Chapter 2
Ellis wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm. He had been working all day at his garage in Savannah. He leaned to take a closer look into the hood of the vehicle he was working on.
"Goddamn engine…c'mon.." Ellis muttered. He slid his sweat-soaked shirt over his head and threw it behind him. "Sure is a hot one today." He said to himself, as if someone else was around. He shrugged; he knew no one was, he was the only one scheduled to work today. Ellis took a quick break and walked over to his CD player. He popped in his favorite album from The Midnight Riders and turned it up loud. "That's more like it, heh heh." he chuckled as he continued working on the car.
About twenty minutes had passed and the landline wall phone had rang, but Ellis couldn't hear it over the volume of the music. Ellis had finished working under the hood and had slid underneath the car to take a look at its undercarriage. He suddenly felt a small tremor from the floor while lying on his back.
"What the hell?" he asked. He shrugged it off and continued working. He felt another tremor; this one was larger than the last one. He sat up, startled, and hit his head on the underside of the car. "Owww…Goddamn it…" he growled in pain. He slid out from underneath the car and stood up. He ran into the main part of the store and grabbed a clean shirt. It happened to be his ol' Bullshifters shirt. It made him smile a little, but he was still curious as to what the hell that tremor was. He opened the front door of the store and walked outside. He looked down the street as people were running in a panic. Helicopters whirred in the distance. Suddenly a loud explosion caused the ground to shake violently. Ellis staggered and ran back into the shop, frantically grabbing the phone and calling his mother to tell her what was going on. There wasn't even a dial tone…nothing but silence on the other end. He slammed the phone back onto the wall; it didn't stay and fell to the floor with a cracking sound.
"Oh shit….oh shit, man." Ellis muttered under his breath. He ran back outside and was abruptly shoved by a man in a black bulletproof suit. Ellis was sent sprawling to the ground. "Hey, what the fuck?!" he shouted over the people screaming.
"Get to the evac, sir. CEDA is taking care of this. No need to panic." The man started forcing Ellis into the crowd of people who were also being forced by more men in black bulletproof suits. Ellis got on his hands and knees, crawling his way out of the crowd. He got up and started running for the woods, away from the hysteria. Ellis tripped on a large root and once again hit the ground with a hard thud.
"Holy shit this hurts…" Ellis mumbled, "…now what in the hell was all that about?" He looked up at the sky as more helicopters flew past. "Surely I'll find somebody who knows what's going on." He hiked through some more woods for about an hour or so and was almost to a clearing. The hairs on Ellis's neck stood up as he heard an angry growl behind him. He turned but nothing was there. It was almost as if something was stalking him…he heard a loud cry of something monstrous…Ellis had gone hunting with his dad and grandpa before but had never heard anything like that. He kept walking slowly towards the clearing as to not draw too much attention to himself. He approached what looked like a parking lot for an abandoned pawn shop. He climbed up and out of the woods and the growling had stopped. He looked around for someone, anyone…there was no one here.