Arrival: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

14

Maya maneuvered through the crowded streets to the hospital while Reno tended to the gunshot victim. He had kept the injured woman stable, assuring her that her injuries weren’t life-threatening. The deeper they drove into the city, though, and as they approached Centennial Park, the traffic and crowds swelled. Even from miles away, Maya could see the strange obelisk in the sky. People on foot pointed at it as they presumably headed there to get an up-close glimpse of the strange monstrosity which had destroyed the beloved Parthenon.

“Are we almost there?” Reno asked Maya.

“Working on it. I’ve never had to drive through this many people in the middle of the street.”

“I need to talk to my husband,” the woman said. “He needs to know I’m okay.”

Reno answered her, his voice as calm and professional as ever. “I promise they’ll do whatever they can at the hospital to get in touch with him, but we can’t call him right now. All right?”

Maya glanced at the obelisk on the horizon.

I don’t think they’ll be calling him from the hospital, either.

Swerving around abandoned cars and pedestrians, Maya laid on the horn. But sirens sounded throughout the city, constantly, and people had begun to ignore them. When Maya finally made it to 20^th Avenue, she sighed and hit the gas, relieved to be within two blocks of the hospital.

A line of rigs stretched from the ER entrance all the way to the street. Maya pulled up behind the last one, jumped out, and ran around to the rear. She opened the doors; Reno already had the stretcher ready for them to unload it.

“We’re here, Linda,” Reno told the injured woman. “Deep breaths, all right?”

Maya and Reno pushed the stretcher past all of the other rigs and to the entrance of the ER. Several other paramedics stood outside, and they seemed to be arguing about something.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reno said.

Doctors and nurses ran through the crowded room, most gesturing and yelling at orderlies who pushed patients to the appropriate spaces. They had long since filled all the individual rooms, and had begun treating patients in the waiting room. The place smelled of body odor and a sickly scent, like slightly rotted cabbage. Several men stood in between the automatic sliding doors smoking cigarettes, ignoring the security guard’s incessant threats. To Maya, it felt like the situation had started to unravel—and not all of the people who were coming apart had responded with empathy and goodwill.

Maya and Reno pushed past the smokers. She grabbed a burning cigarette from one man’s hand and threw it out the door. He started to curse at her, but then reached into his pocket for a new smoke instead. An ER staff member stood near the door holding a clipboard as a fit, young man shoved his finger in her face, but she kept talking as if she’d already grown used to people treating her as he was, saying for the second time in a row, “I’m sorry, sir. We’re doing all we can.”

The woman saw Maya and Reno with the stretcher and stepped away from the angry man. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose. She took a deep breath and held up her clipboard.

“Injury?” the woman asked.

“Gunshot wound. Right shoulder,” Reno said.

“Did you stop the bleeding?”

“Mostly. But she’s lost a lot of blood.”

“All right. We’ll have someone check her vitals. Please, roll her to that area over there and we’ll get her registered.”

Maya looked around. People on stretchers had been lined up on the far side of the room. Nurses moved from person to person, checking their blood pressure while monitoring heart rates and taking other mandatory steps before a doctor would see them.

“It hurts so much,” Linda said. “Please help me.”

“But she’s been shot,” Maya said to the hospital attendant. “This isn’t a broken bone or a concussion.”

“Her injuries aren’t life-threatening. We’re doing what we can, but we have to prioritize care. Now please, roll her over there, and we’ll make sure she’s seen as soon as possible.”

Reno pushed the woman to the designated area while Maya leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The room felt unstable around her, and she slapped her hands on the wall before she realized that it wasn’t another aftershock—she’d almost passed out.

“You’ve lost all the color in your face,” Reno said.

“I think I need to step out and get some fresh air.”

Reno put his hand on Maya’s back and guided her past the smokers and into a patch of bright green grass between the sidewalk and the building. The cigarette smoke around them made it even more difficult for Maya to breathe. She sat down on the grass, looked down, and ran her hands through her hair.

“Better?” Reno asked.

“Yeah. I think it was too crowded in there. And I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

She lifted her head and glanced at the paramedics on a smoke break. One of them stomped away, waving his hands at the others.

“Enough of this shit,” the man said. “This whole town’s gone nuts. I need to protect my family.”

Two of the other paramedics, one female and another male, walked away, saying what amounted to the same thing.

“Is that how you feel?” Reno asked Maya.

Maya looked at him with heavy eyes and snorted. “I don’t know how I feel.”

“I’m with you no matter what you want to do. I’ve lost track of how many hours we’ve worked. If you want to find your family now, then that’s what we should do.”

Maya tried to focus her thoughts and say something intelligible, but a dull throb had begun at the base of her neck and crept through her skull to her forehead. She winced as every siren felt like a dagger in her ear.

“We have a responsibility to help people,” she said as a roar erupted from the direction of Centennial Park. She glanced down Church Street to where people were marching west toward the park.

Maya stood. “Come on.”

She jogged to the corner of 20^th and Patterson Street, around the hospital, and back toward Centennial Park. Smaller crowds marched down Patterson, as well, but not nearly as many as those who had been crowding up at the corner of Church and Elliston.

Police had the perimeter of Centennial Park roped off. Hundreds of people had flocked there to catch a glimpse of the obelisk, but nobody wanted to get too close to the strange object. Officers in riot gear stood behind a single strip of caution tape. Most carried assault rifles.

Maya pushed through several people and then stopped.

“This must be what that guy meant back there when he said the town is going nuts,” Reno said.

“I’ve got to get to Aiden and Laura,” she said, nearly to herself. “They’re at my mom’s in Hendersonville.”

Nearby, a man laughed. He looked at Maya, and she glanced around to see if he could have been laughing at anyone else. His dark brown hair had been pushed around his head, and his beard was in desperate need of a trim. The man’s dark eyes flashed at her, and Maya wasn’t sure if she saw intelligence, insanity, or both. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, about six feet tall and slightly under 200 pounds. His jeans had been smeared with motor oil, and Maya could barely make out the Yazoo Brewing Company logo on his faded t-shirt.

“Are you laughing at me?” Maya asked.

“You’re nuts if you think you’re getting to Hendersonville.”

“How do you know?”

“He doesn’t,” Reno said.

“I do. I know what’s causing all of this, too,” the man said, waving his arm in the general direction of the obelisk.

“Good for you, sir,” Reno said. He put his arm around Maya and turned her away from the man, but she stopped and peered into the man’s eyes. He grinned from ear to ear, and it sent a shiver down Maya’s back.

A news helicopter flew overhead, above the trees but close enough that Maya could see the cameraman pointing the lens out of an open window. It soared over the crowd and headed for the obelisk. The pilot brought the helicopter up to hover near the structure for a moment, and she thought it appeared as though he was going to fly over the top of the structure.

“They’ve known for a long time,” the disheveled man said, his eyes locked on Maya’s. “I can tell you what’s really happening.”

“Look,” Reno said, stepping in between Maya and the man. “I’m tired of your—”

An explosion rocked the sky as debris rained down on the massive crowd. Maya looked up to see a fireball where the helicopter had been a second ago. Blue lightning flared out from the flames.

“That helicopter!” a woman screamed. “It exploded!”

“Run!” someone else yelled.

The crowd scattered, sprinting in every direction and trying to avoid the hunks of burning metal and plastic falling from the sky. The dome seemed to repel the helicopter fragments at a high velocity, sending debris back onto the crowd below. Maya turned and sprinted toward the hospital, a throng of people coming up behind her.

Reno grabbed her arm. “This way!”

The crowd filled the street as Maya and Reno dashed toward the underground parking garage on their right.

“Look out!” came a warning from someone in the crowd.

Big hunks of the helicopter tumbled to the ground in balls of fire. A blade from the main rotor slammed into the middle of the street, landing on three people who couldn’t get away in time.

Maya’s eyes went wide. She dove under the overhang of the parking garage entrance, Reno right behind her. They rolled over and looked out as more debris fell, killing people in the street.

“We have to help them. We’ve got—”

“No!” Reno said, standing up and getting between Maya and the entrance. “There’s nothing we can do for them right now.”

She stood still, and then nodded, realizing that they’d be no help to anyone if burning debris killed them, as well. Maya had to stay alive to help others. To find her kids.

Reno and Maya ran deeper into the garage, down a ramp to the first subterranean parking level. There, they listened to the screams above as they caught their breath, doubled over with their hands on their knees.

“That wall isn’t a wall. It’s a dome,” Reno said. “The helicopter flew right up into it.”

“There has to be a way out.”

“There’s not,” came a voice from the dark shadows of the garage.

They both stood and turned to see the middle-aged man with the Yazoo t-shirt. He’d followed them into the garage.

“I will mess you up, man,” Reno said. “Leave us alone.”

“It’s a beacon.”

Maya furrowed her brow. “A beacon? For what?”

“Don’t listen to him, Maya,” Reno said. “He’s a damn lunatic.”

“Perhaps. But I know what’s going on, and nobody else around here seems to have a clue. I’ll tell you if you give me a ride home. My wife and child are there, and they need me. An emergency vehicle—like an ambulance—is the best chance I have of getting there.”

“No way,” Reno said.

She thought it was unlikely that this crazy guy knew anything, but he hadn’t seemed aggressive, and they could put him in the back, just in case. And what if he did know something? Didn’t she owe it to her children to consider all the possibilities? An obelisk had caused an earthquake and obliterated the Parthenon, and now an invisible dome had dropped over Nashville. Maybe this man wasn’t so crazy after all…

“You talk to us while we drive. And you tell us everything you know.” Maya said.

“You’re not really thinking about giving him a ride?” Reno asked.

“We’re running out of options, Reno. And if this guy is for real, he could help me find my kids.”

Reno exhaled. He put his hands up in the air and walked away.

The old man smiled.

“Thank you, Maya. But you must understand, once you know the truth, you can’t ignore it. You’ll be universally obligated to act on behalf of all humanity. No going back.”

She nodded at his bizarre phrasing, already wondering if Reno had been right.

“My name is Jack, by the way.”

“Good to meet you, Jack. Now let’s get to the rig. You need to start talking.”