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!"