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"I have much to tell you, but first we need to get out of the city." He held out his hand. "Do you trust me?"
Hell no! I didn't know him, other than that he was my next-door neighbor, a stockbroker, a date gone bad. Apparently though he was more than that, and for a moment, I considered that maybe he was a bodyguard hired by my dad to watch over me. I wouldn't put it past him. But that didn't really jive with the whole stockbroker thing.
"Did my dad hire you?"
Alex shook his head. "Fay, it's complicated and getting more dangerous out there by the minute. We need to go."
He handed me a gun. "You've used this before?"
I swallowed, of course I had. I didn't like guns, but being in a prepper family and all, it was basically a requirement to learn how to use any kind of weapons, and if there weren't any handy, then I knew how to make them.
I took it but blurted out, "I'd feel better with that one." I pointed at the.45 holstered by his thigh.
He chuckled appreciatively. "Are you prepared for the kickback?"
I handed the 9mm back to him and waited until he pulled the .45 from its holster by his thigh. I pulled the slide back, checked the ammo the way I was taught, and made sure the safety was off because I fully anticipated having to use it soon.
"Alright then," Alex said, watching my movements. "The elevators don't work so we need to take the staircase. Stay behind me."
Hesitantly, I looked at the bag I had packed standing lonely in the middle of my living room. Alex caught my glance and promised, "You won't need it."
I would have liked to contradict him, because despite thinking my parents nuttier than a bag of peanuts, I had absorbed some of their talks, and the bag contained standard survival gear. On the other hand, I didn't particularly look forward to packing it down fifty flights of stairs either. And if I took Alex at his word, we would be making our way to the airport from where we would fly to North Carolina soon anyway.
Carlisle Airport had only been recently built, and I was privy to top secret information that guaranteed that each hangar housing planes had been constructed and equipped to withstand an EMP—electromagnetic pulse—attack, which seemed to have happened today, judging by the stalled cars on the streets, the non-working phones, TVs, radios, computers and so on, right after an emergency broadcast advised to seek shelter.
Which made it unsurprising that the staircase was dark, and not even the emergency lighting had turned on—further proof of an EMP attack. Alex turned on a floodlight flashlight, a FloFla, made, you guessed it, by VW—no, not the car, Von Wutenhaus, my parent's company.
The FloFla's beam was so strong, the staircase was even more lit up than if the lights had been working.
"Let me know when you get tired," Alex said, and began to jog down the stairs.
At first, I was thankful we were going down, but after about twenty levels, my thighs burned just as much as they would have if we were going up. I would be damned if I asked Alex for a break though.
When we were about halfway down, I stumbled right into his back, nearly toppling him over. He caught me but lost the FloFla. Thankfully, it didn't break—as advertised—and the beam made it easy to find.
"Stubborn." Alex smiled in my face, and I could have sworn he looked like he was about to kiss me. A shudder went through him, but he controlled himself. "Let's take a quick break. We'll need to do some running and jelly legs won't do us any good."
Chastised, I took a seat on the stairs and shook out my wobbly legs.
"Do you need some water?"
I shook my head. I wasn't thirsty yet, besides, with every floor we passed, my fear of what we would face once we left the staircase had been steadily growing. "What will happen… out there?"
He leaned against a wall, oozing confidence. "We'll have to fight our way to the airport, so stay close to the walls."
I liked that he seemed to have some kind of plan, even though it sounded half cooked and had a ring of,let's play it by ear.
After a few minutes I stood, with my heart hammering in my throat, but there was no sense in delaying the inevitable. "Let's do this."
He gave me a once over, not looking very convinced, but nodded and we made it down the last part of the stairs.
What had looked like a warzone from the safety up in my apartment turned out to be even worse as screams and gunfire threatened to shatter my eardrums. Before I had a chance to freeze, Alex grabbed my upper arm and dragged me against the wall of our apartment building.
Wide eyed, I stared at several flying, screeching aliens that resembled living gargoyles in search of new victims. Bodies littered the streets and the sound of gunfire as well as screams echoed off the walls.
Alex resolutely pulled me forward, passing one storefront or apartment entrance after another, ignoring people inside waving us in, while keeping an eye on the massive, winged creatures flying through the streets as if they owned them, which, by all appearances, they did.
Up close they were even more terrifying than when I had observed them from my apartment. Even their coloring made them appear as if they were gargoyles that had somehow detached from the buildings where they had clung to as decoration and come to life. Each was the size of a Great Dane, with an enormous wingspan that created whooshing sounds I heard even over the gunfire, screams, and sirens.
