Oh No, Aliens

Hadley had been trying to get out of the city for two days, but it had descended into utter chaos. Some people were hiding indoors, a lot were trying to flee like she was. Which meant there were crowds of people and occasionally cars, like the cab that had almost run her over. But not all the vehicles or electronics worked consistently; she still had no reception on her phone and she’d seen a few cars either stop or start spontaneously and cause collisions. She didn’t have a car anyway-after all, who owned a car in New York City? All her money from her part time job went to her rent and food.

She knew things were going to get really bad really fast and she was starting to get a little desperate to get out. The friendly neighborhood UFO’s didn’t seem too keen on letting anyone out; some of the small crafts hovered over major exits and the night before she’d seen one take a person right off the street. One second the man was there, the next gone. He wasn’t beamed up slowly in a pool of light like in an old sci-fi movie; he was just gone. Hadley didn’t know if he was abducted or incinerated.

Hadley passed by an advertisement detailing how you could save with a city transportation pass and she stopped abruptly, backtracking a few steps to look at it again. The subway. There was an old station out in Brooklyn that had been decommissioned last year. It was sitting there, an empty tunnel. An empty tunnel she could use to leave the city.

Grasping at this new glimmer of hope, she veered across the street and headed for Brooklyn. She didn’t know exactly where she was going; she didn’t come out that way much. But she would find it, and then she’d be on her way back to Texas.

She arrived early in the evening, hoping to get down to the subway tunnels before it got fully dark. She thought she was starting to recognize where she was and where she needed to go to reach the subway when a large figure stumbled out of the bar to her right and crashed right into her. Hadley almost fell, one foot slipped off the curb.

“Hey, drunk tank, watch it,” she snapped.

“Oh shit I’m shorry. Sorry. Sorrrrryyyy. That’s a weird word.”

Hadley rolled her eyes, preparing to shove the man away from her but when she looked up she realized he was the one who’d saved her from the cab that afternoon.

“You work for that airline,” she said, remembering his work badge.

“I was supposed to go to a board meeting. I got a prom...promotion. But my boss is insane.” His eyes got really big and he gestured with his hands when he said it and Hadley took a slight step back, wondering if she should grab her taser.

“Good to know,” she replied.

“He said he put alien goop in the planes.”

She froze, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“Alien goop. He put it in the planes. He told me. He knew about the aliens and he wants me to know about them too.”

Hadley eyed him warily. He was drunk, maybe everything he was saying was just rambling bullshit. A lot of people seemed to be quickly losing their shit in the current situation. But she knew he worked for an airline made world-famous for their revolutionary planes and jets; so maybe they did know something about what was happening. And if he lived out here then he’d probably at least know where the subway was.

“Where do you live?” Hadley asked. “You need some food. And coffee. And maybe a mint.”

He staggered across the street and Hadley followed him as he fumbled a key card out of his pocket and let himself into a modest but nice apartment building. Hadley followed him into the elevator and he almost fell on her again. His apartment wasn’t what she expected; it was full of houseplants.

He flopped onto the couch and now that she was getting a proper look at him, something struck her as familiar about him. A fluffy black cat cake padding out of the bedroom and leaped onto his chest with a disgruntled meow. Hadley definitely knew him from somewhere. He wasn’t a classmate, she was sure of that. Maybe she’d seen him at the coffee shop, or the music store where she worked?

“Hershey...I’m gonna puke if you keep doing that,” he groaned. The cat was vigorously kneading him and watching Hadley. They sat and watched each other for a while until the man stopped looking slightly green and returned to a normal human pallor. He cracked open one eye and looked at her.

“I saw you on the street earlier.”

“Yup,” Hadley agreed.

“How’d you get into my apartment?”

“I came in with you. Because you said your boss used alien goop in his planes.”

The guy grimaced, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. The tousled look finally triggered her memory. Hadley sucked in a sharp breath. She knew where she’d seen him before.

“Jackson Enright,” she said, lip curling in disgust. He blinked at her in surprise. Hadley couldn’t believe she was actually in Jerkwad Jack’s apartment. That was what she had always thought of him as when they went to high school together, and he called her mean names in between his fights and suspensions. What were the fucking odds that she would run into him now, all the way in New York?

“Attacked by aliens and running into you in the same week?” Hadley scoffed. “What did I do to deserve this? I know they say God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle but this is pushing it.”

“I...I’m sorry, do I know you?” He was staring at her with a dumbfounded, owlish look that might have been funny if she wasn’t so furious at her predicament. Hadley had been teased mercilessly through her entire middle and high school career; she’d been homeschooled in elementary school and had begged her parents to go to regular school. She had wound up going back to homeschooling for junior and senior year just to get away from the constant bullying; about being a homeschool kid, about living in a farm, about her awkward goth phase in high school. It was a small town and she had apparently made too easy a target.

“Of course you don’t remember me.” Hadley rolled her eyes. “That might require putting effort into thinking about another person.”

“Ah-what? I don’t understand-“

“Look, did your boss at the airline really use some kind of alien...something, to power the planes? Does the company know why they’re here?”

“Did I really tell you what my boss told me?” He winced.

“Yes, you did. If they ever had you sign an NDA you’re kinda screwed.”

He rubbed his temples and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to say anything. It’s just been a weird day. It’s still a weird day, with you glaring at me like that. Seriously, what did I do to you?”

“Do you know how to get to the decommissioned subway station around here?” she asked, continuing to glare at him.

“Uh, yeah?”

“I need to get there. I’m getting out of the city. I need to get home and make sure my family is okay.”

“Out of the city,” he repeated, looking thoughtful. “I can show you the way to the subway.”

“We have to wait until morning. Those mini spaceships come out more at night.” Hadley stood, closing all the curtains. “We have to lay low when it’s dark.”

“Right. Sure. You’re not gonna murder me in my sleep or anything, are you?”

Hadley just stared stonily at him as she sat back down. He shifted uncomfortably. “Your intimidating silence is very reassuring.”

“If you’re going to insist on talking,” Hadley said coldly, “then maybe you should tell me more about this boss of yours.”