Small Mountain had never been a big city.
It was little more than a village that had grown up with mining there.
There were a few houses. An even smaller population. 200 inhabitants. Almost most people lived in trailers. The mine still offered work to the inhabitants. Few diversions could be found. The school was also the meeting point for teenagers who liked to use the pool outside school hours. That was the director's horror. And a church.
Every teenager's dream was to gain freedom and leave for Los Angeles.
Angel and Spike walked the deserted streets in silence. Cars that were dropped anyway had open doors. There was no one there but the two of them. The sensation was uncomfortable.
-What do you think happened here? - He kicked the stones on the ground with growing dismay. Can't everyone have disappeared like that in midair?
Angel looked at him wordlessly.
The mind refused to process the information. Monsters were assailants and murderers who stole and killed in a normal world. They did not exist or should not exist in reality. She struggled to repress the memory of the man in that alley, shivering at the thought of the tentacles that left her once healthy body.
There was no invasion. None of this was real.
This was not even a body. The features of his face were disfigured ... Her stomach contracted and it was no longer hungry.
- I do not know! - the answer came in a bigger lie.
And it was clear that she knew.
Distorted images from a distant time returned to her mind. Screams. People running. Huge buildings collapsing under attack. It was a monstrous army and even more frightening than they could have expected. Shadows. They were nothing more than shadows without a conscience or soul and knew only how to destroy. The sickening smell of burnt meat ...
The bone-freezing cold. The sense of danger as adrenaline ran through the veins in the face of the unknown. You could fight someone with flesh and bones. Someone who could be killed or injured.
Not those things.
-Don't get too close. Let's try to get everything we can. groceries. Clothes and food - Zoack's voice led the group.
The nights ... It was during the night that the screams of terror always started. The hallucinating and noisy sound of her breaths as they moved and hunted attracted by the movements ... So fast that you couldn't even see them or know what they were like.
It was clear that she and Spike avoided talking about it.
There was a spaceship on the outskirts of the city that should not be there at all. Fewer fun stories came to her mind. Area 51. ETs. Alien conspiracies. Apocalypse.
Angel swallowed stubbornly. It was perfectly normal. was like any human. It was clear that there was a very logical answer to all of that. Abductions were just hallucinations as the doctor insisted.
And they were certainly not creatures that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere brought on by those advancing aliens. because there were no aliens.
-Come on, Spike! You're not scared, are you? - Angel forced a smile dismissively. Zorack is in charge.
Spike looked at her as if her friend had lost all sense.
-Hi! Hello there ... I think you forgot a little of the images ...
-They are not real! - Angel took a deep breath, fighting the certainty of unreality.
It was just a temporary outbreak of damn illusions. Nothing that a psychiatrist would not solve in a few sessions or with therapy for a lifetime.
How was not that beauty with the little tank to draw sighs real too? And neither does the other guy with the appearance of a super developed insect? And I didn't even mention the girl with pink hair who can read thoughts.
Angel lifted her chin with reinforced stubbornness.
- Hallucinations, come on.
It had to be a bloody dream or hallucination.
There was no other explanation, or she would have to admit to herself that not even an Edriana was. Normal people had normal lives. She bit her lip denying any certainty that had never been normal. It was not normal to be able to lift so much weight. It also couldn't be normal for someone to get it sometimes, just sometimes to look at objects that shouldn't move on their own. Or else accidents where things around you start to burn up.
Now, what's the problem? Green little men. They walked around.
-I think this cut didn't do well, girl. Are you sure you didn't hit your head somewhere ?!
They had already been walking a lot. The church was also deserted and abandoned, the garbage still lying on the sidewalks. The sand started to accumulate on the sidewalks.
Holy God, how much time was left for the night to come?
The closer to midday, someone's shadow gets smaller and smaller because the sun gets more and more high, that is, right in the middle of the sky and right over the head. This makes the shadow practically disappear.
A Boy Scout could easily know. Someone normal could camp, watch stars and go hiking. And also knowing how much time was left to get dark if you didn't intend to spend the night in the open.
She looked at her watch, pursing the lips when noticed the cracked glass and sighed.
It probably stopped working when it fell.
-Do you know what time it is?
-We need to gather everything we can and get back to the safety of the ship before dark.
-Welcome to Wonder Time. The Apocalypse!- Spike laughed.
-Are you demented?
Spike's eyes widened with a terrible feeling of discomfort, looking at his new watch that just didn't work anymore without any explanation.
- Mine stopped too and it wasn't a damn fall! - the boy grunted sourly. Okay, forgetting the detail that didn't tell me that the gorgeous alien to die was watching you while I sighed like an idiot with worked muscles, what else aren't you talking about?
Angel shook her head in disbelief.
-I didn't do any of that!
-But you fell for him. - The complaints came back furious. Do you know how difficult it is to find a charming and attractive veteran like that?
-SPIKE!
-You didn't even care about my feelings! Me ....me...
-Can you shut up? Or do you want Zorack to listen, damn it?
Angel sighed, thinking might not have been so smart leaving away from the security of Spartackus. Not with aliens and with absolute certainty accompanied by Spike. If the friend decided to make any further comments about Zorack's physical and athletic attributes, she would explode.
-It seems until everyone disappeared.
It looked like any other ghost town. Ghost towns! Small Mountain seemed to become one.
"Alright. The incredible Hulk leads the team!"
They were cities that were dying. People left, the streets became quiet. Wherever it happened it seemed quite chilling. The desert was going to retake the city, the sands invading the houses, finally covering the streets and erasing the history of the people who lived there before.
Angel remembered the story of Centralia in Pennsylvania. It was as if the city didn't even exist, but it did and had been dominated by flames for almost 50 years. In 1962, a fire broke out at a landfill near the Odd Fellows cemetery. The fire spread quickly through a hole to the coal mine beneath the city, and the flames have been burning ever since.
Clouds of smoke came out of the cracks in the road and large holes in the ground randomly opened, releasing a thousand degrees of heat and dangerous vapours into the air. The city had been evacuated. Some fools believed it was a conspiracy by the state. A chance to maintain rights to the mineral from anthracite coal reserves.
Angel's favourite was a mining pole during the gold rush, and at its height in the 1880s, one of the largest cities in California. Sixty-five saloons lined up for miles of dust along its main street. In addition to the large beer production, Bodie was full of big city features, such as churches, hospitals, four fire stations.
In real life, it didn't seem like a very encouraging scenario.
-My God! Spike sighed exaggeratedly. - Everyone died! It's the end of the World! I will die! Die because of you. Didn't you say you weren't supposed to be arguing with the healed alien?
-Let's all keep calm or here, people.
Angel shook her head looking at Zorack sensing an exaggerated panic attack from her friend. Spike always exaggerated.
-Not everyone died, come on! - She cut the complaints sharply. -And it's not the end of the world, Spike.
-It's punishment. I'm only 17! The driver's license is brand new in my license. didn't even get a damn ticket! Angie, it's the end of the world. I'm going to die a virgin! Want to explain to me how I didn't even get a damn ticket?
Angel took a deep breath, trying to control the fit of hysterical laughter that threatened to end her control. This was nothing funny. It was anxiety. She felt about to fall into a fit of laughter as hysterical as Spike's complaints.
It was Zorack's fault, too! Must he be that unhappy, convinced, and handsome alien?
Faced with a dangerous situation, psychotherapy showed that a human being can react in several ways. If there is no possibility of escape, a possible answer is paralysis, freezing, as a strategy of trying to go unnoticed. If the attack is assessed as imminent, a faint response could arise to try to pacify the enemy or faint as protection to avoid feeling the pain of the attack.
The point was, the entire rational brain was giving off a warning. her body released enough adrenaline to speed up your heartbeat. The mouth was dry. And it was just the feeling that something really bad had happened there
-Oh, Spike! - She took a deep breath. - It won't help you panicking. We don't even know what happened here.
-Who TOLD YOU THAT I'M PANIC?
Angel rolled her eyes with little patience.
-And isn't it?
-I'll tell you what happened around here! Alien invasion. They killed everyone. Or else they enslaved. Call it abduction, call it what you want, Angie. They arrived! Do they eat meat? I am very thin. I must not have good taste. It's just bone! -Spike was agitated, touching his arms as if confirming what he said. - I don't have much meat on the bones. Horrible and cadaverous zombies will arrive at any moment. My goodness!Oh, My God!
She swallowed.
- You're overreacting, Spike. There is, of course, a logical and rational explanation for what is happening here.
-LOGIC? SINCE WHEN AN ALIEN APPEARS BEFORE YOU ARE LOGICAL?
-Spike ... I ...A captain of the United Confederacy of Planets...
-Of course, the aliens have arrived. Spike straightened up angrier still. - We're going back to the ship now. I'm still going to die because of ...
-There should still be enough food on the ship for us.
-Is that how you intend to go to the damn Confederacy? -Angel protested with energy being pulled by the arm.- Coward
-I'm going to die and because of you! VIRGIN! I ended up dying a virgin in a damn zombie apocalypse. And they complained about Predator!
-Spike!
-I'm not afraid. No way. Spike straightened up in offence. -Better a living coward than a dead hero! he shouted with all his might. - That's what I always say in situations like this.
-You always say? - Angel sighed tiredly.
The girl closed her mouth in irritation, shaking her head and letting her eyes roam around, pausing on the billboard with yellow and worn posters.
How long had they been at Spartackus? posters had been posted over the weekend. But their appearance seemed ...
-Are we going to belong, Zorack?- she wanted to know, fighting panic.
It had only been a few days, hadn't it? It seemed that the city was deserted and abandoned much longer.
-And how do I know? Spike grunted, his eyes wide again. - Two or three days? What difference can it make at this point? Zombies, Angel. Help, we love being killed by zombies. Please say you remembered to bring a gun in your coat pocket!
-No. Everything we got so far... Medicine, water and food...
Angel shook her head with ears ringing. Weapon?
Since when did Spoke, the coward, think he would need a gun?
Her thoughts were contradictory. Part of her desperately wanted to believe that it was all just a horrible nightmare. And another part ... Of course, nothing had come out as could imagine for the first time, but even so ... Zorack, after all, that seemed to have finally noticed her presence with more attention.
A kiss... What would a kiss be like...?
A cold sweat washed over her forehead. Behind the frame of the billboard ... She continued to walk livid with her eyes fixed on the impossible.
-Spike! - Angel shouted in terror. Do- Want to control yourself?
-It's because? Do you think that if I scream out loud, your little boyfriend will...? - He teased, crossing his arms invoked. - You want to tell me why in the middle of the apocalypse you had to look for a boyfriend? And why did the boyfriend have to be yours?
Angel reached out beyond the billboard, biting her lips to contain the fit of hysterical laughter. was going to freak out and it wouldn't belong. She was convinced of that. She hated to admit to herself that wanted Zorack to be her boyfriend. All she wanted at that moment was to hide in his arms.
- Do you see that? There was no fence like that before. Nor was it possible to build this in just two or three days. It was more time ... It was more than two or three days. How long did we stay on that ship?
Spike looked at her seriously and followed her stunning look. For miles, there was a fence. They were aluminium fences. There were meters and linear meters of aluminium of almost 35 meters. Was it a network delimiting the city's perimeters? Since when had it been built?
-Are you worried about how they built it? he asked pale. - Well, look over there. I'm more concerned with what tore that aluminium up there!
Angel bit her lip, containing a cry of horror. The reinforced aluminium screen ... was shattered and destroyed as if it were no obstacle.
-I don't think it's a very good idea to leave the ship after all. - Zorack commented with ice claws pinning his body.
-Great, now what?.
And only now did you notice that?, Zorack closed his eyes tired.