Chapter Text
Chapter 1
A not-so-ordinary raid
The sight of the road was suddenly replaced by a happier place--the happiest I’d ever been in my short life--a happier moment and time. A small bedroom, with a mattress and little else, but more than enough for the life Jamie, Melanie and I needed. But Mel and I made the nights ours, completely ours. Her and me, one body, barely getting any sleeping at all. And then hungering for that body, that face, those lips, all next day.
But it’s impossible. It’s unthinkable. It’s inconceivable. Melanie’s not back. She can’t be.
“Careful, Jared.”
Hearing Aaron’s reassuring, though tense, voice, I came back to the present. To the road I was driving in with a half-full truck, broad daylight, slightly over the speed limit. I put my foot off the accelerator and ordered myself to stay at that speed.
“Right. Sorry. Thanks,” I muttered to Aaron, who simply nodded his head once, looking through the rear view mirror. I instinctively did the same, feeling goosebumps on my back when I saw the amount of cars driven by aliens that followed, preceded and shot past us. One slip and we’d fail. And our family would pay the ultimate price to our failure.
That was not going to happen. Not today, not because of me, not because Melanie’s body had appeared out of nowhere. My family relied upon me and I wasn’t going to be the one who’d break their trust. There wouldn’t be any way to warn them if we ran into danger. That, if they were still alive, or even humans, when we came back--
“Jared, do you want for me to drive?”
Right. On the road, aliens all around us, chance of getting caught and die. I couldn't lose my focus like this.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, with a tone that rather said “Let me be”. He thankfully noticed and didn’t say a word about Mel, or the mission, nor insisted in driving. Just said in a casual voice:
“OK, great, ‘cause that’s our exit.”
I looked up and saw Aaron was right. I was almost going to miss the exit number 5. I used the turn signal to change lanes in order to get the adequate exit with little to no space for the whole vehicle. Kyle’s truck, having seen the exit in advance, was right before us, which I disliked. This way I couldn’t lead the mission or guide Kyle in any way. And knowing his temperament, at the first chance, on a light, I moved up in front of him. I could see his frustrated face, though Aaron’s sign of approval made me feel a little better.
After all, we had to find a supermarket with a semi-secluded parking area that had somewhat of a hide away place in front of the shop from which we could safely control the ins and outs of the place. And the first few choices of supermarkets, despite of what Kyle thought, didn’t adjust to those requirements. Finally, we stumbled on yet another supermarket which was what I was looking for.
Kyle and I left the trunks at opposite sites of the parking lot, descended and after a nod from my part, we all got to the abandoned building at the other side of the road, as casually as possible being surrounded by aliens, heads down, eyes covered behind the sunglasses, though the sun was already setting. We got to the second floor and found a good place for hiding, in the shadows, from where we could see the entrance of the supermarket. And then we just waited.
For once I let my partners do most of the work. It was true that I was having a hard time concentrating today and I’d put my skills to better use if I spent my energy and focus in the break-in and robbery. The task of surveillance wasn’t that difficult to two grown-up men and a third one with an intellectual level of a twelve-year-old, so I just stayed in my position and let myself snooze out a little bit, without being too obvious about it.
Melanie had said, before, that her father--or rather, her father’s body--had appeared once or twice in some of the Stryder’s known locations, leading the Seekers, chasing Jamie and Mel to kill them and convert them too. Had that alien inside Mel's body come for the same reason?
But then again, it’d been a stupid plan. The alien had barely survived. It hadn’t with itself any food or water, nor any means to ask for help to other aliens, let alone alert them should it found the caves. It was closer to dying when Jeb had found it. What sort of a plan was that? The aliens wouldn’t risk--or almost, sacrifice--a life of their own just to find some humans. That wasn’t the way they worked.
And there was another reason why I couldn’t believe that argument. Mel was the strongest woman I’d stumbled across in my life. She had vowed that, should anything happen to her, she’d never let the Seekers find Jamie and me and, with luck, her uncle and other survivors. She loved us strongly enough to sacrifice herself for us to keep on living, to give us a real chance. She’d put up a hell of a fight, one that few Seekers’d have seen or would ever see again. So, what the hell had happened in order for things to complicate as much as that?
God, I’d missed Melanie. Every hour of every day we’d spent apart. And after seeing her, my body was aching to be once again close to her. To make sweet love again as we once did every night. But I couldn’t have felt this way. I wouldn’t. That--wasn’t even human anymore. I couldn’t be attracted to a dead thing. Could I?
I had accepted that Mel was gone. There was no talking to the kid about that, it’s true, he was still lingering to a very thin hope--and I couldn’t blame him, Mel was his sister, his mother, his everything on this world. But I had, and I was learning to live with that. But then, that alien appeared in Mel’s body and I almost couldn’t breathe. They were good at that, playing with our feelings. That alien was specially skilled at that. But at what again, exactly? Surely she wasn’t a Seeker, she couldn’t be.
I couldn’t answer any of these questions and that only got me more confused, exasperated, stressed and furious. None of the right feelings for the mission ahead. So after a while I stopped trying, focusing once more in the task in hand, though they never left my mind.
After closing, we counted one by one the supermarket workers leaving the building to make sure it was completely empty. But still I ordered to stay put. It was soon enough for the aliens, who’d taken most of our human habits, to go have lunch outside on this pleasant night, and maybe go to the cinemas after. Too many witnesses.
I waited to be satisfied until there were only casual aliens in the streets, and not a single car had crossed the road in more than half an hour.
“OK, let’s go,” I murmured, getting up. All my muscles ached from the sitting position I’d been for the last few hours, as did everyone else’s, but we all swallowed a complain. All but Kyle, obviously.
“About time,” he grumbled, stretching out with a loud yawn.
“For God, Kyle, could you possibly shout a bit more?” I demanded frustrated.
That seemed to make Kyle focus and he stared at me quite bewildered. Without looking at him, I grabbed my bag and took six flashlights that I gave to each of my partners. All of us checked if they worked and, apart from Kyle, turned them off again and put them on our belts. He still carried the flashlight in his hand.
“Turn them on inside,” I ordered irritated. It was basic survival--one could have thought, after these years, Kyle’d have learnt something.
He sighed exasperatedly but didn’t argue as he turned the flashlight off and put it on his belt. Him, Aaron, Wes, Brandt and Andy followed me as I climbed down the stairs two steps at a time. I stopped once we were in the streets, where I hid behind the wall. The streets seemed deserted and all I could hear were the distant rumbling of a small city at night. Taking a deep breath I made sure all of my partners followed me and started running towards the other side of the street, completely exposed. The only thing that calmed my nerves were the closed night and our silent steps.
I got safely to the supermarket and hid again in one of the corners, waiting for the rest. Kyle was the last and gave me a thumbs up, signaling everything was in order.
The aliens were too confident in each other. They didn’t have any job as “guardian” or "vigilant" in shops or supermarkets and they barely closed any doors or windows. Luckily enough, the first door I tried to open wasn’t locked, so I signaled everyone to get in, and I followed them the last, closing the door behind me.
I stopped two steps in, tense, the same as everyone else. We were surrounded by complete darkness and our breaths. But nothing else: no-one was in the supermarket nor had heard us, no alarm had gone off.
Panting, and not because of the short race from the other building--at least, not in my case--we took our flashlights and lighted them, first of all scanning the floor, making sure no alien was there.
When we pointed the flashlights towards the shelves filled with food, we froze once again, though not because of panic. We were all famished, soon close to the point of starvation--we had to carefully distribute our supplies--and there we were, surrounded by food. I had to fight the urge to grab the first thing I saw and start eating.
And if I had that impulse, I knew everyone else did too.
“Let’s start,” I ordered, bossy voice, before anyone got any ideas. We had to get out of there as soon as possible.
We divided into two groups: each would start getting food from one of the corners and we’d meet at the center to organize all we’d grabbed. Even as Aaron, Wes and I walked through the shelves taking nothing more than what we needed, I knew we’d have to leave a lot. And a few minutes later we met Kyle, Brandt and Andy and saw they had chosen much more than us and could barely drag their pile of boxes.
“We can’t take all of this,” I said in a sigh, pointing with my flashlight all the boxes accumulated. Even if, as was protocol, two of us took the trucks right at the entrance of the building, it would take too much time. We had to get away from the city and find somewhere to sleep.
We confronted this problem in every supermarket we went on. We tried to take from one place as much as possible to avoid risks at stopping in many other supermarkets. But this was a full re-supplying mission, we were bound to do just that. So we should take it easy.
“We can do two trips,” suggested Kyle, half offended.
“It’d take us too much time. That’s a risk I won’t be taking,” I replied at once.
Though everyone understood by my sharp tone not to argue me, Kyle left on the floor the box he was carrying and stood up looking at me right in the eye. We were about the same height, but I didn’t back away, not now that I had an excuse to relief some of the stress I’d been feeling since leaving the cave. And no-one’s ever sorry for hitting Kyle. His nose had to be used by now to be broken.
Aaron put a hand in my shoulder, which somehow, calmed me enough to regain consciousness of our situation: the rush we were in, the danger. That wasn’t the time to engage a fight with Kyle, no matter how much I wanted to. There’d be other chances, for sure.
“Wes, Kyle, put that part back where it was,” ordered Aaron, signaling a quarter of the accumulated boxes. “Andy, Brandt, pull up the trucks to the rear entrance. See you there in ten.”
Surprisingly, everybody listened at Aaron and complied at once, even Kyle, giving me some space and time. Which I very much needed and appreciated.
“Thanks,” I muttered once I knew we were out of earshot.
“No problem,” assured the man. “A hand?”
I turned to see he was already carrying over his shoulder a couple of the heavier boxes. I did the same and we both ran towards the rear entrance, from where we could already hear the engines of the vehicles. We froze once again, fearing they’d be too loud. But outside, everything was still. The aliens, as we once were, were used to hearing cars engines anytime, day in day out. We’d been in the caves for such a long period of time that we were completely used to the utterly quiet nights of the desert. And grateful too--that way, we could be warned way in advanced if someone was approaching our hideaway.
Andy and Brandt parked the trucks with their rears headed towards us, so the loading would be much easier. Aaron and I threw our boxes inside and Brandt and Aaron jumped in, too, in order to relocate them and organize the cargo. In the meantime, we were already back with some more boxes, Kyle and Wes helping us out now. Within fifteen minutes--lot longer than I would have wanted it--all the boxes chosen were already in the trucks, and all of us were sweating and panting. But we couldn’t stop to rest.
While the others got the trucks ready to leave, I got once more into the store and got a few bottles of water and some snacks. We knew the aliens registered every taken item, not the way humans did, but just to keep record of the products bought. We could do the same and that way the aliens wouldn’t think twice on the items missing--not that any of them, except the Seekers, were suspicious--but we didn’t know if the registers recorded the hour of the purchases, and if the aliens checked it, we would be in trouble. So it was better, all in all, to still act in the secrecy.
When I got out they were all ready, sitting in their seats, waiting for me.
“Jared, the heck are you doing?” demanded Kyle with an angry voice as I closed the door behind me and stepped into the driver’s seat of the opposite truck. Without answering him directly, I threw at the other truck some of the snacks and a couple of bottles of water.
“Eat this, before your god-damn stomach gives us away.”
Kyle looked furious at the snacks, but he couldn’t deny the accusation. No-one could, as everyone was famished. However, he still refused to eat anything--while I was watching him, I knew.
“Let’s get out of here,” I ordered, fed up with his childish behavior.
From our respective trucks, everyone closed the door and turned on the engines again, looking nearby to make sure not a single neighbor peered through the curtains or the windows. But luckily we left the city and hit the road unnoticed, with the trucks a little bit more full groceries for our family. However the risks, that fact always made me feel better. Knowing everything was for the greater good.
I sighed with immense relief when we were back at the road, all my muscles softening. I felt much better out there, more free, less things to think or worry about, just us, the road, the trucks and the occasional lights ahead or behind us. Less aliens surrounding us, would be more appropriate.
Couple miles outside the city, I slowed the truck towards the side of the road and Kyle followed, stopping side by side with our vehicle.
“What now?” he asked.
“We need sleep. Over there seems like a safer place than any other.”
I signaled the mountains a couple of miles off the road. Thank god we didn’t left the desert on these missions, we’d have to sleep some place hidden inside a city, completely surrounded by aliens, dozing off with little to no resources of fighting should we be caught. I wasn’t exactly eager to try that experience, even if we chose a small and isolated city, I knew I couldn't close my eyes for more than a few seconds at a time.
“We have what, five hours of sleeping?”
“I’ll be glad to offer you a more permanent solution should you ask for one, Kyle.”
“OK, on my way,” grumbled him, taking the lead. I let him this time, taking a deep breath. Geez, I hated Kyle. And Jeb. Why couldn’t he have stayed in the caves? Why did I have to be a god-damn babysitter in two out of five missions? If Kyle had stayed behind he maybe would have solved the alien situation by now, and I wouldn’t be as distracted as I was every minute of the day. He wasn't known for listening to anybody, much less when he thought he was right. And in this case, we were all right. No matter what rubbish Jeb said about guests and social conventions, we needn't to apply the same rules to that damn alien. It endangered our lives and community the longer it lived. All of us maybe were participating in a useless mission, if the alien should find a way to escape. It was, in all, too risky and stupid letting it live.
It was going to be a very, very long raid. I held onto the hope that any of the members of our family would eventually get fed up with the danger of living with an alien and kill it during a moment of distraction. It would do everyone a favor, myself included. I don't even think Jamie'd be that upset. With luck, Jeb could have kept the kid away from the alien to spare him the trouble or any kind of stupid remorse towards the girl who once was her sister. The sooner we finished with this situation the sooner we'd get back to our normal lives--or the new lives we knew at the caves, at least. Which was in any case, way better than ending up dead with an alien inside our minds.