The noises, the explosions, she thought. It’s the aliens, hunting us down.
Maya took off when an explosion ripped through the sky with enough intensity to knock her off her feet and send her flying. Maya flipped over twice, her arms and legs waving helplessly. She landed on her side in someone’s yard, rolling into a child’s plastic car that slowed her momentum and brought her to a stop.
Her ribs ached, and she wasn’t sure if she could stand. She looked at the road to see several cars on fire, most of them overturned or on their sides. Bodies lay in the street, some moving but most motionless. A cloud of smoke rolled toward her like creeping death.
“Are you all right?”
She looked up to see a balding man wearing a green shirt with a gray vest. He held a rifle in his hands as he ran over to her.
“Can you walk?” he asked with a Southern drawl.
Trying to clear the fog from her head and ignore the pain in her ribs, Maya nodded.
The man reached down and pulled her up. “Follow me! Hurry!”
Maya followed a chorus of screams and watched as shapes emerged from the smoke, seven feet tall and firing light beams at people as they tried to escape.
She turned back to see the armed man ten yards away, waving her onward.
Maya followed him past injured people begging for help. She bit her lip and ran by as their fingertips brushed her legs. Maya tried not to look in their faces.
Laura. Aiden. They are your top priority.
The man she had followed ran toward the entrance to a small industrial park. Nearby stood one warehouse, the bay door of its loading dock already beginning to open. The balding man gathered others who seemed calm enough to follow as he ran, bringing the group to a total of six people.
Four of the six bay doors opened, and armed civilians appeared on the docks. They fired their weapons over Maya and the others. Maya looked back to see three aliens coming towards them. One of the creatures fell as the people on the docks fired their rifles at it. Bullets hit the other two aliens, as well, but they managed to continue their pursuit of Maya and the others.
She turned back toward the warehouse and ran faster, despite the blossoming pain in her ribs. The man who’d grabbed her from the yard was the first to hop up onto the loading dock. Maya reached it alongside another woman, and a man above took their hands and pulled both of them up.
“Shut the doors!” a man yelled.
As the bay doors dropped, the people with the guns fired several last rounds at the aliens who had been chasing Maya and the others.
A hand appeared in front of Maya’s face, and she looked up to see the man who’d brought her here. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.
“Got all your fingers and toes?”
“Yeah. Last time I counted.”
“Good.” He stuck out his hand again, this time looking for a shake. “I’m Kenny.”
She shook his hand. “I’m Maya. Where am I?”
Kenny smiled, and raised his hands, performing a three-hundred and sixty-degree spin. He smiled when he turned to face her again.
“Welcome to the Shed.”
38
The Shed?
The place had obviously been some sort of distribution center. Steel shelving stood fifteen feet in the air with three levels of storage that were all filled with pallets of stacked boxes in clear wrapping. But the boxes didn’t interest her as much as the fact that the overhead lights illuminated the entire place.
Kenny stood with his back to Maya, checking on some of the others who’d come in.
“How do you have power?” Maya asked.
“This place has some pretty powerful generators,” Kenny said, turning around. “It was a distribution center for home improvement stores. They’ve got everything from doors to lawn mowers in this place. That’s why we’ve called it the Shed. Get it?”
Kenny waited for Maya to laugh, and when he only got a half-smile, he shook his head and continued. “Anyways, it ran 24/7 when it was open, and I guess the owners wanted to make sure their workers never had to stop fulfilling orders. So, they installed back-ups. And with this place being what it is, with all the power tools and such, there’s quite a supply of gasoline to run the generators. That said, we don’t run them all the time. But yeah, it’s a good set-up.”
“Hope you’re hiding that gasoline well. Fuel will be in serious demand, the longer this goes on.”
Kenny grinned. “Don’t you worry ‘bout that. Ain’t no one getting in here with how heavily we’re armed.” He raised his eyebrow. “That’s not why you came here. Is it?”
“I’m not sure if you remember, but you came and got me and told me to follow you.”
He laughed and lightly slapped Maya on her arm with the back of his hand. “I’m just messin’ with you. And yeah, I’m glad you made it.” He turned to face everyone. “I’m glad you all made it here. That being said, I think it’s time to cover a few ground rules.”
Crossing her arms, Maya scanned the room. Two dozen people of varying age, sex, and ethnicity stood around. At least this Kenny seemed to be interested in helping people, no matter what they looked like. There were a few children in the group, but most of the people looked to be in their twenties and older. She turned her attention back to Kenny when he started talking again.
“First off, in case you didn’t hear me before, my name is Kenny. I’m the one running this operation. Now, that don’t mean I think I’m some kinda dictator or somethin’. But in situations like this, someone’s got to be responsible for making decisions, and that just happens to fall on me. If you need anything, please feel free to come to me or my wife, Carly.” Kenny pointed to a dark-haired woman raising her hand in the air. “We’ll do our best to take care of you.”
The portly woman couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but Maya immediately liked her warm smile, and her sharp eyes beneath bangs dyed platinum blonde. The woman’s deep tan came from the Tennessee sun, not a fake bake from some overpriced fitness center.
“Carly is also going to be taking an inventory of your skills. So if you know how to do something that might be of use to the Shed, you’ll want to let her know. Moving on, let’s talk a little bit about food. Yes, we do have some, but not a lot. We keep it in the offices on the other side of the warehouse. We’ve been sending teams out to find more, but that’s going to be harder now that those things are running around out there. We have scheduled meal times and said meals will be rationed out. If you are caught trying to get food when it is not meal time, we will ask you to leave. If you have any special requests due to medical needs, just see Carly.”
Carly raised her hand again in case anyone had missed her the first time Kenny had mentioned his wife by name.
“Sleeping. These floors aren’t much, but they’re basically all we’ve got. We do have some blankets, and you’re welcome to find an empty pallet to lie on or something else suitable you can find around here. But just be glad you’re not out there.” He lifted his gun, pointing it towards the bay doors which led outside. “Now with all that being said, do you have any questions?”
Maya hadn’t wanted to create problems within Kenny’s group, but she felt like he either didn’t know or chose to ignore what she had witnessed out there. She made a statement instead of asking a question. “You didn’t kill those things.”
All heads turned to Maya.
“You kidding me?” a man holding a shotgun said. “We pumped dozens of rounds into them while you were high-tailing it up here. You must’ve been too busy running to see them falling down behind you.”