CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The truck lurched to a halt. Cassandra felt it shutter and heard a harsh clicking sound emerge from under the hood. She opened her eyes as the group in the back started up again, moaning and calling out to their driver.
"It's all right." Lewis said harshly and quietly.
"Where are we?" Cassandra said, pulling herself upright in her seat and looking around. She didn't even realize she had fallen asleep.
She could see that they were in a parking lot somewhere. There was a large department store in front of them, and off to the sides, several smaller shops and a few restaurants. The truck was pulled to a stop in a small strip mall.
Cassandra looked about the front of the truck and out the windows. It was nearly night fall, and there were no obvious signs of any activity.
"We are in the middle of nowhere, halfway to everywhere, and too damned far from everything." Lewis answered her unhappily.
Murray popped his head back out from the back and looked around.
"Oh good," he said quickly, as though the sudden stop was actually a planned tactic. "Food, supplies. We have some injured people back here. I'm sure we can find plenty of useful supplies. Where are we anyway?"
"Out of gas," Lewis said.
"What? Oh God," Cassandra whispered and tipped her head back against her window.
"Yeah," he scorned.
"Well, can you call for help on the radio?" Murray asked softly.
"Hey Wells! Wells!" Lewis called into the back.
After some rustling and shifting of passengers, a scraggly, wavy red haired young officer popped his head through the curtain that separated the front from the back.
"Yeah?" Wells said.
"Your radio work?" Lewis asked.
He tried it several times, but there was static and a high pitched whine on one of the channels.
"Uh, I think the radio's working, but this is all I get."
"Same up here."
"What does that mean?" Cassandra asked as she listened to the high pitched tone and empty static.
Lewis shook his head slowly.
"It means no one's there to answer."
Murray smirked and sighed deeply.
"Well, we need to rest, and there's no point in staying in the truck."
"What? Why? Let's keep going, where are we anyway?" Wells asked.
"We're out of gas," Lewis whispered softly once again.
The group heard him and the back of the truck filled with grieving moans once again. Lewis popped his door open and jumped out. Someone in the back pushed open the loading door and the passengers began to flow out into the evening lit parking lot.
Cassandra hesitated, but opened her door and climbed down from the truck. She glanced around quietly into the eerie silence. The parking lot lamps came on, casting a dim yellow glow around an otherwise dark lot.
The stores and restaurants were closed, dark, and the doors were locked. Only a handful of appropriately-parked cars were scattered in the parking lot.
The town did not look like it had seen any attack or suffered any vandalism; it just looked like the entire population up and left. The sign near the traffic light on the street stated that this strip mall was the Cross Stream Shopping Center, at the corner of Vine and Ridgeway.
A small group of people headed over to the large department store in the strip and tried the door. It opened readily for them as they approached.
"Awesome, it's open!"
"So glad they left it unlocked for us!"
The people joked as they strode into the store. Inside, the shelves and racks were unstirred. A few things were knocked around, and there were several filled shipping carts just left in the aisles near the cash stands.
"Lewis?" Cassandra whispered as they walked through the store.
"Yea?" he answered crisply.
"Do you think we can hold out here for very long?"
"I don't know, maybe. I just don't know."
"What do you think we should do?" She whispered softly.
"I don't know," Lewis said with a sharp tone.
"Hey," Carlos said to Lewis quickly, "we'll figure something out."
"Yeah, right," Lewis grunted.
Cassandra sighed and pulled away from the two men once inside the store and down the aisle far enough away from the door. She walked slowly over to where a group of the successful escapees had made themselves at home in the furniture department.
Over the next few minutes, the tired and hungry people were acting as though they were all at a camping trip. They took microwaves off the shelves, plugged them in and began to prepare some food that others had piled into shopping carts from the other side of the store.
Carlos and some of the injured found first aide supplies in the pharmacy areas, and anyone wishing for some new clothes took their pick. As they settled in, the group sat over their meals and discussed quietly their best options.
"Alright," one man started to the group.
Lewis cast him a sharp look as the man stood and stared around at the group sitting in a clustered circle around the furniture department display floor.
"What do we do now? We've got, what, ten guns or so?"
"What we need to do now is hold out as long as possible," someone else suggested quickly.
"What, you mean like in the truck depot? Cause look at how well that worked out." Another voice added.
The group broke into an opinionated murmur. Some voiced their beliefs that the group as a whole should evacuate immediately to a more secure location while others argued to wait for dawn before leaving.
Yet more in the group believed holding out for as long as possible and awaiting help to arrive for them would be a better choice. Those voting for the holding out position soon had their voices over ridden by a loud man standing over them, who began insisting that finding gas for the truck and driving out of the nowhere town would be the best course.
Others, including Cassandra, remained quiet, not really knowing if any option was a good one.
The group grew louder.
"We don't even know if there's anyone left!"
"Are you kidding? We aren't the last group standing!"
"Maybe no one will ever come through this way. We have to leave to find safety."
Lewis stood, a heavy contemplation mingled with fear etched on his face. The debate raged on and it wasn't until those that voted to remain held up at least for the night stood and faced off with the man who shouted about moving on that Lewis finally intervene, before a fist fight nearly broke out.
"What do you think we should do? Don't you know where to go?" Someone glared at Lewis and snapped harshly.
"We should stand and fight! We can hold out here long enough!" One man yelled trying to rally the group into agreement.
"To what end?" Lewis whispered loudly enough to get everyone's attention focused on to him. "We tried holding out, fighting them off, we had tons of ammunition then… heavy weapons..." he trailed off and his eyes bounced amongst the group, from soldier to soldier, gun to gun.
"We have maybe a dozen weapons, no extra ammo. We can't hold out here."
"What do you suggest, Lewis?" Murray asked quietly from across the group.
He raised his eyebrows. "I think we hold here through the night. In the morning we get the hell out of here, find somewhere safe."
"Yeah, yeah," the loud man said quickly. "He knows what he's talking about, leave. Get the hell out of here, run! Let's do it!"
"Where do we go? Where will we be safe?" A woman questioned with a sense of hopeless despair in her tone. "Do you know?"
"No," Lewis responded morbidly. "But we have the whole night to think up a plan."
"A plan..." the other man muttered, his words continued under his breath as he strode around and took a seat once again, shoving a forkful of a microwave meal into his mouth.
Several women in the group started to sob. Cassandra glanced at Lewis and thought about the situation, contemplating silently what would happen next.
She wondered if the others may have been right; that no one was left, save for small pockets of survivors just like them.
Lewis stood firm with his intention and stalked off to pull out a street map. He stared at it forcefully as if he was hoping a good answer would start blinking like a Broadway sign before his eyes.
The group softened their murmurs and whispered amongst themselves. Some occupied themselves with wondering about the condition of the world outside, the population remaining, and worry if the bugs would soon find them.
Others lingered over Lewis and the other soldiers, helping them form a plan. One man in the group poured a little too much interest in reading food ingredients on the boxes of the meals they had opened.
Another trio spent most of their time futilely trying to get any signal possible on a phone, a tablet, a radio. Everyone wondered where they should go, whether they did so silently or not.
"Do you think there's even a chance we can make it to any of those places in one piece?" Someone in the group asked of Lewis as he eavesdropped over the conversation around the map.
"I'm sure of it. We just need to find some gas." Lewis responded confidently.
One person in the group shut her eyes and counted briefly.
"We could probably make it there in seven or eight hours." She said with a hint of casualness in her voice that suggested they would be embarking on a summer trip for a vacation.
Another in the group did not believe that eight hours was a quick enough travel time.
"We should get separate cars. That big rig thing can't go fast, especially carrying all these people."
"I don't think we should steal people's cars!" One woman said in a shocked whisper.
"Why the hell not?" The loud man snapped back. "You think they're gonna need 'em? They're all probably dead by now."
"Alright, that's enough." Lewis snapped in frustration at the bickering that came up at every turning point in their conversation.
He glanced towards the survivors. Some stood near Lewis, some laid back on sofa beds, bean bag chairs and others sat around a semi-circle between the food section and the bedroom linens. All eyes directed to him.
"It's the best plan we've got right now. We're gonna' keep tryin' to get radio contact, figure out what our orders are…. Or if there's some kind of evacuation plan. We'll get to safety. We will."
Casandra did not know if Lewis believed what he was saying or if he was just trying to keep the group calm, but he came across as convincing enough to settle everyone down.
Lewis, Carlos, and Cassandra sat quietly in a small group, finally getting some food for themselves after they made their own rounds around the department store, grabbing up additional supplies and provisions.
Cassandra loaded up a back pack with everything she could carry, from crackers to tampons and travel bottles of shampoo, to a change of a clothes and a large knife.
As they rejoined the group, the tone of the stranded survivors had turned from anxious and argumentative to despair and hopelessness to reminiscing about the life now gone.
Paula from New Jersey talked about her two college age sons that she hadn't had contact with in weeks, off in South Carolina; she didn't know if they were alive or dead. Jordan was from The Bronx, and had been separated from her mother during the mass evacuation.
She sobbed hysterically as she described holding out in dark silence in her small apartment.
Paul, an executive at a licensing company in Manhattan had the loudest opinions about what to do, but settled quietly down while the group talked. He did not have much to add to the conversation, only that he hoped his ex-wife met up with one of the bugs.
No one found it funny. A family from Russia had been visiting and were stranded in Philadelphia when flights around the globe were cancelled.
More than forty people provided a brief look into themselves, their homes, their lives, and what had happened in their city.
Some of the people, Cassandra had found surprising, had not even seen one of the black alien monsters; not until that morning.
Slowly, people started to drift off to sleep while others, with weapons, kept watch over them. It was nearly midnight and with at least some semblance of a plan in mind for the morning, the group seemed content enough to relax into sleep.
"Hey, hey! I've got something! I've got something!" Someone yelled, rousing Cassandra and everyone else awake.
"There's a broadcast! From Chicago!"
The group surrounded a flat screen television, and a hush fell after a brief murmur. Cassandra focused on the screen and felt like crying.
She wasn't sure if she wanted to cry because what she saw on the screen filled her with hope or fear. The subtitle on the bottom definitely read 'Chicago, Illinois'.
The images showed jam packed streets full of desperate people trying to survive. It looked like a war zone, with refugees packed into every crevice possible.
There were massive food lines, and the video footage, clearly from a remotely operated vehicle, showed people making camp on roof tops, in the streets, out of cars for blocks and blocks of the city streets.
It was like the industrial warehouse, only on a much larger scale. Flags and bedsheets with spray painted names and messages hung from almost every window of every building; burned, turned over and destroyed vehicles and dumpsters lined the streets and trash blew around in a breeze.
The scene from the aerial footage almost immediately reminded her of the Great Depression. Black and white images from the chapters in her school books about a time when most of America had lost hope and all that they owned suddenly seemed to be appearing again, in full color, from drone footage on a plasma television.
Forced from their homes in fear for their lives, fleeing an enemy that seemed unstoppable, countless people piled into the streets for lack of a bed to sleep in.
Obvious cots, bed sheets, sleeping bags, and even furniture lined the sidewalks amidst clothing, animals, and personal belongings.
Trash piled high in a massive garbage heap around one corner while ten block long food lines formed on the other side of the massive encampment.
Police and uniformed military patrolled the crowd throughout the streets and maintained a barricade around a small section of the great city. Even from above, the look of despair was obvious on the faces of so many.
She watched these desperate people sympathetically, sharing in their pain as they lived their nightmare out too much in shock to even believe it was really happening to them.
Weeks of having no roof over their heads seemed to have driven many people mad. Cassandra tried to turn her head away as tears flowed down her cheeks. She did not find anything comforting about the footage at all.
A reporter's voice streamed along with the footage, describing the ever increasing military presence in the city, the desperate situations of the entire American people and the crime, violence, and suicide that was plaguing the so called 'safe zone'.
The small group watching the television monitors stared in awe, horror and uncertainty. The reporter confirmed that to the best of her knowledge, every surviving person for a hundred miles that had been located, was forced, willingly or otherwise, into the safe zone for protection from the dangerous animals.
She mentioned a seemingly endless list of cities that had been bombed in the last twenty-four hours, and could not even begin to put a number on the loss of life.
Inside the industrial complex, things did not seem so desperate. Cassandra thought for a minute how people, for the most part, seemed to all coexist inside those walls.
There were some fights, some suicides. There were some births, and even a couple marriages. No one on the screen before her eyes seemed happy, optimistic, or hopeful. She did not think life seemed that desperate just a day before.
Now as she stared at the screen and took in the unhospitable conditions of the safe zone, Cassandra felt that perhaps the small group would be safer holding out on their own instead of trying to add to the crowded streets.
The city may not yet have seen the black monsters that were plaguing the rest of the country, the world, but they were trying to deal with their own horrors. The military presence was not only to keep the nightmarish creatures out of the guarded zone, but also to keep the peace amongst the people in the streets as the situation quickly fell apart.
The reporter talked endlessly as the short clip of footage aired again and again. She spoke of the dangers within the safe zones to everyone, and detailed a grizzly account of an elderly coupled brutalized merely for their cozy bed in their sheltered apartment.
With enough food, clothing, towels, working showers, bathrooms, and provisions for the masses the industrial complex sounded more like a luxury hotel in comparison to the safe zone the reporter described, where people murdered each other in the streets fighting over the basics of living.
The reporter discussed further that despite there being many food stations throughout the safety zones, the lines to eat were so long that many people were only able to receive one small meal every twenty four hours.
The fear of starvation only spurred fights. The reporter stated that a recent attempt to get food caused a massive riot that left over twenty people dead, forcing the armed authorities to institute a shoot-to-kill policy to keep order.
It quickly became clear watching the broadcast that there simply weren't any provisions for anyone; there were no food drops, no care packages, no Red Cross, no back up, nothing.
The reporter speculated about unconfirmed rumors that only three other safe zones like the one in Chicago even existed. She questioned if those three areas, along with any unknown number of scattered pockets of survivors, were the last of the entire population of the country, possibly the world.
Though admitting numerous times to being pure speculation, the reporter continued on talking about the crisis at the international level.
She reported on the last known information from Europe, detailing the last reports she had on the defensive efforts from other nations.
She did mention that it was speculated that remote locations, islands and less populated areas of the world do have the potential for being totally unaffected. Still, there was almost no current way for the leaders of any nation to even know how many humans or living animals still resided within their boundaries.
As the group watched the report, many broke out into tears. Once the aerial footage stopped its continuous playback loop, the report switched to brief clips and interviews with some of the residents of the safe zone, some of whom complained, as the reporter had, of overpopulation and lack of supplies.
It seemed the plague of alien animals was not the only disease affecting humanity. The safe zone was quickly falling in on itself, just as the shelter Cassandra has been surviving at did.
Once weapons were too heavily depleted, it left entire populations at risk of being swarmed. The animals, which were usually referred to as "bugs" and considered insects like ants or bees, seemed to have mastered war tactics, too.
Cassandra and the others all contemplated aloud how exactly it was that the animals seemed to manage to force large populations into a confined reason, attack constantly enough to drain them of their defensive resources, then mob and overpower them with an intense swarm.
The group wondered amongst themselves if such a massive safe zone as the one in Chicago, for all is defensive resources, would or could be penetrated in the same manner.
Even if the bugs did not do it, the safe zone displayed on the screen before them seemed to be reaching something of an overpopulation crisis, and as residents continued to spend their few seconds of air time crying for more help, it did not go unnoticed that bugs were not the only threat within the massive city-complex.
Cassandra looked around her at the small group, wondering if the smaller numbers stood a better chance for survival or if it would be better to be in a large group.
Her mind rushed back through the last two months of her life. From hiding in her apartment with just one other person, to sheltering in a bus terminal with nearly two hundred, to the thousands that packed into the large industrial depot, none of those places were really safe.
The creatures, able to outnumber because of their ability to breed within animals as well as humans, swarmed the planet's surface and nested below ground. When they attacked an area, it seemed they did not rest until all were victimized, and no more reports came from an overrun area.
There was almost no question by the end of the report that the animals were winning. It had been nearly ten weeks since the very first reports filled the airwaves about the parasitic "face hugger" animals and the first victims that died because of the strange 'parasite' that had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of one night. It all seemed so long ago now, Cassandra thought.
Just one day before, the world was bustling about as usual, each person tending to their own business. The next day was buzzing with reports of a possible terrorist attack or some prehistoric creature that had finally emerged from some unexplored depth of the planet, or perhaps instead had dropped from outer space.
Now it all seemed so irrelevant. Life had simply taken a downward turn and both the cause and effect had spread rapidly throughout the entire planet over in the weeks to follow.
Just like the snapping of some long, clawed fingers, the planet was changed. A war and a depression unlike anything in the planet's entire history was unfolding before her eyes, and the homo-sapien species was standing on the brink of complete extinction.
Cassandra realized it, not when the creatures had attacked, not even after losing her friends, and losing touch with her family. It was not even being forced from her new home and left to sit wondering if she would even survive until dawn that made her feel it.
She was sure humans would become extinct as she sat and watched the report that night. The weight of the situation had finally truly hit her. Somehow until now it all seemed like the longest, oddest nightmare one could have, but would wake up from.
There had been hope that the animals would be killed off, and that life would just go back to normal. However, now it seemed the tides were turning. People, so caught up in their own survival, were tearing themselves apart, and what they missed, the animals took care of.
The large masses of people were clearly scared and tired of being packed into the streets of a city far from their homes. Regular working people were going mad in the face of losing everything they had spent their entire lives working to achieve.
Cassandra had barely begun to live hers and her great plan for the future had fallen apart long before it had even come to be. Now she stood in shocked amazement with a small group of willful survivors wondering what tomorrow might bring.
It would have been tomorrow morning that Cassandra and Stephanie would have been starting their first day of their first semester on the road to their new life. Instead, it was all ripped away with a bloody, terrible rush of tearing flesh and cracking bone, surrounded by the hissing and shrieking of the satanic giant creatures.
"You alright, hon?" A gentle voice asked.
Cassandra glanced at a sweet faced motherly lady who had placed her palm gently on Cassandra's shoulder. She nodded and tried to force a smile. The woman grimaced sadly.
"I was just thinking," Cassandra whispered. "I was wondering if we should even try to go there?"
The woman lowered her eyes as though she, too, had thought the same notion.
"Well, it'll be alright. Jesus will look after us. I don't know why, I don't know how, but He made this happen for a reason." The wrinkled-faced woman spoke in an emotional whisper, emphatically declaring, as her shaking hands clutched a crucifix pendant, that there was most definitely a reason for why this infestation had happened.
Cassandra took a breath breather and considered her words, but said nothing.
"How old are you, child?"
Cassandra pondered the woman for a moment.
"Eight..." her eyes drifted off to the side and she stopped briefly. "No, nineteen now. I forgot. I guess I missed my birthday." She grunted to herself; it seemed so irrelevant.
"Why not sit with us, child?" the woman indicated to a small group of women in the aisleway, each kneeling with their hands folded together in front of their chins.
Cassandra looked to them for a moment. Their faces were peaceful, they were not looking at the screen, nor were they concerned with where the group should go the following morning. They had their eyes shut and were whispering softly to themselves in deep prayer.
Cassandra could feel her heart beating quickly, as if it was alarmed and confused, telling her exactly what to do while she tried hard to stifle its opinions.
"I...uh..." she started to say, but a voice interrupted her.
"Come. Kneel with us before God, and we will help you through what is to come." The woman tried to urge Cassandra again.
She turned an uncertain glance back to Lewis, who did not offer her any direction. He looked rather like he might like to come pray with the women himself. Cassandra let herself be guided to the small group and knelt with them, glancing around at five women around her, as the elderly woman who helped her over knelt down along with the rest of them.
"I…" Cassandra cleared her throat. She didn't know what to do, or what to say.
The old woman clapped her palm to Cassandra's hand reassuringly, offered a gentle smile.
"It's OK." She reassured.
The group began into prayer and Cassandra, never having been formally religious, listened to their words and tried to not only understand, but believe.
She soon got distracted by loud voices rising up from the group just a few aisles over as another heated discussion began up. She began to shift her weight, to go to stand, but the elderly woman kept her grip tight and shook her head slowly and softly.
"The men will deal with the worldly issues, dear. We are looking to God to give us the guidance we need."
Cassandra remained still, trying to listen both to the women around her and the men's voices rising up. She heard discussion about the shelter, and imagined that the new argument was whether or not the group should head towards Chicago; over an eight hour drive.
"It looks like a damned war zone!" The voices called. "Look at all those people!"
Cassandra heard emphatically pronounced words like 'die' and 'survive', but could not make out the entire rest of the conversation.
The group with her ended their prayer and the old woman glanced with her warm smile towards Cassandra, gently touching her chin with her shaking, wrinkled palm. With her other hand, the old lady put her pendant into Cassandra's grasp.
"You hold on to that, Dear. Let it support you through this." She shook her head slowly. "It's such a shame that our beautiful children have to experience this."
Cassandra pursed her lips but said nothing. Slowly, the old lady pulled out a bottle from her large purse, and a thermos. She filled the mug to the brim with 'the blood of Jesus' as she called it. She raised it up and her words, soft as silk, and filled with emotion, bit into Cassandra's heart.
"Dear Jesus, although your reasons are a mystery, we follow faithfully in your footsteps. You died for our sins, and soon will call us back Home. We drink from this chalice, with your blood to wash us clean. Amen".
She sipped from the mug and passed it clockwise around the group, each woman drinking from it after saying a brief prayer.
Cassandra did not understand each woman's language, but imagine much of what was said was the same. The woman to her right passed the stainless steel, insulated thermos to her and her hands began to shake as she took it.
Cassandra looked to her left at the old woman who was still smiling at her.
"I don't …. I don't know what I'm supposed to say."
The woman nodded calmingly; Cassandra found it a little hard to process how the group could be so calm and peaceful.
"You don't need to say anything. Just praise Jesus, take a sip, and say Amen! This will all be over soon."
Cassandra pondered the woman's word for a second and glanced around the group as the women stared at her, smiling comfortingly. Hands shaking, and not really certain about her own actions, she raised the mug towards her lips and paused.
"I'm…uh…I'm not…" Cassandra put the mug down, and started to get up. "… really thirsty."
As she pulled herself to her feet, the woman clutched her hand tightly, gripping so hard she could feel the woman's fingernails digging into her hand.
"You will burn in this Hell, child. You will meet the Devil face to face. You will know suffering and pain. Your salvation is here."
Cassandra ripped her hand away hard, nearly pulling the old woman down just as Lewis appeared around the corner. Shaking and tearing up, Cassandra headed to him.
"What's going on? You ok?"
She smirked and raised her eyebrows, not exactly sure if she was alright anymore. She pressed her hands to her face, trying to quell tears as her hands trembled. She pulled herself together after a moment and took a deep breath.
"Do we have a plan now?" She asked.
Lewis looked at her for a moment as though he might answer, but his eyes drifted from the group of women behind her, all staring at her, to the remaining people still surrounding the television.
He lowered his head and said nothing; he didn't have to. It was obvious by his look that he was going to organize the group to head to Chicago, and clear that he did not think it was a good option.
"We can't go there," Cassandra whispered to him softly. "All those people, they're going to die if those things... There'll be too many of them …"
He raised his eyes and looked at her with certainty. "I know. But we can't stay here either."
She fell quiet for a long while, not finding anymore sleep that night.
The pair sat amongst the others, mournfully watching the screen that represented their own demise. A small timer nearby chimed. The noise broke the bitter silence in the massive space and caused many people to jump. One person hurried to the sound to shut the alarm off.
"It's five a.m." He whispered as he turned the clock off.
Cassandra did not even realize how much time had passed. It was still dark outside and there had not been a single shriek or hiss or the slightest hint of anything lurking in the darkness throughout the whole night.
Somehow though, a fearful worry seemed to settle over the group as they quietly started to get up and get their belongings together. Five gasoline containers sat waiting nearby, ready to be filled.
As she organized herself, Cassandra rounded the corner to head to the restrooms with another woman. The pair came to a sudden stop before the six women from the prayer group, all sleeping soundly in the middle of the aisle, just a few rows down.
"We should help them get their things," Cassandra said softly to the woman next to her. She slowly approached the sleeping group and knelt before the old woman who had given her the pendant.
Cassandra gasped.
"What's wrong?" The woman asked as she, too, approached and Cassandra looked up at her.
"They're all dead!"
Cassandra's eyes shifted from each woman in the group to the thermos of wine still sitting exactly where she had left it, undisturbed, and she took several deep, tearful breaths as she realized what would have happened had she drunk from it.
She got up, filled with fear and anger and anxiety, and quickly strode away from the dead women. When the pair finished in the bathroom, Cassandra ran water over her face for several long minutes as she stared at the pendant in her hand.
She could not help but think of what the woman's last words were to her, about the devil she would come to face in this living Hell called Earth.
She could understand why the women wanted to leave, but at the same time, the fire inside her told her to continue on, even if the end was uncertain.
The girls returned to the group and Cassandra grabbed up her bag without a word. Lewis and Carlos glanced at her warily. She had noticed the bodies were now covered up. Lewis looked worried and relieved at the same time as he glanced to her then around to the rest of the group.
"Alright, let's…" He started, but was cut off quickly.
"Does anyone else hear that?" A tiny voice asked from a meek looking woman.
The group held its breath in unison and strained its ears to listen for any noise that the woman might have heard. A very distinct banging far off in the distance filled the air.
The sound was muffled and vague, but it was easy enough to recognize as heavy weapon fire; tank blasts.
"No! Don't!" Lewis whispered to several people who began to inch their way towards the door of the building.
Most of the cluster stopped, but three curious people continued forward. With tense anticipation the rest of the group watched as one man crept down the aisle, past the display shelves and clothing racks.
He would stop and stare and listen to the distant blasts before continuing closer towards the door. In a short while Cassandra could just barely see the man's head over the racks and checkout counters that blocked her view of the front doors.
She could see him stop at the windows beside the glass doors, move some of the newspaper that had been taped up over the glass, and peer out. The two other men approached the doors and pried them open.
Lewis stepped to the front, rifle quivering in his grip, but he pressed forward, with the other two soldiers tiptoeing in behind him. The group watched and waited silently with their eyes intently focused on the door. No one moved or made a sound.
Suddenly the door slid open once more and the man came bolting through in great haste. He ran down the aisle to the group as quickly as he could, a look of great excitement on his face.
"I think there's a battle out there! Tanks! There's a helicopter!" He exclaimed as he caught his breath.
An excited murmur filled the air and the group was suddenly ready to venture out into the fog and smoke of the early morning darkness after a chance for rescue. Slowly they began to move out of the building, the soldiers taking the lead and flanks of the group.
Cassandra held a position just behind Lewis. They headed out into parking lot and stared off in the distance. Tremendous explosions rang out and the blasts from the tanks cast a momentary bright orange light above the tress which highlighted the smoky haze that loomed in the cracking early light of dawn.
The group headed off quickly, Lewis and the other soldiers quickly broke out into a jog, Cassandra followed closely, but some of the others tagged off in the back, reluctant to leave the building, or unable to keep up.
Every few blocks the group would halt for a long enough moment to allow for those that could not make pace to catch back up. Cassandra watched the helicopter circling around just ahead of where they rested. The massive explosions were growing louder as they jogged nearer to the battlefield that was raging in the distance.
"Do you think we can make it?" Cassandra whispered breathlessly to Lewis.
Lewis stayed silent, but nodded his head. His eyes were pointed up, following the helicopter in its orbit. Each time it circled, it seemed to fly closer to group.
Cassandra nodded back to him and they started off once again at a jog. They jogged down the road past businesses until they found themselves in a residential area. Lewis veered to the left down a side street, following the sights and sounds of the battle beyond.
He kept watch on the helicopter above their head, waiting for a good moment to try to flag its pilot down.
The soldiers in the group scanned the empty houses that lined the streets for any signs of the nightmarish assailants that they feared might be lurking nearby. The street seemed void of any life at all.
Though some of the homes had lights on in a few windows, Cassandra doubted that any of the homes were currently occupied. Parked cars sat in the driveways of the pleasant homes.
There were no crashes or bloods stained vehicles filling the streets. Without the sounds of the battle in the near distance, the street would have been a pleasant, silent, and still road in suburbia.
None of the houses they passed looked disturbed in anyway, as though the people living on the street simply walked out of their homes one day and left them as they were.
The helicopter circled one more pass and hovered over the group. A secondary light shone down upon the cheering and howling people that were jumping up and down and waving their hands above their heads, excited that they had been located.
Lewis and other officers raised their hands trying to signal the helicopter with the rest of the group. The chopper veered off the side then swung back over the group of pleading people.
"Evacuate the area immediately. This area is off limits." The voice yelled to the streets below over a speaker.
The words caused even more of an uproar from the desperate souls below awaiting rescue. They pleaded for help even louder.
Perhaps the second, more fierce attempt would make the pilot recognize that they were deeply in need of rescue. Cassandra shouted at the top of her lungs, hoping for help to come.
The man over the speaker responded one more time in the same careless monotone voice.
"Evacuate the area immediately. This area is off limits."
The helicopter left the group and zoomed off once again over the tree tops, back to the cannon fire. Undeterred, the group sprinted down the street after the helicopter, closer yet to the sounds of the battle. They cut through a yard and into a giant open field past the edge of the subdivision.
"Evacuate the area immediately. This area is off limits." The voice yelled to the streets below over a speaker.
The blasts of the tanks shook the ground as Cassandra trotted through the grassy field. She cast her eyes sideways at the large in-ground swimming pool in the community courtyard of the subdivision.
Its hourglass-shaped white tiles around the pool glistened pink with blood-dyed water from the swimming pool. Her eyes only barely registered on three bloody bodies floating in the pool. She quickly turned her eyes ahead, glancing up once again, tracing the helicopter in its path over the trees in the distance.
Lewis, in front of her, slid to a halt so abruptly that Cassandra, still focused on the helicopter, slammed into his back. He lurched forward slightly and quickly recovered and crouched to the ground.
A massive blast shot off from a tank only a few hundred feet from them. Cassandra slapped her hands to her ears and dropped to the ground behind Lewis' lead.
She turned her head in the opposite direction of the bloody pool and saw a tank rolling into the field behind the subdivision.
The rolling hillside that backed up to the once well-tailored rear lawns of the properties along the street sloped gently to a lake surrounded on three sides by a thick forest of trees.
Another tank was making its own path through the crushed trees along the lake's west bank. The light of the helicopter scanned over the trees along the far shoreline.
Cassandra squinted and strained her eyes to see through the thick smoke that billowed from the cannons of the two tanks. She could hear the loud echo of a third tank, but could not see it's location in the woods on the far side of the water.
"Dear God," someone whispered from behind Cassandra.
The sight was almost surreal. Cassandra felt shaky and lightheaded for a moment. It seemed to her as though she was staring at the view from somewhere in the clouds, somewhere that she was not involved, somewhere where nothing was real and would not hurt her. The remainder of the group crawled forward and crouched behind Lewis and Cassandra.
"We have to help." One said.
"What good are we gonna do?" Another questioned.
"We have to try," a third said shakily as another tank blast rang out, causing everyone to flinch.
Before the ringing in her ears had even died off, Cassandra saw Lewis and the other officers jump up and charge forth. Lewis's mouth was wide as he screamed at the men, but Cassandra could not make out his words.
Cassandra and the rest of the group that crouched in disbelief watched the brave soldiers face their biggest fear and run towards their inevitable deaths. For a myriad of the hell-spawn monsters had suddenly overtaken the land at the base of the soft hill, near the lake.
The tanks blasted as frequently as they could, but Cassandra could not tell if they were even making a dent in the numbers of the monstrous creatures. Where one animal would meet with the cannon fire, it seemed ten more were there to take its place.
The animals were on top of the two tanks that Cassandra could see within seconds, biting and clawing at the armored bodies, desperate to reach the people within. The swarm of animals seemed to be unaware or unconcerned about the group of onlookers crouching against the grassy hillside.
They did notice, however, notice the group of people that were running all out around the rear of the nearest tank. The men opened fire and for a moment the sounds of their weapons crackled against the whining of the tank treads as the armored vehicle moved forward and blasted off another shot over the lake and into the trees, while simultaneously crushing two of the deadly beasts under its treads.
One of the animals atop the nearest tank noticed the group of officers. Cassandra watched it lift its evil head and jut out its smaller inner set of jaws. The thing then leapt forward at the small group of officers and armed civilians.
One of the soldiers immediately turned on his heels and fired at the leaping monster. Cassandra watched in horror as she watched the man fire at the animal. The thing's head exploded from the close range gunfire, sending a spray of acid in all directions.
Three men in the group yelled out in horrified pain before they dropped to the ground as the acid that hit their heads and faces and seared through their skin and skulls, killing them slowly.
Some of the acid had back splashed and hit the tank as it rolled by the group. From where she watched, Cassandra could suddenly see a growing hole in the back of the vehicle.
Its turret whirred around and fired a blast once again before another swarm of maddened animals climbed atop the armored hull.
With the weakness in the body, the creatures, attracted to the hole, stuck their faces and clawed fingertips inside the hole, almost as though they were trying to rip the opening even wider. The men inside tried desperately to get the animals away from the weak spot.
Cassandra could hear them shooting, which only caused more acid to wash down the rear of the tank, opening the hole even more, allowing the animals to slip inside.
Cassandra watched as one carcass fell to the ground and another of the great black creatures clattered over the top of it, unaffected by its brother's acid blood. The thing heaved itself inside the tank and suddenly the tank stopped rolling.
The sounds of the men screaming and firing from within the heavy walls echoed through the cool air. Two more creatures filed in through the hole in the rear of the tank just behind the first one. The sounds of the frantic people within quickly faded and the tank moved no more.
Paralyzed with fear, the group merely watched the rest of the scene unfold. As the creatures, successful in their destruction of the people within one tank leapt back out, they ran full force towards the other tank.
Cassandra followed them with her eyes while also trying to find Lewis in the fray.
Suddenly, she saw him, with one of the monsters rounding on him from the far side of the tank. It tore towards him with tremendous agility, half running, half leaping.
It jumped over two dead animals, and landed directly on the top of the still tank. Lewis shot his rifle in the direction of animals that were charging down the second tank, never noticing the first one.
Cassandra almost had not even realized she was running towards him. It was like everything was happening without her being aware, as though it was all occurring from somewhere outside her own reality.
Cassandra reached for her gun, and ran towards the animal on top of the tank. Lewis spun around hearing her screams and three shots rang out from the gun suddenly.
Without ear protection on, Cassandra found the sound of the weapon deafening, and her ears suddenly pinged and physically hurt her. The animal toppled over dead and Lewis smiled in shock at her.
"Good shot, Cassandra." He said durning a brief moment of calm.
Shaking, Cassandra dropped the gun to the ground and knelt partially over, putting her hands on her knees, suddenly feeling sick.
"Luck. Thanks."
"Luck?!" Lewis smiled and picked up the weapon while putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't you mean to say that you had an awesome shooting instructor?"
She smiled and managed to form a soft chuckle as several people ran down from the group and moved in behind them.
"You both OK?" Carlos asked quickly, habitually scanning them for injuries and any medical issues.
They nodded.
"Look!" Someone in the group pointed out and Cassandra's eyes followed her gaze towards the lake. The surface of the large lake was moving, rippling.
It looked almost as though it had sharp mounds of black volcanic rock emerging from it. She could feel the ground shaking and the water whirred and whipped like it was caught in a vortex.
"The water…" Someone in the group whispered in shock. "It's draining."
They watched in stunned horror as the raging water of the surface of the once pristine, manmade backyard fishing paradise suddenly was overtaken with spiny protrusions and tails, as a shrieking swarm of deadly serpents rose up from the underground while the water drained down through the very hole the animals emerged from.
Cassandra scanned to the far end of the lake, looking for the helicopter that had been circling, and waiting for the lighting strikes of light that would flash from the third tank's cannon periodically. The trees along the far side of the lake were dark, silent.
The remaining tank, with three of the animals still on it, fired repeatedly at the water. The light from the helicopter shone down onto the surface and lit up an unimaginable scene. Too many of the mighty creatures to count were swarming from the muddy hole in the ground to the tank on the edge of the shore.
Suddenly, the trees on the other edge of the lake rattled and cracked with such a fury that Cassandra was sure the other tank was coming through the woods to the rescue. Instead, the tree line broke down to reveal one of the animals, massive, heavily armored, and tremendously agitated.
"Oh my God." Lewis whispered.
"It's the Queen Bee." Someone in the group said with a shaking voice.
As tall as the trees themselves and probably three times as long from head to tail, the massive creature towered over its larger-than-man offspring. The thing had a heavily armored plated head that reached back from its long, slim skull and formed foot long spikes. Its jaws alone were larger than a human head.
The creature ran on two massive hind legs, with two more, smaller arm-like protrusions off its torso. It looked like a running, hissing rendition of a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, hell bent on killing all who stood in its way.
As the massive creature joined the onslaught into the water, it whipped its huge tail behind it and struck into a large pine tree.
The force of the impact from the long spikes that lined the creature's massive tail splattered the thick trunk into splinters and the tree crashed forward into the mud pit where the lake once was.
The group of animals showed no concern at all, not for the tree, nor the tank that they were heading to in haste, but they certainly gave their large mother room to pass. The animal hissed wildly, furiously declaring herself the winner of the war.
The tank fired once again and the helicopter zoomed overhead, its light shining down on the massive animal. Athletically avoiding the fire of the tank, more of the smaller of the animals were easily able to climb on top of the vehicle.
The machine was piloted backwards, as though trying to retreat from the battle. One of the eight foot tall black animals that had been attempting to crawl up the back of the tank managed to get its tail caught under the tank's treads as it pulled backward.
The creature was quickly pulled under the vehicle. As its hard black body was crushed under the treads, the blood from the animal seared a massive hole into the ground and the tank lurched off to one side, trapped in its own hole, with no treads on the right side as the swarm of animals overtook the top and sides of the immobile armored vehicle. Desperate, the men inside continued to fire off rounds.
"Lewis!" Cassandra finally gagged out a word through a hoarse throat. "Lewis!"
He pulled his eyes away from the incomprehensible scene and glanced at her. She was staring directly at him, as though trying to funnel out all that was around her. She did not say anything more, but kept a definite 'what do we do' look on her face.
Lewis turned to the group and quickly scanned the only remaining members who had weapons. Besides himself and Cassandra, only two more of the nearly thirty people were armed. He indicated with his hands for the unarmed people to pull back.
Without argument, the rest of the group promptly took to their feet and bolted as quickly as they could away from the battle. Cassandra and Lewis crouched and watched the desperately losing war at the water's surface, just a few hundred meters away.
"We can't leave the group defenseless." Cassandra whispered.
Lewis looked between the four people, the group running for safety, and the faltering tank. The helicopter overhead zoomed off suddenly and disappeared out of sight. The whirring of the blades soon dissipated under the sounds of the hissing and shrieking of the monsters.
After a moment's hesitation, Lewis headed towards the tank and towards the gigantic monster shrieking and calling her death howl. Cassandra followed along with a handful of others, weapons at the ready.
The small group took aim, noticing one panicked officer emerging from the tank. He saw them first, and gave them a wide eyed stare before he turned his head around and noticed the sea of black serpents coming towards him, running through muddy pit where a small lake once was.
"Stop! Wait!" Lewis said suddenly startled.
The group halted and Cassandra audibly gasped, holding her breath as she held still and looked around.
"Do you hear that?" Lewis whispered.
As she strained her ears, all Cassandra could hear was the closing animals, and the officer in the tank thudding down on the far side of it, away from the horde.
"No.. what…" She paused, suddenly, because she heard the noise, too. Her head immediately turned upwards towards the sky. "What is that, Lewis?"
Lewis's voice was calm, whispering, and eerie.
"That's a bomber. RUN!"
Without a moment's delay, the group turned on their heels and ran as hard and fast as they could. Casandra only barely noticed the young officer from the tank, splayed on the ground as he clumsily fell off the side of the thing, suddenly try to get up.
She only barely heard the hissing of the Queen, and the shrieking of her minions. She had spun and run before she saw the animals swarm the young man and incapacitate him. Cassandra had thought she had run hard and fast before, but it was nothing compared to this moment.
As the sound of the plane overhead drew closer, she thought her heart was going to jump right out of her chest while she sped along with the others as they bolted for any form of cover they could find.
The explosion rocked the subdivision, bringing down houses and blasting out a shockwave that launched Cassandra and the others into the air and sent them flying. Cassandra landed in a row of bushes on the far side of the street she was approaching when the furious explosion caught her mid-stride.
She coughed on dust and smoke and dirt, and could barely see. Her ears shot with a deafening high pitched sound and she collapsed to the ground as she tried to stand, cutting herself on shredded wood, glass, and metal all around her.
She wasn't sure how much time passed before she could interpret the world around her more clearly. Dazed, she started to look around and allow the scene to slip into focus.
She saw Carlos approaching her quickly; he was shouting, but she wasn't sure what. She glanced around, barely standing upright and noticed a man nearby that had been flung into a tree. He was torqued and bent as only a man with a broken spine could have possibly been.
Cassandra gasped for air and hung her head. She did not realize how badly shaking she was until Carlos grabbed her forcefully, trying to steady her.
"Come on, we've got to go!" He said to her over and over until she understood his words.
He spun her around facing the house behind her. The windows and door had been blow inside. Lewis was standing in the doorway, waving his arm, signaling people to get inside.
The group ran through the house, out the back door, across the yard, through the back gate, crossed the back alley and ran through a side passage between more houses until they came to another street, then another.
They moved as quickly as possible through street after street, pushing forward while making sure no one got left behind, until finally it seemed no one alive could travel any further.
They pulled to a halt, too many blocks away to count, many of the group, including Cassandra dropped from exhaustion in the middle of the empty street, and rustled through their belongings for water and bandages. Carlos tended to injuries as soon as he could stand enough to do so.
Cassandra rolled onto her back and stared at the stars as she fought to breathe. For a long while no one was able to speak, however, once the first few people began to fill their lungs, whispered turned to tears which turned to anger which turned to shouting and fighting within minutes.
Cassandra shut her eyes trying to block out the sounds of the men fighting. One would yell to another about holding the group up while some screamed at shouted at Lewis for leading them into such a mess in the first place.
"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Lewis finally howled. "We need to stay together and keep moving if we are going to stay alive! We need to get to that safe zone."
"In Chicago?!" Someone else said exasperatedly, as though the whole concept was terrible. Cassandra couldn't help but to agree in silence; it did not seem like a good idea.
"And how are you're going to take us there? We don't have a truck!" One man snarled back.
"I'm not taking you anywhere. You can follow me, and we will get there. We will get through this."
There was no more arguing after that. In fact, there was very little talking at all. Several women talked amongst themselves while the weary group walked through the vacant streets after a long, mostly silent rest, but most of the men stayed utterly silent.
Lewis did not talk as he walked down the streets. He did not slow for Cassandra, but did try to make sure she was still following. After a few blocks Lewis strode through a gas station towards the small convenient mart. The door was unlocked and he swung it open.
A few moments later he returned to the group that had stopped in the lot and waited for him. He walked out, looking down at the map he was unfolding.
He stopped under a street lamp and unfurled the map completely. Some of the group hovered around him as he fingered their current location and the most direct route they needed to take.
Others loaded up with bottled water and any food they could find that was not rotten. Without arguing any further, the men in the group discussed the details of their route.
Unwilling to tolerate any disputes, frustrated with the disastrous results of every encounter with the animals, and visibly fearful, Lewis took an unquestioning tone with the group as they navigated the map.
His words were sharp and quick to settle any different opinions between the many chiefs that had deemed themselves worthy to lead the group to safety.
With no further questioning or discussion from any member of the frightened group, they set off on their destined course. Lewis strode down the street staring straight ahead as he cradled his gun around his should and under his arm, fingering the shaft readily as his eyes scanned the streets while he walked.
They stayed under the street lamps and walked briskly and quietly through the vacant town. Cassandra halfway wanted to talk to Lewis but she could not find any words to say to him.
He seemed angry and frustrated while the rest were scared and tired, and his tolerance of their situation had seemed to meet its limit. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she pursed her lips and forced herself forward.
The scenery changed in the streets from homes to businesses and back to homes until finally they reached a vast stretch of highway outside of town.
There was no sign of any life at all, not even a stray animal roamed the empty streets, nor a bat flittered across the night sky. There was not a breath of wind in the quiet summer roadways, and only vacated cars and trucks dotted the highway for some distance with no sign of any drivers inside.
Cassandra glanced into the vehicles she walked past as Lewis directed the group onto the highway. She wished he would just have them get into the cars and drive off.
Her feet ached and her eyelids weighed her whole body down. She was hungry and exhausted and could not shake the terrible images of the battles and deaths she witnessed from her mind. The giant Queen stomped across her brain like a demon of death.
She could not comprehend the large creature and all the questions that had been asked months ago about the origin of the animals surfaced once again in her mind. Part of her realized that knowing where the animals had come from was quite irrelevant, but still, the nature of human curiosity played on her senses and she occupied some of her quiet walking time by delving into the possible origins of the alien monsters.
Cassandra had always loved animals, though she only had a cat when she was younger. She had taken riding lessons for a few years, and competed in horse shows.
When Cassandra thought of an animal, the images that filled her mind were of gentle, furry, loveable creatures great and small that were a little dumb and wanted only to have human companionship and love. It almost seemed like an insult to animals to call the black monsters animals.
She knew many people referred to them as insects instead. Some insect, she thought.
She thought about the hive that Lewis had described, underground below the streets of Philadelphia. He had described to her, in as much detail as she could tolerate listening to, mummified human and animal corpses woven into a resin web that covered the walls and ceilings of the great vaults of century old train tunnels long since abandoned.
From all that he had said to her, Cassandra thought that the creatures did seem to act like some kind of insect crossed with a spider, rolled up in a satanic black hide and filled with blood equally as deadly as the creature itself.
They built hives, migrated in swarms, but also roamed out individually when necessary, all in the pursuit of hosts to use for reproduction.
She had decided after some time pondering the species in further detail, that even snakes and spiders and cockroaches were far more suited to the term animal than the monstrous black creatures. To her, they were not animals, nor insects, they were just death and teeth and claws and acid blood.
Cassandra decided that she liked wasps and hornets much better and there was just simply no Earthly comparison for the terrible creatures. They had either shot up from the pits of hell or they truly were from another planet.
That idea opened Cassandra up into a whole world of unfathomable complexities that she had no desire to endeavor into. Her weary mind began to turn funny and the sights all around her melded into one. She vaguely glanced around at the group.
Each person was tiring rapidly with every step. Many wore long faces displaying their own signs of the great suffering and torment that each had been dealing with for the last two months. Lewis had slowed his pace, but never turned back to evaluate the group.
"Hey man," finally someone called out to Lewis. "We've got to stop."
"It's been hours, we're all exhausted." Another agreed.
Lewis slowed to a crawl and glanced over his shoulder at the first man. He shot the man a terrible look as if angry that he had spoke out of turn and interfered with Lewis's plans.
But, as eyes scanned over the group, comprised of all ages of women and men, and saw their tired faces, his eyes softened slightly and he came to a stop. As the group halted, many people sat on the concrete divider between the traveling lanes, savoring a precious moment of rest that they had not been able to take for the last several hours.
Lewis lowered his eyes as the group stared at him awaiting his decision.
"Alright," he finally said, bobbing his head.
He glanced along the highway. Lewis watched the clouds pass over the moon and glanced from the cars around them to the buildings just off the nearby exit ramp.
He allowed his own tired eyes to adjust to the glowing lights that illuminated the nearly empty parking lot and the food stores within the buildings just beyond the exit.
When he was fairly certain there was no movement from the road, trees, building, or cars and trucks in the lot, he glanced back to the crowd and spoke again.
"We'll rest here then until the morning. Let's go."
The group sighed a wave of relief. They had walked as quickly as they could, trying hard to keep up with Lewis for many long hours.
Carlos had spent his time doing his best to help the others in the group along and cope with their injuries while walking quickly so as not to be left behind.
Fit and trained, the distance and duration was far less noticeable to Lewis's body, however many of the others took their quick break panting and curled over gripping their sides. The promise of rest helped the group find a second wind. They started off at a quick pace down the entrance road.
Twenty miles felt like half the country to Cassandra's feet. She was ready to kick off her shoes and soak in a hot tub with some aromatic bath crystals, shut her eyes, and relax for the next week and a half.
As she walked with the rest of the group up the entrance road, however, her peaceful thoughts of a spa setting were violently ripped from under her eyelids.
Lewis led the group through the parking lot for smaller vehicles, avoiding the few larger eighteen wheelers that could offer a better hiding spot for a lurking creature.
The smaller lot was nearly empty. Only four vehicles were parked neatly between the lines. As Cassandra neared them, she glanced through their windows.
The first car was empty, but its driver's window was smashed. There was almost no glass on the ground outside the vehicle's door. The second car, on the other side of the lot had the back window tinted and she could not see in.
As she stepped into a different light, however, she realized that the window was actually pasted red with dried blood. She could see the street light above shining through spotty holes in the rear window.
She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly turned her head away. As she opened them again, she found herself staring at the other two vehicles as some others in the group made horrified comments while they peeked through the windows.
Both vehicles, parked next to each other, contained the remains of their passengers. One had two adults together in the front seat, the other, a family of five.
Mother and Father seemed to be locked in an eternal state of fear as they both stared into the back seat where their three children were slumped over. Each person in both vehicles had a contorted look of terrible pain and fear etched onto their still faces as they felt the violent last moments of life before the hellish offspring of the face hugger creatures burst from their chest.
The vehicles were scratched up on the outside, deeply gashed as though they had been run over by a large, sharp taloned creature.
Though Cassandra could not imagine, or did not want to imagine, the details of what must have had happened here, she knew enough to hope it was long since over and the hellish monsters were now gone hunting somewhere else.
She felt a rush of security wash over her as she slid into the building with the group, although she was not truly sure why. No building seemed to be able to stop the creatures from penetrating its walls, no matter how secure it may have seemed. However, shelter was shelter, and with it came certain rest, which the group very much needed.
While some of the people made themselves at home in the main dining area, stretching out on booths and tables or setting their feet up on the chairs, Lewis, Carlos, and a small band of brave others, scoured a small perimeter inside, and only returned once assured that there were no threats.
Quietly, the group settled down for their much needed rest.
The warm smell of eggs cooking filled her nostrils before she had even opened her eyes. Cassandra felt as though she had just gone to sleep and now already some of the group was preparing a breakfast feast. She rubbed her eyes and sat up from the bench she slept on and glanced out the window. The sun was up, shining brightly through the windows.
"What time is it?" she asked groggily as she yawned.
"Nine thirty," someone answered.
"Hey, Cassy?" Lewis called to her softly as he walked up to the booth she called home. "How you holding out?"
She smiled, happy that he was once again showing concern for his fellow travelers. "I'm OK, are we going to keep going?"
Lewis nodded.
"Do we have to walk?"
He smiled and sat next to her. "If we can find a vehicle big enough for all of us, we'll drive."
She grimaced, but did understand. Splitting the group up into multiple smaller vehicles would not be a good idea. She hoped they could find a suitable vehicle soon, because she did not want to walk more with a group of frightened people and few weapons either.
"Are there any working trucks here? We could take a truck and trailer." She suggested hopefully.
Lewis and Carlos both shook their heads. "Only trailers."
"How long would it take us to walk to Chicago?"
Lewis sighed, "Well, I was hoping we could travel faster, but at the rate we're going..." His voice drifted off for a moment as he calculated his response. "A week maybe? Ten days…assuming we walk with as little resting as possible. Maybe we'll stop again tonight,"
"Oh Lewis," she cut him off, "we can't walk that far, we'll get killed."
"We have to try. We need to get to that safe zone. It's the only one we know about."
"Well, maybe we should split up and take cars."
"We should stay together," Lewis insisted.
"Why? That's not going to keep us alive, is it? They'll kill us in big group just as quickly as in a small one," she began to cry. "What are these things anyway? This is unbelievable! I just want this to stop! When does this stop? When can we all just go home?"
She sobbed, succumbing to panic and fear that had been welling up inside her since so long ago in New York City. That life seemed so distant now, it was almost like it never even took place. Her life was different then, different now, and nothing seemed that it would ever be the same again. She did now know how much more she could tolerate or survive.
"Alright, calm down Cassandra, just breath deeply and try to relax," Carlos said softly.
"No!" She exclaimed loudly, catching the attention of many people around her. "I can't do this! I cant' live like this! We can't go on like this!"
Lewis and Carlos tried to quiet her down. Those nearby cast her glances but did not offer to help or speak any words of consolement. Their eyes just filled with the reality that all had been trying to ignore. Finally, Cassandra shot off into the restroom and sobbed to herself within a stall.
When she was calmer, she crawled out of the stall and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face was beet red and her eyes were still wet and dripping.
She started the water in the sink and watched it flow down the drain as she reached around to the back of her dirty and torn jeans and pulled out the Baby Eagle Lewis had given her. She set the gun on the counter and evaluated it and herself in the mirror.
She could not find the solace she was looking for in the steel barrel. Just before a small group of women walked into the restroom, Cassandra quickly shoved the gun back into its hiding place and washed her face and hands, grimacing as she walked off without saying a word to women she passed.
The group was ready to leave before eleven in the morning. Lewis stood at the travel stop's doors and waited until all had gathered and they set off once again, returning on their Westerly heading towards Chicago.
They walked for what felt like hours on the silent highway, sometimes seeing a glimmer of a light in a window, or a flicker of a shadow in the distance.
Under-armed, injured, and exhausted, the group did not stop to investigate.
While they did encounter a small group of weary and wary fellow travelers after just a few hours' walking, who joined them on their journey, the group remained on the highway, and pressed on.
Just before nightfall, a highway sign overhead declared that Chicago was still 115 miles away.