Chapter 3

I pulled Rebecca down and we watched the farm houses for a few long minutes. Suddenly, smoke came from the chimney of one farm house! I said, “Someone is there. Let’s pull back and observe a bit. If they’re bad people or stupid, we might find out without risking ourselves.” I checked my watch. It was within a few minutes of two thirty in the afternoon. We pulled back away from the houses and the road that ran between them.

She said, “Why not greet them?”

“Two reasons. First, they might shoot us. I’ve been shot before and am not anxious for it to happen again, particularly with no medical care available. Second, I fear the aliens will respond violently. We will stay back and stay hidden for now.”

The smoke was coming from the chimney at a good rate. I found that curious because the temperature was cool but not cold even earlier in the morning. In the middle of the afternoon, it had warmed up noticeably. I heard the noise of an alien ship at three thirty-three and an explosion took out the house. To my surprise, a rocket went up and took out the alien ship!

“Shit! Rebecca, run for it! Head back into the pass. Don’t stop for anything.” She looked scared but started running at a fair jog. I was beside her as we ran through a pasture.

She said, “I can keep this speed all the way to the pass. Faster would leave me unable to make it.”

“Let’s hope it’s fast enough.”

We continued to run without trying to cover our tracks. Speed was more important. We did stay close to the trees. We were about half way up the hill to the pass on a foot path when I heard the sound of another alien ship pass. “Down!” We went down and rolled behind a big oak hunkering down and covering our heads.

The bomb went off and much of the valley exploded. As soon as the light faded, I looked out. The place where the two houses had stood was now the center of a crater. The trees had been knocked flat for most of the distance to us. Rebecca gasped. I looked where she was looking. The trees uphill from us had been shredded with parts of trees and house from further down. Had we not taken cover, we would not have survived!

I looked around and up. The oak we hid behind hadn’t fared too well either. I looked a moment later and the downhill side of the oak had pieces of various things embedded in it even at our level. I said, “It’s time to leave. We need cover from above and that includes infrared.” We left and quickly made our way through the little pass.

We crossed the pass and went down the other side to find a nice spot under a bunch of pines. We sat on the ground and Rebecca said, “What happened?”

“You were there, too. What did you see?”

“Oh, Riley! There was a fire in the fireplace at that house. One of the alien ships bombed the house and then a rocket took the ship out. You made me run until we dropped behind that oak and there was a big blast that wiped out the valley. If you hadn’t dodged us behind that big oak, we would have died or been badly hurt.

“That’s what I saw. I know what I think but what’s your explanation?”

“I think someone with a rocket set up an ambush. The aliens reacted violently to one of their ships being downed. Unless the rocket shooters began running as soon as they shot the rocket, they are dead.”

I paused. “We called it ‘shoot and scoot’ in the Marines. Battlefields are dangerous places and stationary targets get pounded quickly. You learn or die.”

She slowly said, “You’ve been in combat?”

“Yes, I learned to run when needed.”

“Riley, I’m scared. What should we do?”

I thought a moment. “Staying out of sight is what we have been doing. We should continue. The likelihood of the aliens attacking a heat or trouble source is high enough to feed my paranoia quite nicely.

“I would like to find people who can be friends, establish a safe base, and then begin figuring out some way to successfully fight the aliens. Once we fight them off, then we have an even tougher project in re-establishing civilization.”

Rebecca said, “What do you mean re-establish?”

“Exactly that. Rebecca, think about how many people have been killed in these attacks. All our big cities are gone. The government probably is without any leadership even on a local level. We don’t know all that but, based upon what we have seen, it looks grim.”

“Oh.” She looked troubled. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

I said, “My current concerns are safety and food. We need to protect ourselves from aliens and bad people. We have to eat, too.”

“Riley, why are you worried about bad people?”

“Most good people don’t think about security or avoiding dangerous situations. Earlier, you watched the bomb and the rocket but you didn’t think to run. Most people would fit that mold. On the other hand, those of us who have been in troubling situations know to duck. You also learn when you can help and when you can’t. Bad folk have learned to hide from the authorities and avoid trouble when they can. Many of those people will survive the aliens’ attacks. That’s not promising for civilization.”

“That’s a pessimistic way of looking at people.”

I said, “It’s beats me being stabbed to death in my sleep while you were tied up.” Rebecca didn’t have a response to that since I was referring to how we met.

We sat in silence for a time. Rebecca asked, “Riley, what are our plans for the remainder of the day?”

“It’s too late to make it back to our barn. We’ll camp out here tonight. At least it’s not raining. No fire until after dark. Someone may be watching for smoke. I’ll set up a fake camp for the night just in case someone is looking for people.

“One thing I wonder about is if the aliens are out at night. I haven’t seen any signs of them out at night. I think they might have spying capabilities after dark but I haven’t seen their air ships or personnel out after dark. It makes me wonder.”

After a lengthy pause, I said, “I also wonder where their base is. I hope that they have one or more on earth rather than in some vast space ship circling us.”

Rebecca said, “Why do those things matter?”

I said, “Rebecca, I don’t plan to let their invasion go without trying to put a stick in the spokes of their war wagon’s wheel and ruin their plans to take over our planet. Information is necessary to winning a war.”

“Riley, it seems more of an extermination of us by them.”

“So far. Someone was trying to fight back. That rocket was intentional. That was an ambush. It cost the aliens a ship and gave people a good idea of how to gauge their response. Hopefully, someone was timing the response times like I was. Perhaps next time, there will be a second rocket emplacement.”

We had beef jerky and chips for supper while we waited for full dark. I was debating a fire but saw Rebecca shiver with cold. I lit a small fire and sat back against a tree trunk. The fire was small and its bit of smoke was dispersed through the branches. Rebecca was sitting closer to the fire for warmth. When clearing for the base of my fire, I gathered the pine needles into a small mound. I spread it some and lay down. I had carried a jacket all day but never used it. I gave it to Rebecca to use for the evening. I had a lighter one that I used. She lay down in the pine needles facing away from the fire but toward me.