Maya pulled to the end of the parking lot and drove up over the curb and into the grass. There were scattered trees lining the edge of the rest area, and she pulled the truck into them so they’d be out of view from the road with some cover above. Maya parked the truck and climbed out. She walked to a concrete picnic table and sat on top of it.
As Reno and John opened the doors of their own truck, Reno already held his arms out in a question. “Why are we stopping?”
“We’ve gotten far enough away from the base and the sky is clear.” Maya looked up as if to confirm what she had just said. “I figured we could regroup and figure out exactly where we’re going.”
The kids walked over and joined Maya near the picnic table. Aiden sat on the bench while Laura leaned against a tree with her arms crossed.
Gerald had remained in the truck. Reno glanced at him, then back to Maya. He nodded at Gerald with his chin. Maya shook her head as Reno and John walked over to the picnic table.
“We need to figure out where we’re going,” Maya said.
“I don’t know where to go.” Reno turned to John, inviting his opinion.
“Yeah, those guys back at the base made it seem like there weren’t a lot of options. And there certainly isn’t much left of Nashville.”
Maya sighed. “Well, we can’t keep driving down the highway. It’s not safe, especially not at night. We need to—”
A light hit Maya in the face, blinding her. She raised her hands as the kids cried out. Maya tried to look up, but the light was too bright.
“We’re humans. Not a threat.”
She waited, hoping her eyes would adjust quickly so that she could see who was on the other side of that light. Whoever was holding it turned it off. Through the blotches in her vision, she saw the silhouette of a woman standing in the darkness halfway between Maya’s group and the rest area buildings. The woman was pointing something at them, but then she lowered her arm.
“Get out here, y’all. We’ve got other survivors.”
37
“We only stopped here to regroup.” Maya thought the African-American woman was probably sixty years old and she spoke with a deep, fluid Louisiana drawl. Maya’s eyes hadn’t adjusted enough to notice much else about her. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Six or seven people walked through the shadows from the travel center. They surrounded the woman and stared at Maya. The woman still hadn’t responded, and Maya hadn’t been paying attention to her truck when she heard the door open. Then she heard the click of a gun and saw Gerald aiming at the woman. Three of the people with her raised their own firearms, their weapons ranging from pistols to semi-automatic rifles.
“Back the fuck down, lady. I’m military.”
Maya lifted her hands in the air before stomping over to Gerald.
“Stop it. Put down the damn gun. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
He looked back at her, a darkness in his eyes. He tilted his head.
“Yeah? And would that be such a bad thing for you? No more custody complications.”
Maya shook her head. Without replying, she grabbed Gerald’s wrist and lowered his arm. A single tear came from one eye and he let loose with a sarcastic chuckle, but he didn’t fight her on it.
“Think of the behavior you’re modeling right now.”
At first, Gerald snarled and spun away from Maya, but a moment later he lowered his head, and when she put a soft hand on his shoulder, he turned around and stepped into her arms.
She couldn’t remember the last time they had hugged, let alone shown any kind of affection towards one another. Maya gripped the back of his shirt, feeling the pain caught between them and letting him have a few seconds. After Gerald slowly pulled away, Maya turned her focus back to the woman and the rest stop group as Reno stepped forward with John at his side.
“I’m sorry about this,” Reno said. “We’ve had a rough night and barely escaped an alien attack at Fort Campbell. We’re going to be on our way now.”
As Maya motioned to her friends and family to get back into the trucks, she heard other footsteps. When she turned around, the woman had cut the distance between them in half.
“Not so fast.”
Now that she was closer, Maya believed the woman to be in her late sixties, maybe pushing seventy. The senior wore a dark gray T-shirt under an open flannel shirt. Maya shook her head at her, not sure what was coming.
“Please, let us be on our way.”
The woman looked at Reno and John, who hadn’t said much since Gerald had come out of the truck with the gun. Then she turned and looked at Aiden and Laura before shaking her own head at Maya.
“Not until you let me feed those kids.”
Relaxing, Maya smiled.
The woman returned her expression with a warm, wide grin. She waved Maya and their group toward the rest stop building.
“Come on inside.”
The woman then turned her back, even though Gerald had been pointing a gun at them a few minutes earlier. Now, he looked at Maya and shrugged.
Maya glanced over to Reno and John, who were staring at her, waiting to follow her lead. Laura had moved, but Aiden gave Maya his best “C’mon, Mom” look, which she knew meant he was hungry.
Without saying another word, Maya followed the woman and the rest of the group through the grass and toward the travel center.
Five candles illuminated the foyer along with a couple of battery-powered lights. Maya noticed two generators sitting in the corner, as well as three portable spotlights. The woman went behind a desk and grabbed a cardboard box. She then came over to Maya.
“May I offer something to your children?”
Maya looked inside the box and saw it was filled with junk food—mostly chips and candy bars.
Maya nodded. “Thank you.”
The woman went to the kids and let them each pick from the box.
Maya looked around, checking for threats but seeing none. This travel area and rest stop looked exactly like the hundreds of others she’d been in over the years. While traveling, she’d never given these places a second thought, usually scurrying to and from their restrooms before getting back onto the highway. But now, she saw the well-worn facility in a new way. As these people had already realized, the place could be transformed into a bunker.
“We raided the vending machines as soon as we got here.” The woman had spoken the obvious, but Maya didn’t want to be rude, so she didn’t interrupt. “Luckily, no one else had yet. It’s not the most nutritious stuff, but it’s better than nothing.”
After the kids had each grabbed a couple of things, the woman returned to Maya. She put the box in front of her, but Maya waved it away. She had lost her appetite when the realization of what had happened to all those people at the base—and Cameron—had hit her. She couldn’t think of eating now, especially not a sugar-filled treat.
“Suit yourself.” The woman handed the box to one of the men behind her who walked it over to Gerald, Reno, and John. The woman then stuck out her hand to Maya.
“Donna.”
Maya looked at the woman’s hand before reaching out to shake it. “I’m Maya.”
“Nice to meet you, Maya.”
Donna then looked past Maya, who turned to see what had caught the woman’s attention. Gerald had gone to a corner by himself and was sitting on the floor with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his arms—looking straight ahead at the wall across the room while the rest of the people introduced themselves to one another.
“I don’t mind if you all stay here until the sun comes up,” Donna said. “But you’re going to have to keep him under control.”
“I understand. He lost someone very dear to him tonight when Fort Campbell went down.”