Epilogue
Chicago, USA
Juan held in a cough as he pressed himself against the corner of a building.
His chest ached from running, and he couldn’t feel his legs.
Blinking sweat from his eyes, he peered around the corner into the street.
Late morning light lit up a pockmarked street full of rusting cars—some still had their doors open.
He’d learned a long time ago not to look into the seats.
He tightened his grip on his little sister’s hand. Sofia was fading fast. Despite the fear, she could barely keep her eyes open. He’d carried her all night, but now he didn’t trust himself. His arms felt like lead weights.
When he turned to look at her, her big dark eyes blinked up at him slowly. “Juan?” she whispered. She always whispered now. He could hardly remember the times he’d had to put earbuds in to avoid her yelling.
“It’s okay,” he said automatically. “Mom will be back soon.”
Sofia shuffled up against him, resting her head on his arm. “I’m hungry.”
We’re all hungry, he wanted to say. But Sofia was five. She didn’t understand that he’d given her his bag of chips last night. Or was it the night before? He couldn’t remember.
Emotion burned behind his eyes. Had he already forgotten? A year ago, he would have thought that watching his uncle die would have been unforgettable. Now it was just another memory. Another loss.
He stroked her filthy hair back and kept an ear out for the clicking.
It was always the clicking, first. The aliens were getting smarter.
They’d been busy with the remaining soldiers and police for a while, but the human guns had been silent for weeks.
Now the aliens were coming for the small pockets of people hidden away.
He wouldn’t say they were doing well in that warehouse by the docks, but they’d at least had a roof. Food.
Juan was supposed to be on watch the night they came, but his uncle had waved him off. Told him to get some sleep. He was only a few years older than Juan, but he had that way about him. The kind that came with experience. He’d always been that way, even when they were kids. Now he was…
He shook his head. No. Diego had told him to run. To protect his mom and sister, he was going to do that. No matter what it took, he would get them out of Chicago. He’d never lived anywhere else, and he had no idea where they’d go, but there had to be help out there.
Footsteps scraped against pavement, and he tugged Sofia behind him, pressing her into the wall. His mother turned the corner, her steps slow.
She was thin. Too thin. His father always used to tease her whenever she got on one of her dieting kicks, pinching her behind and dodging her swats with a grin peeking out from his mustache. Now she was all angles, her face gaunt and dingy hair pulled back from her face.
“Did you…?” he asked, stepping away from Sofia. She ran to their mom, hugging her legs.
His mom pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, there was nothing.”
She’d been looking for food and water in some of the busted-out bodegas and corner stores along the street, insisting she could be quieter alone. Juan hadn’t wanted her to go, but one look at Sofia’s face told him she would never be able to keep up.
“Okay,” he said, more to himself. “That’s—we’ll just keep going. There will be something.”
His mother nodded but didn’t say anything.
Juan had never paid much attention to maps. He was seventeen, and he used his phone for everything. On the occasion he left his little piece of Chicago, he could always GPS it. A few taps and he had a cool, feminine voice in his ear telling him exactly where he needed to go.
Now he felt like one of those old abuelos shaking their fists and muttering about technology.
Taking Sofia’s hand again so his mother wouldn’t have to, he checked the corner and crossed the street. His sister was dragging her feet, her ratty sneakers scraping more sole off with every step. They used to light up, but his father had dug the lights out so they wouldn’t give them away.
Sticking close to side streets, they hugged buildings and used every car, dumpster, and broken chunk of whatever to hide behind.
The city was almost unrecognizable at this point.
It felt different, too. He used to think nighttime in the city felt like it was dead, but that was nothing.
There was still a thrum of something. A party here, a late-night television show there.
But this? This was dead and buried. Nothing moved. Not even rats or stray animals. The city was so gone it had begun to decay, weeds creeping in through the cracks, nature beginning to reclaim what it once lost.
His stomach cramped. It felt like it was folding in on itself, so tight it was difficult to stand upright. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was tacky and swollen, like it was when he woke up in the morning with the heater on.
The city was looted after the aliens attacked.
At first, because that’s what people did when the world order didn’t matter anymore.
His father said it was because humans needed rules.
Without them, they turned into animals. But then it was out of desperation.
People couldn’t leave the city. Whether it was because the aliens prevented them from doing it, or, like Juan and his family, they didn’t know how.
His neighbors said they were leaving for a refugee camp, and another couple said they were going to Canada.
Which sounded good, but if there were refugee camps, why weren’t there soldiers? People coming to rescue them, to take them to these camps? Hiding in the city felt safer. Wait it out, they thought. The aliens will go away, eventually. Or the military would find some way to defeat them.
That had been before the cold took his Abuelita, and his father never came home after looking for food. Before his uncle had melted in front of him.
“Juan,” Sofia whined. “I don’t want to walk anymore.”
He bit back irritation. Juan didn’t want to walk either! He looked at his mother to see if she would say something, but she wasn’t listening. Her head was turned in the direction they’d come from, eyebrows drawn.
“Juan—”
“Sofia! Quiet!” he snapped, trying to see what his mom was looking at.
“But Juan!”
“Shut up! Don’t you think we’re all tired! Whining isn’t going to—”
The wall to their right exploded, bricks flying across the street as fire licked up the sides, eating through the building.
Juan grabbed Sofia, throwing her over his shoulder as he started running.
His mom was behind him, breathing labored.
Two of the mechanized aliens stepped through the hole.
The four-legged one was dragging the creepy ones with a tail.
Their fight spilled onto the street, and Juan prayed they would be too distracted with each other to notice them.
The ground shook with the force of their blows, knocking Juan into a car.
Sofia screamed, legs kicking. He swore, tightening his grip on her as he tried to catch up to their mom.
The car he’d struck blew up. Molten hot metal whizzed through the air, nicking his leg.
He shouted as he went down, trying to shield his sister the best he could.
He hit hard enough to knock what little breath he had out of his lungs.
Sofia was crying. Juan pushed himself up on shredded palms and glanced down at his leg. His thigh burned, and blood was seeping through his jeans, but he didn’t have time to look at it. His mom had grabbed Sofia and was shouting at him to get up.
Another shot was fired over their heads and hit the street. Asphalt rained down on them as he dragged his mom toward the sidewalk, anything to get out of the alien’s direct line of sight. But it was too late. He could hear the gleeful clacking of the alien’s pincers behind him.
Juan’s leg throbbed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to run fast enough. “Take Sofia!” he shouted. “I’ll run the other way.”
“No!” his mother screamed, grabbing his wrist. “I can’t—”
Her words were drowned out by the rhythmic thump of helicopter rotors.
Juan looked up as a shadow rolled across them.
A helicopter descended over the streets, so close he could barely stand up under the wash of air.
As it hovered, he could see the side of it had been eaten away by something, blackened metal curling up at the edges.
Men poured out just as it touched down. Three men jumped out of the opposite side of the helicopter, opening fire on the aliens. They moved like they were three heads of the same beast, coordinating their attack without a single word spoken.
Just below the cockpit, someone had tried to scratch out a stenciled ‘Lieutenant Danger Tits’ beside a painted pinup of a blonde woman with a severe bun, one combat-booted foot on the head of a cartoon alien.
A man leaned out of the helicopter. He gestured for them to come, and Juan wasn’t going to second-guess a miracle when he saw it. His mom pressed Sofia’s face to her chest and ducked, trying to avoid dirt kicked up by the rotor. Juan followed her, helping her into the helicopter.
The soldier grabbed them, hauling them in. Juan tumbled in, landing hard against the wall of the helicopter. Blinking, he looked up at the man. He was wearing an oversized helmet that slipped down his nose, and there was a piece of duct tape stuck to his shirt that read Band-Aid Slinger.
“Hi,” he shouted, holding onto the canvas netting with one hand. “My name is Blake, and I’m a paramedic. I’m going to help you today.”
Juan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His voice failed him. The medic dragged a bulging backpack toward him and descended on Juan’s leg. He grabbed a pair of scissors with one hand and handed his mom and Sofia some protein bars with the other.
He jumped when one of the soldiers jumped back into the helicopter. Slapping the roof, he skidded toward the cockpit. The female pilot shouted, “I told you two minutes, cowboy!”
“Aww, baby,” the soldier drawled. “Did you miss me that much?”
The remaining two soldiers jumped into the helicopter, and it lifted off. Sofia shrieked as their stomachs dropped. The biggest guy slid between them and the open door, shielding them from the opening with his bulk.
Blake nodded when one of the soldiers squeezed his shoulder. They shared a couple of words Juan couldn’t hear.
“Who are you guys?” Juan asked.
The soldier beside Blake looked up and pulled the black mask off the bottom half of his face and grinned.
“We’re Team Oh Shit. And we’re taking back our world.”
The End