Chapter 14: Vagabonds

Day 6

The time for it to begin had finally arrived. It was the day. Larry and his acquaintances, joined by Zoe, Jake and I were coincidentally placed into a group were gathered into a hoard of about thirty people. Just like they had told us before. I assumed one of them, who was donning a sort of staff card, to be the group leader. It was clear to me that she was a regular volunteer, not a soldier or anything more special.

Like the camp directors had told us, there were about thirty people in our group. When I had visualised the group size in terms of a high school class, which I used in the discussion my friends and I had two days back, it had already seemed like a lot of people. Seeing a live scene of the people clumped together in a crowd made it look even bigger than it should have.

We were the third group to leave the camp, as informed by our group leader. One group would leave every five minutes, meaning that it would essentially take a few hours to clear the camp. I wasn't too sure how the camp had planned to accommodate us in their escape ferries and somehow wait dangerously like a sitting duck just for other groups to arrive before departing, but it didn't quite matter to me.

On the day of the announcement for the Exodus, Larry had already conceptualised an alternative route for us. I had challenged him to come up with a flawless, immaculate plan in a matter of a day, when in fact, he had already done so even before announcement was made, apparently trusting his gut not to depend on the camp directors. Thus, I made sure to keep my mouth shut afterwards, following along with his less risky plan to help our smaller, breakaway group of ten to flee efficiently and safely.

Our small group of vagabonds consisted of Zoe, Jake, and I, obviously, joined by Larry's acquaintances, and Pamela's family. That's right. They had somehow got grouped together with us as well, which I saw as an opportunity to convince them to go with us after Larry had been ready to integrate his own escape plan into our small group.

We had talked to the grieving family for the past few days that we had been in the camp. They, especially Christopher, hadn't quite gotten over Pamela's death, so it was somewhat difficult to even talk them into taking our hand and escape on our own, but we still managed to do so in the end. We simply told it to them as our way of thanking Pamela for her sacrifice, and that her legacy should be carried on by her family, who had to be saved.

As such, the ten of us huddled together, forming a visible clique amongst the rest of the group. Of course, we still paid attention to our group leader to avoid looking conspicuous and raising suspicion from others. We discreetly whispered to each other when we needed, and if not, we would only talk within with those that we knew before the attack—simply put, I limited my discussion to Zoe and Jake only. Thus, this ensured that the other group members, and especially the group leader, wouldn't even think that we ten knew one another, even if it was vaguely.

Before long, it was time to execute our plan.

As our group leader directed down the hall, heading towards the main entrance of the camp that we had entered through days ago, the ten of us huddled together, although once again, discreetly. As we moved briskly I recalled the plan, which was rather simple, all thanks to Larry's connections that I had no idea how he had made.

Simply put, we would divert ourselves from the main group at an unexpected time, such that they wouldn't pursue us. Afterwards, we would head for Quincy station, an elevated Chicago 'L' station that we could seek refuge at. Meanwhile, we would use a radio that Larry had conveniently stolen form the camp to contact some rescue organisations. Larry had informed us that there were many choices on the board, he specifically centred his focus on one called "Valour".

Larry subtly mentioned that Valour would be quick to respond to our rescue calls should we send them out on the radio. I tried questioning his sources, but he quickly dismissed my queries and deeming them as unimportant at that moment, which I must admit was quite redundant. Either way, we would then depend on Valour, or any other rescue organisation willing to look for us, to flee from the city. It was a pretty solid plan, seeing how many unofficial, non-government rescue organisations were somehow prepared all this time for an attack like this, although they were pretty uncontactable on a layman's phone.

Eventually, our group had confidently marched to main entrance. Five soldiers guarding the doors from the inside signalled to the volunteer, our group leader, that we were ready to leave. Thus, she reached for the door handle, preparing to pull the door open. Before she could do so, however, an abrupt, ear-piercing but humane shriek came from afar, at the other side of the refuge camp.

Our group leader quickly retracted her hand, turning around along with the rest of us to face the direction of the source of the shrieking sound. Within seconds, another shriek had arrived, alarming more refugees in the camp by the minute. Eventually, the shrieks had become numerous, until we had become very puzzled by them. Joining the humane shrieks, unfortunately, was another cliched wave of alien shrieks that I almost thought I wouldn't be hearing any time soon in the camp.

By that time, every single soul in the camp was alert and wary about the situation. There was no doubt that the situation was dire, and that we all had to get out of it as soon as possible. No one, not even us, had expected an inundation of aliens so early into the camp's flawed escape plan, which disrupted our own one too.

Crowds of people began getting up from their seats as they watched a series of waves of aliens and their pursued victims approaching them. Adding on to the already-horrendous cacophony of noises was an additional mixture of sounds—refugees falling to the ground, staff members getting impaled by the vicious aliens, screams of desperate victims, and so on.

At first, I had the urge to save as many people as possible, turning my head left and right rapidly as I observed the mess around me. However, I knew that the outbreak of aliens was too widespread to be contained, and it was going to take a miracle to save even just one person. Thus, I signalled to my small group to continue with the plan to flee through the main entrance.

Before we could carry that out however, Larry stopped us, holding up his hand. He looked around again, before bringing us his finger and pointing at all of us, one by one. I had to assume that he was counting, which I was right about. This, however, wasn't a good, or even neutral, thing at all.

"Where's Veronica?' he questioned all of us as we began looking around as well. Veronica was one of Larry's acquaintances whom he had arrived at the camp with, along with Tara, his friend. Unfortunately, having her missing would mean that we would have to look for her, which was going to be fruitless in the middle of the attack on the camp.

Despite this, Larry still couldn't get her disappearance off his chest without going to look for her. He then tapped on my shoulder, rushing through a brief speech by saying, "Tara and I are gonna look for Veronica. Y'all should leave first. If I make it to Quincy by tomorrow, then I'm alive. If not, don't wait for me." In a split second, he and Veronica had disappeared into the crowd as well, separating from us to go look for his fellow refugee.

Hence, it had became just my clique and Pamela's family left to carry out Larry's carefully-crafted plan that he himself didn't seem to even be going to join in on. The soldiers who had been guarding the door, immediately pulled it open, allowing refugees to flee from the attacks. However, something even more unexpected occurred, as those who had been crowding around the doors in hopes of getting out were instantly hit with a shock that would only last a few seconds before their death would follow through.

I let out my own deafening scream, just as others had done, as a hoard of aliens charged into the place, instantaneously obliterating anyone who had been in front of them by simply slashing them to death with one strike.

Before my very eyes were people getting attacked in the most unimaginable and wicked ways—aliens were directly impaling some of them, just as they had done with Pamela, while others were pulling down light fixtures from the ceiling to smash them down on innocent refugees, reminding me of what had happened back in Zoe's apartment on the first day of the attacks. Some were only superficially wounded, running around like headless chickens as they tried to escape; on the other hand, others were severely injured, being left for dead on the ground. In this destructive sequence of deaths all around the place, droplets of blood landed on me as bodies began falling on one another like dominos.

Because of this, I could suddenly see at least ten feet of my surroundings now. I scouted around the place, confused by everything that was happening around me so quickly that it was hard to process. I stared down at the bodies, which no one had warned me not do so.

Who would have thought that Pamela's daughter-in-law would fall prey to the aliens too?

Christopher shieled his traumatised son and daughter from the sight of their dead mother on the ground, placing his hands on their eyes and turning them away. There was no way that anyone, especially Christopher, would want two innocent children to stare at a body that had a massive wound, created at the wrath of the immoral aliens that had attacked the place. At that point of time, even I wanted to become a child so that I wouldn't have to look at the gruesome mess around me.

However, Jake snapped me out of my panicking. He grabbed onto my shoulders and shook me violently, a sign that I had to get up and get running again. And just in the nick of time, I had gotten back on my two feet, lifting them up one ahead of the other as I began sprinting as fast as they could carry me.

Meanwhile, Christopher had instinctively started doing so too, carrying his two infant children on his shoulders, each on one side. He seemed to somewhat know his way around—or rather, out, of the place, seeing how he was going ahead of us and gesturing for us to follow behind him.

Through the violent crowd, which contained people who had absolutely no sense of direction and were running around like mad lads, we endured and pushed through. It was almost like going against the current, as everyone was running in a direction different from us. They weren't going in the wrong direction, and neither were we, however. The refugees were just simply trying to run for their lives, but with no idea on how to do so.

Eventually, we were led to some door that had to be accessed with a key card. There was obviously no time to obtain one, though. Thus, Jake sprinted forward and barged through the door, breaking the lock on it. It revealed some sort of maintenance stairwell behind it, which no one seemed to notice even after we had opened it. As we scaled the stairs, we could hear the door automatically swing shut behind us. I was rather convinced that still no one had noticed the escape route right there in plain sight, since I didn't hear the door opening anymore on our way up.

I couldn't imagine how many people must have died down there, trapped and hopeless. I had no idea how many aliens had flooded the camp either, although I knew that it was a mass of them. An amount too great to be an ordinary "they-see-us-they-come-for-us" attack. It just felt so unnatural that an army of those creatures would just pour into the basement camp without warning.

Anyway, I didn't feel like dwelling over the issue. It only made me feel more guilty about not doing enough, and thinking about how we had left Larry and Tara behind without helping to find Veronica, even if it would turn out to be a hopeless goose chase. I still wanted to feel that I had at least tried to save one person, which I couldn't even do.

Soon enough, we had climbed our way up to the street level. The door out of the stairway this time faced outside, towards the street. This meant that we had to be prepared to be exposed and face the aliens once we pulled that door open to leave the building for good.

I stared at my friends again, as we all always did when we had to contemplate on a difficult or controversial decision. However, there was nothing complicated about our situation. In fact, there wasn't even a decision to be made—we still had to leave the stairway either way. It was, instead, all about preparedness. Were we ready to step out onto the road and face the dangers we had experienced days ago?

That question was quickly answered, however, as soon as Jake pushed the door open outwards with much force. As a result, we had nimbly dashed out of the stairway, moving as quickly as possible just in case the aliens would pursue us too. After letting Pamela's family go ahead of me first, I exited the stairwell last, slamming the door shut.

Luckily for us, the exit that we had walked out of was conveniently located at the east side of the building. This thus made it easier for us to traverse to Quincy station, which was one block away from us. I estimated that it would take only a minute, tops, to continuously dash, at a rather comfortable pace, to the station.

Despite this, we six had no time to lose. There was absolutely no way that we could afford to risk anything—in this case, our lives. Looking around hastily, I detected no aliens within the vicinity. This was probably because all of the nearby creatures had been directed into the camp. Again, the burning question of why all of them had been attracted to the underground refugee centre popped up in my head.

Nevertheless, there was no time to think about that. The instant that I confirmed that the coast was clear, I grabbed the hands of my friends, while signalling to Pamela's family, to run. We headed promptly towards the elevated railway station, running across the road, then along the sidewalk beside a building that was adjacent to the station.

As we made our way down the deserted pathway, we instantly spotted the station complex above us. It wasn't long before we had already arrived at the concourse of the station. We began climbing up the stairs that led to the train platform, where we had planned to camp at for the night.

Moving briskly, we had arrived at the platform level in no time. In front of us stood some vertical turnstiles that we would usually need our cards or some tickets to use to pass through. However, the power in the station seemed to be rather unstable, seeing how dark it still was in the premises of the platform when the lights flickered on, and the contrasting brightness when they flicked back on.

Nonetheless, I attempted to rotate the turnstile, when the lights went out, hinting that the power was temporarily out. I placed my hand gently on one of the metal rods that made it up, before pushing it. With minimal force, I successfully created a momentum that naturally moved it for a short distance, proving that there was really no electricity in the entire station whenever the lights went out.

Since I was already in the midst of testing out my theory, I went through the turnstile first, before allowing Pamela's to pass through. However, Christopher offered my friends to go through first, telling us in a monotonous voice, "After you." It was quite obvious that his mind was still on the sudden death of his wife that had just occurred minutes ago. Previously, he had seemed to have forgotten about it directly after it had happened, but I could understand that the number one priority that all of us had at that point of time was to survive, such that we could grieve later.

And he was doing it now.

For a moment, the lights flicked back on, and the turnstiles locked up once more. Jake attempted to turn it, but to no avail. As long as the power remained on, he wouldn't have been able to go through it. Hence, he began rummaging through his pouch, searching for his pass to let him through the turnstile. After a few moments, he finally found it, enthusiastically yet impatiently grabbing it out to tap it on the card scanner. Unfortunately for him, the power went back out just a second before he would do so, rendering his efforts useless. "Great," he muttered under his breath, dumping the card back into his pouch, while walking through the gate, causing a tickled Zoe, who was following behind, to start giggling at his predicament.

The ear-to-ear grin that resulted from her giggling, however, quickly dropped into a sour grimace, as she turned her head halfway backwards to try and identify an unnatural noise from behind. Her eyes, which were initially nearly squeezed shut while she was chuckling, shot wide open. Her entire expression had been turned into a stupefied gasp.

Noticing her extreme reaction and cold, motionless stare at something behind her, I moved myself such that I could see what was behind them more clearly. And at the moment that I was able to do so, I finally understood Zoe's appalment.

Behind Pamela's family stood an alien, ready to go solo and attack us. Despite being a lone creature, that thing was dangerous enough to successfully kill all of us. Hence, I yelled at Pamela's family for them to quickly pass through the gate before the power would turn back on and lock them out with the imminent predator.

As they moved through the turnstile briefly, they turned behind for a moment to check on the approaching alien. Ian, however, who wasn't interested in doing so, ran ahead of Christopher and Charlotte, heading straight for us to seek refuge.

Unfortunately for the other two, the power had come back on, locking the turnstile once more. Therefore, they were caught in the middle of the columns of horizontal metal rods. With the incoming alien that was getting too close to them for comfort, things weren't looking good for them.

Realising that there wasn't going to be enough time before the alien would get to them, Christopher brought Charlotte down from his shoulder and placed her down on the ground, directing her to crawl under the metal rods. As such, she did so, safely moving under them before reaching the rest of us.

Christopher, unfortunately, had run out of luck.

"Dad!" Ian cried out desperately as he sprinted towards. Zoe and I, however, held him back and grabbed onto him, covering his eyes so that he wouldn't have to witness another grisly event. Charlotte, on the other hand, was already facing in the other direction, unable to understand the dire situation at her young age.

Meanwhile, the alien had plunged its pincers deep into the sides of Christopher, wounding him severely. As the merciless creature suddenly pulled its pincers out of him, he bawled thunderously. I could only imagine the amount of pain that he was experiencing at that moment—which I didn't want to.

Reacting to all of the excruciating pain, Christopher dropped a rifle—my rifle, which I had given to the family to protect themselves, earlier on in the camp. I thus ran forward to it, stretching my arms to try and grasp onto the firearm. It was hard to do so without straining a muscle, or getting my entire arm pulled off by the alien. Of course, it was only a fickle of my imagination, as the alien creature was too busy continuing its brutal and motive-lacking attack on Christopher.

As soon as a single finger of mine had touched the weapon, I began to pull it out. After getting a proper grip on the rifle, I dragged it under the turnstile, pulling it towards me. At that very moment, Christopher had seemed to stop moving, which I had suspected to be due to the massive blood loss that he was experiencing that could have knocked him out.

Even so, I still brought the gun up, aiming for the alien's head. On my first try at a closeup shot, I missed completely, with the alien dodging the bullet entirely. I wasn't going to stop there, of course. I prepared to fire another shot, aiming more steadily this time. I then pulled the trigger confidently. Again, I missed, however, and the bullet nearly hit Christopher this time round.

My friends, and Christopher, especially, had all begun panicking. I could hear their shaky breathing from behind me, as they nervously watched as I took another try at hitting the alien this time. Thus, I reloaded the gun, positioning the gun extremely accurate this time and remaining my aim on the alien's forehead.

Just as I was about to pull the trigger, however, the lights went back out. Thus, the turnstile had become free to move. Somehow figuring it out, the alien pushed the turnstile, moving towards us rapidly. Instinctively, I pulled the trigger instantly, which was successfully embedded in the creature's skull, killing it as I assumed.

The creature's corpse then collapsed, leaning against the turnstile, which moved it closer to us, together with Christopher, who was being dragged along by the metal rods. Soon enough, the corpse was lying before us, somehow kneeling before it slumped down to the ground completely. Despite this, this wasn't exactly the time to begin letting out sighs of relief. Our plan to vagabond our own way through the city had gone south. Yes, the alien was admittedly dead.

But Christopher was too.