielding is needed, we can work backwards from there to estimate an angle of origin."

"Yes.  That's what I was trying to do.  And given what we have I think you were probably right about the event being more or less uniform.  But figuring out anything specific beyond that like an angle of origin just isn't possible."  Chloe sighed and shook her head before mumbling to herself.  "Not that it would even matter."

"No, it's simple."  Lucas leaned over to check the formatted data Chloe had meticulously produced from the disjointed collection of testimonies.  "Just see how far away someone was at most from one side of the building and still got knocked out.  Then look at how close someone was to the wall and didn't pass out.  The line would be somewhere in between those two things."  After that, they could repeat the process with the other wall to arrive at a direction.  A rough indicator of where within the city the alien wormhole was likely to be.

"That's actually the problem."  Chloe selected and pushed a sheet of paper towards Lucas as she spoke.  "People don't actually have any idea where they were standing when it happened."

"Huh?"  Lucas stared at Chloe quizzically.  "How could they not remember where they were?"

"Just look at these two from the first event, for example.  This person estimates they were about four feet from the door and didn't pass out.  And this other person-"  Chloe traced her fingertip across the paper to another entry.  "They claim they were by the stairs- about thirty two feet away and they did pass out."

"What?"  Lucas examined the information.  The two people would have both been in the main lobby, if their testimony could be believed.  Given their assumptions, that shouldn't have been the case.  There seemed to be fairly clear evidence that the strange knock out radiation could be blocked and didn't miss anyone who didn't benefit from some kind of shielding.  "If our assumptions are true, both those things couldn't have happened at the same time.  So maybe something in our assumptions is wrong."

"No, if they were wrong, I think we'd see a lot more variability in the data, like everyone on the top floor not being knocked out.  It's just that both of these claims contradict all the other statements given."  Chloe waved her hand across the data.  "Peoples' memories are just not reliable enough to expect any level of precision with the kind of process we've been using."

"So, just ignore those ones, then.  And just use the rest."

"It's not that simple."  Chloe pointed to another place on her sheet layered with calculations.  "What I pointed out was the most extreme disagreement, but they aren't the only two who disagree.  There's disagreement everywhere in what we have here.  For both of these events."

"That's a weird problem."

"It's not weird at all.  The problem is we waited too long, most people we got to talking to them hours after the thing we were asking them about.  And people just suck at remembering things in general.  I can't even use my own memory for the first event because I was somewhere in the hallway at the time and every part of the hallway looks the same.  At the time, it just didn't occur to me to try and remember exactly where I was standing."

"Huh."  Lucas examined the information Chloe referenced.  With all the notes they needed collected on one sheet it was plain to see that she was correct about the widespread inconsistency.  "Well, can't we still do something to eliminate that problem?  Like take averages?"

Chloe turned on a big flashlight and set it upright at the center of the table, producing a slightly diffuse glow overhead.  She looked at him with a dissatisfied frown.  "You don't know anything about statistics, do you?"

"I know a little.  But I haven't really looked into it."  Lucas reluctantly admitted.

"If you want, I could give you my old statistics book.  But until then, just trust me on this.  With a problem like this we can't just do something as simple as using averages.  I attempted to work out some very basic analysis to give a range of possible values.  But that doesn't work because we have a very small sample size and results that vary enough that our probable angle of origin ends up covering about one quarter of the sky for the first event and very close to half the sky for the second event.  It's just not possible to narrow anything down further than that."

Lucas silently considered Chloe's statements.  He was hoping their efforts would eventually give them something more precise.  If they could at least determine that each event originated from different places in the sky, that would confirm his hypothesis that the source of the events was likely something relatively close that had moved.  Somewhere in Portland, or possibly in Earth orbit.  Of course, Evan's anomalous warning and the mysterious retreat of the soldiers still gave them some reason to suspect such things.  But even well-founded suspicion was not the same as knowledge.

Even with that failure, they could at least still be fairly certain that it took about two floors of shielding to be protected from the knockout radiation.  That wasn't nothing.  Maybe later he'd suggest that the few people whose rooms were on the top floor ought to consider relocating to a lower floor.  Just as Lucas began contemplating a procedure to help raise accuracy, a small voice came to them from the entrance.

"Do either of you have any food?"

"No."  Chloe snapped back tersely before Lucas could orient himself to see the speaker.

"Oh.  Nobody has any.  And everyone's starting to get really hungry."  Erin's voice sank.  A bulky grey coat wrapped snugly around her body, making her appear heavier than she was.  Erin held a downcast flashlight in one hand, partly covered to diminish the intensity of the beam.  "I hope the army returns soon."

"I hope so too."  Chloe nodded.

There was a solemn pause for a moment before Erin spoke again.  "Do you think it's a good idea to have that light on with the windows open?"

"If we hear anything outside, we'll turn it off."  Chloe motioned to the slightly opened window; having spent several hours somewhat in the open with Lucas had evidently calmed her unease about what was hinted to be lurking outside.

Erin nodded, not looking altogether satisfied with Chloe's answer; still nervously regarding the desolate, blackening view through the windows.  "I'm going to keep asking around, and see if anyone else has any extra food."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."  Chloe nodded.  "Let me know if something comes up."

While the two girls were speaking to each other, Lucas had been stunned into silence.  He had been thinking about the small meal they had fabricated from the modest stashes in their rooms.  Once the door drifted shut with a soft click and the footfalls receded through the hallway, he whispered to Chloe.  "Why did you lie?"

"We don't have enough food to share."

"You shared with me."

"That wasn't sharing, that was a trade."  Chloe regarded him with a serious glance as she folded her arms upon the round table.  "If we just gave away what little we have, that would only feed everyone for maybe a day, then they'd be back to where they are now, and we'd be in the same situation."

"We're already in the same situation."  Lucas paused a moment, then shrugged.  "We probably only have to hold out another day, anyway.  So that shouldn't really matter."

"If it's just going to be a day, then they can just wait a day."  Chloe laughed mockingly for a moment.  "You really think it will be just a day before someone comes back to get us?"

"Sure, probably.  The zombies aren't any threat at all.  And whatever caused the blackout bomb thing was hasn't triggered it again since this morning.  We also haven't heard the noises Evan was talking about."  Lucas paused there for a moment to shrug passively.  "So there doesn't seem to be any direct threats or dangers at the moment."

"Well, if you want to give away what little you have, that's your business."  There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"There aren't really any serious obstacles outside."

"If there aren't any threats, then why don't you leave right now?"

"You know what I meant."  Lucas protested.  "I meant that there's nothing dangerous to someone who has a chance to adequately prepare.  And we know for certain that most of the world has the time to prepare for what they want to do about the zombies."  Lucas continued after a moment's hesitation.  "Anyway, whatever caused this blackout phenomenon is a bit more problematic."

"That's the understatement of the year."  Chloe shook her head with a hint of a sigh.

Lucas frowned at the interruption.  "I was about to say, this blackout thing is a problem, but just like the zombies, it's not an impossible obstacle.  We know it can be blocked.  So if you could control a vehicle by remote control from a safe area, like a drone, then you could safely bring it into the city without the risk of it being lost to the phenomenon.  It's only going to be a matter of time before someone tries that.  Heck, they may already be looking around inside the city to figure out what's going on here."

"Investigating inside the city is not the same thing as a rescue."

"It's not.  But when they do that, they're going to see that there's people here who aren't zombies.  Then they'll just send some remote controlled cars in to get us."

Chloe studied Lucas's face, her eyes intensely focused on his in deathly serious candor.  "If this is really some kind of alien invasion, the first priority will be to stop it before making any effort to get us out of here.  If they come to get us, it's going to be a long time before that happens."

Lucas flatly shook his head.  "The zombies and the blackout creating entities are both problems that need to be addressed in order for things to return to normal.  If whatever created the blackout is really gone, the only problem to solve around here will be the zombie problem.  So that means preventing the creation of more zombies will be the top priority."

"And if whatever caused the blackout is still around they're not going to pay any attention to us."

"Yeah, that's possible I guess.  But if it were still around, we should at least be seeing some evidence of that.  Evan said he heard some kind of sounds outside.  And we haven't heard anything all day."  Lucas shrugged and motioned to the open windows.  "Also, if whatever caused that is still around, when the drones are sent here those entities will trigger another blackout phenomenon.  No more blackouts means we just have to wait for the people out there to do their thing."

"Well, do whatever you like then.  But leave me out of it."  Chloe sighed and pushed away from the table, standing up.  "It's been a long day, I'm going to go get some rest."

"We're at least going to have some idea of what to expect."  Lucas spoke assuredly as Chloe took her flashlight with her from the tabletop.  She left the room without a reply, leaving Lucas alone with his thoughts.

Turning on his spare flashlight, Lucas began to examine the notes Chloe had abandoned.  Although he couldn't verify the correctness of the statistics equations, there didn't appear to be any mistakes from what he did understand.  After a few minutes of contemplative silence, he decided to look outside the windows for any signs of activity.

Ever since Evan's warning the remaining denizens of the building were dead silent.  It was almost as if everyone else had already departed.  Standing, Lucas approached the windows with his light readied.  The empty walkways running between the dorm and the library were slick with the day's rain.  On the other side, the small clearing along the inside edge of the building's perimeter were lined with benches, bushes and pine trees.  There was nothing moving to examine and with the windows positioned as they were he couldn't check other buildings in the city for lights.

Lucas thought to go to the rooftop to get a better look, but he felt rather tired now that there were no distractions.  Confident the morning light would bring its own set of answers, he gathered up the preliminary equations and data he and Chloe had worked hard on through the day.  Nobody met him as he returned to his room.  Opening the window curtains to black skies, he laid down whilst idly gazing into the darkness.  Wondering what was going on in the outside world, he soon drifted away into a dreamless slumber.

Awakened by the morning light and hearing a faint, low sound, Lucas journeyed downstairs to see what new evidence would have presented itself overnight.  With light still minimal and battery power precious, Lucas guided himself through the dim hallways by his hands and carefully progressed to the ground floor.

The whole trip, Jorge was the only person he encountered; standing alone at the bottom of the front lobby stairs.  He was nervously watching as several figures rattled the doors, all producing a familiar, characteristic moan that mingled into a foul white noise.

"Hey."  Lucas slowly descended the steps as Jorge turned with a start to peer at him.  "What's going on?"

"Just doing a check."  Jorge exhaled slowly and cautiously returned his attention to the outside.  He was holding a heavy baseball bat in both hands, fingers flexing on the grip.  "They came this way at some point in the night and have been there ever since.  They know we're in here."

"You've been down here all night?"

"No."  Jorge looked at him only briefly, but released one hand from his weapon to scratch at the traces of stubble on his chin.  "Simon set up a watch and we've been taking turns coming down here to check up on things.  Does anything look cracked or damaged over there?"

"Huh?"  Lucas descended the steps and moved past Jorge before casually turning around.  "No.  It looks fine to me."

Jorge exhaled deeply, a nervous tension visibly flowing from his strained muscles.  Regardless, he lowered the bat only very slowly.

"So was someone awake all through the night?"

"Yeah, we're set up in a room just by the stairs to keep a watch out."

"There was another blackout event, wasn't there?"  Lucas asked.

Jorge replied as he began to creep backwards up the steps.  "No.  No, I don't think so.  Nobody mentioned one.  I should probably go back now."  Jorge eagerly retreated.

Remaining behind, Lucas gazed outside, thinking about what that news could mean.  As he did so, he began to truly worry for the first time since the outbreak had begun.

Abandoned

"Should we turn on a flashlight so we can see what's out there?"  The pensive voice carried with it an undercurrent of creeping dread.  Hints about unstoppable forces lurking within the uninhabited regions of the city made people deeply cautious of spilling light.  Given the scant knowledge they possessed, the imagined risks such an act entailed made the idea feel intuitively foolish.

"Not unless we absolutely need to."  Evan replied softly to Jennifer, who wholeheartedly nodded in grim concurrence.  He glanced towards the other barely perceptible outlines of people as he began to address them all with a slightly louder voice.  "Since it's night now, we should hold off on what we were planning until tomorrow morning."  A chorus of silent affirmation swept across the figures gathered amidst the shadows.

While time had pressed onwards in daylight, nervous apprehension had somewhat faded into a subdued background discomfort.  The emotional dread had previously been broken with a productive task on their minds, and while waiting they had shared food from the building's supply.  Intermittent casual chatter followed for the remainder of the day while passively mindful to not being easily visible from outside.  The mood was, while not altogether untainted, lightened considerably.

Occasionally, a faint breeze weaving through cracks would bring with it a whiff of decay from the slain corpses outside the gate.  The combination of chill and the stony, wet scent of the storm had proven to be a great masking boon.  It was an obtrusive reminder of their situation, even while subdued enough to mostly ignore.  Now that it was growing dark outside and there had been no further contact with the outside world, agitated apprehension had begun trickling back into their mood.

"Why didn't the black note happen again?"  Minoko's words were uneven, but Evan could detect a hint of exasperated relief despite the shaky tone and her natural accent.  Before, time had been unmarked and unacknowledged.  Now the day had completely passed with no evident attempt to mount another rescue.  One's mind naturally concocted unwelcome explanations to address such facts.

"The aliens must have abducted everyone they wanted."  Ryan crunched into a graham cracker and spoke, sprinkling tiny crumbs into his immediate vicinity.  "They must have gone back to their spaceship, so we're safe."

"...we probably are."  Evan's agreement came out like molasses, having considered denying the tentative assertion.  He didn't think it would be good to contravene what miniscule sense of relief that notion might provide to others.  As long as it was dark outside, they ought to remain concealed anyway; there was no reason to further dissolve their somewhat relaxed ease.  Even so, they shouldn't chance lives on such speculation.  "But we should still consider our options to escape.  There's still zombies out there and we can't stay here forever."

There was a momentary period of nervous silence as those assembled waited for the encroaching night to swallow the final traces of sunlight.  Almost concurrent with twilight, the rain which had been hammering down most of the day had subsided into a fine misting drizzle.  The faint, soothing patter on pavement and sidewalk provided some anchoring connection to Portland normalcy in the near pitch darkness.  Without electricity the building was cold, but not uncomfortably so while bundled in heavy coats.

Light came from the nearby hallway, intensely bright for a moment just before dimming quite noticeably.  Leon shuffled into the small space with his hand mostly covering the glowing source.  Selecting for himself a nearby clear area on the floor, he clicked the beam off before carefully sitting.  "Zack ate and drank something and went back to sleep.  He lost a lot of blood so he's still tired, but he should be okay."

"Thank you, again."  A figure that was Jennifer reached over to touch Leon upon the shoulders in a partial embrace.  "For coming here."

"Just glad to be a help."  Leon made a gesture in the dark that may have been a shrug.

A few seconds of welcome calm persisted before Ryan broke the reverie.  "So what do you think is going on out there?"

"Doesn't seem to be much of anything happening right now."  Evan unscrewed a bottle of water and took a sip.  His thoughts uncomfortably shifted to the few cases of liquids they had access to.  If they were careful, their water and food should be able to last the six of them for about a week, but he suspected the people in the Blackwood building were not as fortunately stocked.  "There don't seem to be any more zombies around right now and we haven't heard anything out there."

"Not around here.  The rest of the world, dude."  Ryan spoke between noisy crunches.  "Do you think the aliens are attacking anywhere else?  How do you think the rest of the world is reacting to all this?"

"They're fighting back."  Jennifer replied after a few seconds.

"Yeah."  Leon added.  "And since it's obvious these creatures have some kind of knockout weapon, the military is going to quickly realize they have to fight them from a distance with drones or something like that."

"Or just nuke them wherever they land."  Ryan posited.  He had a peculiar unawareness of the unease such an idea presented to those gathered.

"That doesn't seem very likely."  The idea they could be obliterated via nuclear fire (as an action for the benefit of humanity at large) had crossed Evan's mind as well.  But he didn't consider it worth ruminating over.  Escape was already their primary collective goal, so that possibility wasn't anything he could prepare for or do anything about.  Since they would be at ground zero for such an event worrying about it would be pointless.

"Yeah, if the aliens have spaceships in orbit, hitting a small group of them on the ground won't really accomplish much except kill a lot more people than invaders.  I don't know what can really be done about a ship in outer space- I don't think anyone has missiles designed to hit something up there."  Leon speculated.  "They're going to have to do something special about those."

"But they're going to stop them."  Jennifer asserted.

"Oh, yeah, I bet they're already thinking about how to find them out there and shoot them all down."  Leon added.

"Yeah, man.  That is going to be so awesome."  Ryan replied.

Evan wasn't quite as confident much could actually be done about creatures in a spaceship who could apparently create zombies and trivially make an entire army fall unconscious in the blink of an eye.  Such actions far beyond human ability- not to mention coming to Earth from the void beyond- implied other feats of power they were hopelessly incapable of matching.

Yet on an optimistic note, from what he had observed during the chaos inflicted by the black note, rigorous military discipline successfully held order amongst the soldiers at the least.  If it was true anything productive could be done, those in charge might be able to do it.

"Anyway,"  Evan began.  "We should probably get some rest for tomorrow.  When the sun comes up, we should be working out an escape plan."

"Yeah, the military is probably going to be too busy fighting the aliens to help us."  Ryan's grin could be heard in his voice, sounding almost wistful as he no doubt reflected on the awesome nature of beating back an alien invasion force with lasers and missiles.

Despite the consuming shadows now concealing what- if anything- laid directly outside, the atmosphere within the enclave was still surprisingly relaxed.  While they all knew forces were at work far beyond their ability to handle, an objective and a clear goal in mind somewhat limited the extent of their despair.

Disbanding with only minimal further use of light, the refugees secluded themselves away for rest and to await the fresh dawn.  Upon arising with the morning light, the relaxed atmosphere rapidly died as a fresh horde of death thrashed at the iron barrier outside.