Chapter 1
One more flight. The tremor again. I squeeze my hand into a fist before anyone notices, especially me. I’m almost home. The whole trip so far is uneventful. Good, even. I cleared up the decision in Baltimore—business as usual, and on the last leg back to San Diego.
Denver is the usual hustle and bustle I notice as I sit in the black Naugahyde chair. Are they still made of Naugahyde? The chrome frame doesn’t indicate. Certainly, can’t be leather. The others are all plugged in, and I will be as well as soon as I find my earbuds. I can listen better to Emily that way. I can hear beyond her voice to the tenor of her mood. She’s done so well the past month. Her anxiety is finally under control, or so I hope. The boys even sound like they’re caring for things around the house like I’d asked. As much as you can ask a five- and seven-year-old. At least they’re kind boys. Not the kind to give their mother grief like I did as a kid.
It isn’t her fault she’s so fragile these days. After her father’s death, she seemed fine. She smiled and nodded, just like expected if you asked her. But I knew something was off. I was too busy to really pay attention. She wasn’t lying exactly; Emily would never lie, but a silent switch had triggered within her, and she was anything but fine. I think I knew it before she did. There was even an odd smell about her that I couldn’t place when I finally put work aside and came to bed late at night. And then one day, she didn’t pick up the boys from school. The secretary called my office, and later that night, after a frantic search, I found her sitting in the car in the pouring rain in front of the grocery store, completely crumbled.
A piece of me died that day. Emily’s literally a part of my soul, and I had no idea she was in so much pain. Grief is an awful thing. It silently gnaws on your insides. And though she couldn’t tell me what was happening, it was the death of a part of her that I loved so much, it killed a little piece of us both. Now, I can’t leave her for long. It’s more me than her. I can’t bear to let her sink that low again without me there to hold her up. I promised to catch her, and I’ll be damned if I let her down again.
So this is a quick trip I’d been putting off for months. She promised me she was fine before I left and to stop treating her like a delicate flower. But what she doesn’t understand is that…I’m the delicate flower. She’s my petal. I know it’s cheesy, but I can’t…won’t, do life without her. Not without my, Em.
I clear my throat as I fish the lost earbud from my satchel pocket and snug it into my ear. Enough of that. Emily’s fine. One more trip, and a quick drive to the house from the airport. No more than four hours from now. I scan the departure board while thumbing home on my phone. So far, my next flight says on time. All is well, as I hear Em pick up the other line.
“Hi babe!”
“Henry, you made it. How was your flight?”
See. She sounds fine. Em’s fine… “Easy. Not even turbulent.”
“Good. I saved you some King Ranch Casserole in case you're hungry when you get home.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that.”
“I know it’s your favorite. The boys sure loved it.”
“Listen, don’t wait up. I’ll just sneak in. You need your sleep.”
“Henry…”
“I’m serious, you have to get up early and get them off to school early, it’s Thursday, and they have early morning karate practice. See, I remembered.”
“I meant to say, I miss you, and you’re welcome to wake me…when…you…arrive…”
She was smiling. I could feel it through the ether. And now, so was I. “Oh…oh, I see. Well in that case…” I lowered my voice like a teenage boy because I was certain the hairy middle-aged guy sitting next to me knew what my wife was hinting at. “I’m on my way…”
“I love you, Henry.”
My voice suddenly graveled. “I love you more.”
That’s when the lights died, and the call ended.
“Em?” I said in the dark amongst a sea of stunned blue screens.
Chapter 2
In the pitch, that's where we were in that prolonged half-second. Many of those lit blue screens elevated in a flash. Others were shadowed momentarily as their owners reached for their loved ones. A few, like my own, doused - a throwback from my military days. I see you. You there, in the dark. Others, like me, moved in silence, backs against a wall, away from the others. The idea: they can't sneak up on you that way, or at least, you can see them coming.
Everyone, remain calm.
Where are the emergency lights?
What's going on?
Really! This is ridicu…
Everyone rema…
YOU remain calm! Turn on the damn lights!
Shouting. Crying. Threats of bodily harm. Someone ran past me, one of those silent guys, only he was going in the wrong direction. I know because of my habit. A fun little game. I scan every corner. Find two exits as soon as I enter a room. And I quietly turn right and begin walking calmly to one of them now. This was going to turn ugly real quick.
I squeeze my phone, thinking of Em, and slid her into my suit breast pocket for now. She’s worried. I need to try and call her back, but the light... the light. It will have to wait. And my battery - I only have a quarter charge due to the sketchy rental car plug-in that got me here. Not available, read the notice on the plane.
More shouting already and a scuffle nearby. Were the fawns becoming prey so soon? Never waste a good crisis…that worn out phrase. Someone thrashed my shoulder again. I keep walking - a steady gait as I switch my bag to my left hand, reserving my right hook as an option. My suit jacket is already smudged. Em would scoff; she helped me pick it out and had it tailored. The lighter hue of heather gray, she'd said, highlighted my blue eyes. I didn't have the heart to tell her at the time it would stain too quickly. It was impractical for business travel. But the arched eyebrow and gleaming eyes stifled my resistance. Anything for Em.
Please remain in the secure area.
At least they got the damn intercom working, or was that a handheld bullhorn? Where the hell is the backup generator and no emergency lights? What is up with that? I make it to the window. Planes were sitting there earlier. Their blinking lights cease right in front of my eyes. Why would they turn them off suddenly? And the little guys with their glowing sabers, where are they? Out there, I'm sure, only their beams are benign. I picture one of the orange-vested guys in my mind. Banging on the heavy end. Staring straight down into cinder, the once-glowing cone. What the heck? Did all their batteries die in unison? But then I see one glow, dancing quickly in the distance, not the man carrying the flame but the light itself like a panicked firefly. Then suddenly, that spark too, vanishes in a flash.
That's when it hit me. I stop in my tracks and spin. I'm sure my suit jacket did that unmanly little twirl, but who’s watching? The lights, even in the distance, are out. This isn’t an EMP. So far, there’s no explosion. A failed grid? Likely. But there is something more. Someone turned off the airplane blinkers. That took conscious effort from a human. A command. And the disembodied orange? That was an order.
Are we sitting ducks? Awaiting impact?
My pace quickens as pandemonium erupts behind me. More screeching. More yelling. I’m running now, be damned restricted area.
The exit. No more than twenty feet ahead, but I know its hidden guardian awaits. I could try to reason with him. His name is likely Bob. I’m sure he has a family. I’ve always marveled at how the brain works in a panic. So many thoughts conjure in the blink. And just as I resolve this encounter in my mind, a new, rather panicky announcement states:
TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONE LIGHTS IMMEDIATELY!
Let’s just say that at this moment, I’m not stopping to reason with Bob…
Chapter 3
I am not the young man I used to be, not like back when I jumped from perfectly good planes in foreign desert lands. Something about lying on the cold tarmac reminds me those days are over. I feel the exact reason I gave up the fun stuff of my youth. Those times got you killed. I was fortunate enough to pass the baton with a knee and ankle injury. But as the pain reminds me of my glory days, it takes second place because, here I am now, with empty lungs, bereft of resident air, lying face up on the runway, clutching my briefcase firmly to my chest to keep my link to Em secure. Yet, I'm pretty sure my laptop didn't make the trip intact. I feel a crunch beneath my forearms. No one made the leap after me. Their loss, I figure.
As I attempt to convince air to regain its normal abode, I observe an odd sight in the sky—actually, several sights, as I quirk my eye. Time is once again slowed to a snail's pace amidst the rushing chaos. Above me is a formation of gray jellyfish floating in the breeze. It strikes me, perhaps I was knocked unconscious because that's precisely what the moonless sky resembles against the night—a sea of gray, undulating jellyfish slowly but determinately making their way toward the airport. Hundreds of them... possibly thousands.
While I grapple with this puzzling observation, a burst of orange appears suddenly on my right periphery. That's when it dawns on me.
I roll aside, defying the negligent air, because a gray shape is descending right toward my face.
I spring to my feet.
I'm running now, okay, limp running, and more marigolds come into view on either side of me in the distance. Somehow, I don't hear a thing except for the blood rushing through my veins.
I gape one stride aside. Suddenly, I'm clutching a football and dodging ghostly opponents.
Someone else is doing the same. He darts and zigzags ahead of me—a younger man. My testosterone gets the better of me, and I accelerate, convinced I can outrun him. But then, I'm not watching above as closely as I should, and I nearly collide with one coming from the opposite direction. My opponent and I then race to clear the field, both of us bent over, out of breath. (Mine returns when I'm not looking.) We’re behind the sea now, heaving over bent knees, both turn back, and the flower field has won the game. It's a bouquet of growing flames.
I'm still clutching my briefcase. I don't know how. We lock eyes, the stranger and I, and look up again, scanning the darkened skies. A whole herd of them floating on the breeze ahead.
"What are..." he begins, but then I instinctively throw my briefcase to my face as a grounded plane between us and the garden, explodes.
We’re both down again, lying on the dewy grass, but when we rise, we’re suddenly best friends, and backs together we’re circling before us and above, the next auburn bloom maker.
He completes, though I have not found words yet, “What’s going on?”
Then I stammer because my brain is failing to make the links. “Attack. We’re under attack. I think.”
“Those were drones! Incendiary drones?”
I swallow. “I’m not…” I begin to debate because so much tech has evolved since my desert days, but the point is mute when we see a figure on fire in the distance. He’s walking fully engulfed.
My friend looks at me as if to say, Are we helping?
I see it’s a question. A question on his mind.
I can’t grumble at humanity. Not now. There’s no time. I run for the enflamed. I’m teaching a lesson now. Of how, to me, we humans should behave. I’m certain he’s right behind me, my new friend. But at some point, in the next fifty yards, I sense he’s not.
It doesn’t matter, I shove my case at the man burning to death. Knock him to the ground and pound the flames enough to then roll him free. He’s doused…but he’d dead. I hope. Because of the agony of his condition… I wouldn’t want to live through that myself.
But then I notice the edge of my jacket, the flame caught like a virus. I pound quickly with singed fingers. Beating myself. Em’s jacket… somehow, I don’t feel the pain.
I catch sight of my friend running away in the distance. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong.
I look back at the building, the plane, the growing garden… I pat my phone again, feeling the shield over my heart, take one last look at the charred remains on the ground, and run too into the dark, slowly at first but picking up speed thinking I’m a coward.
But then, I reason numbly, I can grant only one family a hero.
And that’s mine.
Chapter 4
I’m nearly upon my friend. He knows this, we are survivors of the bloom. I don’t mean to follow him. I’m just running in the same general direction, I reason. Running away. Away. But then, my porcelain stare wells, and I stop.
He senses this too and for some reason, he’s also stopping. All bent on catching air, he grabs a glance above, as do I, and between, he tries to say something but instead just waves his hand to me. An urge to follow.
I shake my head and despite the chill, I swipe sweat from my forehead with one burnt finger and steal a glance around my braced arm. We’re leaving them. Left them to their fate. The white spikes ablaze. The fires are spreading across the scrub and if I’m honest, I can hear them now. I can hear their agony. Their yells in the ginger light. I swallow and glance at my companion again. He’s scanning the sky while I lean over. And when he looks back, he jerks his head the other way. I nod with a slow blink.
We are silent communicators, my partner and I, survivors of the jellyfish sea.
But we are not the only ones. A favor of the growing glow, shadows in the distance dart in the night. We scatter not unlike rats it seems, when our world is threatened. Of course, I know this. I’ve seen this scene. Only I wasn’t the rat back then.
I was the sea…
“The fence.” My friend stops. “Can we get over it?”
I find this a funny question.
Can we get over it? That remains to be seen. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the reel of the last ten minutes.
Despite that revelation, I brace my satchel like a lift, and with one step, I shove higher like a man trampoline.
At the top, he reaches down for me. For some reason, I pause at the sight of his palm. I hand him the case, a foot in a rung. He tosses it over and then reaches again. I swallow and clasp the offer, give way to the grip, and let him hoist me enough to gain the edge.
He drops to the other side, as I tear a heathered cuff on a raw-edged peak. And then I watch in horror as I drop at an angle. My phone departs on the lost side.
The moment grounded, I scurry. My hand lunges beneath the wall. But not without a price. A tine catches my wrist as I finger the rounded edge and drag Em back to me, leaving a wet line down the center of my hand. It’s no matter. She’s mine again.
“Hurry,” my friend says in an accent I can’t quite place.
I look at him confused. “What’s the hurry now?”
He only points. And when I turn back, I see them again. It’s not over. A new herd floating on a manmade breeze. Only now against the mari-glow, they look more like weather balloons.
“It’s China. Bet my bloody arse!” he wagers.
I look above, “How many more?” I thumb the side of my phone.
“Cover the light, mate. I’ll watch. You look. We need to find a way out of this.”
Out of this. Out of this. I swallow, and cup a hand over the screen. One missed call. I flip the green notice with a thump. Then a gray national alert. “Remain indoors, it says.”
“Why? To be burnt to a crisp,” he says.
With no real answers, I kill the light, grab my bag and again we are running.
“You ever been here, mate?” he calls back to me.
Here. Here? “Denver?” I ask as our feet find and pound down a vehicle-less asphalt utility road. I notice ahead and assume behind, there are others now too. Those that made it from the flame. Shadows of our former selves, we run.
“Yes. I mean, no. Airports don’t count.”
His scoff is nearly a laugh. “Do you know where we’re going?”
I think about this. And I agree, this is funny. So many answers… but mine is, “Home.”
Chapter 5
It's a promise I've silently vowed to myself, my pact formed even before I had time to fully grasp the direness of the situation that surrounds me. How far does this sea reach? Is it China? Or only a local incident caused by an industrious but irate airport employee. Did he not get a raise? Perhaps a bad performance review… We need to stop trying to save our own arses so that I can do a bit of research and find out what’s really happening. But as my partner and I begin to run again, he sees a darkened airship bally out another mass of gray, we’re searching the skies for the next onslaught.
It's then, I realize I somehow lost a shoe. I have no idea where my loafer landed. Was it with me when I rudely assailed past Bob and vanquished like Bugs Bunny over the cliff? I have no idea. But it’s making my stride retarded, and I’m unsure if it’s a good idea but I decide that no shoe is better than one shoe, and I stumble to a stop and flip off the other one too. We’ll do this solo from now on.
The guy in front of me looks back. There’s a sort of dim light up ahead and he’s heading toward it though I’m not sure what good that will do. Why am I letting this guy call the direction? He doesn’t know where he’s going any more than I do. I scan the horizon; one direction is as good as any if it brings us a reprieve so that I can see how far this insanity stretches. Then it dawns on me, if this is only a local incident, then I’m pretty sure leaving the airport grounds nullifies any compensation I’m due. Am I overreacting? I look up again and see more balloons, only this time, they are slowly driving toward other parts of the airfield. Spreading flaming pollen along the way.
“Here! Over here!”
When I look, a guy is standing in the middle of the road with a flashlight that he keeps cupped with one hand, and the other one is holding up a grate on the side of the road. Others, those that made it over the fence, are gathering there ahead.
“Come on,” my partner yells.
But I’m already shaking my head. “I’m not going down there.”
“Why are you stopping? We can ride it out below.”
“No… no way. I’m not going down there. That’s not a good idea. All they have to do is drop one of those things over the hole.”
There are at least twenty of them now, all hovering, awaiting their turn to descend the rungs, someone hands a kid to reaching arms from below.
“Go ahead if you want,” I say. “I’d rather take my chances up here. More exits.”
My partner seems conflicted. His eyes shift. He’s stammering. He owes me no loyalty.
“Stay,” I say and take off again. I only look back once; he’s looking after me as I run in my sock feet off into the darkness. I am not going down there. There’s no way out, only one entrance and that’s up. If there’s a fire overhead, you’re in a cooker. No, thank you. But I can’t try and reason with the others now. They are on their own. That’s what I’m telling myself for now anyway. I cannot help them. I cannot help them. I…I stop and turn back. My old partner looks up at me thinking I’ve changed my mind.
“They’ll fry down there!” I yell from the distance.
He says something I cannot hear and I’m not looking because something above him has caught my attention. I drop my bag and run back to them. “Get out!” I’m waving my arms. “Get out of there. You fools! Look!”
The guy with the flashlight aims his beam and there, three ghost-makers are on their way. Like Death itself with a scythe in his grasp steadily trailing the air like Pac-Man.
“Hurry, get out of there! They’re coming!” I’m screaming and when I get there, I shove the guy with the light out of the way and grab the first arm I see. I’m yanking them out. One by one. Pulling them free.
People are frantic now, running and screaming. “Hurry! Go, go! Where’s the kid?” It’s nearly upon us. A swarm of them is now on their way, as someone hands me a boy. Like me, he’s only wearing socks. I fling him over one shoulder. I have no idea who his parents are or where they might be. I run. I’m running with a screaming boy on my back and when I make it back to my bag, I grab the side of it without breaking stride. Not a good hold, with one hand and run on, tossing scant glances behind me as I go. There’s a blast to my south. More to come, I’m sure. I feel the degrees and remember the boy and pull him forward. It’s an awkward jog, and pandemonium all around. Some didn’t make it, their respite was nothing more than a trap.
“Stop! Stop!” A woman wails.
The boy in my arms is reaching in her direction, I turn. Hand him over to the one he loves. “Go this way!” I say as she takes her son. “Don’t turn back.”
But instead, she regains her stride with the fleeing mass going the other way. They are running together in their panicked reverie like silver minnows ready for the canner.
I stare at the sky and that’s when I see, the monsters targeting those that flee.
I’m running backward. “Son of a…” That’s deliberate. I look around and see more buildings on fire. I turn, switch hands with my bag, and pull the strap over my head. Then check my pocket once again, feeling the familiar square. And instead of following the others, I head off, alone, off the road, away from the death sea.
Chapter 6
Miles and fences and alone in the dark. I climb. I stumble. I fall more than once. I’m now down to one barefoot and one socked, though I can’t tell you how I lost the last one but the last time I checked behind me, there were no undulating masses, only distant orange glows. I’ve made a gap between the others and me. Yet, I continue and when I see their shadows running, I widen the gap even more. I know it’s an awful thing to do. And with an ache in my heart like never before, when I see more than one soul in a group, they soon become prey. And yet, I still ignore them. It’s as if there’s a heat sensor on those things or something. They’re going for the most kills with one efficient aim.
Because of that hideousness alone, I’m grateful for the pounding in my ears because their screams are hard to bear. I’m headed in general westerly direction, I think, and keep bargaining with myself to keep up the steady cadence until I’m sure I’m clear of the onslaught. With the depleting bar on the phone in my pocket, I know I only have a little time to both check the news and reach out to Em before she finds out the danger I’m in. I can only pray my family too, isn’t running for their lives as I run for mine. I decide I can’t go there yet…
Will a signal cause one of those things to follow me? Are they tracking heat and cell reception? I have no way of knowing but I’ll have to test this theory soon, which means not inside a shelter. I must find a place to hide with a million exits. Out in the open, in a field, alone. That’s the only way to go, I reason. It’s the only way to make sure of my assumptions. To test the theories rambling around in my panicked mind. I need to find a car, something I can drive, but wait, will that attract them too I wonder. I’m paranoid now and it’s not even an hour since the nightmare began. Finally, I stumble again over a dry clump of dead grass as I check my six and fall to one knee. “Get aw-ay,” I yell when I spot a slim figure fall to the ground below where the enemy might be. I only hear a squeak of a wail. It’s coming from my shadow, that lack of air I detected before. I’m glancing above and then down again. The figure sinks to the earth.
“It’s sensing heat signals. Go on your own. We’re safer that way,” I reasoned with my shadow.
“Help me,” it says.
The heels of my hands brace harder against my knees. I’m exhausted. I look down and shake the sweat from my face. Only my eyes look up again. Above the shadow. I draw in a deep breath as I scan the sky. Suck in a breath I pick up my bag again and start walking slowly toward my sunken silhouette.
The voice. Its bearer is no older than twelve I imagine.
“Where are your parents?” I say when I reach her.
No answer.
I scan the skies again.
Then, “Not here,” she says.
I take that as it’s too much to explain.
She’s a tiny, lithe thing. I decide I can’t leave her. She’s small enough. Maybe if we stick close together our predator won’t detect us as more than one. Who am I kidding? I know better. But I’m bargaining with myself. Justifying this exception. I’m not sure why.
“Come on,” I say and silently berate myself that this is a bad idea as I grab her by the scruff and haul her along with me as I see more of those things on the horizon. They are headed northwest, but I don’t want them getting any ideas.
“Keep up,” I say as I let her go and slowly let her match my pace. She won’t be able to keep this going for long, but we have no choice, and I can’t carry her.
“They’re… going… after groups,” the shadow coughs out in hollowed breaths.
I’m nodding, though she can’t see that in the darkness.
“Don’t talk,” I say. “Conserve your energy and stay close.”
I hope that’s enough to give her hope because that is all I give. I tell myself, that if those things start heading our way, I will peel off from her. I will abandon her. I will leave her to them, no matter what. A rule I’m trying to establish in my mind for this adjustment.
But for now, the observant girl is keeping pace because I can feel her right fingertips brush the back of my forearm on occasion. Ahead I see a cluster of hanger type buildings. Warehouses perhaps. I’m heading that way. Not for them, but the void between might suffice. Enough for me to light the phone up and do a little research. I’m scanning right and left and then suddenly the girl shifts her position to my right side. I’m not sure why she does this. But it throws me off and I’m suddenly scanning the left horizon and there it is.
“Call out right or left next time.”
A few beats later she says, “They hear us too.”
I smirk. Of course, they do. I feel like I’m suddenly in a comic book, Batman and his Robin. And we are running. Running in the dark. And I realize she is slowing. I’m going to wear her out too fast before we get there. I decided we could take the time and slow a pace. I’m not going to carry her. I’m not.
And we’re almost there.
…and then she stumbles and falls. I even hear the breath huff from her lungs.
And when I turn and scan the sky above, of course, there’s not one but three.
I should leave her.
That was my rule.
I can’t help but reach behind.
She slaps my hand away and is up and shoving.
I can’t help the smirk in the crook of my grin.
In a third space of my mind, I’m smiling, but that’s overtaken by the need to survive the damn things heading our way.
And without knowing why, the girl is now yelling. And in my tri-mind, I realize it’s because I’ve grabbed ahold of her without realizing it because I can’t slow my pace any longer and we’re headed right for the corrugated door of the building in front of us. It’s enough of a distraction to make me veer at the last second to the left side because two-thirds of my attention is devoted to the blossom beings chasing us from above. They’re coming. And when we skirt the end of the building to the right, I slide the girl quickly alongside me as the balloons venture above us and beyond. I suddenly find my hand is covering her mouth because I’m making more noise with my heightened breathing than she is. She’s yanking my hand down and with another glance, I relinquish the grip.
But the balloons have unleased their volley as well and in no time, the building in front of us is inflamed with a vapor-liquid, and an effervescent scent that reminds me of Play-Doh from my youth. It’s confusing. Such a calm, Sunday comics memory enmeshed with horror. Yet I find myself still running, my second finger latched to this kid’s collar somehow. She’s keeping pace but for the life of me, I don’t know why I can’t let her go. And I can tell, I’m stumbling at her pace and she’s not happy about it, but I can’t help myself.
Yet we’re behind another building and I’m happy to discover I don’t have a hand automatically clamped over her mouth. Instead, we’re both panting our lungs out and looking through the gap in the sky for any chance of an ominous hover. The heat from the three buildings behind us still feels like an inferno. And then we hear an explosion and one glance at my bat girl, and we agree to move on with a nod.
This time, I’m following her. A 12-year-old girl. Me, and my balls, and my briefcase, still latched to my hand. She peers around the corner and begins to bolt, yet I yank her back with a manly hand I didn’t know I still had attached to the back of her neck just in time for the shadow to pass above us. She sees it too, before she reacts with the back of her jabby elbow and sinks into the hollow of my chest.
Then we erupt.
Run, along the sides of the building in unsocked feet as fast as we can. She’s in front and I’m behind. She becomes a geiser attachment. I even shove her little head around corners as I’m glancing above and aback. Until finally, she shugs the shit out of my grasp and I realize my brutal methods.
I want to reason it’s kept us safe. I want to explain clearing a space, yet it doesn’t hold with a twelve-year-old civilian girl. And I see, that’s not what she wants either because she’s grabbing a hold of me too and shoving me down. Because above, she sees. She sees what I didn’t.
There’s a stream of them coming. A dozen or more. And she sinks into my squatted chest, hoping to become one person and not a target that we are both collectively predicting is ahead of us.
I’m swallowing knowing the whites of my eyes are flooding most of my vision as I scan above and pull someone’s child against me. I’m not sure if I’m keeping her safe or myself. Holding her like a teddy bear.
And the last thing I expect at this moment, was my phone to ring out this familiar tune, “You can take all the tea in China, Put it in a big brown bag for me…”
Chapter 7
The orange bloomed at our feet, and then suddenly, I fell backward through the wall I thought was there. The girl, too. Only it wasn't a wall. I realized soon after that it was a door that someone thought to open. Liquid fire. Fire everywhere and all at once. The girl sitting on my chest is suddenly lifted as my pant leg catches, and I become the girl screaming from the fluid flame. I'm pulled away, and the same man from before, my partner in crime, is now stomping on my foot. But there is no time for whining as the bloom flames, and I am up and running as others shout. The girl is holding my bag now and yanking on my arm. She is loyal, it seems, even in the face of death. I'm grateful because I'm also hobbling along. Then as my old partner waves us to follow, she jerks her head and pulls me in the opposite direction. I know what she's doing. In this short time, we've made our own rules, our own alliances, she, and I.
As I stare after our liberator, I see too, he's joining a crowd, and I agree with the girl. We mustn't get caught with numbers. She and I are the right size for a solo mission as long as I don't blow it with my devices.
My phone?
I begin beating my chest, trying to find the solid, and then realize, I never let her go. She's still in my hand, and luckily, my unconscious mind turned off the damned ringer. I slid that troublemaker into my pocket where it will remain until I have time to save my own life… and the girl's who's become my caretaker.
I owe her.
I nearly got her burnt to a crisp.
And still, she's loyal to a man with no shoes, no socks, and singed toes.
"This way," she whispers as I check back over the darkening field and realize some of the fires in the distance are to dying out. The light they've created is dimming along with the lives it's taken. In a few hours, what I imagine will remain are charred bodies and the mother of all questions as to what prompted their demise. But it's too early for that now…
Now we're still in the midst of saving our own lives, lest we become one of them, and my brush was too close for my liking.
We're slowing, but despite the pain in my feet, we must get ahead. I realize then the girl is tired as well. Her adrenaline wanes. I can't blame her, but we can't quit now.
I pull ahead, and now it is me dragging her shaking limbs.
"What are you… I can't. I need a break," she whispers. "Put me down."
"Quiet," I say as I wrestle my bag over my shoulder and land the girl over the top.
I turn and scan for shadows in the distance. We need to remain out in the open. Avoid buildings and the others to keep from attracting those damn things. I head southwest, where there's more scrub, and it's darker. It's not time for the light. Let the others deal with those surprises first. What we need to find is a house, a farm, or a desolate space with only one building or two. Then I can plan. But for now, the plan is just to run. Run on injured feet with my Em in my pocket and a strange girl over my shoulder. So many questions. So few answers.
And then I see a glow coming from the hill on the next horizon, so I slow my awkward pace and shift the girl from my shoulder. She speaks, but I shush her. "There's a road," I whisper. My brain is making calculations, can we outrun those things? "Maybe we can get a car," I say, but as we inch closer, we see how impossible that idea is. Where the road lies ahead, there is a river of flames. The girl shakes her head and backs against me. I have to agree. "Come on," I say, taking the girl's arm and leading her away. While mentally, I cross off that option, I see in the distance what looks like a cattle farm. Certainly, whoever programmed the jellyfish considered the heated body mass of livestock because I can see across the enflamed road, their blocky Angus shapes displacing the inky sky in the distance, and there isn't one ablaze among them. We'll have to enter the golden light of the overpass to reach the other side, and I know this is risky, but I see no other choice.
The girl's eyes are on the overpass too. She knows what I'm thinking because when I say, "Come on," she stays put as if I'm her father and leading her to the doctor's office for her annual school shots. Without a word, she raises her other arm and points a shaking finger. I glance back and see there's movement on the bridge. Scratch that… there's movement above the bridge as well. And then we both duck when a shotgun blasts. I peek up and see the man on the bridge, fire again, into the death air balloon. It bounces back and then comes again to his doom. The man blasts a third time, but this time, he runs, knowing he's only delaying the inevitable. And then to the left, I see more movement. It's alerted its compadres. They have him surrounded, and when he sees this too, the man does something I didn't expect. He runs to the side of the bridge and jumps into the flames below.
“So maybe… maybe not the bridge.”
Chapter 8
We ran north along the bright-gloomy highway for what seemed an hour or more. Both of us are out of breath but after seeing the man choose his death, the girl and I didn’t bother debating our next move. We just ran, again. Lots of running. I still don’t know who this child is. Clearly, I might be kidnapping. But just like Em and the mystery of the bloom, I haven’t had time to ask her who she belongs to as we scurry through the darkness and a way across the lava river.
And then it comes a second overpass that’s downhill and not as bright as the one before and still when we stop and I squint into the distance I see them, or the lack of light behind their silhouettes. The beefy beasts, and yet there still isn’t a bloom among them. They’re just watching the light parade.
“Come on,” I hush out and grab the girl’s arm. We are tired of remaining close but then we remember our theory that those things are going for crowds and not ones. But we still haven’t figured out why they cornered the man on the bridge, only that he escaped the darkness. We’ll have to enter the light but not as bright as the one before. I veer the girl to the left. She whips her head around and scans the skies. I do too. And just for fun, I look ahead, north and east as well. The scanning makes me stumble over my now damaged bare feet but I regain my footing. We are like a virus, constantly adapting. Constantly mutating. This random thought blows through my mind. Not a good time for random thoughts.
I need to focus. I need to get us out of this. I need shoes, I think again as I stumble and skin my right toe.
Then the girl does something I don’t expect. She flings my arm away and starts hauling ass in front of me with her head turned back and wide eyes looking above me.
I don’t even look back. I know it’s there.
What she doesn’t know, is that shoes or no shoes, I can outrun her skinny legs. And I too, pick it up but I can’t help myself. It’s like those times when you were a younger man camping with your best mate. And you tell him, you need him as a bear insurance policy and when he asks what that supposed to mean, you give him a shove with a smile, so he gets a clue.
Would the balloon land on her as I make my escape?
I couldn’t do it.
I hauled her up in my spare arm as I run past. My kindness might doom me but for this girl, I’ll take the risk for now. She is a liability but then again, had she not startled, I would not have known we were being trailed by the bully. I say bully because I’m hoping there’s only one and not a swarm of them like before.
She seems to sense this question when we’re halfway over the highway and says as I jostle her midsection. “It turned back.” She squirms from my grasp.
I’m confused. Why would it do that? I turn back as I set her down and see too that the death maker is bored of the chase.
Good riddance, asshole. I can’t help but think in curse. This scenario would make the Pope swear.
“Let’s go,” she says impatiently.
And I quirk an eyebrow at the gray and move along to the other side of the highway scanning the skies on all horizons like a paranoid squirrel. Maybe there’s more waiting for us on this side. Maybe the last one was just handing us off to his buddies hiding behind the darkness of the careless cows.
What? It could happen. Anything’s possible now.
But as I look into the less dim light, I only see more cows across the way over a barbed wire fence. Which I note: That’s gonna be fun… As for the cows, some of them are standing in groups watching the crazy human action with mild curiosity and others are lying down chewing their cud as humanity comes to an end without a care in the world.
What they don’t know is that this is on them too… what happens to the feeder… happens to the herd. Or at least that’s what’s rolling through my mind as we scurry up a slight embankment while I check our six again and boost the girl up at the same time. Still nothing.
She runs ahead to the wire line, and I have to yell ahead but then regret using my voice. We have to stay as one to avoid any detection and at the moment we are two. Or at least that’s our literal, running theory.
She retreats.
“Wait,” I say as I slow my pace over bush and bramble. We’re no longer on the glass-strewn road or tarmacs. Again, we’re on unknown footing and some of the terrain has burs and stickers. I note to myself, I’m a wimp without shoes and yet a Spartan with them. Assuming Spartans wore shoes, and if not, I’m a wimp again.
These inner ramblings, I cannot stop it seems while I’m seeking refuge.
Then after more scanning, we do that odd thing and nod at one another without a word, the girl and I. A silent agreement that this is our plan. We’re joining the safety of the Night Angus. I set my case down, take off my jacket, wrap it over the low pocky wire, take my bloody foot, and step down while pulling up the top wire.
The girl slips through and then I too cross the line and reverse the steps. With my jacket now in place, I make sure I still feel my link to Em and grab my bag.
The girl is waiting close by standing sentinel. I suddenly feel guilty for complaining to myself about myself.
“Come on,” I whisper.
She resists.
I’m scanning wildly.
“Do they bite?”
The cows.
She means the cows. As if they are a bigger threat than the bloom.
“No,” I scoff. “At least I don’t think so.” But honestly, I’m not really sure.
She doesn’t budge.
“Look,” I show her my palm. I’m not sure why. “It’s not like they’re going to set you on fire.”
That seems to work because she nods and unroots.
We stay together and give the cows a wide berth. A few of them make a noise and the girl jumps. I might have jumped a little, too. But we head for the barn, or the overhand, whatever it’s called. I assume that’s where they feed these guys.
And before we reach the entrance, we turn back and scan the sky again but both of us are instead transfixed on the glowing horizon. And our mouths slack open just a pinch because our brains need the extra neurons to process the destruction our eyes are taking in.
From our rise, what we see is scorched earth and what looks like a few tiny ants scattering as grays drop more blooms.
I touch her back, “Come on. Let’s find out what’s going on.”
Chapter 9
We crouch down behind a large black cow. She flips her tail and rolls her head back for a moment eyeing us in the darkness. I’m sure this is strange for them, too. But the cows seem more content to watch man’s end of days than the two who’ve just taken refuge in their midst.
“What is that smell?” the girl says in a tined voice and when I glance at her, she’s pinching her nose.
I noticed the aroma too but when you’re in a life-and-death situation, those things seem to skid past the brain cells while you’re kneeling in what you hope is mud oozing between your socked toes. Then when my eyes start watering from the ammonia, I have to blink hard as I take out my phone and flick the tiny power button. I wipe my hand on my expensive slacks and as the screen lights up, I see a myriad of missed calls and messages but the most predominant is my wife’s.
Summarizing her texts, “What’s going on???”
I’m hesitating because I’m not sure what she knows. Hell, even I don’t know what’s going on. So, I decided right there to delay calling my frantic wife back before I have some information. And I try to check the news.
“Keep watch,” I remind the girl when I catch her looking at my screen and I start swooshing all the notices to the left but hesitate when I see the top grayed-out Emergency Alert. “Unknown weather event! Stay indoors!”
“Weather event? The jellyfish… they’re calling that a weather event? My ass!” I clear my throat and move on after glancing up again and seeing the girl squinting in the distance. “Keep looking around, kid.”
I shove that notice out of the way as well and hit the news app. But nothing other than the same alarmist’s headlines of foreign wars or domestic idiocy fill the screen. So I go to the social media site where I keep track of the stock rumors and that’s where I find it. Some trader by the name of BullShark, asking if anyone else is dealing with weather balloon bombs. He’s in Dallas but his cousin’s phone just cut out in Raleigh and comments there’s someone else from Atlanta, and again in Tampa, D. C., Charleston, New York, Canton, Nashville, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Annapolis… all mentioning explosions coming from gray weather balloon attacks.
“They’re all east,” the girl says, and I look at her. She’s smarter than she looks with cow poop oozing between her toes.
“I said keep a lookout.”
“I know,” she says darting her eyes to the sky again. “But they’re all eastern cities.”
I swallow. She’s right. Nothing’s past the Mississippi. “But we’re not east.” I scan the timeline again. The messages stopped posting hours ago, before I landed, before the lights went out, before I rudely sailed past Bob, before my last call with Emily. There’s been a media blackout. Then I check the other news sites to confirm and nothing. All posting of current events ended hours ago. I try posting a quick, lights out, post and the button does nothing. There’s been a media blackout.
I nod quickly, not thinking of the many that have died today. Instead, I make a decision that’s in the moment, and selfish in every way. I might have time; I might be able to use this to my advantage and press another button and pull the phone to my ear. It rings three times. It rings three times more. And I’m about to hang up but then I hear her…
“Henry? Henry, where have you been? I’ve tried calling constantly.”
I eye the girl and hover a hand over the phone. “I know, I know. Hey, how are things there?”
The girl next to me quirks an eye but keeps sentry.
“The powers out. Hey, I can… I can barely hear you. What’s happening.”
My wife sounds annoyed. She sounds put out as if she’s forgotten to take the chicken out of the freezer in time for dinner, but it’s what I don’t hear, that powers me on.
“Looks like my flight’s are delayed, babe. And I just got an alert that there are roaming blackouts there. That’s why the power’s out I guess.
“Henry, my phone’s going to die, and I can’t charge it. When do you think…you…make…home?”
“You’re coming in garbled, babe. Listen, listen. I’m on my way. Stay in the house and don’t go anywhere. Okay?”
“Hen-ry…”
“Em… I’ll call you soon. Emily, I love you. I’m on my way.”
The signal ended.
I stare at the phone. I glance at the battery icon. I question whether I just doomed the love of my life and our boys. Maybe I should have said, “Run!” Maybe I should have said, “Grab the boys and get to the naval base.” Would they be safer at sea? I don’t even know. I have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.
But then the girl's next words are nearly lost to the early dawn, a whisper that slips through the heavy air like a secret, "Look, up there!"
My eyes dart skyward, following her slender finger pointing toward the horizon where a speckled line of gray dots advance. The jellyfish, she means. They are silent, eerie blobs drifting closer, and for a moment, my heart lurches with fear. But as they approach, their path becomes clear — they're veering north, away from us, away from the cows that gaze up with a placid curiosity born soon of a world without human worries.
I breathe out, the tension in my shoulders easing minutely. "They're not heading for us," I murmur more to myself than to her. She nods, her eyes still tracking the sky, searching for more signs of the cryptic danger.
The cattle, unwitting hosts to our hideout, shuffle and low softly. One, in particular, a large beast with a coat as dark as licorice, shifts closer. I feel its breath, warm and smelling faintly of hay, brush against the girl’s cheek. At first, she startles, and I raise a finger to hush her and then she pets the damn thing.
"We should move soon," the girl says suddenly, her voice a low rasp. "If they're avoiding the cows, maybe we can use them as a shield."
That strategy was rambling through my mind as well, but it’s risky. The thought of maneuvering through a field of cows to dodge weather balloon bombs is something I never thought I'd entertain, yet here I am, contemplating it as a viable survival tactic. "We need to wait for the right moment," I answer, eyes still glued to my phone even though the information there is frozen in time.
The stillness is punctured by another lowing from the cows, a gentle reminder that life persists even when the world tilts towards madness. I pocket the phone, its glow extinguished and glance at the girl. "Let's plan our route. If those balloons are ignoring the cattle, we'll make our own way through this feedlot."
She nods, her face set in a determined line, and together, we begin to map our path under the watchful eyes of our unwitting bovine protectors. They stand like stoic guardians, and I can't help but wonder if they sense the gravity of our plight, or if they simply find us an amusing anomaly on this bizarre night.
We decide to move with the wind, using it to mask our scent and our sounds. Every step is calculated, a silent prayer that the balloons continue their strange aversion to the livestock. Our route is a zigzag, a meandering path through the field, always in the shadow of the cows.
It's a surreal escape plan, born of desperation and the strange logic that crisis breeds. And as we set off, crouched low with the girl leading the way, I realized that this night has changed us forever. We are survivors, strategists, and for a fleeting moment, shepherds navigating through a herd that shields us from a threat we don't yet understand.
The dawn envelops us, but we move with a purpose, each step defiance against the chaos that seeks to claim the world we knew. And in the darkness, the cows are our silent allies, their calm an anchor in the storm. That is, until we ran out of cows….
