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Mycrazyparentswarnedme this day might come, still, I felt as unprepared as the rest of humanity.
Growing up as the daughter of Lorraine and Maxmilian Von Wutenhaus hadn't been easy. I always felt as if I didn't belong anywhere and my parents constantly telling me I wasn't human hadn't helped. I already felt alien enough without their insistence that I was a descendant of an alien race.
No, my parents weren't cult leaders or anything like that, they had, however, made a fortune by becoming the leading preppers in a world that thrived on apocalyptic movies and books.
They made a fortune from selling ready-to-eat meals that could be stored for hundreds of years to building underground bunkers and shelters around the world. It was just too bad, or just my luck, that I wasn't anywhere near one of them when the apocalypse struck.
Not in the form of zombies or a decimating disease, nor from nuclear bombs or a meteor. No, it was a giant spaceship that suddenly appeared over New York.
After the first news report aired that announced the imminent sighting of the comet Chiron, which only appeared every seven hundred years, my phone rang off the hook from my worried parents demanding I come home at once.
I refused and shelved their messages as one of their paranoid stories and remained where I was, in New York, no matter how desperate my mom's pleas became or how irate my father's voice turned. New York was my home now, and I would watch the comet fly by like millions of other New Yorkers. I already had plans to join my neighbors on the roof of our building. And yes, the irony of it looking likethescene fromIndependence Daywasn't lost on me.
I didn't have many friends, and this seemed like a good opportunity to make some. I was determined that I would not rush home to North Carolina and hide in my father's latest pristine bunker and wait for the comet to fly by.
I learned my lesson in '21 when we hunkered down for a week in the spacious bunker buried fifty feet underground that my father had just finished at the time. And in '23 when, ironically, an asteroid was supposed to strike Earth, resulting in a three-day stay at another shelter, or any other nutty prophesies before and after, where we took shelter in one place or another.
Not this time, I swore.
Still, when the time came to rush up to the roof, I hesitated. A small nagging voice inside me put my parents' warnings on repeat, and if that wasn't enough, I had just seen a meme on social media about said scene fromIndependence Day, making me rethink my choices.
I had declared my independence from my parents by staying in New York; I didn't need to push it any further. Which was why I stood in front of my floor-to-ceiling window in my lush apartment in upper Manhattan, while I stared down in dismay at the mayhem on the streets.
My father's last call to me had been an order:Stay put, I'll send someone. I love you.
I didn't know who he would send, but hoped it was the National Guard, SEALS, marines, or something like that. My father had that kind of clout. It was amazing how many upper-class citizens employed my father's services. I guess when someone has all the money and resources in the world it was easy to prepare for the worst case scenario, and maybe stupid not to. It probably was even a tax write-off for them.
I wondered where all those people were now as I stared down at the aliens killing and gorging themselves on New Yorkers.
Part of me was refusing to believe what I was seeing; my mind was numb, but somewhere deep inside me, I wondered if this was my cold side coming out. The cold side in me that I had been fighting against all my life and tried so hard to neither show nor feel.
A knock on the door made me jump and scream, but I pulled myself together quickly enough to rush to the door, hoping to see the goddamn marines my father had sent.
What I didn't expect to see was my next-door neighbor, Alex something, dressed in a black uniform, strapped from head to toe in weapons. "You ready?"
Blinking, I stared at him. We had exchanged a few words over the years, had even gone on a date that didn't pan out too well. He told me he was a stockbroker and a fitness junky and had been the first person ever to not laugh at me when I said I was a prepper.
Not that I really was a prepper, but in lieu of anything better to do, I had halfheartedly joined my parents' company, flying all over the world to pimp their latest prepper gadgets. It paid well, letting me afford this place because most of all, I wanted to be independent from my parents.
And yes, I realized how contradictory it sounded taking a paycheck from them, but hey, a girl can't be too picky.
Alex was extremely good looking, with a hard, well-muscled body that would put many professional athletes to shame. Still, I had never felt any sexual attraction to him, which wasn't all that surprising to me, since I had never experiencedanysexual attraction toanybodyin my life. Neither male nor female.
Just one more thing I discussed with my therapist but kept from my nutty parents.
"Re-ady?" I stuttered, staring at him.
"Your dad called me, but I was already on my way here from work as soon as I saw what was happening."
"You were?" I asked, stunned. And why had my father calledhim? How did he know him?
His hand reached out to cup my cheek gingerly and, frozen, I allowed the gesture.
"I will always come for you," he said huskily.
A thousand questions ran through my mind, but he pulled his hand back. "I have a plane waiting for us at Carlisle Airport, it will take us to North Carolina to join your family."
"Wh-hat?" My mind reeled. How did Alex know about my family? I remembered having talked about my parents, giving him their names, which were easily recognizable given my family's many TV infomercials advertising how to build your own shelter and stock it with their products, but Alex implied there was some kind of relationship of sorts between him and them.
