She extended the antenna from the side of the phone, clicked it into place and pressed the red ON switch on the phone’s keypad. The LCD display blinked the message SEARCHING… as it looked for a satellite signal. A minute later and the phone locked onto a signal and the display changed to READY.
She tapped in the number Jacob had given her and waited, listening to the chirrup of his phone ringing at the research base in the Stockton’s. It rang five times before it was picked up and Jacob’s voice answered “Hello, Emily. We were beginning to worry about you.”
Emily let out a sigh of relief, feeling some of the tension leave her body. She had secretly been harboring the thought no one would answer her call, that maybe something awful had happened in the time since she and Jacob last talked… or that she really had lost her mind and imagined the whole conversation. It was good to know she wasn’t crazy.
She wanted to say something profound to transmit her relief to him but all she could manage was a weak, “Well I guess the phone works.”
Jacob gave a good-humored chuckle, then: “So how are things looking? Are you all set to leave?”
Emily considered telling him about what she had experienced since they last talked but how could she explain something so inexplicable? Best if she just skipped those details for now, so she answered with a simple “Good. I’m packed and out of here first thing tomorrow.” She added, “I’m going to send you my route via email, as soon as I figure out how to do that. I’m following your advice and just getting clear of the city as quickly as possible. Once I’m out I’ll identify the best route to get to you guys. Things are getting a whole lot stranger here.”
Jacob sounded as though he was on the verge of asking her to elaborate on her comment but then seemed to think better of it. “Okay,” he said, “that sounds like a plan.” He paused for a moment then added, “Are you sure you’re safe? Do you have protection?”
Emily glanced over at the Mossberg leaning against the wall, “I’m covered,” she said.
They spent the next few minutes hashing out a plan for a daily communication schedule: she would call him at 6:00 pm her time every evening, and if she missed her schedule’s timeframe someone from his group would call her. Emily knew the calls were entirely for her benefit, to give her a sense of connection and safety, something concrete for her to fix on, because both Emily and Jacob realized she was going to be well and truly on her own out there. At least with his calls she could hold onto the illusion of company. Emily was thankful for Jacob’s kindness.
By the time Emily hung up the phone, she felt as confident as she could expect about her chances of reaching the Stocktons, given the circumstances.
Beyond her little apartment, the sounds of alien movement and their incessant calls had ebbed away to almost nothing .Emily began slowly to ease down from the intense emotional high of the day.
She knew she should get some sleep but her nerves were still buzzing. She reconnected the phone to the battery-unit and checked the charge level; four of the five green LEDs were now lit, it would take a little while still for the phone to fully charge but it would definitely be ready in the morning.
She took a can of Diet Pepsi from the counter, popped the top and downed a long swig from it as she moved around the living room back to the window. Darkness had well and truly descended, but the storm clouds that earlier had threatened to blot out the sky had dissipated and a fat full moon cast its glow over the city. With the lights of the city extinguished Emily realized this was the first time she had ever been able to see the stars that, until today, had been invisible to New York’s residents.
Her eyes scanned the shadowy horizon of the greatest city in the world, its towering skyscrapers and mighty financial industries now nothing more than history; a history only Emily Baxter could recall. The poignancy of the moment bit deep into her heart. Her eyes continued to roam over the shadowy rooftops and finally fell on the street below the apartment block. Emily let out a gasp of astonishment, the can of soda almost slipping from her.
The streets below and the rooftops of the stores lining them were nothing but a mass of shifting alien bodies. Thousands of the eight-limbed creatures jostled and pushed for position, scuttling over each other in what appeared to be two distinct streams; one heading north and the other south, moonlight glinting off their red bodies. Her limited view from the window, and the dim illumination, meant she could only see as far as a couple of blocks in either direction. Even so, she was sure she saw each of those streams bifurcate each time they reached a junction as a spur of the creatures left the main stream and headed off to whatever destination called them
It was like watching some strange migration.
The creatures seemed to be communicating on a level imperceptible to Emily or they were driven by a preprogrammed imperative to search and find their objective, whatever that might be.
Emily’s mind immediately flew back to the giant alien trees she had witnessed being built in Central Park. Was this where this exodus was bound? If she rode through the park tomorrow, would she see even more of those tree-like structures? Maybe this time they would be complete as each of these creatures below her sacrificed itself to the structure like some kind of biomechanical building block?
She looked down at the river of alien bodies streaming past her building, her eyes following others as they scuttled over the rooftops and out of buildings, leaping to join the flow of their kin. There was something strangely hypnotic about it. The ebb and flow of these creatures had a certain mathematical quality to it as they scuttled and crawled along.
Although Emily could not hear anything from her 17th floor aerie, she wondered what it would sound like to stand on the sidewalk down there and listen as they clicked and clattered past on their spindly legs: terrifying, she decided. It would be terrifying, like something from the deepest depths of hell.
Emily stepped back from the window and drew the curtains together. In the solitude of her apartment, she resolved not to look out that window again until daybreak.
An hour later, Emily flicked on the flashlight and blew out the last of the candles as she stifled a long overdue yawn.
She picked up the shotgun and carried it to the sofa, laying it on the floor next to her, within easy reach if the need should arrive. She doubted she would. Each encounter with the creatures seemed to point squarely in one direction: they were nothing but drones, building blocks if you will, for something far larger and much more complicated. If they had wanted to do her harm, well, she knew she would already be dead.
She thought she may have caught sight of some small part of the overall plan out there in the park. The creatures were adding to that structure, building something to only they knew what end. While she did not think these drones were any danger to her unless they were threatened, any plan created by an intelligence that could wipe out the majority of humanity and possibly most other life on this planet in a twenty-four hour period was the purest epitome of evil to her, no matter how unfathomable that plan may be.
It was no longer what had taken place over the past few days that concerned Emily; it was what was coming next that worried her now. She had the distinct feeling she was cutting her evacuation from what was left of New York by as close a margin imaginable, because this city no longer belonged to humanity.