Apocalyptic Fears II: Select Bestsellers: A Multi-Author Box Set Read online

  “You’ll need to get off of that leg for a few days, Cee, or it’s going to get worse. We’ll get to the main road, and then I’ll see if I can get someone from the station to come pick us up.”

  They pushed through the woods towards the trail and walked along it for an hour or so. Alysia tried to take her mind off the pain by concentrating on nature, but it was futile. The walk took them through a few hills that made the pain unbearable, and over a bridge that spanned a tiny brook.

  Alysia gave Tracy a long look of admiration as the officer helped her along. She was pretty, which was strange since she never thought that pretty girls would join the police force. She had long, curly red hair, large hands, and a demeanor that was all business.

  Alysia found her easy to like; she was like the big sister that would cook you dinner and help you with your homework. In a way, it made sense that she would be a cop or some other position of authority. She could see Tracy being the eldest daughter of a whole clan, the responsible one that had to protect the others.

  “Are you from around here?” Alysia asked.

  “No, not exactly. I’m originally from Dallas.”

  “That’s funny, you don’t have an accent.”

  “Oh, you expected me to sound like a cowgirl?”

  “Heh, well, now that you mention it…”

  “Girl, please, I came here when I was much younger than you. I may sound like one of you Yankee girls, but I’m a Texan through and through. What about you? You grow up here?”

  Alysia moved to catch up and winced when she stepped down a little too hard on the sore ankle. “Yeah, I’m from here. We haven’t left the city much in the last few years but my dad used to take me on trips and stuff.”

  “You talk about your dad a lot, you know that? You must really love him.”

  “I do, but I love my mom, too. It’s just that, well, this is the sort of thing he prepared me for.”

  “What? He prepped you to fight dinosaurs and giants?” Tracy teased, making sure to look back at her and smile as she said it.

  “Sorta. He always said that the human race was due for a humbling. When it came, he wanted me ready.”

  “Our dads would get along,” Tracy said. “Mine taught me how to shoot when I was little. We had guns all around the house but he taught me to respect them. Never played around the way a lot of these kids do nowadays, but when I did need to use one ... I was pretty good.”

  “I can tell. The way you shot that thing that came after me was pretty badass.”

  “Well, thank you, ma’am. You were pretty badass yourself with that spear.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Cowgirl Tracy,” Alysia said, finding herself liking the cop even more.

  They continued their talk until the trail brought them out of the woods and onto a strip of road. Alysia was exhausted and the familiar rumbling of her stomach came out in the loudest fashion.

  “I’m hungry, too,” Tracy said when she heard Alysia’s stomach, and then she took out her radio to call her department.

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s as if the whole department just turned off their radios and went home,” she said, frustrated.

  “I hope that’s what they did and not—”

  “Don’t say it,” Tracy said, snapping her head around, her cold blue eyes staring into Alysia’s large brown ones. “We were all trained to protect and serve. I think there is something going on with the signal and it’s cutting us off from communicating for some reason. Let’s stop here so you can rest your ankle. This is the road I was talking about and if we’re lucky, someone will pick us up and give us a ride.”

  Alysia didn’t like the idea of getting into a hover-car with strangers, but she could barely walk and it wasn’t up to her. As they waited and talked more about their parents, Tracy broke off two pieces of wood from a rotted fence that ran along the road. She took off her jacket, pulled some straps from it, and fashioned a splint for the young girl’s leg. Once she finished, she motioned for Alysia to get up and walk to test it out.

  “Feels great, Tracy. Thank you,” she said after limping around for a bit to see if it made a difference.

  “Like I said, CeeCee, you’re a tough girl. Just … take better care of yourself out here. I’m sure that your dad has told you how it can go from bad to worse if you don’t plug a leak.”

  “Sorry, I don’t get it,” Alysia said.

  “Forget it; bad analogy. You need to take care of the minor things, like your sprain, or they turn into big problems. What if I get hurt and you have to carry me?”

  “Yeah, I need to be on my toes. I get it.”

  An hour passed and the girls thought they would end up having to walk back into town. They felt the familiar tremor of the giant from before and they both looked at each other as if they shared the same thought.

  “We need to go,” Tracy said, and she reached down for Alysia to bring her back to her feet.

  “Where IS everybody?” Alysia asked, frustrated. It was as if the people around the University had simply vanished. Tracy quickly picked up a large branch that had fallen and cut the limbs off to fashion a walking stick for Alysia. They began to walk north along the road, hoping that the further they went, the more the tremors would decline.

  When they got to the first intersection, the light was out and there were several vehicles piled up from a collision. There was a parked car to the side and as they looked around to see if its owner was nearby, several of the dinosaur creatures came running at them from the road.

  Tracy pulled out her handgun and fired off several rounds. Two of the creatures went down screaming, prompting the others to stop and investigate the fallen. She dropped the spent clip and began fumbling for another, but Alysia didn’t wait to see what would happen. She jumped into the driver’s seat of the car and popped the passenger door open.

  “Wait, we can’t steal this car!” Tracy said to her as soon as she was in.

  “Bad time for a joke, Tracy. This is life or death,” Alysia said, and she triggered the manual override and grabbed the steering wheel to control the car. The owner’s starter code was still in the console, so it obeyed her command and lifted into the air, ready to drive.

  Tracy jumped in and slammed the door, and Alysia gunned it away from the creatures. She steered them towards the city, focusing only on the situation and not the “what if’s” that kept trying to invade her mind. Tracy relaxed in the passenger seat and reloaded her gun before putting it away.

  “Pity these things can only hover and not fly,” she said.

  “But then we’d have to deal with the flying monsters up there,” Alysia said, pointing her chin up at the numerous shadows that circled the skies above the city.

  “What do you think is behind all of this?” Tracy asked as they cruised down the narrow two-lane road.

  “I don’t know. I was trying to think of what the dino-things reminded me of, but the only thing that comes to mind is a video game.”

  “Which one?”

  Alysia looked over at Tracy, happy and surprised. She couldn’t believe that she, too, was a gamer.

  “Uhm, Blue Fantasy… part six, Soula’s Blessing. When you run around gaining your experience on the game, you have these annoying little lizard things that charge you.”

  “The kreples!” Tracy said as she thought on it, and it dawned on her that Alysia was correct. “Wait, those things look exactly like kreples!”

  “Yeah, so technically you should have leveled up by now.” Alysia giggled. “Being that you killed like four of them back there.”

  “That’s because I’m the high level archer of the group and you’re an injured monk class.”

  “Call me a lowbie and I swear I will crash this car,” Alysia mumbled under her breath.

  “No girl, you aren’t a lowbie. Just unlucky, but we’ll get you healed so you can level up, too.”

  The banter was silly but necessary for their morale as they began to see more of the flying creatures circli
ng the city in the distance. Periodically, there would be a giant’s head poking above the buildings, but it seemed like the military was trying to hold them off.

  “The kreples are mutants,” Alysia finally said after there had been a block of silence between the two of them. “I think these are mutants too, considering their skin reminds me of a snake and they only have two legs. They’re so freaky looking.”

  “I can accept that those little monsters are the results of an experiment gone wrong, but if you look over there, we have giant men walking around.”

  “What’s to say that they aren’t an experiment, too?” Alysia said, and she looked over at Tracy and shrugged.

  “Where are we going, CeeCee?” Tracy asked.

  “What do you mean? We are going … well, I don’t know. I wanted to meet up with my parents.” Her voice trailed off and she thought on the question longer before looking over at Tracy. “You haven’t mentioned any family to me, or any concern for a husband, boyfriend, anything. I’ve just been talking and driving to my house but where do you want to go? Where are your people?”

  “It’s just me, but I’d love to get some things from my apartment. I want to check in at the station, too – see what the situation is and why my guys are offline.”

  “Are we ever going to wake up?” Alysia asked. “I keep telling myself that this is a dream, that at any moment now I’m going to wake up and find I was just dozing off in class. This nightmare or whatever it is it just can’t be real; I mean, look at that.” She pointed at the flying creatures having dogfights with what seemed to be fighter jets. The city was in turmoil and there was open war against the supernatural creatures.

  “Maybe driving into town isn’t a good idea. We’re bound to get caught up in the crossfire and it looks like everyone evacuated the city,” Tracy said.

  “Evacuated? They gave us no warning at school when it began. Normally, the intercom would go off and we would at least have some sort of warning to seek safety. It just happened and a lot of students lost their lives. I keep thinking about Lisa and—” Alysia caught herself as she felt a lump in her throat from the thought of her friend not making it out.

  “Hey, it’s okay, CeeCee. I’m sure your friend made it out okay. We just need to—wait, slow down!”

  They came to the last traffic light leading into the downtown area but a massive pileup of cars blocked the road. Injured people lay everywhere, and a crowd of panicked citizens ran towards them. As if anticipating the danger that was to come, Tracy stepped out of the car with her hand on her pistol. The mob didn’t seem to notice or care that the women were in the way, and they pushed past Tracy, almost knocking her down, in their mad dash to get out of the city.

  Tracy jumped back into the car to wait it out, as they couldn’t move now that people were in the way. Some banged on the hood and screamed at them to run, but none stayed to see if they would listen. The entire town wanted away from the danger and to a man, they ran as if their lives depended on it.

  “What’s in your apartment that you need to get?” Alysia asked.

  “I have a cat, and I have some extra guns and ammo. My apartment is a few blocks up there; I’ll go get my things and meet you back here.”

  Tracy didn’t hesitate in her departure and was running through the crowd by the time Alysia thought to say something to her. In a manner of minutes, she was gone, and it took everything within Alysia to keep her cool and to not panic. I have to call my parents, she thought, and pulled out her phone to make the call. Her charge was at 15% and she realized that she and Tracy hadn’t swapped numbers.

  What if she gets in trouble and needs my help? Alysia thought to herself. How could I be so stupid and scatterbrained? Always get the contact information for people you’re responsible for, girl. Ugh, you know better! She dialed the number but the phone went straight to voicemail. She hung it up and called her mother, praying with every ring that her voice would come on the other line, sweet and worried, the way she always sounded. The phone kept on ringing and she tried several more times before putting it away.

  The skies were starting to darken from what appeared to be an incoming storm and the crowd running by her began to thin. Tracy will expect me to stay here, she thought, but moved the car to a curb and parked it to get out of the road.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Two long hours passed and there was no sign of Tracy. Alysia knew something was wrong. It wasn’t just because of the amount of time Tracy was taking, but because of the sinking feeling in her gut. She got out of the car, using the stick to support her foot, and limped towards where she had seen Tracy run. The empty streets reminded her of those old, post-apocalyptic movies. It almost looked like an old Western where the town emptied out before the good guy and the bad guy squared off. But there were no tumbleweeds blowing down their empty road. Just injured people and … Tracy.

  At first, Alysia assumed that she had fallen and was catching her breath, based on the way she was laying. But as she got closer, she noticed there was blood.

  “TRACY!” she screamed and her friend turned her face to look at her.

  She could see tears streaming down Tracy’s face as she hustled to her side to help her out. She saw that the wounds from the day before were open and there were visible boot marks all over her body. It was as if she had fallen and the escaping citizens had run her over.

  “What happened to you? Can you talk?” Alysia asked, feeling helpless and worried for her friend, who seemed to be in immense pain.

  “Those bastards. They saw me leaving the apartment with the weapons and they jumped me,” she managed to say. “CeeCee, we needed those weapons. We can’t survive without them. Those thugs don’t care about anything that is going on. They’ll just prey on the weak, and with my guns a lot of innocent people will be hurt.”

  “What about your cat?” Alysia asked as she knelt to help her up.

  “He’s right here,” Tracy said as she shifted her weight and brought up her hand that held the kitten. “His name is Luciano.”

  “That’s an odd name for cat, but it’s kind of cool. Come on, Luciano, we need to get you and your mama back to the car.”

  It was hard for Alysia to tell the amount of pain that Tracy was in but she knew that it was significant. This athletic woman had run with her on her shoulders but could now only walk a few steps before stopping for air. They were both damaged and needed time to heal from their wounds. But by the time they made it to where she had parked, Alysia realized her mistake.

  With that many people running to escape the city, why did she think it was a good idea to leave a functional car in the open? She stopped on the sidewalk, looking this way and that, knowing that someone had taken her car but hoping that she was wrong.

  “As if anything more could happen to us,” Tracy said, then sighed and sat on the sidewalk as if in surrender. “We can go back up to my place. I have food and water, and we can rest up until we have the energy to go looking for another car.”

  “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Alysia said under her breath.

  “Don’t beat yourself up, girl. You’re worried about me and I appreciate it, so don’t dwell on it. We’ll adjust and get through this, then we’ll go find your parents. I can’t tell what everyone’s running away from, besides all the fighting that’s going on above us, but we need to stay put for a day or so.”

  “A day or so? What if another one of those giants comes through and smashes the apartment?”

  “Look, CeeCee, we’re out of options. It has taken everything within me to walk, so forgive me if I can’t pick out a nice safe spot away from the giants. We’re going to have to take our chances here, make you a proper splint, and get my wounds cleaned. Plus, I got a couple more guns that I’ll be damned if I let get stolen by a bunch of hoodlums.”

  Alysia agreed, and they limped to the tall building where Tracy lived and pushed open the glass sliding door to enter. The lobby looked ransacked, as if looters had found their way inside, but
Tracey led them past it and towards a flight of stairs. She stayed on the fifth floor, but to Alysia and her aching ankle, it felt like the twenty-fifth.

  When they got inside and locked the door, she fell to the ground, exhausted. Luciano was happy enough to be back in his familiar home, so he leapt from Alysia’s hands unto the couch, and made his way back into the bedroom.

  “Are your parents expecting you, CeeCee? You may want to call them,” Tracy said after pouring herself a shot of vodka and knocking it back as if it was a painkiller.

  “They aren’t answering their phones,” Alysia said, feeling even more worried when she heard the words come from her mouth. Why are they not answering their phones?

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Tracy’s place was like a bunker that had everything stocked for the end of the world. She had a refrigerator full of food, a pantry stocked with hard rations, and her guest bedroom had the most comfortable bed Alysia had ever felt. As the days went by, they watched the television to keep up with the efforts to combat the invaders. They joked, argued, and told each other stories, but most important of all, they healed. It was on the sixth day, after many more failed attempts, that Alysia finally got a call back from her parents.

  “Hey, baby girl, you okay?” Alysia’s dad said when the call connected.

  “DAD, why haven’t you guys been answering my calls? I was so worried! You have no idea.”

  “Alysia, your mom … She … I’m sorry, baby. Mom didn’t make it. She …” His voice cracked as he spoke but he kept his composure, though she could barely hear him because his voice was so low. “Your mom is dead. She passed a few days ago. I—I just couldn’t talk—”

  “Oh no,” Alysia said as the words took time to register in her mind as reality. It felt as if time slowed down inside a bubble around her and the only thing moving was her brain. Quick flashes of memory tried to profile a vision of her mother. Her mind conjured up an image of her, watching television and laughing, or singing loudly to one of her old songs. When the memory was established and the sense of loss took over, Alysia found that she could talk again. “Mom died and you didn’t call to tell me?”