Chapter Four #2
“We knew each other from before. I worked with Zack sometimes. I booked his company’s services. Zack was a professional political agitator. He recruited and hired people to be protestors, to cause discord and disruption.”
“And what did Sandy do?”
“Mostly fuck Zack.”
Chloe winced.
“Sandy comes from money. You’ve heard of old money and nouveau riche?
She is gouvernement riche—her grandmother lined her pockets through insider trading while serving in Congress for forty years.
The family is from California, but Sandy met Zack at college in Chicago.
She’d sometimes participate in a protest for pocket change, but mostly she lived off her trust fund from Grandma. ”
Somebody was lying. Was it Caleb or Zack and Sandy? “Why are you telling me this?”
“Why not? Nothing matters at this stage of the game.” He pointed to a boxy store with a canopy bed on the roof. “We’re here. We should let them see us through the window and show we’re unarmed before we barge in.”
They moved in front of the huge picture window.
Spotting three men and a woman at the rear of the store, Chloe smiled and waved.
Looking startled, the people hesitantly returned the wave.
Caleb nudged her to the door. It was locked.
The lady and one man hung back. Two men approached, one with his hand on the hilt of a gun holstered to his hip.
Caleb was right about one thing—we wouldn’t want to surprise these people.
The unarmed, thirty-ish man unlocked the door, but didn’t invite them in.
“I’m so glad to see you! I’m Chloe Thorne. This is Caleb Jacoby.”
“Sorry to drop in—we’d thought we’d come meet the new neighbors.” Caleb flashed a warm, engaging smile.
The two men exchanged a glance, the one with the gun nodded, and thirty-something stepped aside and motioned them in. “I’m Mike.”
“Bill,” said the fifty-ish guy with the gun.
“I’m Duncan,” called the young man at the rear of the store.
“Annabelle,” said the lady, who was about Chloe’s grandma’s age.
“You been in the area long?” Bill asked.
“A few months for me and two friends. We met Chloe the other day,” said Caleb.
“So, no sign of the Progg?”
“Not so far—” Caleb replied.
“They’re at the Arch!” she interrupted. He’d lied to these people!
Caleb looked at her.
“That’s what Zack and Sandy said.” Unsure who or what to believe, she would err on the side of caution.
“I meant, they’re not close,” Caleb amended.
“The Arch is downtown. That sounds close to me,” Bill said.
Her feelings exactly.
“Did you hear?” Mike said to Duncan and Annabelle.
“Yeah,” Duncan said. “Shit.”
“Guess we’ll be moving on again,” Annabelle said. She and Duncan came forward and joined the group.
“You stayed for months with the Progg that close?” Mike asked. The newcomers’ reaction validated her own sentiment.
“Better to know where they are so you can avoid them,” Caleb explained. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
If the goal was to avoid the aliens, you didn’t stick around. “I’ve only been here three days,” she said, trusting the newcomers’ judgment a whole lot more than she did the trio’s.
“Speaking of friends, Zack and Sandy were headed this way. Let me check on them so you can meet them,” Caleb said.
“We were together, then Sandy stopped to look at clothes,” Chloe explained.
Bill and Mike looked at each other and then at Duncan and Annabelle. “Sure,” Bill said.
“I’ll be right back.” Caleb left the store.
Now she could speak to the foursome privately. “Listen—” She glanced at Annabelle. She looked fit. “Are you guys traveling on foot?”
“Can’t drive. The highways are a mess,” Duncan said.
“There’s a bike shop about half a mile around the corner.”
“Shit, really?” Mike said. “We’ve tried to keep an eye out for one.”
Chloe pointed in the direction Caleb had gone. “Go to the intersection, turn left. The bike shop is on the right side a couple of blocks down. You’ll pass a cupcake shop with a car in the window.”
“That’s fantastic,” Bill said.
She glanced over her shoulder again. “Between you and me? They’re crazy for hanging around. They only told me today there were Progg in the city. I haven’t said anything to them, but I’m leaving at first light.”
“Smart.” Bill nodded. “We’re going to bug out, too.”
“Maybe we’ll see you at the bike shop, then?” Mike asked. “You’re welcome to ride with us?”
“I’d like that.”
“Early start before the heat of the day?” Bill suggested. “Say 6 a.m.?”
“Perfect.” she said.
“Found ’em!” Caleb entered the store with Zack and Sandy.
Darn. She wished they’d had more time to chat.
“Zack Michaels. Sandy Owens,” Caleb introduced them. The two gave a halfhearted wave, remaining at the front, making no effort to approach. Sandy muttered a hello while craning her neck to see out the window.
What is she looking at?
Seconds later, a Progg appeared at the glass door.
Chloe and Annabelle screamed.
“Fuck!” one of the men shouted.
As the Progg burst in. Bill pulled his gun and fired. He shattered the glass but missed the Progg. Zzzz! The alien vaporized Bill. Zzzz! It got Annabelle. Mike pushed up a mattress as a shield. Duncan dashed for a service entrance at the rear of the store.
Chloe dropped to the floor, crawling among the mattresses.
She heard the weapon go off. Heard a mattress fall. Mike.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Progg leap over the beds and charge after Duncan.
I’m sorry, Duncan! I’m sorry. With the alien going for the man, she sprinted for the shattered glass door. Making no moves, Sandy hovered at the front, and Caleb and Zack sat on a mattress. Why aren’t they running?
Oh, my god. They brought him here!
“Grab her!” Caleb shouted, leaping to his feet.
Sandy latched onto Chloe’s arm.
“Let me go!” She wrenched free as the alien emerged from the back. He raised the weapon. “No!” She shoved Sandy and dove through the opening, cutting her arm on the shattered glass.
Zzzz! Ka-clangk!
“Sandeeee!” Zack cried out.
He killed them. He killed them. Run. Run. Her heart beat in her ears as she tore down the sidewalk, her sneakered feet pounding the hard pavement. I’m dead. I’m dead. She expected to vanish from existence any second. An open target, she couldn’t outrun a vaporizer.
As she leaped off the curb, her knee hit the trailer hitch on a pickup truck, and she went flying, landing flat, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs.
Footfalls pounded the pavement.
“Where the fuck did she go?” Caleb’s voice.
Oh my god, they don’t see me.
“Sandy’s dead.” Zack choked.
“Forget Sandy. We’re going to be dead, if we don’t find Chloe. The Progg is pissed.”
Afraid to move, but more scared to remain a sitting duck, she rolled under the pickup truck, scraping her abraded skin on the hot asphalt.
“You go that way, I’ll go this way. She couldn’t have gotten far.” A second later, Caleb’s feet stepped off the curb in front of the pickup truck.