June 2009

The Singers tended to travel in marching formation, gangly arms swinging and voices in high wailing harmony. Under attack, they would scatter. Their armor was light and frail, but their advantage lay in superior agility and weapons guaranteed to kill, however glancing the blow. They also shared a common honor with their human soldier prey — they left no one behind. Jessie long suspected that they had something akin to a GPS embedded in their armor or skin. If the militia had nabbed a Singer, the others would come for their brother.

“We’ll need to move fast at daybreak,” Jessie said. “Southeast again. Maybe we can make it out of the suburbs.”

Aaron collapsed against his stubby forearms, his eyelids drooping. Jessie tsked and pulled him close and wrapped him in the folds of her trench coat. Leticia pushed another broken piece of chair onto the fire and leaned against her crooked pipe for a cane. The Canadian expatriate had the first watch.

~*~

“Jessie.” Her name was a harsh, breathy whisper.

Jessie’s eyes opened wide. It was still black beyond the glow of the fire. The dark shadow of Leticia leaned over her. Out of sheer habit, Jessie glanced at the watch on her wrist. 2:13. If her watch didn’t tell her the day and date, she would have lost track of the civilized schedule of time ages ago. She craned her head up, keeping Aaron embraced close.

“I’m awake,” she said, in case the older woman couldn’t tell in the darkness. “What’s going on?”

“Your turn.” She paused. “The Singers are getting closer.”

Jessie sighed and pushed herself to sit. Aaron grunted as he was passed to Leticia, but he stayed asleep. “Damn it,” Jessie said. “There has to be bait. There’s nothing left out here.”

“Yes.” Leticia lay down with a grunt, camera and baby cuddled against her jutting ribs.

Jessie stared out the broken front windows, waiting. Running and more running. Her feet had long since hardened past blisters in their oversized men’s boots, but the aching never ceased. Sometimes, just for minutes, she wondered about the peace of death, but then she looked at Aaron. If it was just her, she would have given up the fight long ago, just as so many thousands already had. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Not this minute, not this night.

By the time the sun began its hesitant rise over the Cascades, the gunfire was close, both human and alien. She could tell the difference now between the backfire of bullets and the low whistle of the Singers’ weaponry. Aaron woke and began to fuss, and Jessie hurriedly pulled him into her arms and silenced him with a breast. The Singers were sensitive to sound. The baby’s cries had almost been fatal more than once.

Leticia stepped across the debris-flecked floor to the far empty booth they had adopted as their cesspit. The bathrooms, unfortunately, had been crushed by whatever impact that had taken out the rest of the shopping center. Holding Aaron, Jessie used the dim light to reach into the roofless kitchen and grab several more bags of hardened buns. It wouldn’t be long now. The Singers could march in circles all night long and take aim when they could, but like humans, they relied on the light to see and to kill.

Their backpacks were stuffed and their blankets rolled when the scrap began with fury. Jessie tucked the mound of baby into the sling across her chest, and he struggled against her. Both legs stuck out past the knee. He was already too big to be carrying like this, and undoubtedly his growth had been stunted by malnutrition.

The two women crouched low as they headed out the blasted side of the diner. Whistles and explosions lit the morning sky. The Singers were sending flares to alert their brethren of their location.

“Damn them to hell,” Leticia swore. They were close, maybe a quarter mile. Considering the speed the Singers could run, that was nothing. If they could work their way south and away, they could perhaps find another somewhat intact building that would suffice to hide in. Maybe. So little was left, empty shells of houses and businesses demarcated by melted and upturned asphalt and husked cars stacked like a toddler’s toys. Back in the early days, the dead bodies littered the streets and skeletons sat in cars with bony feet still pressing the gas pedals. Whatever the reason the aliens came, it wasn’t to harvest humans. The dead were ignored, the living killed like pesky swarming flies.

They panted as they ran and climbed. A flash lit the crumbled walls ahead. Aaron whimpered. The singing wavered and stopped — a bad sign. The formation had shattered; the aliens scattered.

“Shit, shit, shit,” said Leticia, glancing over at Jessie as they flung their legs over a downed and dried pine tree.

“I know,” was all Jessie could say, “I know.” The sun was to her left, hovering behind the veil of smoke. South, south. North was death and nothing. South was something, it had to be, or there was nothing. A high rim marked a massive crater ahead. There were many such craters, a block across and roughly as deep. Some were from American bombing runs. Others, only God knew. There was no path around — they had to climb the rim. Leticia worked her way first and stumbled along the melted black crust.