She saw the light, scrambled for binoculars, found them, looked at the light again.
“Definitely the ship.”
“What else would it be?”
“Someone behind it with a blowtorch. Same color.”
“It would only look right from this angle if that were true.”
“Yes, darling, but what I’m telling you is it’s not that, and we can rule that out, and it’s actually the ship. Don’t bust my balls.”
To their right, Dobbs was shouting stuff at soldier boy across the street. Only a couple of the other rooftop residents were even awake, it looked like.
Three years and they’re going to sleep through The Moment, she thought. What a shame that was.
“You were right,” Laura said. “Keeping shifts was a good idea.”
“’Course it was.” Oona sat in her chair and started fiddling with the equipment. “I only have good ideas. Light me a smoke, would you?”
Right then the depression grenade hit. When it was over—and it was over almost instantly, thank goodness—Laura was lying on the trailer on her back and Oona was actively crying.
“Well that was horrible,” Oona said. “Get up, and light me that smoke.”
“Later.”
Lighting a smoke actually involved rolling a cigarette, because it was cheaper to buy tobacco in bulk and there were fewer government-sanctioned chemicals. It was a process, anyway, and she wanted to pay attention. “What does the equipment say?”
“Says the anthill blew up.” This was a reference to an in-joke, that their equipment was sensitive enough to detect an ant fart from a hundred feet.
Oona tapped out a few things. “Pretty sure that thing is emitting something.”
“I see it.” A laser-narrow light was pointed skyward, reaching a termination point that was probably a mile or two up.
It gave Laura an idea.
“Hey, I think I know what’s happening.”
“Art? Hey, Art!”
Dobbs was yelling from his own roof, because Art Shoeman walking slowly along the side of the road.
She looked at Dobbs. “What’s he doing?” she shouted.
“I don’t know!”
He wasn’t the only one. Mika and Morrie, Zeno and Johnny Nguyen were also out there. And Earl Pleasant. And Joy Chen. They had all exited their campers to begin a slow trek down the street.
“Art!” Laura yelled. “ART SHOEMAN.”
Art stopped, and looked up at her. It was creepily slow and deliberate.
“You are not,” he said. Then he turned and continued walking.
“What the hell.”
“What did he say?” Oona asked.
“He said I’m not.”
“Not what?”
“No idea.”
Dobbs, meanwhile, climbed down from his roof to catch up with Art.
“Hey, hey Art, where are you going? The ship, man, it’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
“Are you?”
“That isn’t funny, man, come on!”
“Dobbs, maybe you should leave him,” Laura called down.
“No, this is bull.”
He grabbed Shoeman’s elbow to try and get the older man to stop walking. Art’s response was dramatic: he pulled back his arm and unleashed a wicked backhand that knocked Dobbs onto his ass in the brambles on the side of the road.
He wasn’t done. As disconnected as Art Shoeman appeared to be to the world, he knew how to respond to a threat, and in a way that seemed impossible for a person of his age and general demeanor.
Art stepped forward and raised his leg to stomp on Dobbs, who was still stunned and largely defenseless.
Then soldier boy showed up. He must have heard the shouting and decided to involve himself, when he probably had more important things to do. He grabbed Art from behind, spun and threw the old man into the street.
This had an undesired effect.
Everyone stumbling down the side of the road stopped, turned, and headed for the threat, which was now both the soldier and Dobbs. This wouldn’t have been all too terrible because these were not people known for their physical well-being—except for the five army guys in their company—but there were a lot of them.
“Oh no,” Laura said.
She spun around and flipped open the hatch.
“Where you going?” Oona asked. “What is it?”
There was no time to explain. Laura slid down the ladder to the main cabin, and out the door.
She got to Dobbs first. He was only twenty feet away, stuck in the brush.
“Get up, Dobbs,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Hurry, get off your fat ass and move.”
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked. “Did you see Art?”
“I saw.”
“What’s going on?”
“The world’s ending. Now c’mon, I’m not going to drag you!”
Dobbs pulled himself up.
He wouldn’t be going back to his own camper because the route was cut off. Suddenly there were people everywhere, most of them weren’t from the trailer community, and only a few had on army fatigues.
“Back to my camper. Hurry.”
“Okay.” He turned and ran.
“Hey, soldier boy!” Laura shouted. “Let’s go!”
The kid already had his handgun out, and looked like he was deciding whom to use it on first.
“Where?” he asked.
“Trailer, straight back to my right.”
“Get yourself there and hold the door, I’ll be right behind you.”
Just then, a siren sounded. It was an air raid siren, the kind people too young for the Second World War only ever heard in old movies. There was essentially no way this was a good sign.
“That’s bad, right?” Laura asked.
“Yep, real bad. Get to that door.”
Dobbs was little and round, and still woozy from the slap in the head, but he could run pretty well when his life appeared to depend on it, so he beat Laura to the door handily, and then waited for her.
“Get in,” she said, “and don’t touch anything.”
She turned around. “We’re clear!”
The soldier, perhaps unwisely, had begun engaging one of the other soldiers in hand-to-hand. Unwisely, because the other soldier didn’t seem to have any pain receptors, and the rest were closing in. The non-zombie soldier—Laura couldn’t think of any better word than ‘zombie’ for what she was seeing—couldn’t get free. Every time he tried to turn around and get away the larger man opposite him grabbed a wrist or a piece of his clothing and pulled him back in.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, and the zombie soldier’s head disappeared in a red cloud.
“Dammit, no!” soldier boy shouted. “Shoot to wound, shoot to wound!”
“You’re welcome,” Oona said from the roof.
The soldier scrambled away from his dead compatriot and reached the door just ahead of the throng. Laura let him in and started applying the deadbolts, of which there were several.
“Don’t… don’t shoot to kill,” the soldier said.
“I’m Laura. Welcome aboard.”
“Sam. Thanks for the assist. Tell your friend up top to be careful.”
“I will, but between you and me she may not care.”
“WHAT ARE THE SIRENS FOR?” Annie asked.
“It’s a lockdown. Containment strategy. They installed sirens all over the perimeter in the event conventional communications went out.”
“I didn’t know this.”
“It wasn’t public knowledge. A lot of things weren’t.”
“Like what?”
“We have to get to the car.”
“Not until you answer my question.”
“Annie! Look around. We have to get to the car.”
He was right. Main Street was quickly turning into a pedestrian walkway. It was nearly impassible in both directions.
“Inside,” Annie said. “Through the back.”