Chapter One
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
“You’re a pig, Caleb.” Zack removed his heavy silver medallion and let it clank into a dish on the cluttered counter.
Chloe agreed, although she didn’t feel comfortable saying so. Empty food wrappers, cans, dirty paper plates, and beer bottles littered the counter and the huge coffee table in front of the sofa where Caleb played a video game on the massive TV.
Riveted on the screen, fingers on the controller, Caleb didn’t look up. “See anybody?”
“A few,” Zack said. “You ever throw your shit in the trash?”
“So the garbage man can pick it up on the next scheduled day? Oh, wait—that would be never.” He feinted left as he shot at the screen. “How many?”
“Four. Three dudes and an old chick.”
Wait, what?“People? You saw people?” She leaped off the sofa.How can he be so blasé?There are more survivors!
After six solitary months without seeing another person, Chloe had encountered Caleb, Zack, and Sandy outside a grocery store three days before. She’d stopped to replenish her water and food; they’d been in the parking lot siphoning gasoline for their generator. For a moment, she couldn’t believe her eyes, then she’d run toward them, waving and yelling, “Oh, my god. Oh, my god! You’re real! I’m Chloe! Chloe Thorne.” Tears of relief had sprung to her eyes.I’m not the last one left alive.
“Where are you from, Chloe Thorne?” the blond, blue-eyed, bearded Caleb Jacoby had asked.
“Chicago, originally.”
“What a coincidence!” Zack Michaels, a clean-shaven black guy, exchanged a glance and a nod with Caleb and Alexandra Owens, a pretty brunette. “Us, too! You settling in or passing through?”
“Wandering,” she’d replied. “Hoping to find other people. I haven’t seen anybody in six months.”
“It’s devastating. You’re the first human we’ve encountered in a long time, too,” Zack had said.
Aliens from planet Progg-Res had attacked Earth, first vaporizing major and medium cities from the air, annihilating every person and animal. Then ground troops had landed and marched from town to town vaporizing the rest.
Chloe had survived because she’d been outside the kill zone when Chicago got vaporized. She had a mobile dog grooming business, Waggin’ Wheels, and had returned from grooming a poodle to find the Windy City had been reduced to a ghost town, every single person gone. She’d lost her parents, her brother and sister, her boyfriend, and her cat.
She’d spun her van around and driven pedal to the metal until she ran out of gas, too terrified to stop and refuel. She’d been on foot ever since. City after city, town after town—she’d found nobody alive.
“Give us a minute, okay?” Zack had said, and he, Caleb, and Sandy moved away to whisper in a huddle.
Obviously, they were discussing her. She feigned interest in her worn-out Crocs while eavesdropping, but only caught the words, “we need” and “bird in the hand.”
Finally, they broke apart.
“Here’s the situation,” Zack said. “We’ve settled in a little house. Us three are a tight group; we’re likefamily. We’re not opposed to having someone join us, but before we adopt a stranger, we need to be sure she fits in.”
“I understand.”
“You seem like a nice girl,” Sandy said.
I am!
“We have to be sure you’re not a colluder,” Caleb joked with a grin.
“I’m not! I swear I’m not!” Colluders were the traitors who helped the aliens hunt down stragglers. A couple of weeks after fleeing Chicago, she’d sheltered for the night at a house in a dot of a town when two Progg, accompanied by a human, had raided the neighborhood. She happened to be at the window at the right moment to see them disappear into the house next door. When they entered her house, she’d survived by hiding under the bed, crawling up into the box spring the way her cat used to.
“We’d like to invite you to come home with us for a few days on a probationary basis. If it works out, you can stay. You may find you don’t like us.” Zack’s grin didn’t detract from his real message—they might not like her. “Sound fair?”
“Yes, thank you!”
Before the alien invasion, she would never, ever have gone off alone with two strange men. But, in the aftermath, anyone alive was a potential friend. Survivors had to stick together! Besides, while Caleb appeared to be striving for homeless chic with his straggly beard, not-quite-clean T-shirt, and torn jeans, Zack’s soft-spoken voice, friendly manner, and neat attire put her at ease. Wearing khakis, a pristine button-down white shirt and loafers, he could have been on his way to the office. That they had a woman with them also served as a letter of recommendation.
