Chapter 1 ~ The Beginning

 Jilly sat outside the building, watching. It was what she was good at. She kicked her feet back and forth in the dust making patterns and letters. She wrote a "bad" word with the tip of one shoe then quickly erased it with the tip of the other shoe, giggling and looking over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen her.

 She leaned far to the right, then far to the left, rocking back and forth to see as much as she could, then finally standing on the wall for a better look at the parking lot. Not many cars in this one. Fewer places for bad guys to hide. Of course, there could be someone hiding inside one of the cars, watching her, waiting for her to look the other way so he could shoot her in the back of the head.

 She shifted her rifle off one shoulder to the other, hopped down, and backed up against the parking lot wall. No one was going to shoot HER in the back of the head today.

 Inside the store, which used to be a suburban supermarket and now was nothing but aisles of broken bottles, rotting fruit, and rats rummaging through the remains, her brother Lucas and their friends Rob and Carolyn slowly moved through the mess hoping to find something others had missed.

 Rob dug through the home goods section, stuffing a small tool kit and some WD-40 he found under a broken shelf into his bag. He pushed his shaggy blonde hair out of his light blue eyes as he moved to the next aisle where he came across two bottles of hand sanitizer, one only half full, some unbroken light bulbs which he left behind and then felt like he hit the jackpot when he found a four-pack of partially smashed but still wrapped toilet paper that was buried under some toppled cans of sink cleanser. He kissed it before stuffing it into the backpack.


 Carolyn was looking through the canned goods, sorting any that weren’t too badly dented into her hand basket. Many of them didn’t have labels but food was food and what’s a little Russian food roulette with what they had already been through.

 Lucas was standing near the front window, watching both inside and keeping an eye on Jilly outside. He adjusted his rifle, pulled at his ammo belt, and watched her flatten herself up against the far wall. He moved around the check stand to get a better look to see if anything was coming that he couldn’t see.

 Nope, nothing out there. Just a mostly empty parking lot. Nothing to see here. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

 These outlying areas were dangerous if you didn’t know what you were doing. There weren’t a lot of people running around but the ones that were would shoot you, steal your stuff and leave you to bleed to death in the street.

 They had all been surviving the best they could for the past few weeks. Learning quickly how to be smart and resourceful.
Most of the people who weren't one of the "Immunes" as they called themselves were being held captive inside the city behind a giant invisible "force field" as Rob called it. No one had any idea who was responsible or why they were doing it. But whoever they were didn't seem to care about the people who were outside the barrier and just trying to stay alive.

 Lucas made one final sweep around the perimeter of the store, finding a box of mostly crushed crackers. He stuck it into his backpack figuring crumbs had calories and that’s what they needed if they were going to stay focused and alive.

 Rob and Carolyn gathered their items and all three headed to the door. Jilly saw them coming and carefully scanned the area, giving them an “All Clear” thumbs up.

 They met on the far end of the parking lot, close to the trees to figure out what was next. Lucas brought out his cracker crumbs and passed them around.

 “Yum, Saltine Sawdust” Rob said as he blew crumbs off his hand and watched them settle into the dirt. “Living the high life now.”

 "Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it '' Lucas said as he poured crumbs directly into his mouth, then started choking and gagging as he accidentally inhaled them.

 Carolyn looked at the crackers in her hand. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.” She let them fall unceremoniously to the ground, then blow away in the light breeze.

 “See if I give you guys anymore of my food finds from now on,” Lucas said when he was done coughing.

 Jilly giggled and licked the crumbs off her hand. “I like them.”

 “See, someone appreciates my efforts” Lucas shook some into his hand and carefully poured less into his mouth.

 “An-ee-way,” Rob said, “we’ve got to figure out which direction we are going.”

 “There aren't many choices,” Lucas pointed out. “The city is to the east behind us, according to what we heard the north is overrun by the gangs we are trying to avoid, the south is mostly forest which only leaves us heading west. If the group we're looking for is going to be anywhere I'm guessing it's that direction, further out in the country.”

 ”We haven't seen any directional signs in almost a day,” Rob said, “I'm hoping we haven't taken a wrong turn.”

 “We're not going to figure it out by sitting around here. We should get going before it gets any later.” Carolyn said.

 “We need to find someplace to hole up for the night. We don’t want to be out on the road after the sun goes down.”

 Lucas stood up, brushing the remaining crumbs off his lap, and grabbed his backpack. “Alrighty, who’s taking the lead?”

 Carolyn stretched, ran her fingers through her short dark hair, and hauled herself off the ground.

 “I will. Rob and Jilly can watch the middle and you can take the rear. We’ll trade after a couple of hours.”
“Sounds good to me.”

 The group pulled on their backpacks and headed out toward the setting sun.

 They stayed as close to the side of the road as possible so they wouldn't be easy to hit in case someone was out looking for target practice.

 As they trudged along each of them quietly took stock of the last few weeks.

 When it all started, Rob had been working on the 23rd floor in his downtown office rewriting security protocols for one of the big advertising conglomerates and he was not making the progress he had hoped.




Feeling frustrated, he leaned back, and ran his fingers through his hair. He was staring up at the ceiling when Madge from accounting ran screaming down the hallway. He scowled and pushed a button underneath his desk and his soundproof door swung closed. He was never going to get anything done if people didn't stop fooling around. He knew it was Friday, but there was real work to do, and he didn't want to have to come in this weekend to finish it.
He leaned forward and continued working, staring intently at the computer screen. Just when he felt like he was finally getting somewhere he noticed a commotion through the window on his door. Greg from advertising ran by carrying Stella who looked like she had passed out, slung over his shoulder.
"This is getting ridiculous," he said out loud and got up and flung open the door ready to give these people a piece of his mind but was immediately hit by the sound of air raid sirens and people screaming while they were trying to get out the front door of the office.
"What the hell? What's happening?" he called to Gretchen, the mail clerk who gestured wildly to the large plate glass window down the hall.
He casually strolled over and looked towards the street where people were either running in every direction or standing and pointing towards the sky. He looked up and his legs momentarily buckled under him when he saw an enormous smooth cylindrical object, hovering 100 feet above the window. He grabbed the side of a desk to keep himself from hitting the floor.
He thought he was going to faint (which he had never done before) but the adrenaline kicked in and he bolted towards the lobby.




People were cramming into the elevators pushing and shouting for those already inside to make room. He followed several people into the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time all the way to the bottom. He was breathing so hard when he got there that he started to sink to the floor, but the panicking crowd engulfed him and carried him out the front door and across the entrance plaza. He stumbled to a stop and looked up to see three giant silver ships hovering in the sky directly above him, sunlight glinting off their metal exterior. There were police helicopters buzzing about like tiny flies and the police on the ground had their guns drawn, pointed up at the massive ships. People were running, bumping into him, screaming that the world was ending. He forced himself to look away and bolted towards the parking garage. When he got inside, he could not for the life of him remember where he parked, even though he had been using the same assigned space for more than 2 years. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys and started shoving the button to make the horn blow but he couldn't hear anything over the sirens, so he pushed the red panic button and screamed out loud when his car alarm went off directly behind him. He managed to turn off the alarm, open the car door and get it started.
He backed the car out as quickly as he could, trying to maneuver around the other people searching for their cars. He pulled out into traffic, only to realize most of the cars had been abandoned by their drivers and left empty in the middle of the road. He drove onto the sidewalk, almost taking out a bus stop, maneuvered around as many cars as he could before pulling back onto the street and headed home trying to obey at least some of the traffic rules.




He had given up going the speed limit once he got to his neighborhood and he hit his driveway with such force that the front of the car bounced off the pavement. He ran to the front porch, fumbled with the lock, flung open the door and slammed it as quickly as he could. He leaned against the wall feeling both relieved and safe that he was in his home but also scared to death that some unknown entity had followed him and was just moments from abducting him. He made his way through the house, past the dining room with the fresh cut flowers that he bought the day before, through the kitchen with the dirty dishes still on the counter from breakfast that he had promised himself he would wash after work and headed down into the basement, slamming that door behind him. He scooted a ladder over to one of the windows and climbed up to look outside. A few cars sped by, and he saw his neighbor, Bill Grayson loading his wife and kids into their sedan.
There was suddenly another ridiculously loud siren. A moment later he saw a cloud of thick white gas falling from the sky. He hurriedly closed and locked the window, drew the shade and turned on the old tube TV that used to belong to his dad and fiddled with the antenna until he got a weak signal from one of the local stations. There was a hysterical newscaster with tears running down her face. "Aliens! We've been invaded by ALIENS! Oh my God! Everyone needs to take cover and hide. If you have a gun, get it and be prepared to protect yourself." Suddenly the reporter started talking to people off screen. "Carl, Carl, where are you going? Frank, Stop! You can't leave. We have to stay here and report what's going on. Where are you all going? HEY! What's going on?" The reporter jumped out of her chair, ran off screen and never came back.
He grabbed some plywood out of the corner and nailed it over all the windows. When he was done, he sunk onto the old couch and stared at the wall. He didn't have a gun so if some other worldly thing came after him, he would have to face it in hand-to-hand combat and he was pretty sure he would lose that fight.




"Now what do I do?" he asked himself out loud. And he didn't have an answer. He closed his eyes and tried to do some of the centering techniques like the yoga teacher who came into work once a week and taught relaxation classes. It wasn't working. He got up and paced back and forth. He wondered how long he was going to stay down here then realized he had no food or anything other than tap water and maybe he could last a few days before he passed out from starvation so unless he wanted to die alone in the basement he was going to have to go back upstairs and get supplies.




He quietly and cautiously crept back up the basement stairs, creaked open the door, and peered into the kitchen. He strained to hear anything that might mean an alien was in the house looking for him. When all appeared quiet, he quickly grabbed cardboard boxes off the back patio and filled one with cans and food from the pantry, and the other with stuff from the fridge. He made two trips with the boxes and a third to carry a few gallons of bottled water.




He plugged in the old refrigerator that had been stored down there since he bought the place and piled in the cold items. Now he was good. Until something found him and ate him.
After wedging the door closed with another piece of plywood, he somehow made it through that night, sleeping only fitfully as he woke every hour sure that he heard someone or something breaking in. By morning he was exhausted and told himself a shower might make him feel better. Luckily there was a tiny bathroom with an even tinier shower that was built when the last owners let their adult son live in the basement. After he showered, he realized he didn't have a towel so he wandered around naked until he dried off then put on his old clothes since he couldn't bring himself to go upstairs to get clean underwear.
Back on the couch, he tried calling people he knew but only got "All circuits are busy now, please try your call again later".




He took down one board from the window and stood on the ladder, hoping to see a human or the national guard or anything human but the only thing moving were squirrels raiding the bird feeders and automatic sprinklers watering the lawns.

 Everything was eerily quiet, and he wondered whether or not the neighbors were also hunkered down in their houses too afraid to venture out. He wasn't quite ready to go outside and start knocking on doors, so he carefully re-boarded the window and retreated to the couch and continued trying to get some sort of connection on his phone or laptop. He turned the TV back on, but the local stations were nothing but static. He found one station playing old movies, so he left that on, so he didn't feel so alone. He sat on the couch all day and slept there another night, and by the morning of the third day he was pretty sure this wasn't a bad dream that was going to end.

 He stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, chastising himself for being a coward. He took a deep breath and marched up the stairs, removed the piece of plywood and slowly opened the kitchen door. He crept through the kitchen with the dirty dishes stinking on the sink, past the dining room where the flowers had died and most of the petals were strewn about on the table. He cracked open the front door and checked to make sure no one was waiting on the porch to hit him over the head. When all he heard was the sound of local birds serenading the day, he slowly stepped outside, took a deep breath, and headed carefully down the walk towards the street.

 He gave himself a pep talk, praising his bravery even though his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his head and his legs shook with each step. He made it all the way to the front pavement where the neighbor's little girl had drawn a hopscotch game next to his driveway.

 He looked around. Absolutely nothing seemed out of place. Except that George Fisher's lawn was looking a bit overgrown, which had never happened in the four years he had lived there. His car was still sitting in the driveway. He patted his pockets and realized he left the keys down in the basement. He was worried that if he went back inside, he might never come back out again, but he also worried that if he didn't go back inside, he'd have to travel wherever he ended up going on foot and he knew that was never going to happen.

 So reluctantly he retraced his footsteps to the porch, through the hall, past the dining room, through the kitchen, and down to the basement. After a few panicked minutes of not being able to find the "damn keys", he located them between the couch cushions.

 He wound his way back up the stairs, through the house and back out to the car. Cleansing breath in. Cleansing breath out. Then a pep talk out loud telling himself he wasn't a coward and he could do this. But also silently wondering how bad it would be to just live out the rest of his days alone in his basement.

 He pushed started the ignition, hoping it didn't blow up because of course, the aliens would single out his car to sabotage. The engine roared to life and he was momentarily disappointed it meant he couldn't use the excuse of a dead battery to go back inside.

 He carefully backed out of the driveway, making sure no one was coming, and began driving towards the city. He stopped at each stop sign, looked both ways, and continued on. No cars or people anywhere. A few miles down the road he passed the local church where his grandmother used to go. He remembered going with her a few times when he was very young and sitting on a hard wooden pew while the priest droned on about what would happen to you in the afterlife if you didn't behave and follow the rules. "God is above us looking down and he is always watching you" he practically yelled from the pulpit holding the bible above his head and pointing to all the parishioners who were sitting in terror of being sent to Hell. And Rob wondered if that priest was alive today what he would think about something or someone other than God watching you from the sky. But all that aside, maybe the church was a place people who felt lost or scared would go, so it seemed like a good place to start looking for others.

 He drove around the back and pulled into a parking place next to the back door. He looked around before getting out then sprinted into the courtyard, passed the wrought iron gates and the planters filled with tropical plants and small palm trees and was relieved to find the door opened as soon as he pulled the handle. Inside was a long dark hallway with a few patches of sunlight streaming in from the windows of the offices that had their doors left open.

 “Hello?” he whispered. Silence. He cleared his throat and tried a little louder.

 “Hello? Is anybody here?” More silence. He drew himself up and started walking down the hallway. Peeking into each office as he passed. Empty. Empty. Empty. At the end of the hall, he turned right and kept going. He strained to hear something, anything at all that might give him a clue that someone else was alive. The only sound was his footsteps on the dark red carpet. And the loud throbbing of his heart in his ears. At the end of this hallway was a door that when he tried it, appeared locked. He gave it a shake and he heard something fall with a thud on the other side. He froze, the doorknob in his hand, and fought with himself to go ahead and pull it open. He heard something move inside.
“It's nothing, you're just imagining things,” he told himself. Then something moved again. He let go of the handle and started to back away deciding he wasn't really interested in dying today but before he could turn and run the door burst open and a shapeless monster covered in red silk fabric flew at him screaming and flailing. He fell backwards, covered his face, and waited to be eaten. The monster landed on top of him, hitting him in the face, kicking him in all the places you don't want to be kicked, and continued to screech at the top of its lungs. It rolled off of him, still covered in the long flowing fabric, and tried to get up and run away, but instead tripped over the loose ends and rolled down the hallway in a crimson blur.

 Rob peeked out from behind his hands and watched as the monster continued to roll and scream and fight with itself. The longer he watched, the more he realized it wasn't a monster at all and the relief was so great he started laughing. And he laughed so hard that the rolling mass of red fabric stopped struggling, sat up and pulled the covering this way and that until the head of a teenage girl with wavy auburn hair emerged staring at him, scowling and angry.

 “What are you laughing at?” she demanded.

 “Well, you mostly, but also me because I was pretty sure you were going to kill me.”

 She stood up and stamped her feet to shake the rest of the fabric off her. “I could have you know. Killed you I mean. I just didn't want to take the time.”

 “Oh yes, I totally understand. I guess I'm lucky then.”

 “You damn straight” she turned and marched off down the hall.

 “Wait, where are you going?”

 “None of your business”

 “OK, yes, that's true but can you at least tell me if you know where everyone has gone? I haven't seen anyone in days.”

 “Where have you been, hiding underground?”
He winced slightly since yes, actually that was exactly what he had been doing.




“It's none of your business where I've been. Do you or don't you know where everyone is?”

 She stared at him trying to decide if he was being honest or maybe he was just stupid.

 “Those things appeared in the sky last week. Do you at least remember that?”

 “Yes, I remember quite clearly. I was right under one of them. But after that, What happened? Who or what was inside of them?”

 Her scowl at him deepened, deciding maybe he really was just as stupid as he was sounding.

 “I don't know. No one knows. My brother and I were at the high school when that happened and most of us ran into the gym in case whatever it was started shooting at us. We were all so scared and a lot of people were crying, even some of the guys. There was a horrible loud siren that went off and all of a sudden someone started yelling that there was a cloud of white gas coming from spaceships. It came down really fast and covered everything and it even came into the gym through the doors. Even the doors that were closed. It smelled terrible. I've never smelled anything like it before. People were coughing and some people threw up. It was really gross.

 As it started to clear almost everyone in the gym had fallen down and were just laying there. But not me and Lucas. We were just standing there with our eyes watering and our noses running staring at everyone on the ground. There was another guy all the way over by the door and he was still standing too.

 And then all of sudden there was this high pitched whine like feedback from a speaker and everyone got up. They just stood up and started walking. They went out of the gym and towards the street. We tried to talk to them. I grabbed my friend Jenny who had been with us but she didn't even look at me. She just kept walking.

 Lucas and I followed them outside totally freaking out. So did the other guy who hadn't fallen down. He started yelling and waving his arms and running through the crowd of zombie people shoving them out of his way.

 That's when a giant blast of light came down from the sky and hit him and he fell to the ground.

 Lucas grabbed me and pulled me up to him and whispered really loud to be totally quiet. Like he actually had to say that. I wasn't going to say anything else because I didn't want to get zapped by whatever that was.”

 Rob just stared at her waiting to hear the rest of the story.

 “So we just started walking with the group. Pretending to be like them. We walked for miles. It looked like we were heading downtown but I don't really know because I'm not really good at directions but I could see the big buildings in the distance. As we were walking every so often we saw other people who weren't zombies. They were just standing sometimes on the side of the road, sometimes right in the middle of the road with the zombie people just walking right past them. Most of them were just frozen not knowing what to do.”

 “Where were they all going? Where did you end up?”

 “I don't know where they were going because after a while Lucas and I got tired and we were so scared that we ducked into a park and hid in the trees. We watched as the zombie people just kept coming and coming for what seemed like hours. I thought they'd never end. But eventually, the crowd got thinner and thinner, then there were just a few stragglers and by nighttime, they stopped. We never knew where they ended up. Since then we've seen a handful of people like us who weren't zombies. They all run away when they see us. We've just been hiding and looking for food for the past few days. We can't go into any of the markets because there are bad guys with guns out in front. We came in here because it looked empty and Lucas went to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. What have you been doing and how come you didn't know about the zombie people?

 Rob didn't really want to admit he had been too afraid to come out from underground until now but the reality was that he was still afraid and no amount of making up a different story was going to change that.

 “I was at home. In the basement. Until today. I couldn't hear or see anything going on outside.” There he said it.

 “Well, the gas should have gotten into every place. You should have smelled it at least.”

 “I did see it coming but I closed and boarded up the window before it got to the ground. I didn't know what it was. Listen, I'm sorry I laughed at you. You just scared the crap out of me. My name's Rob by the way.”

 He reached out to shake her hand just as Lucas rounded the corner. He obviously thought Rob was reaching out to grab her because he raced down the hall, waving what appeared to be a large stick yelling “GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

 Rob recoiled, covered his head, and dropped to the floor. Jilly screamed and began waving her hands as Lucas barreled towards them.

 “STOP STOP STOP” Jilly hollered and tackled her brother just as he reached them. They both fell into a heap next to Rob who by this time was wondering how his life had turned into a series of him diving onto the floor to save himself.

 Lucas shoved Jilly off of him, jumped up, and lifted his stick above his head. His chest heaving in and out and looking back and forth from his sister to the cowering man on the floor. Rob looked at him, hands up in surrender when he suddenly started to giggle. Which then turned into a full-blown laugh.

 “What the hell are you laughing at, man?” Lucas demanded.

 “You're trying to beat me up with a loaf of bread,” Rob managed to get out.

 Lucas looked up at his weapon and realized it was indeed just a large loaf of Italian bread he had come across in the kitchen. He lowered it down still glaring at Rob.

 “What the Hell are you doing to my sister?”

 “Well at the exact moment you charged in I was introducing myself.” Rob pulled up his knees and pushed himself off the floor. He extended his hand. “I'm Rob.”

 Jilly shoved past Lucas and shook his hand. “I'm Jilly and this dumbbell is my brother Lucas.”

 “Pleased to meet you, Jilly.” Then he looked at Lucas who reluctantly took his hand and gave it a shake.

 "Rob was hiding in his basement when the gas attack happened. He seems really nice. Isn't it great to find someone else who will talk to us? Should we let him come with us and maybe we can figure out where all the people went. It would be better to have another person with us, you know in case a bad guy tried something. There's strength in numbers, didn't you always tell me that?”

 Lucas put up his hand. “Slow down girl. My head is spinning.” He looked over at Rob. “She gets a little overly enthusiastic sometimes.”

 “That's OK. You both are the first people I've seen since this all started. As she said, I've been in my basement, um, hiding. I finally realized I couldn't stay there forever so I came looking for answers. Not really sure I wanted them. I'm just glad I found you first and not some bad guys with guns. The analytical side of my brain still doesn't believe any of this.”

 “Neither do I. Even though I saw it, my mind can't wrap itself around it.” He looked at the bread still in his and laughed a little. “Sorry about this... We're all on edge.”

 “That's OK. If I thought someone was trying to attack my sister I'd do the same thing.”

 “So” Jilly was getting impatient. “Are you going to come with us?”

 “I guess if you'll have me,” Rob said

 “You're welcome to join us,” Lucas said, “Though to be honest I have no idea where we're going or what we should be doing.”

 “That'll make all three of us,” Rob laughed. “Do you guys have a car?”

 “No, do you?”

 “Yes. At least we can go faster than the people walking.”

 “Unless the people who are walking have guns” Jilly helpfully pointed out. “The bullets can go faster than the car.”

 Lucas whacked her on the shoulder "Not helpful!"

Chapter 2 ~ Carolyn & Frankie

After the group left the church, they piled into Rob's car and started driving. Block after block and no sign of anyone for miles. They made a right turn to cut through a small business district outside of downtown when suddenly the car ran headlong into something causing all three of them to be thrown against their seat belts and all the loose items on the seats went flying in every direction. When they got out to survey the damage there wasn't a dent or a mark on the car anywhere. When Lucas tried to walk around the front end, he walked headlong into an invisible barrier. He stood rubbing his forehead staring at something that wasn't there.
"What's going on?" Rob asked, walking towards Lucas with his hand outstretched so he wouldnt run into something he couldn’t see.
"Look! Jilly said suddenly, pointing into the distance.
Looking more closely,  they could see dozens of people casually walking around the streets, talking to each other, eating at an outdoor cafe. Going about their business like nothing was out of the ordinary. A couple of the people saw them and waved happily. One beckoned for them to come in.

That was all it took for the tall three to scramble back into the car, back up and, tires screeching, get out of there as quickly as possible. It was quite a while until they felt safe enough to pull over and let their breathing and heart rate slow down.
"What the hell is going on?" Lucas asked. "That was the creepiest thing I have ever seen."

"Everybody looked really friendly," Jilly pointed out.

"Not friendly like I want to go have dinner with them" Rob said.

After they gathered their wits, they started driving again, very slowly this time, every so often turning down a street that led towards the city only to be met with the same invisible wall. It took a few hours but they were able to figure out that the wall was over 20 miles wide and wrapped all the way around downtown. And inside were all the other people, happily living their lives.

They noticed small flying crafts, definitely not from earth coming and going throughout the day. They would appear high up above the clouds, swoop down, and land somewhere too far away to see, then later they would take off and fly straight up until they disappeared.
 
"I wonder if there is no top on this thing or if the ships can somehow move through it?" Rob wondered out loud.
"I'm not sure I want to know" Lucas answered

They finally turned away from the city center and headed back to the suburbs where they felt safer trying to figure out what to do.

They saw handfuls of people still on the outside like them but when they tried to flag them down or talk to them they all hid or ran away. Most stores had been thoroughly looted of food and supplies so they were having to get creative looking for basic needs.

Rob's car had run out of gas and over the next ten days they had found two others who had keys left in the ignition but each of those had also run out of fuel and they were currently traveling on foot.
 
They had come upon a gas station that surprisingly still had some water bottles behind the counter water bottles as well as a few boxes of bagged chips. While they were loading them into their backpacks Lucas saw a woman in the back parking lot dressed in black leather pants and matching jacket trying to start a motorcycle. She was fussing and swearing as she hopped up and down on the pedal. They had gotten into the habit of hiding from anyone out in the open but with the way she was dancing around and yelling she didn't look particularly threatening.

When she finally noticed them staring at her,  she stopped, stared back, and asked “Can I help you?”

 “I think maybe the question is, can we help you?” Lucas said, walking towards her.

 “Do I look like I need help?”

 “Well actually now that you mention it...”

 “Of course not, you look like you can do anything” Jilly cut in, scooting past her brother.

 “Thank you,” Carolyn said.

  “Out of gas?” Lucas asked.

 “No. My gauge shows half a tank. It started sputtering on the highway and then it just stalled as I pulled in.” Lucas came up to the bike, hunkered down, and started moving wires around. “Looks like a rock must have flown up and cracked the distributor cap. Nothing's gonna fix that.”

 “Well shit.” She got off the bike, yanked the helmet off her head, and tossed it on the ground running her hands in frustration through her short dark hair.

 “That's been my mantra for the past few weeks,” Rob said.

 “Yeah, mine too. Repeatedly,” she said. “I'm Carolyn by the way. I'm guessing since you haven't pulled a gun on me or tried to steal what I don't have by this point, you're not going to.”

 “Yeah we're cool,” Jilly said.

 “Well some of us try to be but aren't successful,” Rob said.

Jilly giggled. “You are very cool, Rob”

 “Well it's nice I can fool some of the people some of the time. As she said, I'm Rob and the wannabe mechanic is Lucas and the deluded one is his sister Jilly.” he extended his hand and Carolyn shook it.

 "It's good to meet you. Are there any more in your group?”

 “Nope, just us,” Lucas said, standing up and brushing off his pants then offered his hand in greeting. “We've been pretty selective about who we talk to.”

 “Should I be flattered then?” Carolyn asked, raising an eyebrow as she shook his hand.

 “Probably,” Lucas laughed. “But seriously, where are you headed?”

 “Trying to see if I can get back to my air base. I'm a pilot out of Ludlow, and I was away on leave when this all happened. I figured I would see if the military is still up and running.”

 “My best friend is over at Ludlow. He's a computer programmer for their security systems.” Rob said

"Not sure what I'm going to find but I'm completely at a loss of what I should be doing. At least it's something to do. Where are you all headed?”

 “We're just trying to survive. And figure out what in the hell is going on. We've got zippo answers to a million questions.”

 “Yeah, I hear ya.”

 “Do you want to go together?” Jilly piped in. She was fast becoming the group human resource director.

Carolyn looked from Rob to Lucas. They both nodded. "You are welcome to join us."

  “Well the more the merrier I guess. So what are we driving?” she asked

Lucas looked a little embarrassed. “Currently nothing, but we're looking and hopeful.”

Carolyn looked around. “Have you checked all the cars in the parking lot?”

 “I've looked in all the windows and can't find any with keys that are obvious,” Jilly said.

  “Well, there's always hot wiring something.” Carolyn winked at Jilly.

  “Can you do that?” Jilly asked, obviously impressed “We can't do that!”

 “Well it's not exactly legal” Lucas interrupted “It's not something you learn in school.”

 “Don't feel bad,” Carolyn said. “I had 3 older brothers who weren't always on the straight and narrow when they were young so you end up picking up stuff like that, whether you want to or not. So let's take a look and see what we got going on in the parking lot.”

 “I'll show you, come on” Jilly headed out behind the gas station where at least half a dozen cars were parked by a strip mall.

Carolyn walked around checking each one out. As she tried each door to see if any of them opened she remembered growing up and tagging along with her oldest brother Steve who made a living repossessing cars for the local used car lot not too far from where they lived. He would scope out the house where the person lived and figure out their schedule. He would wait until they got home after work and had a few beers, maybe fell asleep in front of the TV before he'd get to work. He brought Carolyn along to be a lookout (after all who would think twice about an 8-year-old girl hanging out on the sidewalk) and while she was watching to make sure no in the house noticed, he'd use a slimjim to unlock the door and perform his magic under the dash and be gone long before the owner even knew the car was missing. She smiled at the memories because not only did she feel useful but it gave her a rush of adrenaline that probably fueled her desire to become a pilot. Finally one of the car doors opened. An older 4 door sedan. Perfect.
 
 “Let's see what I can do with this one.” She leaned down and sort of crawled under the dash, pulling at the plastic panels then sorting through the wires. There was some mumbling and fussing, more pulling and yanking, a brief spat of swearing and suddenly the car started to turn over. Once twice, then it roared to life.

 “WOW,” Jilly exclaimed. “WOW WOW, you are SO cool!”
 
 “Well, there goes my cool status” Rob sighed.

 “That's fantastic,” Lucas said. “We are so lucky to have found you.”

  “Of course you are,” Carolyn laughed. “Now let's get rolling.”

They gathered their backpacks, the water they had found and filled the trunk with chips, and, letting Carolyn drive since she was the one that got the car running, they headed towards the airbase in hopes of getting some answers.

And that was almost a month ago. The airbase was abandoned and locked up tight. So they moved on from there and even though they had learned quite a bit since then there were still so many unanswered questions. They had seen several flyers tacked up here and there saying that there was a group of other "immune" people gathering outside the city. There was a large red arrow pointing west and the group of four had been looking for and following as many of the signs as they could find, hoping they would eventually meet up with them. “Strength in Numbers” Jilly kept reminding the crew.

They had reluctantly armed themselves with guns after getting ambushed by two men with rifles who tried to steal their supplies. They only got away because Rob tripped over a log while he was backing up with his hands in the air, which knocked over the table they were eating on, which in turn knocked over the grill they were cooking on which made such a loud noise that a flock of birds in the overhead trees took off, momentarily startling the robbers long enough for Carolyn to scoop hot coals off the ground with a bucket and toss it at them. They used the distraction to escape to the car and high-tail it out of there before either of the gun-toting lunatics could get off a shot.

 After a fair amount of searching they had found some basic rifles in the storeroom of a sporting goods store. Everything was pretty much gone from the display area but there were several useful items still hidden in the back. They found a small stash of ammo too. Even though they weren't sure any of them could actually shoot anybody if it came right down to it.

Carolyn was the only one who knew how to load and operate the guns because of her military training. So she gave each one of them a crash course and hoped what she was teaching them would never be necessary.

And now here they were, traipsing to who knew where, car-less once again and each wondering what would become of them.

The group veered off into a neighborhood to select a house to spend the night in. They chose one a few blocks in so if anyone was heading down the main highway they wouldn't see the lights on. It was a larger two-story halfway down the block that had the back door unlocked. Everyone trudged in, threw their backpacks on the sofa, stashed their guns safely within reach in case they needed them later, and raided the kitchen. It looked like the pantry had been gone through at least once before and there wasn't a lot to pick from. Carolyn volunteered to check out next door and went out the back and over the low hedge separating the houses.

This neighborhood still had lights and running water which meant someone somewhere was looking after the utilities. And it also meant everyone could take a shower. Lucas grumpily pointed out though that there was no shampoo or toilet paper. Rob came to the rescue by pulling the partially smashed toilet paper out of his backpack. Lucas did a small happy dance as he hurried back to the bathroom. Jilly rummaged around the kitchen and came across some dish detergent and noted that if you didn't get it into your eyes it would work as hair and body wash. Rob wasn't so sure he wanted to smell like lemons but figured it might be better than nothing.

Carolyn returned through the back door carrying several bags. “Looks like no one went through the neighbors' house very well,” she said. "We've got boxes of unopened crackers and cereal, a dozen or so canned goods, and a box of cookies.

 “Dibs on the cookies” Jilly called out. Carolyn dug in the bag and tossed some Oreos to her. “Good luck on them not being stale.”
 
  “Here's to hoping.”

Carolyn handed out the crackers, lined up the cereal boxes and the cans on the counter and brought out a can opener. “Dinner is served.”

They shared ravioli, chicken soup, tuna, Cocoa Krispies, and Cheerios. Jilly shared the cookies for the dessert. Then everyone took a shower, stretched out in a different bed or on the couch, and slept until first light.

In the morning Jilly and Rob finished up the dry cereal and Carolyn and Lucas had leftover crackers and washed it all down with bottled water. As they gathered up their belongings they talked about which direction would be the most likely to find the group of Immunes they had been following. West towards more open space seemed like the best bet so they headed out and started looking for a car. None of the cars parked on the street were candidates for hot-wiring because they were too new and they had theft prevention mechanisms that killed the starter if someone tried to turn the ignition without the key. And it was hard to figure out which houses might have a car parked in the garage with accompanying keys in the house. They had spent the better part of a day earlier in the week going through a neighborhood trying to find something and came up empty which was why they were currently walking. They wound their way through the empty neighborhood streets until they found an old blue pickup truck from the early '70s parked in a driveway. With a requisite amount of fussing under the dash, Carolyn got it running and they were on their way in style once again. With the added perk that it had a full tank of gas.

Back on the highway with the city disappearing behind them, they each scanned the side of the roads for any sign or indication that the Immunes had come this way. They drove west for miles passing empty parking lots in front of businesses until they became fewer and farther between and all there were were fields with overgrown unharvested crops. They were just starting to wonder if perhaps they should turn around and retrace their route when they came across a wooden hand-painted sign nailed to a tree with a large red arrow in the style they had been following, pointing down a narrow dirt road. They came to a stop and stared at it before Lucas finally asked “Should we follow it?”

 “We've come this far and at this point what do we have to lose?” Carolyn said.

 “I vote we go” Jilly called out from the back of the truck.

Rob wasn't so sure but knew he was outnumbered so he nodded his head reluctantly and said “Might as well.”

Carolyn turned the wheel and slowly began making her way down the deeply rutted and overgrown road. The sun filtered through the trees and you could see dust hovering in the air. It reminded her of running barefoot with brothers out behind their house down to the creek where they would fish for crawdads and she would search for polliwogs that she brought home in a glass jar. Her mother made her keep them out on the back porch in an old aquarium where she would watch them slowly turn into tiny little frogs that would crawl out onto the rocks as they got their legs and then hop to the top of their glass enclosure and hop away. She wished for the simplicity of those days again.
 
 In the back of the truck, Jilly and Rob ducked and scooted back and forth to avoid being hit by passing branches. “This can't be right,” Rob called out.
 
 Just as Carolyn was slowing down and looking for a place to turn around, two large armed men stepped out from behind some bushes in front of them and pointed their guns into the cab of the truck. Carolyn slammed on the brakes and both Jilly and Rob did somersaults in the back of the cab.

Carolyn and Lucas put their hands up while the two in the back worked on righting themselves.

 “What can we do for you?” The biggest man asked. He was bald with light brown skin, very tall,  and was wearing military fatigues under a bulletproof vest.

Jilly managed to stand up and start talking before anyone could think of anything to say. “I'm Jilly, this is Rob” Rob smiled painfully as he continued to try to extricate himself from under all the backpacks and sleeping bags that had landed on top of him “And upfront that's Carolyn and my brother Lucas. We've been following your signs.”

The man raised an eyebrow at her, “Is that so?"
 
 "It's exactly so," she said back, looking him straight in the eye.
 
 "Do you have weapons?” the man asked.

 “Yes,” said Carolyn rolling down the window. “It would be foolish not to.” She got out of the truck and the man moved the gun to point directly at her. “I'd stay put for the moment, little lady”.

Carolyn stopped and put her hands back up in the air. “I'm good. We're all good. The guns are in the truck. We're just looking for others like us who didn't get affected by the gas.”

The man walked towards the truck and looked into the cab, then into the bed all the while keeping his gun pointed at Carolyn. “If you want to continue further, you'll have to leave any weapons outside until Franklin meets you. No exceptions.”
 
"Who's Franklin?" Jilly asked

"That's the person in charge. The one who decides who can stay."

The group looked at each other. “What do you think?” Lucas asked, leaning over from inside the cab. Carolyn looked at each of the men with guns. “I'm not sure. I don't think it's a smart idea for all of us to go in. We shouldn't be completely helpless. We have no idea what's in there.”

Rob finally got himself upright and just sat there wondering if this was the end of the line. For all they knew these people were the same sort of bad guys they had been trying to avoid.

Lucas and Carolyn continued whispering. Finally, Carolyn looked up and asked “Is it OK if only two of us go in? You understand we don't want to be totally stripped of our protection.”

The one big guy looked at the other big guy who nodded once. He turned back to Carolyn “Yes that will be fine, but the two who don't go in need to stay here. They can't leave.”

 “Alright, sounds fair,” Carolyn said. “Rob, you come with me, Lucas and Jilly, you both stay here and watch our stuff and call me if there's anything that doesn't seem right.” She grabbed the walkie-talkies they had found weeks ago at the sporting goods store and tossed one to Lucas, stuffed one in her backpack, and headed down the path.

 Rob sat rooted in place. “Wait, Me? Why me? Are you sure you don't want Lucas to go? Or Jilly? She is a great talker. Really friendly. Everyone loves her. Wait. Carolyn!”

The big man with the gun motioned for the other man with the gun to stay put and started off down the path with Carolyn hurrying along behind him. She raised her hand above her head and waved it forward. “Come on Rob. Let's get moving, don't get lost.”

Rob reluctantly hopped out of the truck bed and hurried after her. “Carolyn, Carrie... Wait. I'm not sure I'm the best one for this. Oh lord.”

Carolyn had already rounded the bend and disappeared out of sight so he had no choice but to keep moving and try to keep up.

 After what seemed to be at least half a mile, a small complex of buildings came into sight. It was surrounded by a high chain-link fence with barbed wire on top. There were two more guards with guns stationed at the front gate who greeted them with a nod and let them through.

 “What are you guarding, Fort Knox?” Carolyn joked.

 The man glanced back at her but didn't say anything.

 “I like the big silent type,” she said fake whispered to Rob who had caught up with them and was trotting alongside her huffing and puffing with the effort.

 “If I had known my future life was going to require so much exercise I would have gone to the gym more,” he managed to say through gasping breaths.

 “You're doing a great job. Just keep your eyes open and be ready to run if we have to.” Carolyn said in a real whisper this time.

 “If we have to run, I suggest you go for it and save yourself. I'll create a distraction by falling down so they can trip on me as they try to go after you. Tell Lucas and Jilly I said goodbye and it was nice to know them.”

 “Oh, hush. You'll be fine. Adrenaline will kick in and you'll probably outrun me.”

 “I think you don't know what you're talking about.”

The group reached the front door where the man with the gun stopped and punched in a code on a keypad. The door clicked open and they went inside to a small room with another code entry door. He punched in another code and the next door clicked open.

 The three walked inside where it was pleasantly cool and they could hear people talking down the hallway. Carolyn could tell that this was an old military base, probably decommissioned only a few years ago because it still looked in generally good shape. When they got to the last door, the big guy stopped and motioned for Carolyn and Rob to go inside.

The office was basic, a large window, some filing cabinets with a happy looking spider plant hanging off one side, an older wooden desk with papers scattered all over the top, and a middle-aged lady sitting behind it writing something on a yellow legal pad. She looked up, smiled, stood up, and thrust her hand forward. She had graying hair, pulled back in a bun, and was wearing a military uniform.

 “Hello, Hello, and welcome! I'm Franklin Owens. Yes I know I don't look like a Franklin but I always joke that my dad wanted a boy. Everyone calls me Frankie. It's always such a pleasure to have new people here. There's strength in numbers you know.”

 “I'm Carolyn and this is Rob and we have another member of our group who says the same thing all the time.”

 “Ah, a kindred soul. I like it, I like it” She shooed the big guy out of the room “ I hope George didn't scare you too much. I just need big muscle to keep the people out of here who only want to steal or cause trouble. He's really a giant pussycat. Wouldn't hurt a soul. So tell me about yourselves” She sat back down and motioned to the chairs across the desk from her.

They both sat.“I'm Major Carolyn Beckett, Air Force pilot. I was on leave when this all happened. I met up with my group a few weeks back and we're just trying to get some answers and figure out where to go from there.”

 “I knew you looked military from the moment I saw you. The way you carried yourself. Wonderful to meet you. I'm a retired Colonel, US Army.”

 “Wonderful to make your acquaintance, Ma'am,” Carolyn said.

 “Likewise,” Rob said. “I'm Rob... I'm just a computer programmer, nothing as fancy as Carolyn. And we've got two more in our group. Brother and sister. Lucas and Jilly. Both students. They're waiting out with the truck.”

  “Computer programmer, Oh wonderful wonderful. We're trying to get some of these old computers up and running and no one around here seems to know what's what so maybe you can give us a hand.”

 “Oh, of course, anything I can do. So what are you all doing here?”

 “Well,” Frankie said, “we're trying to understand what exactly is happening in the world. Who are in the ships, what they did to everyone, why some of us weren't affected by the gas, what the people who were affected are doing in the city, why there is a force field (for lack of a better word) around the city and what it means for our future.”

 “Well that about covers all of our questions,” Carolyn said. “Have you learned anything useful yet?”

 “We know very little about whoever or whatever was in the ships. The gas that they pumped from the ship seems to be some sort of neurotoxin that caused everyone to go into a catatonic state then had an added effect of making everyone compelled to migrate to a central location which appears to be the entire downtown area which has been cut off from the rest of the city by something we have yet to understand. And even though electricity and water are still running, all cell networks and landlines are down. But we have been able to get in contact with other places like us via radio and it appears it is the same all over the world. We don't know why the gas didn't affect a small percentage of the population but the best guess at this point is some sort of genetic component because we are seeing a high number of family members among the unaffected.”

 “We've been calling them the Immune” Carolyn told her.

 “Yes that would be a correct description, it would seem like we are all immune to whatever it was. And as to the "why" behind this whole thing, we don't have a clue. We're trying to coordinate findings with other groups around the world but most of them are as stymied as we are.”

 “What are your plans moving forward?” Carolyn asked.

 “Well, we are trying to send people to the city to see if they can get any answers but we've sent 5 groups so far and as of yet there's been no luck penetrating the field. Currently, we've run out of people willing to go.”

 “We volunteer to give it a try. We've got a smart group and I know none of us want to sit around waiting for the sky to open up again and drop something on us that we are not immune to.”

 “Wait, what?" Rob couldn't get the words out fast enough. "Who doesn't want to sit around? I'm not sure that's exactly accurate. Shouldn't we check with Lucas and Jilly first before volunteering them?”

  “Well we certainly aren't asking anyone to do anything when there is no guarantee of safety, but if your group thinks it might be able to do what no one else has, we can give you some supplies and all the info that we have so far. We can use all the help we can get.”

 “Fantastic!” Carolyn exclaimed. “I want answers and I can't sit around and wait.”

 “We'll bring the rest of your group in and you can rest up for the night and then head out first thing in the morning. And then in the meantime, Rob, maybe you can look at our computer systems to see if you can get them working better.”

 “Sure,” Rob said dejectedly. “Why not. I'll be as helpful as possible while I'm still alive.”

 “Great to hear, really proud of you son. I'll have George show you to our computer room” Frankie stood up, rounded the desk, and opened the door. George was still standing there like an obedient puppy. “George, take the little lady out to her friends, let them all come in, and on your way drop Rob here off at the computer room so he can get a look at what we've got going on.”

Carolyn hopped up and headed out the door. She punched George in the arm. “Look at you, you've got a name and everything.” George scowled at her and turned and headed down the hallway.
 
 “Follow me” he grunted.

 “Come on Rob” she called, disappearing around the corner.

Reluctantly Rob pulled himself out of the chair. He smiled halfheartedly at Frankie as he left the room. “Thank you, ma'am. I hope I can help.”'

 “I know you can son. I can see it in your eyes. You're going to be an asset to us all.”

Rob hurried down the hall trying to catch up to George and Carolyn. He felt like he spent the better part of his day hurrying after other people. They wound through the complex until they got to a room with glass walls that was filled with computers and a handful of people sitting around staring at screens and typing away. George motioned to the room.

 “In here for computers.” And he kept walking without looking back.

Rob stopped at the door and watched the group, none of whom looked happy. “Um, hello. Um, Frankie sent me to help” he said as he entered the room.

Every person in the room practically jumped out of their seats. “Oh sorry, sorry, didn't mean to scare you." he stammered "I'm Rob. Computer programmer by trade. Frankie thought maybe I could help out in here.”

A small balding man with glasses stood up from the closest computer extending his hand “I'm Ethan. And thank goodness someone who knows something. Frankie sent us here because we work with computers but none of us actually know how to do more than type and use whatever program our jobs required. We are all totally out of our depth. Maybe now we can get something done. And by way of introduction, this is my brother Kyle and those two over there are Sylvia and Pat.”

 Kyle stood up and hurried forward offering his hand and tripping on the edge of a rolling desk chair sending it skating across the room.
"Oops" He laughed "Good to meet you, Rob." He was small and wore glasses like Ethan but had a full head of bright red hair. Rob shook his hand. "Likewise," he said.
 
 Sylvia was in her mid-thirties, about 5 inches shorter than Rob with dark skin and striking green eyes. She had her hair pulled into 2 puffy ponytails on the side of her head. Rob couldn't help noticing what a beautiful smile she had as she came up and shook his hand. Her hand was soft and warm and Rob felt his insides go a little woozy. He had to pull his gaze away when Pat came up and slapped him on the shoulder. "Hey there buddy!" Pat was tall, almost as tall as Rob and of indeterminate gender. The name didn't help either. Rob staggered a bit from the friendly gesture and offered his hand. "Nope, don't do handshakes," Pat said laughing. "Not my thing" and thrust a fist at Rob who stared at it for a moment before he figured out that he was supposed to put his fist up as well and touch them together. "That's my boy" Pat exclaimed, drawing the fist back after the bump while simultaneously waggling fingers in the air then headed back to his or her seat.
 

Rob took a deep breath. Maybe he could actually accomplish something useful here. “So what are we trying to do?” he asked, sitting down at the closest computer. Ethan pulled up a chair next to him. “We've been talking to other people over ham radios but it would be so much easier to communicate and send information to them over the internet which still seems to be up and running in a limited fashion. But none of us know how to connect to other people that are outside the city. So until we can do that we are going through all the old government files that we can access from here to see if there is any information that might give us a clue to what's happening. But most of the files are password protected and none of us know how to get around that either. Maybe you can help us.”

 “Well alrighty then,” Rob said, adjusting his keyboard. “If I can access my office computer, assuming it's still running, then I can probably figure out how to find the other people as well as breaking into protected files.” The others gathered around and watched in awe as Rob began typing away. Rob smiled to himself feeling more relaxed and in his element than he had in quite a while.

 George strode quickly down the hall with Carolyn trying to keep up behind him. “My legs have to take twice as many steps as yours to keep up with you, ya know.”
  “Yep”
  “You could slow down a bit”
  “Yep”
 “But I'm guessing you're not going to”
 “Yep”
 “Lovely”

They looped all the way around the inside of the building until they were back to where they started. George opened the back door and waved towards the gate where Lucas and Jilly were still waiting, sitting on the hood of the truck. The other guard was leaning against the trees and waved back, stood up, and motioned at Lucas and Jilly to follow him.

 “I guess you talked them into letting us stay?” Jilly asked when they got to the building.
 “Well yes but even better than that” Carolyn said, “I'll tell you all about it inside”

They all followed George the opposite way down the hall until they got to a large open area with couches, TVs, and tables. “This is the rec area and down the hall are bedrooms on each side and a bathroom further down from there. There are food rations in the kitchen area. Make yourself at home. Frankie will be out shortly. The other residents are all in the conference room.” He turned and left too fast for anyone to ask any questions.

 “That was more words all at one time then he said the whole afternoon,” Carolyn noted.

 “So what's up? What are they doing here?” Lucas asked.

 “The lady who runs the place is former military. She's trying to organize fact-finding missions to add more info to the limited amount we all have. I volunteered us to head towards the city and see if we could get behind the invisible wall. It's better to try to get ahead of the game instead of hanging around doing nothing and possibly becoming sitting ducks.”

 “OH, excellent!” Jilly exclaimed, “When are we leaving.”
 
Lucas sighed. “What is it with the girls in this group? Do you each have a death wish? Where's Rob and how's he taking the idea? Does he even know?”

 “Oh, he knows. Frankie sent him to the computer room to help out there since that's his line of expertise and I think he'd rather dance down the middle of the road naked than head to the city on purpose but he'll deal with it. He's braver than he thinks he is. Frankie is going to give us supplies so we can be as well prepared as possible.”

 “Cool,” Lucas said. “I'm game for whatever we need to do. Now let's raid the kitchen.”

 They each grabbed a snack and settled onto the sofa waiting for Frankie to come in and brief them. “What do you think we're going to find?” Jilly asked. “Will the people still be zombies? And how are we going to get inside? Do you think Rob can figure it out? He's so good at computer stuff.”

 “I don't know," said Carolyn. “We don't know what's making it so we can't get inside that barrier. It might not be computer stuff at all. And if it is, it might not be any kind of computer that Rob knows how to figure out.”
 
  “Oh, I bet he'll know,” Jilly said, “He can figure out everything.”
 
  “Well, I'll let him know that you have complete confidence in him. And tell him if he doesn't figure it out we're all going to be very disappointed.”
 
 “That might not help,” Lucas laughed.
 
 “True” Carolyn sighed. “But we'll figure it out as we go along.”
 
As they sat on the sofas, lost in thought about what might lay ahead of them, Frankie bustled into the room.

 “Hello Hello,” she said, hurrying up to the seating area and falling onto one of the couches. “Oh, these are so much softer than that damn chair in my office. I gotta have George drag one of these down there. I'm sure he won't but it's a thought. Anyway, as I said Hello Hello, I'm Frankie and you must be the brother and sister I heard about.”

Jilly opened her mouth to talk but Lucas beat her to it “I'm Lucas and this is my sister Jilly.” Jilly frowned at Lucas but he kept going. “It's so good to meet you. We were just talking about how we're going to help. We've been traveling for several weeks now and it will be a good change to have a direction and purpose beyond just trying to stay alive.”

  “Excellent, wonderful. We've got some really great people who have shown up here. They've been spending time compiling all the intel they have gathered before they arrived and also putting together the intel other people have brought and also what the scouts have brought back. We still have several groups out and about hoping to find something or someone who may be able to shed some light on what's happening. As I told Carolyn earlier, we still have no idea about the reasons behind what's going on. Or even who the perpetrators are. We haven't had any luck getting beyond the force field. No one has seen anyone go through and there doesn't appear to be a doorway anywhere. I'm sure you've seen the small ships taking off and landing. Either there is no top to this barrier or else they have the technology to go through. We can only learn more if we can get in there and see it for ourselves. Not everyone wants to leave the safety of this facility once they get here. And I'm totally OK with that but it's a real plus when we meet people who want to go out and see what's there.”

Jilly jumped right in before Lucas could respond. “Well, that's us for sure! We're willing and able to do whatever we can. I always wanted to be an alien hunter but didn't think I'd ever get a real chance to do it. I was going to go to college next year for astronomy so this is kinda like that right?”

Frankie laughed. “We need more people with your enthusiasm Jilly! So let's see what we can get your group that will help your expedition. We've got a number of large military trucks outback. Complete with keys. We can supply better guns and ammo and we've got more M.R.E.'s than you can shake a stick at.”

 “M.R.E.'s?” Lucas asked

 “It's a military thing. Stands for Meals, Ready to Eat. Freeze-dried, foil sealed. It's got to be foil, plastic is not an oxygen barrier. It includes entree, cracker pack, cheese spread, mixed fruit, beverage powder, spoon, coffee, cream substitute, candy, matches, toilet tissue. Shelf life of 10 years. I'll send enough for a couple of weeks. You won't have to scavenge while you're out there.”

 “Wow, freeze-dried food. I can't wait.” Lucas grimaced.

 “No they aren't that bad,” Carolyn said “I've eaten them dozens of times when we were away from the base. You get used to them.” She turned towards Frankie, “Anything at all will be so helpful. Thank you.”

 “Oh, it's me who thanks you. If you can help us then you are worth everything we give you. I'll have George gas up a truck for you and load the guns, food, and supplies. It'll be ready in the morning. Rob is down in the computer lab helping out the people down there. When they're done they'll all come back here and you all can get some sleep before heading out. The rest of the group that's here should be heading in from the conference room in about an hour or so.”

They all thanked her profusely as she hurried off to some other duties she had to look into. All three of them went back to relaxing in a way they hadn't done in many weeks. Not needing to worry about whether or not someone was going to try to break into where they were staying, or worrying if someone was following them to try to take their stuff. It was a wonderful respite. Just as all three were nodding off there was a commotion down the hallway and at least half a dozen people bustled through the door. They were all talking and gesturing enthusiastically until they saw the three of them stretched out on the sofas. They all hurried over and introduced themselves. Over the next hour, everyone exchanged stories and gave their own thoughts about what was happening. As the chatting was winding down, Rob and the others from the computer lab showed up and the process started all over again.
 
Ethan and Kyle walked right up to Carolyn and introduced themselves. Smiling and falling all over themselves as they listened to her tell them about herself. Pat came in, introduced him or herself and immediately noticed Jilly and called out "Yo girlfriend" and held up a fist to which Jilly immediately without thinking lifted her fist and they bumped them together and plopped down in the corner of one of the sofas and started getting to know each other.
Carolyn noted that Rob was listening to Sylvia talk, not taking his pale blue eyes off of her, and hanging on her every word.
 
 "Well, would you look at that" Carolyn muttered under her breath to Lucas who was standing next to her discussing how much he missed video games since this all started with another young man his age.
 
 "What?" Lucas asked, breaking away from conversation for a moment.
 
 "I think Rob has a crush" She laughed and Rob looked over and caught her looking at him and blushed from the roots of his light blonde hair all the way down to his toes.
 
 "Leave the guy alone," Lucas said and went back to discussing his favorite console with the other young man.
 
 Carolyn turned back to the two brothers who she suddenly noticed were looking at her a little like Rob was looking at Sylvia.

As everyone was getting too tired to talk anymore they started to slowly trickle towards the bedrooms. Rob, Lucas, Carolyn, and Jilly picked out two rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys and after a warm shower they each fell into bed and slept better than they had in quite some time. Though each was certain after today, things probably wouldn't be nearly as comfortable and safe as they felt right now.
 
 
c

Chapter Three ~ The Barrier

 
Each one of them woke up much earlier in the morning than they would have liked. But each one in their own way was nervous about the journey ahead. Breakfast consisted of some energy bars and dried fruit. It wasn't a lot but it would keep the hunger away for a few hours. Frankie had laid out some uniforms that were leftover in the supply rooms, suggesting that they might have to pretend to be military at some point to give them an advantage.
 
  “I won't have to pretend” Carolyn pointed out.
 
  “Well yes, of course, I don't mean you, dear. But if you run into any situations that require subterfuge, you do all the talking to keep it believable, OK?”
 
 Carolyn thought that was a good idea since no one would believe Jilly or Rob were ever in the military. They headed out the back door dressed up in fatigues and boots with their backpacks stuffed with a change of clothes, toiletries, and a basic first aid kit. When they got to the overly large Humvee they found it stocked with the M.R.E.s, miscellaneous useful items, and a number of guns and corresponding ammo.

 “I hate guns” was all Rob could say as he climbed into the back seat.
 
 “I hate guns too,” Jilly said, “But we need them right now. When this is all over and done with, you'll never need to pick up a gun again.”
 
 “That's if this is ever over and done with. For all we know we're going to get beamed on board a spaceship and taken to the other side of the galaxy and made into slaves picking the earth equivalent of cotton. We'll never see home again.”
 
 “You've got quite an imagination there,” Carolyn said, climbing into the driver's seat. She got volunteered to drive since she had driven one of these in the past.
 
Jilly called shotgun and hopped in the front seat, shoving Lucas out of the way just as he was reaching for the door handle.
 
 “I guess you and I get to be backseat drivers,” Lucas said to Rob as he climbed over him to the other side.
 
 “You could've walked around,” Rob said as Lucas' rear rested briefly in his lap.
 
 “Saves time this way” Lucas explained dropping onto the other seat.
 
 “Are you boys finished back there?” Carolyn asked “I'd like to get moving but I'm not going anywhere until the both of you are in place with your seat belts buckled”

 “Yes, mother,” both of them said in unison.

 “OK, off we go.”

There was a long driveway that left the complex the opposite way from where they came in. It was wide, well-paved, and not overgrown at all. When it finally hit the highway they were a couple of miles down from the small dirt road where they had driven in. The road was as empty as before and it stretched as far as they could see until it rose on the ridge and disappeared. They turned East and headed towards the city. Everything looked so peaceful. The clouds were wispy and white against the brilliant baby blue of the sky and the birds floated on the warm updrafts far above their heads. Nothing had changed for them. They were still free to go about their lives of hunting for bugs or building nests without a care in the world.
 
All four occupants of the truck were keenly aware that this was not their reality and there was no assurance for them as to what lay ahead. The truck bounced along announcing every pothole with a loud thud. The roads this far out were rarely maintained by the city so Carolyn had quite a job trying to avoid some of the bigger hazards. They drove for over an hour mostly in silence contemplating both what lay ahead of them and what they were leaving behind.
 
Rob quietly watched the scenery fly by and thought about Sylvia. How they had talked for hours the night before and he thought he'd never met anyone with whom he had so much in common. He wished he had been able to stay at the compound and just continue to work on the computers. He had set up some lines of basic communication with two other groups of people a couple of states over and also showed Ethan and Kyle how to use one of his programs to break into the files that were stored on the computers there. But there was still so much to do and he really felt his skills would be put to better use there instead of bouncing along in the back seat of a military Humvee heading into an unknown situation that in all likelihood they weren't going to be able to anything about.

Abandoned houses and businesses were getting closer and closer together. Eventually, the city high rises appeared in the distance and grew taller with each passing mile.

Jilly hung her head out the window, her auburn hair blowing in the wind. “There it is, There it is!” She yelled over the sound of the motor and air rushing past. “I can't wait. We're going to figure this out and be heroes!”

Rob felt his stomach drop. Why oh why did he agree to come along. He was going to die. Or be abducted by aliens which was probably worse. He was certain it would be one of these outcomes and it was probably going to be today.

 “Get your head in the window right now” Lucas barked at Jilly. “You're going to fall out and crack your skull open.”

Jilly pulled her head back in. “Aren't you the least bit excited? I can't wait til we get there.”
"Just roll up the window and try to contain yourself."  Jilly reluctantly closed the window and crossed her arms with a huff.

 “Here's the turn off” Carolyn noted taking a right off the highway then following the road around a curve, under the ramp, and onto the toll road towards downtown. They rolled right through the toll booth since no one was there to stop them.
 
 “HAHA” Jilly called out as they sped past the entrance and to the other side. “We get to go for free!”

 “I'm sorry,” Lucas said to everyone in the car. “She's always been like this.”

 “It's OK,” Carolyn said. “We need all the positivity we can get.”
 
 “So true” Rob chimed in “because I'm afraid I'm not contributing to that in any way.”
 
 “We need you too, Rob,” Carolyn said smiling “You're our safety monitor. That's a very important job.”
 
 “Alright, I'll continue to be scared of everything and wish I was back home again if it helps.”
 
Jilly turned around and grabbed Rob's hand and squeezed it. “You're my favorite scardy-cat, Rob.”
 
 “Thank you. I think.” But he smiled anyway.
 
 “I hate to break into this little episode of the Brady Bunch” Carolyn broke in “But how close do you think we can get to before we need to start slowing down so we don't hit that barrier?”
 
 “I'd do it now,” Lucas suggested.
 
 Carolyn dropped from 60 to 15 and they inched along the highway with their eyes all squinty trying to see the invisible wall before they got to it.
 
 “THERE... THERE” Lucas suddenly called out pointing from the backseat straight ahead of them. “There are 2 cars stopped right in the middle of the highway. Slow DOWN!”
 
Carolyn slammed on the brakes and even though they weren't going very fast, everyone's seat belts locked and they collectively made choking noises.
 
 Once they could all breathe again, they piled out of the truck and carefully approached what appeared to be the barrier. Two cars were stopped right next to each other, with no apparent damage to either. But both of their doors were flung open as if the former occupants had jumped out in such surprise they didn't notice that they had left them like that. On the other side of the highway, exactly in line with the cars on their side were two more cars going the other way.
 
 “Looks like you can't get out of there either” Lucas noted.
 
Jilly walked up to the barrier and touched it. It felt cool and sort of squishy. But the harder she pushed the firmer it became. She walked along the edge running her hand on it, up and down. It was absolutely smooth without a bump or imperfection anywhere.
Rob followed along after Jilly, poking at nothing until his finger bent.
 
 Lucas grabbed a shovel out of the back of the truck, jogged to the side of the highway, and started digging right at the base. A few shovelfuls in he realized the force field bent towards him and kept going under his feet. He backed up and gave it another try. Nope. Like a rock. So he backed up further, this time probably at least 15 feet, and still no luck. By the time he was actually able to make any progress digging more than a foot deep, he was 25 feet from where the cars were stopped with absolutely no hope of tunneling underneath from that far away.
 
 “Well I tried” he called out.
 
 “Appreciate the effort” Carolyn called back. She had been trying to hit the barrier with different things they had brought with them. An ax, a hammer, a screwdriver. Nothing made a single bit of differencelo.

The sun was rising in the sky and it was starting to get uncomfortably hot. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and dropped down in a small patch of shade created by their truck. In frustration, she flung the hammer directly at the shield. It arched in the air, the heavy top pulling the lightweight bottom over and over in an uneven tumble until it reached its target and kept on going, straight through until it lost momentum and dropped unceremoniously onto the pavement on the other side of the barrier with an audible thump.
 
 “WOAH” Carolyn jumped up “WOAH, did you see that? The hammer went straight through! It's on the other side. I threw the hammer and it went straight through. LOOK!”
 
Everyone came running over and stared at the hammer wide-eyed with their mouths hanging slightly open.
 
 “How did you do that?” Jilly asked.
 
 “I don't know. I just got mad and threw it and went straight through without even slowing down. Maybe the barrier is only so high.”
 
Lucas ran to the truck and grabbed a small step ladder silently thanking Frankie and friends for providing so many things they otherwise wouldn't have thought of needing. He brought the ladder over to exactly where Carolyn said the hammer went through.
 
  “It wasn't that high up,” she said. “I was sitting when I threw it so it couldn't have been more than 7 or so feet.”
 
Lucas climbed up the ladder and started looking for an opening. Nothing. He reached up as high as he could, then backed down the ladder running his hands along the area where it appeared that the hammer would have gone through.
 
  “If I didn't see it for myself laying there on the other side I'd swear you were mistaken,” Rob said.
 
  “I saw it go through with my own eyes” she insisted.
 
 “I know, I believe you”
 
Jilly grabbed a large rock from the edge of the freeway. “Lemme try something, move Lucas.”
 
Not wanting to get knocked in the head when the rock bounced off the wall, Lucas backed away.
 
Jilly wound up and tossed the rock as hard as she could trying to hit the same area where the hammer went through. It missed the target by a couple of feet to one side, but it too went sailing straight through and landed about 10 feet in on the other side.
 
Again, the group stared in disbelief. Lucas grabbed the ladder, keeping his eyes on exactly where the rock went through and hauled himself up and tried to stick his hand into the other side. He was met with the same invisible, slightly soft barrier with absolutely no sign of an opening anywhere.
 
 “What the hell?” Carolyn exclaimed.
 
Jilly grabbed another rock and this time, tossed it a few feet lower, maybe 4 or 5 feet up and off to the side. This time the rock bounced off and flew back at them.
 
 “Wait, was there a portal or something that closed up? ” Lucas stared in disbelief.
 
 "Portal?" Carolyn looked him, one eyebrow raised.
 
 "Well, that's what they call openings in space in the movies don't they?" Lucas defended himself.
 
 "Next time I'm in a movie I'll let you know."
 
Rob went up and rubbed his hand over the spot where the third rock failed to penetrate the barrier. He furrowed his brow with the effort of thought. He scooped up a generous handful of gravel, stood back, and tossed it underhand as hard as he could towards the wall. The lower end of the arching gravel hit the barrier and bounced back towards them while the upper arc sailed right over and landed on the ground on the other side.
 
 “What does it mean?” asked Carolyn “How is it doing that?”

 “My guess is that the lower barrier up to about 7 or so feet is as solid as a stone wall but things can pass unimpeded through the upper part of the barrier as long as whatever it is isn't touching the ground."

  "I wonder if it's like that all the way around" Lucas mused. "And if so, then how and the hell are we supposed to get inside? If we have to climb up 7 feet and jump over that's a long way down. It's not like we can go drag a mattress out here and haul it up in the air and toss it over."
 
 Jilly stood back, surveying the situation. "There's got to be something we can do. Maybe scaffolding?”
 
 “Then what?” Rob said, “You still have to get down to the ground on the other side and with nothing to land on that's a big risk of breaking something like your leg or neck.”
 
 “Well now what?” asked Lucas.
 
  “I guess we just keep going and until we've made an entire lap around the entire city to see if we can see something some of the other groups might have missed,” Carolyn suggested.
 
 “I guess that's the only thing we can do” Rob sighed.
 
They all climbed back into the truck and headed across the highway to the other side where they drove the wrong way up the on-ramp and onto the frontage road and headed towards one of the highways that would take them in an arc around the outskirts of the city. The road took them through a rural area where there weren't many structures and they could see downtown. They looked down every cross street hoping to see something that might give them a clue as to what they should do next.

Every so often one of them would throw out a different idea and then the others would pick it apart giving all the reasons why it wouldn't work.

Jilly was just outlining how she thought maybe they could get a giant trampoline and jump high enough to get over the solid part. Lucas pointed out that there was STILL nothing to land on the other side, as he had previously explained.
 
  “I already thought of that ding dong” she retorted. “We'll wear parachutes and pull them as soon as we make it over and before we hit the ground.” Rob shook his head and put his face in his palms.

 “Well, it's better than your idea of getting dynamite and trying to blast through it.”

Rob was just about to explain again why it wasn't as stupid as it sounded when Carolyn slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel hard. “HOLY MOLY! Look at that!”

Just as they rounded a curve, in the distance there was a convoy of Hummers just like theirs lined up and rolling slowly towards the city. Carolyn backed quickly down one of the side streets so as not to be too obvious. She hopped out of the truck followed by Lucas climbing over Rob again and peered around the corner fence. They were just at the end of the neighborhood so there was nothing but open space between the end of the block and where the trucks were driving.

 “Where are they going?” Lucas whispered.

 “How should I know” Carolyn whispered back. “It looks like they are going straight through where the shield should be.”

Rob crept up behind them. Against his better judgment, he decided he should take a look for himself.
“Look at that,” He said as quietly as possible. “Do you see the spark of light every time one of the trucks goes through right about where the barrier should be? Something is allowing them to pass through.”

Both Carolyn and Lucas squinted their eyes after staring at the procession for a moment and then both agreed with what Rob was seeing.

 “Where?” Jilly asked creeping up behind them, much louder than she should have, closing one eye and turning her head sideways hoping she could see it better.

 “SHHHHHHH,” each of them said and Lucas clamped his and over her mouth. She licked his palm.

 “EWWWWW” Lucas groaned and wiped his hand on the back of her head.
 
 “Well then don't do that again,” She said while spitting and wagging her tongue around in disgust.

 “So who are they?” Carolyn wanted to know.
 
 “It's are either whoever is responsible for what's going on and they've commandeered that equipment, or else it's actually our military and they are in cahoots with them,” Rob suggested.
 
They continued watching the trucks roll through the barrier. After 4 or 5 went through, the trucks stopped and several people got out and gathered to talk off to the side of the road.
 
In the distance, they saw another Humvee roll up and get in line.
 “What do you think?” Carolyn asked quietly “Should we grow some steel balls and go get in line with them? Maybe they won't notice us?”

  “YES!” Jilly said in an exaggerated whisper “Yes, that's got to be the way we're going to get inside!”
 
Lucas was thinking out loud. “But we don't know who they are or if we need some kind of credentials or if they know everyone or what will happen to us if we get caught.”
 
 “You sound like Rob,” Carolyn said “No offense Rob”
 
 “None taken.”
 
 “I'm just trying to be careful. I don't want to get sent to an alien prison where they do experiments on you like anal probing or something.” Lucas explained.
 
Rob squirmed around at the thought.
 
 “Well it's got to be now or never because I bet as soon as they run out of trucks they are going to close that wall uptight and we're going to be back in the same boat we are right now which is having no idea how to breach that damn barrier.”
 
 “Well if you think we can BS our way in I say go for it," Lucas concluded
 
“Me too” Jilly whispered still a little too loud.
 
They all looked a Rob.
 
 “What are you looking at me for? You know what I'm going to say and everyone will override my veto and we're going to go anyway so I'll just skip that whole step and say 'what the fuck let's do it' OK?”
 
Everyone laughed at his out of character swearing, patted him on the back, and hurried back to the truck. Carolyn told Lucas to sit up front since he looked more like he could be in the military than the other two then she turned the key, took a deep cleansing breath, and announced “We can do this.”
 
As they turned out onto the road she outlined what she wanted from everyone when they got to the other trucks. Everyone was to be completely quiet, she shot a look over her shoulder at Jilly who put up her hands then pretended to zip her lip.
 
 “If anyone says anything to you, you answer with a 'Yes sir' or 'No sir” and that's it. Don't even look anyone in the eye unless they talk to you. And Jilly tuck your hair up under your cap.”
 
Everyone was on edge as the truck rumbled down the road towards the distant convoy. They watched people wander around, stopping to poke their heads into other trucks then go around the back, check for something then wander back up to the front where they stopped to talk to the men near the entrance.
 
 “Oh look at the size of the guns they've got” Rob whispered.
 
 “We've got guns too” Jilly pointed out.
 
 “Yes, but ours are in the back and I'm guessing they would have less second thoughts about shooting us than we have about shooting them if the need arises.”
 
 “We'll be fine. Just sit quietly and stare at the floor.” Jilly said.
 
 “Easy for you to say. Well, maybe not the sit quietly part.” Rob smirked
 
 “Hey!”
 
 “SHHHHHH you two. Knock it off” Carolyn warned them.
 
They both stopped talking and stared out the front window watching the people in front of them getting closer and closer.
 
Finally, they were close enough to see faces and note that everyone looked perfectly human and no one looked like they were under the influence of alien gas.
 
Carolyn approached the line of trucks that had started moving through the barrier again and pulled behind the last one. They were rattling along slowly, dark smoke belching every so often from one of the exhaust pipes because obviously, no one was maintaining them like they needed. They could hear some people talking loudly as they approached the barrier and Carolyn glanced into the side view mirror and noticed another two trucks and fallen into place behind them.
 
 The vehicles ahead of them slid through the invisible opening with a slight blue electric spark snapping off an antenna that had been attached to the roof. One truck, two trucks, then the truck ahead of them.

  “Damn” Carolyn whispered under her breath.
 
 “What?” everyone said at once.
 
 “We don't have an antenna and it's too late to change our minds.”
 
They kept rolling forward right up to the barrier which they plowed into, bringing them to an abrupt and unpleasant stop. She popped the truck into reverse and rolled back a few feet.
 
A man in a Sargent's uniform looked up from his paperwork, scowled deeply, and came hurrying up to the truck.
 
 “What the hell is going on?” He demanded.
 
 Carolyn went right into military mode. “I don't know sir. I have no idea what happened.”
 
The guard looked around at the truck then put his foot on the step outside of the door and hauled himself to look on the roof.
 
 “You've got no transmitter, soldier” He barked.
 
Carolyn put on her best surprised face. “I was not aware of that, sir.”
 
 “DERRICK!” the Sargent roared. “Get OVER here!”
 
A scraggly young kid with a pointy nose and dirty blonde hair hustled over. “Yes Sir, Sir”
 
 “We've got another one of these trucks without the damn antenna hooked up. God Damn incompetent bunch back there. This will the second one this morning. Fix this, would you? And I better not have another one down here again or there is going to be hell to pay.”
 
 He looked into the truck, eyes resting on each of the occupants, then noticing Rob who looked like he was going to pass out, asked “Are you Okay back there son?"
 
 Rob glanced up “Yes sir” he managed to get out.
 
 “He's not feeling well sir. Breakfast didn't sit well on any of us this morning,” Carolyn cut in.
 
 “I've had the food up there and it's barely passable. Lucky anyone is even able to function. Do you need to get out and walk around soldier?”
 
 “No sir,” was all Rob was able to say.
 
 “Well private Casey is going to get your antenna attached and you can be on your way. When you get to the base maybe you should take a walk down to the infirmary. Make sure you're good to go.”
 
 “Yes sir” Rob gave him a halfhearted sick smile and leaned back so no one could see him.
 
The Sargent suddenly noticed some men struggling with equipment and turned and wandered away to yell at them.
 
Meanwhile outside Private Derrick Casey was fooling around on their roof. He had put a small step ladder next to the side of the truck right outside Jilly's window and was leaning way over, one leg lifted into the air counterbalancing him as he attempted to attach an antenna. Jilly stared as the front of uniform pants rubbed back and forth against the glass.
 
  “How long is this going to take? She whispered loudly. “I'm not sure I can sit here much longer.”
 
 “Hopefully he's almost done,” Carolyn whispered back. “If I don't have to talk to the boss again we may be good to go.”
 
The minutes ticked slowly by as Derrick fumed and fussed.
 
 “There!” he finally called out crawling down off the ladder, folding it up, and backing away from the truck. “Give it a try now.”
 
Carolyn started the engine again and rolled forward ever so slowly.
 
 One foot, two feet, three feet, and suddenly the truck glowed a brief but intense blue and they were driving through the barrier to the other side. “Thank you Private” Carolyn called out the window and floored it as soon as they cleared the "doorway".
 
As she sped away, without actually looking like she was speeding away, she kept checking her rearview mirror to see if anyone suddenly realized they were impostors and were coming to get them.
A mile or so down the road Lucas asked “Can I breathe now?”
 
 “I think so,” Carolyn said. They kept driving trying to look as casual as possible.
 
 “Where are we going to go?” Rob asked from the corner of the backseat that he was still tucked into.
 
 “I don't know. I didn't see where the other trucks went but I'm not sure we should follow them because I don't know where they are going and what we would find when we got there.”
 
 Carolyn had slowed down a bit as they entered one of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city.
 
Looking around there were people scattered here and there, some in their yards raking leaves, kids running down the street playing ball. No one looked frightened and every so often someone would wave to them as they drove past. Jilly rolled down the window and waved and called out “Hello” before Lucas turned around, smacked her on the knee, and rolled up the window himself. “What is wrong with you? Knock it off!”
 
 “Geez, you don't have to get all physical,” she said and leaned back in her seat with a huff.
 
They continued slowly towards downtown. Everywhere they looked there were people wandering around, seemingly busy but at the same time not actually doing anything. The closer to the city they got, the more people there were. A lot of them were just sitting, chatting among themselves on park benches or bus stops. Some were eating at little tables outside of restaurants. All very normal yet not normal at all.
 
 “Should we ditch the truck for awhile?" Carolyn suggested. There aren't any cars or trucks anywhere and if we keep driving around without actually heading to wherever the other trucks were going someone is going to notice.”
 
 “That sounds like a good idea,” Rob said, finally leaning forward.
 
 “We don't want to have to explain ourselves since we don't even know what we should say.”
 
 “OK. I'm thinking a parking garage where we can kind of hide this without looking like we're trying to hide it.”
 
 “My old office building is about a mile ahead, I've still got my wallet with the entrance card so we can pull in behind a gate,” Rob said, “Four lights down then turn left and it will be on the right.”
 
 “Sounds like a plan,” Carolyn said as she headed down the block and made the left after waiting patiently at a red light.
 
 "Why are these still working?" Jilly wondered. No one had an answer.

They turned into the parking garage and Carolyn slid the key card into the slot and the wooden arm lifted up allowing them access.
 
 The giant truck barely fit through the cement pillars and it was so tall that Carolyn unconsciously ducked her head as they drove down the aisle.
 
She drove all the way to the back and pulled it in at an angle in a far back corner. After they all crawled out, Carolyn suggested they change out of their fatigues. They each took turns changing into regular street clothes behind the truck. Then they grabbed their backpacks, locked the doors, and headed towards the glass atrium that led to the lobby.
 
Once there, they lingered in the shadows watching the people on the other side of the door wander in and out of the building, stop to talk to one another, then continue on.
 
 “What are they saying?” Jilly wanted to know.
 
 “We won't know until we get out there and mingle. We'll have to pretend we're one of them.” Lucas said.
 
 “I was afraid of that” Rob mumbled
 
 “It'll be just like acting,” Jilly said. “I was in the school play last year and you just have to act like it's all real, pretend you believe it then everyone will believe it too.”
 
 “Sounds perfectly logical,” Rob said, not exactly understanding but hoping it would sink into his brain and work out somehow.
 
 “I'm game if you all are,” Carolyn said, hand on the door pull.
 
They all looked at each other and nodded, Carolyn slid the door open and they all walked out into the lobby, heads up and smiling, right into a group of zombie people.