Chapter 2: Take A Chance On Me!

In the morning, coffee revived them - somewhat. Coffee does nothing for blistered hands and aching muscles. After a baked skillet - a bed of hash browns mixed with diced onions, green peppers, ham, jalapeños, and crumbled bacon - when ready, topped with cheddar cheese and two easy over eggs apiece, the Trips were sorta ready to finish the burial.

Exiting the house, they heard muffled barking and anxious whines. Rose was the first to understand, “Loki and Boner. They’re trapped inside the Petersons’ house. I’ll bet they’re starving by now - and with the bodies, really scared.

Finding the key in its usual place under a flowerpot, Rose unlocked the door, and knowing the dogs well, stood to the side as she turned the knob. A streaking golden retriever and a black lab-cocker mix pushed open the door and bolted outside. Both made a dash to pee on the nearest post. Done with that emergency drain, they began running in circles. Each quickly seized their favorite Trip’s hand and tugged to lead them into the Peterson’s house.

As anticipated, Molly and Sam Peterson were both dead, having died in their sleep. The two dogs had been their kids, so no additional sadness there.

“I’m not up for digging another grave,” Scarlett told her sisters. “From what we’ve seen and the little we’ve heard, then that’s all we will end up doing. Let’s just shut the door and leave them.” She knelt and hugged Loki to her, “On the other hand, I guess our family just grew.”

Loki was a lab-cocker mix around two years old, acquired from a rescue pound when he was a puppy so small that he fit into cupped hands. Unaware of the puppy’s parentage, Sam mistakenly let Loki lie on his stomach or sit in his lap while he read. Because a dog’s worldview is typically formed as a puppy, Loki knew he was a lapdog - all sixty pounds of him. He would charge into the yard, and if anyone were sitting, he would run to about five feet away, the landing gear would rise, and Loki, chair, and occupant would usually tumble. It was a ritual.

Boner. That was another story. He was not quite a year older, and his full name was T-Bone Stola-Steak, bestowed when, as a three-month old, he climbed onto the picnic table and absconded with two steaks waiting for the grill. No one could remember his original name nor when ‘T-Bone’ converted to ‘Boner’ - much to Molly’s embarrassment and Sam’s amusement.

Sam had been a hunter, and both dogs accompanied him when he went afield. They weren’t professionally trained, but they knew their way around a rabbit or a duck, or unfortunately, a skunk.

“We’ve dog sat enough, to know the locations of all their doggy paraphernalia, food, and treats,” Rose said. “Let’s fill their bowls with chow and water and get the dogs’ necessities over to our house.”

Fed and watered, the dogs romped while the sisters filled in their own family’s grave.

When the last shovel full of earth was patted down, Violet went to the garden lining the back of the yard and dug up two newly appeared baptesia plants, one that blossomed indigo blue and the other a buttery yellow. She planted the yellow at Noah’s head and the indigo by their parents’. She returned to the garden and dug out a large buddleia, divided it in to three parts and planted them at the foot of the grave. She hugged her watching sisters and told them, “Now Mom can have her flowers and butterflies.” She sniffled, squared her shoulders, and led them back into their home to prepare lunch.

Around the table, the Trips brainstormed as they ate. Rose summed their situation, “You know, with a city that’s gonna be full of decaying corpses, we need to find a place to live away from the stench and potential for disease. Maybe we can come back later, but I don’t think we have much time before it gets foul.”

Rose responded, “Well, we’ve camped enough with the Peterson’s, and we’re familiar with their Winnebago. We can make that our traveling base. Since it’s AWD, let’s take our Sienna. That’ll do until we find something more permanent or better suited.

They were alive; surely there must be others. Right? With the need for forced abandonment of their familiar home, they needed a goal. They were going to search, but first, they needed to prepare.

What to take with them? Weapons? That should be an easy decision. It wasn’t! They’d heard shots, but was that one-off or someone who could become a threat? Rose was appointed researcher, and she spent several hours on the Internet. She decided on an M-16 or M-4, and told her sisters, “Both are lightweight, easy to shoot, and don’t have much kick. They’re good enough for the Army, so good enough for us. There’s a bonus. 5.56 mm ammunition is available at most sporting goods stores so restocking shouldn’t be an issue.”

She convinced her sisters to raid the armory so they could have fully automatic weapons. The question of a pistol was easier. Rose learned that the Army was adopting the Sig Sauer P320, but that it might not be in the armory yet. “That’s the one we want,” She told them, “but whatever the armory has, that will probably do. If not, we’ll look in gun stores or in gun departments.” Shotguns? “Yeah, them too.”

Clothes? Eight sets each, divided between summer stuff; shorts, sleeveless, and the like, and cooler stuff; jeans, long-sleeved, sweaters, windbreakers ... As long as the power lasted, they could wash every few days. Undies? Ten days’ worth.

“You know what?” Scarlett exclaimed, “If we need more or something different, we can break into stores as needed.”

Some items weren’t so easy. Which brands of shampoo and body wash should they take? Would they need documents? Should they take mementos, and if so what?

As insurance against an uncertain future, they went to Mizzou’s Ellis Library and started its computers accessing and downloading as much information as possible in anticipation of the Internet collapsing. Science, engineering, farming, maps, entertainment - anything they could think of. They’d probably miss a lot, but that couldn’t be helped.

Terabytes of storage were utilized. Rose visited the University’s server farm, where she’d assisted her professors, and started the same process there, while Violet and Scarlett made the rounds to the various branch libraries. In many cases, when power finally went out, battery backups would initiate a gradual shutdown, so that data would not be corrupted or lost ... For survival and for sanity’s sake they had to assume they could someday return to recover the various hard drives and storage media they had no room for and planned to stow away.

Priorities changed when they saw the spaceship. The very large spaceship. A very large, silent spaceship. It wasn’t shaped like a flying saucer, or a cigar, or a Buck Rodgers vehicle. It was a huge, featureless torus - no lights, no windows, no doors, no ... The gunmetal colored donut was slowly proceeding on an apparent route from Kansas City to St. Louis. Its size and height above ground were hard to determine - but did we say it was huge? Yeah. It was.

Rose was the first to see it. She was unloading cartons from the Sienna into the Winnebago when a shadow began to pass. She looked up and yelled to her sisters. There was plenty of time, and the three stood watching until the monster ship passed out of sight.

“Not that it will matter a lot, but we’d better get armed and start our shooting practice. Even if the aliens are friendly, every living person and whack job in the state will be heading for St. Louis,” Scarlett told them. “Just like us.”

Violet hugged herself and answered, “I think you’re right, but I wouldn’t want to hurry. They may be baiting a trap. We may as well let someone or someones else spring it.” She thought for a moment, and then contradicted herself, “On the other hand, we might be able to help...”

They decided to gather necessities, finish loading the Sienna and Winnebago, then spend some time learning to shoot and clean their soon-to-be acquired weapons. They’d not be in a position to help much if they couldn’t shoot if needed.

The National Guard Armory was over by the Boone County Jail, and Westlake Ace Hardware was on the way. There was no subtle way to enter the store, so Rose used a tire iron to break in. She was sweating from the effort, and her ears hurt from the alarm. They grabbed hacksaws with extra blades, three different sizes of bolt cutters, glasscutters, rolls of duct tape, and three sets of over-the-ear hearing protectors.

“Damn, Rose!” Violet exclaimed as they pulled from the parking lot. “Electricity is your forte. You havta figure a way around those damned alarms, or hearing protection or not, we’ll be deaf in a week. Fix it, Sis!”

After a few days of shooting at the Bass Pro Shop range and then out in a vacant pasture, Scarlett declared, “Ladies, I’m comfortable that we can hit something we aim at. Let’s go check out that oversized donut.”

Rose and Violet were in full agreement. Their two vehicles were already packed, CBs were tuned to channel 19, food was stocked, and the young women were itching to find out what was going on. Dangerous? Probably! Out of character? Definitely not!

Early on an overcast morning, they coaxed the dogs into their travel kennels, mounted up, and headed east, thankful there was no sun in their eyes. They hoped that the death-event occurring late at night would mean fewer vehicles on the road and probably less crashes than might otherwise be expected. After considering the alternatives, they decided that I-70 offered better visibility and more lanes if they needed to move around blockages. For the most part, their expectations were met.

As they drove along, rarely above twenty miles-per-hour, they saw vehicles that had pulled over, others that had run off the road into a ditch or other obstacles, and two eighteen wheelers that had overturned and burned. The first was a tanker that carried volatiles of some kind, as there was a huge burned area surrounding the skeleton of the truck. Fortunately, the truck left the road and was about fifty feet away from the shoulder. Rose speculated, “That tanker might be the source of the explosion we heard on the first day.”

They passed newly plowed fields, partially plowed fields, fields showing green with winter wheat, and other fields as yet untouched after the previous year’s harvest. In the few instances where they saw livestock in the fields, the two vehicles stopped, and one or two would exit to cut their fence. The third sister would stand guard with her rifle while the dogs did their thing.

Twice they encountered construction zones, and one caused problems because several stopped cars blocked the single ‘open’ lane. The engines of two cars had been turned off, and once their driver’s body had been moved, they started easily. Three more had run out of fuel and had to be pushed off the road, twice using a restarted car, once the hard way. The sisters counted themselves lucky that there had been no stalled eighteen-wheelers blocking the lane.

With stops and detours, the trip of a little over one hundred and ten miles took more than eight hours. Deciding that the airport would be a logical place for the huge donut-shaped ship to land, they drove until they saw the sign for a Crowne Plaza.

Scarlett, in the lead, used the CB to call her sisters, “Let’s get off here. I remember that the Crowne is pretty close to the airport. I’ll turn the Sienna around and park it in the eastbound lane facing west. That way if we need it, we can have a reasonably quick get-away.”

After letting the dogs have a quick, for them, run and pee, they all entered the Winnebago, drove off the Interstate towards the hotel. Noticing a TGI Fridays, they parked in the near empty lot.

It was late in the afternoon, so they decided to see if they could cook a meal. The restaurant was not locked, and inside they found three bodies that had apparently died in the act of cleaning up. Sadly, but now almost inured to the presence of the dead, the Trips placed the bodies in an office. As she closed the office door, Violet commented, “Isn’t it strange that bodies haven’t started to smell? Not that I’m complaining, but I’d almost forgotten that they were supposed to...”

In the huge refrigerator, Scarlett found the makings for a green salad, still crisp, and grilled chicken and steak strips. She built three huge salads, complete with sliced boiled eggs, avocado, and crumbled bacon. Wondering how long they would be blessed with electricity, she microwaved the chicken and steak to add on top. When done, she placed the salads and several dressings on a tray, and carried the lot into the dining area. Her sisters had set a table and added their favorite beverages at each place.

They seated themselves and began to eat. Loki and Boner waited patiently for a tidbit that they knew would come.

“That drive was a real bitch,” Scarlett offered, “and we still don’t know a darned thing. I didn’t see any sign of that ship. Did either of you?”

“Nothing,” Violet answered, “but if it had left, we probably wouldn’t. Besides, we’re not at the airport yet. Why don’t we fuel up the Winnebago, leave it here ready to go, and find us another car to use to run around in. Then, in the morning, we could drive the back streets and see what we see around the terminal building.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Scarlett told them. “I’m tired and want to get to sleep as soon as it’s dark.”

When the meal was finished, including large slices of peach pie also found in the refrigerator and topped by ice cream, they piled the dishes in the kitchen’s dishwasher. As they cleaned up, Rose added some reality, “You know, with or without electricity, we’re getting close to the end of finding edible food in fridges. Then it’s gonna be frozen, and after the power goes, canned and dried and grow-it ourselves.”

They exited and used the GPS to locate a nearby filling station. It too still had power and diesel, so they easily topped off the Winnebago. “It’s gonna suck if we havta to pump by hand,” Rose muttered. “I need to find some battery powered pumps and make sure we know how to use them.”

While Rose topped off the RV, Violet looked at the other pumps and found a Lexus SUV that had just been filled. It was sitting with keys in the ignition but with the driver’s corpse still outside by the pump. “Thank God for auto shut-offs!”

With their new wheels and the Winnebago, they drove back to Fridays and parked.

“I’m tired of bodies,” Rose had announced as they exited their vehicles, “Let’s sleep in the Winnebago tonight. We can pee and brush our teeth in the restaurant.”

They reentered the restaurant and took care of their needs. After they took the dogs around the parking lot for a final constitutional, they returned to the camper and stripped for bed. Sleep came quickly for them all, so did the dawn awakening.

After a quick breakfast, they crowded into the Lexus, dogs confined to the far back. They wended the Lexus along back streets until they parked at the edge of a residential area. From there, they walked along streets until they reached the Marriott Hotel. Mildly surprised but relieved, they found no alien presence along their route or at the hotel.

They entered and took the elevator to the top floor, then found access to the roof. Each sister looked out over different parking lots and the Interstate between them and the terminal entrance and then beyond. They were shocked at the view. There were hundreds, thousands, of figures behind the terminal - on the runways, on the taxiways, on the grass. Most were standing or sitting, though some moved in or out of the terminal. The wind brought the smell - awful!

Several airliners sat on runways and taxiways, some were skewed, and more than one had bumped into another. Several lights and small structures appeared to have been crushed, maybe by the giant donut? At the far end of one runway was a blackened ruin. A plane in the process of landing or taking off had run past the runway’s end, plowed a trench, exploded, and burned. It seemed a miracle that there had only been one crash.

Their attention was drawn back to the throngs of individuals where several individuals began forming a line and entered the terminal. Soon, most of the figures were in very long lines. In a few minutes, figures returned to sit, obviously eating. Scarlett didn’t know why she whispered, but she told them softly, “This looks more like a poorly organized refugee camp than an invasion.”