Leaving the airport the next morning felt like being part of some kind of gloomy parade. Word had gotten around that a group was heading for the emergency shelter. As they marched toward the security gate at the entrance, people sitting by the gates silently watched them leave.
The moment she took a step outside the building, Kayla scanned the horizon for any sign of the Visitors’ lights. The farther the group got, the more paranoid she felt.
“It feels super weird being outside now,” Maddie whispered to Luke and Kayla when they were only a few steps beyond the parking lot. “I used to like being outdoors, but this. Is. The. Worst.”
“No one’s around,” Luke said. “It’s like everyone’s . . . gone.”
They walked to the highway that led away from the airport, weaving their way around abandoned cars. Everyone watched the sky and kept mostly quiet, afraid too much noise might alert something above.
After a few hours of walking down the highway, they reached a hill. On the other side, they saw McKenzie, the town. They stopped in a line to look at it.
“Spooky,” Maddie said. Kayla couldn’t help but agree.
McKenzie wasn’t a large town, but it wasn’t exactly small either. They could see the whole thing sprawled out in front of them covering a valley between two hills, little buildings at even intervals in a grid marked by roads. Even from this far away, it looked deserted. No cars moved down the streets. No one walked down the sidewalks. There was no city noise, no hum of voices or distant construction, or any noise at all—not even birds chirping.
“If we want to turn back,” Ms. Pollack said, “now’s the time.”
There was a moment of hesitation. No one wanted to make the choice at first. Even Kayla felt torn.
“I vote we keep going,” Steph said.
“Anyone else?” Ms. Pollack asked.
A few other students nodded in agreement.
“All right, we keep going,” the teacher announced. “If I shout hide, you hide. No questions—just find cover as quickly as you can.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s move.”
They started down the hill and into town, with Ms. Pollack walking in front.
McKenzie had been eerie from on top of the hill, but up close, it was downright frightening. The few cars that were on the street were parked at odd angles, crossing the middle of the road into where oncoming traffic should be. Their windows were smashed out, and some had doors still ajar. A few had blown-out tires as well. Some businesses were boarded up, and the ones that weren’t only had edges of glass shards where the windows used to be. Convenience stores, gas stations, even the hardware store had all been broken into and looted, their shelves completely bare.
Although the choir members called out, Kayla only caught glimpses of McKenzie’s residents. She saw some people peeking from the sides of windows or doors, but as soon as she looked their way, they dodged out of sight. It’s like being in the old west just before a shootout, she thought.
“I had no idea it would be this bad,” Maddie said.
Luke gestured around him. “Meet humanity without its precious electronics.”
“We didn’t always have electricity, and things weren’t like this,” Maddie said.
“Well, what’s worse?” Luke shot back. “Never having something to begin with, or having something and losing it?” Kayla noticed that Luke’s voice was wavering. She could tell he was more upset than he wanted to let on.
“People are just panicked,” Kayla said. “It’s not just the loss of electricity. It’s the fact that the Visitors might show up at any moment. Everyone’s scared out of their minds. You saying you’re not?”
“I’m terrified,” Luke said. “But it’s hard not to be cynical about this. Nothing’s even broken. It’s all just turned off, and look what happened. The Visitors didn’t loot these places. That was humans.” He looked around like he was making sure no one else was listening. “People will do whatever they have to in order to survive.”
“Will you stop complaining?” Steph, a few steps ahead of them, turned around. “We’ll be at that shelter in no time, and everything will go back to normal.”
Kayla couldn’t help herself from scoffing. “In what universe is it normal for us to be at a military camp?”
“They’ll take us home.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know what we’ll find when we get home. You’re making a pretty big assumption that everything will be fine. If a town like this,” Kayla gestured around them, “is so broken, what makes you think ours will be any different?”
Steph glared at her and picked up her pace again, stomping ahead of them.
Kayla gritted her teeth. “Can you believe her?” she hissed to Luke and Maddie.
They gave each other a look, as if to say who they couldn’t believe was Kayla.
“Oh, what now?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Maddie said. “It’s just . . . do you ever think you might disagree with Steph just for the sake of disagreeing with her?”
“No,” Kayla snapped. “She’s just the worst.”
“I actually don’t think she’s that bad,” Luke said. “You’ve just randomly decided that she has to be your enemy. Like, remember when Steph had spent the summer before sophomore year at a singing camp and you were convinced she did it to annoy you?”
“She only talked about it when I was around!” Kayla insisted.
“How could you possibly know whether she talked about it when you weren’t around?” Luke pointed out.
Kayla groaned and moved to walk next to Orlando. They maneuvered around a couple of cars that looked like they’d been on the verge of a fender bender when the power went out.
“Normally,” he said, “this street would be totally jammed up with traffic.” He pointed up and down the road. “It’s pretty much the route everyone takes to get anywhere. Seeing it deserted like this . . .” he shook his head and looked down. “It’s like my hometown’s dead.”
“I hope your brother’s okay,” Kayla said.
“Me too,” Orlando replied sadly. “The town where he lives now is smaller than McKenzie, so I’m trying not to think about how desperate the people there might feel.” The look on his face made Kayla regret bringing it up.
They gave up calling out to the people of McKenzie. It was obvious no one was going to help them.
“Whoa!” one of the boys shouted, pointing between some buildings.
A fireball—huge but very far away—was rising into the sky. Just as Kayla noticed it, the sound of the explosion reached them. She could feel the ground rumble where they stood. The group ducked and covered their heads. Some gravel shifted and a few shards of glass fell from windows. As quickly as it came, the noise faded.
Slowly, Kayla lowered her hands and looked at where the explosion had come from. Tons of black smoke was rising from the area, billowing into the air and forming its own clouds.
“Was that the Visitors?” someone asked.
“We should find cover!” another shouted. “The Visitors could be—”
“There’s no ship,” Orlando cut him off. “We’d be able to see the lights. It seemed more like something on the ground—maybe a gas leak caused an explosion.”
“They could have landed,” someone said.
“We should keep moving,” Ms. Pollack said. “We’re not going that way, and it looked like it was miles from here.”
“I’d suggest we pick up the pace a little,” Orlando added.
It took them all afternoon to get across town and up the hill on the other side. By then, dusk seemed only an hour or two away, and the choir was moving more slowly, fatigue starting to take its toll.
After a few more miles of walking, they came across an abandoned gas station along the side of the road. Ms. Pollack and Orlando checked it out, found it empty, and agreed that the group should camp there for the night. She and Orlando would take turns keeping watch.
The choir members settled in, leaning up against backpacks and luggage. They ate an unsatisfying dinner of the packaged snacks they’d packed with them. A few students searched the building for any food that may have been left behind, but they came up empty handed. The place had been cleaned out long before they got there.
Everyone was quiet after eating. Kayla could practically feel the tension in the air.
Then a girl sighed and looked at everyone in the group. “What do we do if the shelter isn’t there?”