in my brain. Before I can even formulate another question, someone runs into me, knocking me into the woman and causing her photos to fall to the ground.
âTheyâre coming!â Itâs a college-aged dude with blood running down his face. âTheyâre all moving this way. Go! Faster! Run!â
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ALREADY MESSY SITUATION QUICKLY TURNS into pandemonium as everyone tries to jump the turnstiles at once. Screams bounce off the tile subway walls, blending in with the screeching alarm. People fall and donât get back up, trampled. Others are wedged against walls or turnstiles. I realize that Iâm probably not going to make it onto the tracks unless I unleash my power on these folks and carve a path by pushing everyone out of my way, and Iâd probably end up crushing half of them if I did that. I donât know how I can help. But if some aliens with heavy firepower start down the stairs, Iâm screwed. Weâre all screwed, because while I might be able to take out a couple of bastards in a park or on the street, fighting down here in close quarters with a ton of people around is a whole different thing. So I climb back up to the street level, figuring Iâll just keep running down to the next stop. The bleeding guy wasnâtlyingâa few blocks up, about ten aliens have broken off from the rest of the fighting and are marching down Broadway, blasters out in front of them. I turn and start for a side street, when out of the corner of my eye I see a bunch of people all rushing through the open doors of an MTA bus. One of the giant ones that looks like two buses shoved together.
âCome on,â I hear someone yell as she pulls a kid half my height onto the bus. âWeâre getting out of here.â
Iâm over a hundred blocks away from where I need to be. The trains are down. I canât run all the way downtown. Not with evil aliens lurking around every corner waiting to take me prisoner or shoot me full of lasers or whatever. Despite the voice screaming in my head that this might be a bad idea, I sprint towards the bus. I get on just as the doors close behind me. There are maybe two dozen people huddled together in the seats in various states of shock. A woman a few seats from me cranks the handle on a little emergency radio while trying to find a broadcast, to no avail. At the front of the bus, two guys are crouched in front of the steering wheel.
I hear the firing of weapons on the street. Somewhere way too close to us.
âGo!â I shout. âGo, go, go. Downtown! Just drive!â
One of the guys at the front glances back at me and sneers but doesnât say anything.
âWe donât have keys,â one of the people in the seats says. âTheyâre trying to hot-wire it. . . .â
âYouâve gotta be shitting me,â I mutter, wishing Iâd kept on running. Now Iâm trapped on a bus, bad guys about to show up at any second.
My fists clench at my sides. These people have no idea how lucky they are that I got on board.
I shove my face up against the back doors, trying to get a look at the approaching aliens, but the way the bus is angled makes it hard for me to see up the street. I glance at the front of the bus over my shoulder. The men are talking excitedly, but I canât hear what theyâre saying. Suddenly, thereâs a rumble that shakes the floor. At first I think itâs from an explosion, but then I feel cold air being pumped in through the AC: theyâve got the engine started.
Thatâs when I turn back to the doors and see the gnarly gray teeth of one of the aliens. Heâs got his blaster pointed right at me.
I shout in surprise, and my hands go up. Before I realize what Iâm doing, I can feel the power pouring out of my body. The door to the bus rips off, slamming into the Mogadorian and sending him sailing through a coffee shop window across the street. I fall on my ass. Some
Elizabeth Amelia Barrington