The Long Way To Reno (10 page)

I
played with my bangs while he looked away quickly, examining his rifle in a way
that told me he was already familiar with it. I glanced over, wondering where
he kept his ammo. Just looking at the gun made me sick all of a sudden,
recalling vividly what had happened earlier. I felt so insecure of myself
handling another gun. After all that had happened with that 9mm, I knew I
wasn’t going to feel good with another one in my hands. I could ‘feel’ the
recoil and weight of the gun in my hands, something that made me wipe my hands
hastily on my jeans legs.

“Are
you okay?” Harley then asked, ever so helpful. He shifted to pull his backpack
up onto his lap. “I have some food, here.”

“Hey,
I’m really hungry,” the girl finally spoke up, making us both look at her. She
escaped her seat next to the nurse, wiggled in front of me to sit on the other
side of Harley. She smiled up at him while he rummaged in his pack for
something to give to her. He got all friendly with her – asking her her
name, how she was doing, yadda, yadda, yadda. I grew bored with the interaction
and looked out the windshield. We were approaching USA Parkway. The other
vehicles in front of us were rumbling, jumping all over the place on the
tracks.

Seeing
the freeway on the hill above us was a different site. But I saw flashes of
color, reflections of glass, and knew that it was just as abandoned as it was
back there. I was never going to make it to Reno in that car. And it would have
taken me hours, days on foot to negotiate. I wondered if there were more people
wandering up there, trying to flag us down.

Benson
returned to looking at us, asked for one of Harley’s oatmeal cakes. He ate it
cheerfully, and I admired the thickness of his throat. I had to look away from
this man-boy to control my deviant urges to jump his bones in front of
everybody.

“SHIPS!”
the driver screamed above all the noise, and the Humvee shifted suddenly. After
I was able to regain my balance, grabbing onto the back of the bench seat, I
saw multiple flying objects zooming over our heads. I couldn’t exactly see what
they were, but something rattled underneath the vehicle so violently that most
of us bumped our heads against the ceiling. The soldiers were scrambling to arm
themselves – the vehicle in front of us had swerved off the tracks and
was taking a frantic chance to make it across the river – water splashed
and mud spewed, and we were suddenly taking the same route.

The
girl screamed as gunfire exploded loudly over our heads – I couldn’t even
see who was shooting and where at, because Benson was shoving my head down onto
the seat, Harley doing the same to the girl. My ears went momentarily deaf as
we bounced in our seats, and gunshots continued to fire in this automatic way.
Like someone was just holding that trigger in with both hands.

Since
I couldn’t see anything, hearing the soldiers screaming at each other to take
some sort of evasive action, I really
really
wanted out of the vehicle.
I fell to the floor as we hit a particularly hard something, and something
clattered and bounced next to my head. I looked at it and wondered where the
gun came from. The old man grabbed it as he fell to the floor. We exchanged
looks, but his was demonic. I’m sure mine just looked terrified. He rose up,
pushed a window open, and started shooting – upward.

Trying
to keep myself from vibrating underneath the seat, I clutched the metal
supports of the seat in front of me, my Fubar bouncing against me and the
floor. I looked up to see the roof being torn back – it looked like some
sort of cloth material, and it was making this really wicked sound.

Cloth
doesn’t sound like that, and the roof really wasn’t cloth.
Something
was
tearing it open like it was a sardine can of sorts. Sandy was firing up through
the opening, and whatever it was screamed as loudly as she did when she caught
sight of it. The vehicle lurched, and for a moment, we were airborne. We all
slammed to the side, and I rolled underneath the seat in front of me, my
already bruised face slamming off someone’s boot. They almost stepped on me,
too, as they shifted position, so I hastily pushed myself back. Only this
peculiar situation caused me great discomfort, with my head bouncing off the
floor and the seat above me. I hollered because I couldn’t do anything else.

My
Fubar slid past me, and I captured it with one hand, gunfire spraying the open
air – it was really cold out. I managed to push myself back to the back
seat, just in time to see the creature as it revealed itself – a leaner,
longer version of the aliens I’d seen in the parking lot. Long arms, with
longer claws, with glowing yellow eyes and what looked to be antennae atop of
its tubular shaped head. It screeched, shifted aside the roof it had just
finished prying open, and tossed it aside like it was some ruined toy. It
reached in after balancing itself – its hide, some desert-colored display,
was bouncing and vibrating. The soldiers were shooting at it, and nothing was
happening to it. I couldn’t see who it’d grabbed, someone giving a maddened
shout. It was the old man with the gun and he was shooting at the creature with
these unintelligible words. Might’ve been another language, but I was so scared
I couldn’t even concentrate properly. The alien tossed the man through the air
like a toy, and then reached in again with a maniacal screech. This time it was
pulling at the nurse, but both Sandy and Benson grabbed and held tightly onto
her.

She
shrieked, clutching Sandy’s arms, desperate to escape the same fate as the old
man had. Harley pushed up from his seat and used the butt of his rifle against
the crook of the alien’s arm. As hard as he hit it, it still didn’t release
her, and before I knew it, the girl was cramming herself next to me on the
floor, sobbing huge tears of terror. More things rattled past me, and I
realized that they were some supplies from my bag. My hairspray, deodorant,
extra gloves…dammit, I needed my Secret! I tried to catch them, but people were
stepping everywhere, and I retreated my hand in time, watching my stuff roll
and bounce around our heads.

I
struggled to catch my breath. Tried to keep my head from reacting as a ping-pong
ball against both seat and floor – pushed out with a firm grasp on my
Fubar. The alien was busy screaming at those that were hitting it, shooting at
it, and the driver of the Humvee was screaming and jerking the wheel, so I had
no sense of where we were going and what he was doing with the vehicle.

The
nurse reached down and snagged my hair, so I screamed as the already sensitive
area protested with painful reaction. I jerked back, and her clenched fingers
left me, my hair dangling from her fists. Fuck, I was going to be bald, soon!
No sooner had I registered that thought when she ensnared the hood of my jacket
to continue holding on. I groped the floor for something to hang onto, caught
onto what felt like the can of hairspray I’d seen earlier. I fumbled with the
cap, allowed myself to be lifted from the floor as the nurse’s strength became
superhuman. I twisted awkwardly in mid-lift and sprayed the contents of the can
in the direction of the alien’s head. The nurse let go because I’d caught her,
too.

The
alien released the lady with a pained screech, and to keep the thing from
reaching or looking at me, I sprayed it again – it reacted with these
awkward coughs and swipes of its head as the chemicals burned the sensitive
features of its face.

I
jerked away, scrambled to get away from its swiping claws, threw the can of
hairspray at it - but it was hard to escape within that tight, confined space.
I thought I was going to be thrown in the same direction as the old man had,
hollering with panic. Benson lunged forward, curled a manly arm around my waist
to keep that from happening – I tried not to swoon.

He
jammed the barrel of his gun into the creature’s open, coughing mouth, and
fired repeatedly. At the same time, he was hurling me back down into the Humvee,
where I crashed ungracefully back down to the floor. The thing screamed loudly
as it fell away from the vehicle, long claws raking against the insides of the
ceiling before disappearing altogether. The nurse landed atop of me, and I
couldn’t breathe, struggling to push her heavy weight off me.

The
Humvee lurched again, and I recognized that we were on pavement. Still hearing
massive explosions of gunfire and screams. Sandy and Benson were taking shots
at things that kept making them spin in place, firing in vain at things we
couldn’t see. Harley was atop of me, but in a way that suggested he was trying
to be helpful again – the nurse had somehow crammed herself in next to
the girl, and I turned onto my stomach and searched for my Fubar while he shouted
in my ear that we needed to
stay down
!

I
found my weapon, my deodorant, and drew them towards me – only this time
the Humvee lurched into the air, and the resulting slam onto the ground had my
jaw bouncing off the hard floor. I knew I bit my tongue from the taste of blood
spilling into my mouth. I sputtered and spit, and grew alarmed at the sight of
my own fluid on the floor. Suddenly Benson was screaming a panicked sort of
scream, and because of Harley’s position, I couldn’t turn around and see what was
happening. The Humvee took this wild turn, and suddenly we were airborne in a
different way.

Time
seemed to stop at that instant. Allowing me to see exactly what had happened.
The driver’s upper half was missing, so he couldn’t negotiate a turn onto USA
Parkway’s bridge. The Humvee in reaction had slammed into the concrete wall and
had overturned – so we, the people still inside, were being sent towards
the freeway below. The others looked like rag dolls, so I must, too.

Chapter Six

At
work, I’d sometimes dump heavy objects into my totes. They dropped soundly into
the tote with this small bounce; hard impact against plastic…some sort of
mechanics. Anyway, this came to mind when I slammed against an unmovable
surface. Flat on my back, arms flapping to a halt and my breath gone within
instants. My head bounced hard, and it did a jolt upward. The sound of impact
made my ears ring – or maybe it was the impact itself. I stared up at the
sky in a daze – watching this humongous dark blue thing in the sky float
overhead. I couldn’t hear any motors or anything – but I’d probably lost
my hearing in all this ringing that was currently overwhelming my world.

I
struggled to breathe, I struggled to comprehend that my body was absolutely
hurting. My head, my neck – I wanted to stare up at the sky and zone out
because everything hurt so bad. The alien ship was a massive thing –
maybe two football fields put together, and expanded in the middle. It looked
like a grub of sorts – a massive flying insect. There were gills flapping
underneath, and it looked pretty. Orange reflecting back into neon green…took
me a moment to realize that they were actually creating a light similar to the
flashing I’d seen the night before.

Along
with this fantastic sight? Another walking robot taking huge steps through the
uneven formulation of the freeway. It was massive. It towered over everything,
shadowing the area with its mechanical body that was desert-colored, with
NFL-style armor covering its shoulders, upper torso. I gaped up at it as it
negotiated the crowded freeway, crushing vehicles underfoot and following after
the ships in the sky. I watched it go, cringing as one of its massive steps
moved right over me. The sound of its gear-joints whispered through the chaos around
me. Metal was crushed, glass shattered under its huge feet. My mouth fell open,
and I watched the robot-thing continue on without hesitating through the battle
it walked through. It took an athletic lunge across the river and climbed the
mountain, disappearing over it – but the rumble of its footsteps
continued to echo behind it. I was watching it with a geek-filled awe rather
than fear, than considering any possibilities of what it was capable of.

Comprehension
began to formulate in me. I started to become aware of other things. I stared
at the bridge we’d just wrecked off, and saw the impact the Humvee had made in
the concrete. I lifted my head with momentous effort, and realize that I was
lying atop of a truck’s trailer - a semi-truck that had caught me before
pavement could. It was luck, or something. Very slowly, as hearing started to
return, I grew aware of gunfire, of screaming.

I
looked over to see smaller ships, triangular in shape, whipping through the
air. They weren’t exactly emitting beams of light or anything – just
puffs of sound. But that invisible wave sent parked cars flying. Sedans,
trucks, SUVs – nothing was safe when that puff hit. Glass exploded and
metal protested – beyond that, across the river, a Humvee coasted through
the dirt, aflame. It’d left behind spots of fire, and there were sagebrush and
people –
people
! – currently alit with flaming orange.

I
lifted up on my elbows, then remembered I wasn’t the only one in the humvee. I
couldn’t see anybody else, and for a second, I thought I was the only one that
survived.  I spotted my Fubar hanging by the wrench teeth to the edge of
the trailer – I grabbed it, slung it behind me and ended up banging my
head with it.

The
distance from bridge to freeway below was a big one. I heard shouting, and
searched for the source – I saw hands clinging tenaciously to the edge of
the trailer. Every part of me was stiff and reluctant to move – my head
felt incredibly heavy and unreliable. I gurgled some noises as I was finally able
to push myself into a crawl towards those hands. I managed to make it, looking
over with a spinning head to see the teen, struggling to get up because it was
too high for her to drop down safely. I croaked something that was supposed to
be caring and concerned, and she screamed at me to pull her up.

I
did so because I couldn’t rightly function any other way, and we collapsed atop
of the trailer in a heap. She was breathing hard, her makeup smeared –
her Elmo sweater was torn in the shoulder. She was shaking, gasping for breath
– when an explosion sounded, she screamed and started crying, clutching
onto the trailer with both hands. An animal reaction that I found fascinating
– I was the same way. Too terrified to think.

I
felt that we couldn’t stay atop of this thing for long. I made my way towards
the front of the trailer, heading for the cab. It was a stiff jump from the
trailer down, and metal bent soundly under my weight. From there was another
shaky climb down to the hood, the grill and finally the pavement. My entire
body was uncooperative, and it took a lot of pushing to keep me moving. The
girl followed, but she tumbled off the grill and hit the ground hard.

It
seemed to jolt her out of her terrified state. Once she was able to shake
herself off, she started running down an open row of vehicles – I
followed because I didn’t know what else to do. Her pants kept slipping down
her hips and exposing her backside, which was distracting – visible crack
in the middle of an alien attack. It was funny for some reason.

Huffing
and puffing, terribly out of shape and hurting at every angle, I wasn’t even
half the speed she was. As such, I searched for the others, stooping and
crouching every so often to look under the cars. The nurse was hiding
underneath a Ford truck, and I shouted at her to hurry up – she shook her
head and pulled herself even further within, and when several ships zipped
overhead, I didn’t stay to convince her any further. I turned and continued
running.

I
spotted Harley stumbling along, dragging Sandy. She looked all out of sorts,
clutching onto him with both hands and moving awkwardly in her gear. I
staggered over to help them, all of us ducking when an explosion near the
bridge happened. Cars flew, glass shattered – I looked up, shrieked, and did
this terrible duck and roll underneath the nearest form of cover nearby; an old
Chevy with hay in the bed. It crunched downward as the Ford the nurse had been
hiding under crashed atop of it, and rolled into a black Nissan next to it.
Glass shattered, sprinkling the pavement and myself with a plastic-tinkle.
Stunned, I stared at the undercarriage of the Ford, at the spinning tires, and
then quickly rolled out from underneath the Chevy I’d hidden under. The hunk of
metal was bent downwards, there was hay everywhere, but it stood proudly.

I
looked back to see Sandy pushing back up to her feet, Harley mimicking the
action, both of them looking around with stunned expressions. An alien scream
made us all cringe, and I saw one of those leaner things catching sight of us.

I
withdrew my weapon of choice, gulping in amounts of bravado and courage when
this manly person shoved me aside and I heard this low
blop
! that made
me cringe in reaction. I know that sound – sure enough, the grenade
slammed into the alien, exploding and sending it flying back. Stunned, it
whipped its head from side to side as it revealed a singed chest. It staggered
from side to side, slamming into various vehicles as it struggled to right
itself.

            Benson
shouldered his grenade launcher and shouted at me to
go that way
!,
pointing off to the side. I went
that way!
and found it hard to do so
– my body was so stiff and sore. Amidst the alien screeching, the weird
puffs of sound that caused more explosions, I heard him screaming at his
comrades to
hurry up!
, to
drag him with you
!

            Struggling
for breath, I ran down the dirt slope, catching sight of other people
struggling like me. All of them looked terrified and exhausted, their legs
plowing through dirt and sagebrush with desperation. The sun, as low as it was,
continued to sink – I had the thought that once it did, we’d be in the
clear. The aliens wouldn’t be able to see us. We were running along the river
when someone toppled over, flopped into the iced waters – two people
stopped running to assist, but I didn’t. I was useless in that factor, barely
able to help myself.

            I
cringed as they screamed at me to help them.

            Still
running, I watched as a couple of men turned and headed back up to the freeway
– the hill was a little too steep on this side, but I didn’t want to
chance more falling cars hitting me. As more people went up, I continued along
the hillside. In doing so, my legs gave out due to the positioning, and I went
tumbling towards the river. My feet slapped against ice and water, and I cried
aloud as I caught onto some brush hanging overhead. Cold shocked me to my
bones, and I did this awkward pull and yank, forcing myself up from the river
and onto the dirt. My pants clung to me, ice cold and muddy, and I crawled on
all fours through the dirt, settling on that position to get me through this
steep angle.

            Eventually
I made it – things were being left behind me. There were still
explosions, still faint screams of both people and aliens, still fantastic
slams of vehicle on vehicle. But the further I moved, the closer the Tracy
Clark plant looked - no matter that it was currently resembled a smoke-wall of
sorts, a column of black coloring the sky. The river project was to my side
– where they were doing a renovation of some sort to the banks, to
alleviate some type of flooding situation, I’m not exactly sure –and the
freeway had risen to tower overhead. I ran, I huffed and puffed – I kept
stumbling over sagebrush and rocks, and I did run into a couple of people that
had made it as far as I did. None of whom I recognized.

            All
of us were mindless, running to get away.

: :

           
Driven by fear, I ran until my legs gave
out. I had just reached the Tracy Clark plant – but there was only
smoldering flames and smoke that let me know this place had been destroyed
hours earlier. I felt sick upon inhaling the fumes, but there was nothing more
I could do about it.

            It
was too dark for me to continue on without using my flashlight, and I was
shivering so badly that my teeth were rattling noisily in the immense quiet.
There was the sound of coyotes in the distance, but nothing else. The noises
had stopped a long time ago near the USA Parkway Bridge, and when I’d looked
back a few times, there was only a mountain on fire. It illuminated the area
back there, and it looked to be spreading this way, so I’d crossed the freeway
and was walking on the flatter side. It would catch up to me soon, so I kept
walking. I wanted to stay close to the freeway, in case I caught up to other
people.

            My
pants were so cold. The guy that had flopped into the river must have been
frozen to the bones.

            My
breath was visible as I breathed - my lungs ached. I was so tired that I
stumbled with every third step, ready to fall asleep at any moment. Every part
of me was tired, sore, stiff – I yawned and struggled to stay awake. I’d
heard of people falling asleep on their feet, but I didn’t believe one could do
it until now. My mind was trying to keep me alert and awake, but my body
refused to keep pace. I tilted my head up and looked up at the night sky
– where all the stars twinkled brightly, brilliantly. The hot pink
feathering of the Milky Way was completely visible, and I was awestruck at the
quality of colors. I’d never really looked up, before.

            I
tumbled over sagebrush I hadn’t seen in my path, and ended up laying there for
a few minutes. I wanted to curl up and sleep there, but I managed to push
myself into a standing position that almost made me fall again. I felt heavy
with all my supplies and layers that I staggered a few times before righting
myself and continuing on. My legs felt like lead, and my shoes felt useless
against the dirt I plowed through.

            I
crossed my arms tightly over my chest, my Fubar heavy and unmanageable against
my back. The sling I’d constructed didn’t feel tight enough, but I didn’t want
to uncurl myself to fix it. My gloves weren’t thick enough – Walmart sold
faulty products. I tried to construct a strongly worded email of complaint in
my tired thoughts, ready to give the execs a new hole for providing cheap
things at their stores. Despite my usage of big and small words that ranged
from bad English to polite cursing, I couldn’t keep my mind alert enough to add
on more complaints to this imaginary letter.