There were so many questions she could ask, but the first one that popped out was, “Why didn’t you put tape over my mouth?”
Her captor didn’t reply at first, and she thought that either he didn’t hear her or intended to ignore her. But then he said, “What?”
“You taped my hands and feet, so obviously you don’t want me to go anywhere. But why don’t you care if I talk? I’d think it would be distracting, having a captive chattering away in the backseat…”
She couldn’t believe what she was saying! Was she still dazed from the blow that had knocked her out? Had she suffered some sort of brain damage? The last thing she should be doing was annoying her kidnapper!
The man paused, as if considering his reply, but when he finally answered, he sounded tired rather than annoyed. “I’m not allowed to put tape over the mouth. It… muffles the screams.”
She almost lost it then, but she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Pain flared bright and she tasted blood, but the panic receded once more. You can make it through this, she told herself. Just stay cool, stay smart…
It wasn’t easy bound as she was, and with a head that felt as if something with razor-sharp claws was trying to dig its way out of her brain, but she managed to sit up in the backseat, though she paid for her small triumph when nausea twisted her gut. It didn’t help that she’d swallowed a mouthful of blood from her cheek wound. Despite the chill air inside the car, she felt suddenly feverish and feared that she was going to throw up.
Careful now… you don’t want to piss him off by puking on the upholstery.
The thought that her life might hinge on whether she could choke back her vomit struck her as wildly funny, and she felt a wave of laughter building inside her. She wondered which would come out first—puke or laughter—or if she’d blow chunks the same instant that she started braying like an insane donkey. In the end, the competing impulses canceled each other out, and she was able to sit there quietly. Her head even seemed to hurt a little less.
Score one for hysteria, she thought.
She turned to look out the right passenger window to get an idea where she was, but the view wasn’t much help. Yellow-fog sky, smooth gray ground, the damn thorny weeds that seemed to sprout through every major road in the world now, almost as if they were there to make travel more difficult. She wasn’t in town anymore, but other than that, she couldn’t say where she was. She supposed what really mattered was where she was being taken.
I’m not allowed to put tape over the mouth. It… muffles the screams.
She decided she didn’t want to know where they were headed. Not yet.
“Your car doesn’t sound too good.” A major understatement. From all the rattling, chuffing, and banging, it sounded as if the damn thing was going to shake itself apart any minute.
“It’ll get us where we need to go. We’ve only got a mile or so left.” His tone was flat and emotionless as before, but Alice thought she detected a trace of doubt in his voice.
So, Leather Jacket’s car was on the verge of breaking down. If it did, that might work to her advantage, providing an opportunity for escape. But escape to where? Town was dangerous enough, but out here… She’d rarely been outside the city limits since the arrival of the Masters, and even then she hadn’t gone far. But she’d heard stories of what it was like. Everyone had. And even if only a fraction of the tales were true, she might live longer—and her death might be easier—if she remained with her captor.
Alice was still pondering what, if anything, she could do to save herself when she saw a dark blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. Something large and swift slammed into the driver’s side of the car, and Alice, unable to control her emotions any longer, screamed.
On the day that would forever after be known as the Arrival, Dan was on his way home from work and he was in an exceptionally foul mood. His boss had wanted him to stay late and work overtime because production was down, and when Dan refused, he’d gotten a royal reaming out. This place has put food on your family’s table for how many years now, Dan? Seventeen? When you started here, you were one of the hardest workers we had. Now I guess you’re nothing but another lazy-ass slob, just like all the rest, huh?
Dan had wanted to say, No, I’ve put food on my family’s table by working my ass off for you the last seventeen years, you unappreciative sonofabitch! But he gritted his teeth and said nothing. He knew from long experience in the machine shop that talking back to the boss only made things worse. But he’d held his ground on the overtime demand, and in the end he’d won, simply because he’d worked there longer than anyone except the boss himself, and the shop couldn’t afford to lose him.
Dan was thinking for perhaps the thousandth time about taking night classes at Adkins State Community College to train for another career so he could quit the shop when he turned onto his street. He was less than a quarter mile from his house when it happened. The sky grew instantly dark, as if a sudden storm were approaching. The air was tinged bruise-purple and it seemed to ripple, as if waves of heat were pouring off the surface of the street. Once, back when he was single and living in an apartment complex, Dan had been walking outside, carrying a load of laundry to his car. He’d forgotten that a solar eclipse was supposed to happen that day, and when he stepped out into the strange purple-blue light and saw weird crescent-shaped shadows on the ground, for an instant he’d imagined that he’d somehow crossed over into another world. He had that same feeling now.
He braked, put the Olds in park, and stepped out of the car. He wasn’t sure why he stopped, especially since his house was so close, but he wasn’t surprised to see other people up and down the street reacting the same way, coming out of their houses, standing at the windows, eyes wide and frightened. They’d all felt it: something was happening, something important. The rippling in the air grew more pronounced, and was now accompanied by a dizzying buzz that seemed to come from within his ears. Vertigo washed over him, and he had to lean back against his car to keep from falling. He felt no fear. What was happening was so different from anything he’d ever experienced before that his mind didn’t know how to react to it yet.
The ground groaned beneath his feet, as if the earth itself had suffered some manner of injury. Tiny fissures appeared in the asphalt, like cracks in black ice, and began to widen and spread. The neighborhood dogs began howling then, a high-pitched wail that sounded more feline than canine. Dan looked at the lawns across the street and saw the grass turn white, the blades curling downward like a mass of dying insects drawing in their legs. He sensed movement off to his right, heard a soft plap as something hit the street. He turned and saw a robin lying on the asphalt, legs quivering, streams of blood running from where its eyes had been. Another bird—a cardinal—fell from the sky, followed by a second robin, then a sparrow. Dozens more fell out of the wounded sky, all dead or dying, all bleeding from empty eye sockets. Dan covered his head with his arms to protect himself from the rain of dead birds, but the thought of getting back into his car never occurred to him. It was as if he were in the grip of some powerful instinct, a need to stand and bear witness to what was happening.