Shelter
“It’s been three weeks,” Eric Tanner grumbled as he stared out through a tiny high-up basement window. “Three weeks to the day.”
John Cole, sitting on the other side of the basement, glanced up from his notebook to look over at his friend fixated on the small window above. Nobody responded to his observation. The eight people in the basement had busied themselves with small, but mentally occupying tasks to keep their minds off what laid beyond those few inches of wood and concrete in the outside world.
“Come on, honey,” his wife, Carla, said weakly, trying to calm him down. “Come on, the kids need you.”
She managed to coax him away from the window back to the couch on the other side of the basement, though Eric’s eyes remained fixated on the window until she managed to sit him down next to their six-year-old son, Tommy, and thirteen-year-old daughter, Jennifer, to play a game of Go Fish with a deck of cards they were lucky enough to find.
John breathed a little easier with Eric away from the window. Truth was, everyone inside was getting a little tense. Eric was right; it had been three weeks. It all happened so fast. None of them would’ve expected anything like this to suddenly and abruptly uproot their lives. Three weeks ago, life was simpler. He had just gotten a promotion to VP of Operations, something he had been working hard towards for years now. It should’ve been a happy moment for him and his wife. For a moment, it was. His wife, Helen, had arranged a little celebration with them and a few of their friends. A nice little get together at their home with dinner and drinks. He had been so busy with work, he had barely seen his old friends the past six months.
He closed his eyes and thought back to what seemed like eons ago. Eric and his wife and kids were there. So was Rob Hunt and his wife, Grace. John had known Eric and Rob since childhood, and with his long hours he hadn’t been able to visit with them as often as he’d liked. Maybe it was nostalgia, but everything felt so perfect that night.
And then they got the alert. All their phones lit up in unison. At first, they all thought it to be an amber alert, but the message they received was even more unexpected, so much so they ignored it and continued about their evening. A few minutes later, Helen sat up, alarmed, after looking at her phone and turned on the TV. Before anyone could ask, everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen in silence as the most chilling events in human history unfolded before their very eyes.
Helen had switched it to the local news. Their local evening news anchor, Don Newman, was reporting from his desk with a calm demeanor of a cold sweat. Everyone watched unblinking as the feed cut from him to the skies over New York. Three saucer-shaped ships hovered over the buildings, each one as big as a football field.
John remembered a sudden pit growing in his stomach that night, the image burned into his memory until his dying day. Nothing would be normal after then. He knew it the second after seeing the image with his own eyes.
Feelings were mixed in the room as suspicions and fears over the uncertainty of it all began to overcome everyone’s minds. It had affected John, too, as he remembered clasping his wife’s hand throughout the ensuing discussions and speculations. Everyone had an opinion but nobody had any facts. How could they? With UFO’s appearing over New York City, all anyone could do was hope and pray everything would be all right in the end.
At first, everyone was hopeful and optimistic to some degree. It was in New York, after all, far from Barrington, Illinois where they currently resided. Even if something bad did happen, it was far away and they would be safe. Though, this was little more than empty thoughts of comfort to give themselves peace of mind. They were space ships, after all. They could arrive anywhere at any time.
And arrive, they did. Very soon, one city turned to two, two turned to four, four to sixteen. Within half an hour, over two hundred cities had UFO’s flying over them, including not forty miles away in Chicago. Hopeful optimisms were soon replaced with suspicious fears as the world waited for what would happen next.
By eleven o’clock, almost an hour since the first sighting was reported, the question on the world’s collective minds would be answered in the form of a brilliant green beam of light generating from each of the UFO’s, causing instant devastation to the buildings and cars and people it connected with. Within a matter of seconds, everyone watched in terror as balls of flames sent shards of brick, steel, and glass exploding in all directions with hundreds of people helplessly scrambling for their lives filled the television screen.
Soon, it cut to black and the piercing sirens of the Emergency Broadcast System blared. The Illinois state emergency department had issued a shelter in place order for everyone in the surrounding areas of the city of Chicago, ordering all to stay in their homes and hide wherever they can until further notice.
John figured it was too late for the people in Chicago, but here in the suburbs they might have a shot if they hid in the basement. However, the Hunts and Tanners lived over half an hour away and would not only have to contend with potentially growing numbers of hostile UFO’s, but also a chaotic mob of frightened and desperate people. He couldn’t do that to his friends and their families, so he invited them to share their basement.
Within minutes, they grabbed the kids, medicine, food, water, blankets, flashlights, and a battery operated radio from the Eighties that had somehow stayed with Helen across multiple moves across multiple years and was still remarkably functional. As Helen did an inventory check on their supplies, John had gone up and checked every room in the house to make sure they didn’t forget anything and, in the process, locked all the doors and windows and turned off all lights and electronics. The last item he grabbed came from a little metal lock box hidden under their bed upstairs: an old, .38 revolver. He had no delusions of fighting aliens in the streets but knew well enough that scared and panicked people were as much a threat to them as the aliens were. With the revolver secured, he flipped off the lights and headed downstairs.
For the next three weeks, they remained down there. The cell towers and phone lines were gone in a day, limiting their only connection to the outside world to a battery powered radio from the Reagan administration. No UFO’s appeared. Electricity was gone by the end of the first week. And no UFO’s appeared. Running water went out a few days later. Still no UFO’s appeared. All the while, no broadcasts came through on the radio. No updates, not even the Emergency Broadcast Signal. They were completely in the dark, blind to the events unfolding outside many miles away. No one knew if they were winning, losing, or if the war was already over. All they could do was stay, hide, and hope.
Three weeks later, though, tensions were starting to rise. Everyone was feeling it, the urge to open up that basement door and step outside to take in that much desired fresh air and bathe in the sun. It started first with Eric and Carla’s daughter, Jennifer, with headache inducing shouting that lead to tears and back to shouting that went on for some time between her and her parents. Understandable. She’s a teenager. Last month she would’ve dropped anything to leave her parents at home and go out with her friends. Now, she’s trapped with her parents not knowing if her friends are even alive right now. It wasn’t ideal and it wasn’t fair, John remembered thinking, agreeing with the teenager as she made those points. Unfortunately, this was the situation they were in.
The next few days saw small, isolated flare-ups with the adults. Grace and Helen, over something philosophical. Grace was a firm Methodist while Helen was agnostic at best. They both apologized later on, but not without spending most the day on opposite sides of the basement. Eric and Carla got into it the next day. John didn’t bother figuring out what they were fighting about. The couple had a rocky relationship to begin with before the shelter in place, each one of them threatening divorce at one point or another over the last couple years. John, himself, got into an argument with Eric yesterday about going outside. This resulted in a group vote which Eric lost. He had been sour about it and John had been keeping a watchful eye on ever since.
“John,” he heard his wife whisper, waking him up.
He must’ve dozed off, he realized as his eyes snapped open.
“What?” he replied, concerned. Helen rarely woke him up unless something was going on.
“Something’s happening,” she replied nodding to the others gathered around the radio.
John and Helen sat along with the others crowded around the radio. It was like they were in London in 1941 during the Blitz. Everyone taking shelter from an enemy above, crowded together listening to the radio for news, any kind of news. It was all so surreal to him.
“What’s going on?” John whispered, earning him a ‘shush’ from Grace.
He listened along with the rest of them.
The Emergency Broadcast System was back with the alarming, if not familiar, sirens wailing over the speakers. They hadn’t heard that noise in weeks and it was almost welcoming to hear it again, no matter the news that followed.
“This is not a test… We repeat, this is not a test,” the monotonous voice called out. “At approximately 9:30 AM Central Standard Time, a large, multi-national counter-attack was conducted against the invading extraterrestrials. This counter-attack resulted in a catastrophic blow to the invaders, severely limiting their ability to wage war. Shelter-in-place orders remain mandatory for the population of Cook County and will remain in effect until further notice. Please stay in your shelters and stay tuned for further instructions.”
The EMS sirens played the message out as everyone stared at the radio in silence as it returned to static. Everyone in the basement glanced at each other. Some smiled for the first time as if an enormous weight of fear and uncertainty had just been lifted from their shoulders. Others carried that uncertainty still with the countless questions running through their minds.
“We won,” Rob breathed in disbelief. “Holy shit, we actually won!”
“Was never any doubt in my mind, Rob,” Eric grinned. “This is America, we always win!”
John didn’t even care about how historically inaccurate his friend was. The bottom line was, they had, in fact, won! After weeks of uncertainty with no guarantee of survival, let alone victory, they finally had some answers and it was the best possible answer that could’ve hoped for.
“I got just the thing!” Eric stated and ran off to the corner where he and his family had made their own. Very quickly, he came back with a bottle of eighteen-year-old single malt scotch. “This was supposed to be a gift for your promotion but I figure this works for surviving an alien invasion, too. We need some glasses. Honey?”
Carla went off in search for glasses, followed by Helen who directed her to some mason jars they had used a few years ago for their wedding. Eric immediately poured their victory scotch inside each glass, even giving some to Jennifer.
“I just want to propose a toast,” Rob said, standing up with his class raised high. “The last few weeks have been… crazy, to say the least. I mean, who would’ve thought that our little party would be upset by fucking aliens, of all things. There were times I didn’t think we’d make it. I know, I’m not alone there. But, we made it. And I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to be stuck in a basement with for three weeks more than you fine folks. Cheers to you!”
Everyone laughed and took a sip on the much-needed alcohol now calming their nerves, sitting there for a few moments with their drinks and taking everything in. Soon, the moment past and the uncertainty returned with a question that took hold of everyone’s minds.
“So, what happens now?” Grace asked.
None of them had a real answer to give.
“I suppose we just wait for the next orders,” Helen offered, unsure.
John, Carla, and Rob nodded in agreement.
“Or,” Eric said. “We could just go outside right now?”
“I like that idea,” Jessica said.
“I mean, we beat them, right? There’s nothing to worry about anymore,” Eric went further.
“Stay-at-home orders haven’t been lifted,” Helen reminded him.
“So?”
“Let’s look at this logically,” John cut in in an attempt to assuage the situation. “Look at what we know and what we don’t know. The only information we have is a few sentences issued by EBS, telling us there was a battle which we, in fact, won.”
“We smoked them!” Jessica shouted.
“Yes, we ‘smoked them’,” John replied. “But we don’t know where the battle took place. We don’t know how many ships are still out there or where they are. They could be right over our heads and we wouldn’t know it.”
“Only one way to find out, brother,” Eric suggested.
“I’d rather not take that risk.”
“Look out that window, John,” Eric said, his temper starting to flare up. “The neighborhood is the same as when it was left three weeks ago. Cars still there. Houses. There’s not a leaf out of place!”
“Are you serious?” Carla asked.
“Take a look for yourself.”
Everyone got up and crowded in front of the window, pressing their heads together for a glimpse of the outside world. Sure enough, Eric was right. Apart from the general yard disarray from a lack of upkeep for three weeks, the neighborhood looked relatively normal and untouched.
“Oh, I can see our car!” Carla exclaimed.
“Looks all clear to me,” Rob said. “Both cars there. No debris. I think we can make it.”
Everyone excitedly broke off to gather their belongings. All except for John, who remained silent, still, as he mulled over the situation. Something didn’t feel right to him. The invaders have been leveling cities and destroying everything in sight with nothing but radio silence the entire time. Now, all the sudden, the radio breaks its silence and informs everyone a successful attack had been landed, the enemy crippled, but no other details? There were dozens, possibly hundreds, of ships attacking cities and people. Were all of the ships destroyed? Was their area safe? There were too many questions.
“Guys,” he said to everyone as they packed. “We should wait.”
Everyone stopped and turned to him.
“Wait? Why?” Carla asked.
“We don’t know what’s out there,” John repeated. “Whether our area is clear or not.”
“Didn’t you see outside?” Eric said, frustration bubbling up in his tone. “It’s like nothing ever happened.”
“I know. But just because we haven’t been hit yet doesn’t mean we won’t be.”
“Fuck this,” Eric grumbled and turned back to his packing.
“Let’s just wait for the all-clear.”
“No, I’m not spending one more goddamned second in this basement! You want to stay, if you’re too scared, then stay. No one’s stopping you. But we’re leaving.”
“Eric’s right,” Grace said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
John could feel his own frustration start to grow and boil over. How could they possibly think everything was ok, now, of all times?
“I’m not afraid,” John said, gritting his teeth slightly. “Just cautious. We all saw what those things did. Leveled Broadway in seconds. Now, we have been sheltering in place for a while. No one has gone outside, not even our neighbors. We haven’t given the invaders any cause to come here and wipe out the place, which explains why it’s still standing. We have very little information about our own town, let alone the country. I’m all in favor of leaving and going outside, but we have got to be smart about this. Wait till we get the all-clear from the officials.”
Eric started laughing. “You would want to wait on the government, wouldn’t you?”
“Excuse me?” John replied.
“Don’t act like we don’t see your posts, we all know where you stand.”
“What does my political preference have to do with anything?”
“Instead of taking any action or responsibilities yourself, you’d rather wait for the government to tell you what to do,” Eric said. “You don’t care about freedom or self-reliance. For fuck’s sake, this whole thing could be just one giant hoax designed to keep us in place and under control.”
“Oh, come on, Eric,” Rob rolled his eyes.
“You don’t believe me? Then explain why we saw an entire city get leveled, but out here it looks like a normal Tuesday. You were in the military. Think, man! We can only leave when the government says so? That’s unconstitutional!”
“We don’t have time for your ridiculous conspiracy theories,” Helen said. “John’s right, we don’t have all the information yet.”
“Then don’t go outside,” Eric replied.
“Staying inside is irrelevant if you attract one of those things here by going outside,” John said.
“Oh, now you have information?” Eric said.
John looked at him incredulously. “The hell you on about? I know as little as you do.”
“So, it could be completely safe out there.”
John sighed. “Yes, I suppose it could.”
“With nothing to fear.”
“Yes.”
“There you go!” Eric crossed his arms triumphantly, daring anyone to challenge his logic.
“That doesn’t prove anything!” Helen shouted, drawing Eric’s attention to her. “There’s an equal chance there could be something out there as there is nothing.”
“Well, you’re not wrong,” Eric shrugged. “Guess it just shows the kind of person you are if you choose to stay inside or escape.”
“Clearly, it does,” she replied, locking eyes with him.
“Guys, look!” Carla shouted from the window. “There’s people outside!”
Everyone turned their attention to the window. Just as she said, outside were John and Helen’s neighbors emerging from their homes, rushing to pack up their cars with whatever they could carry. Some had already started their cars and were backing out of their driveways in a rush, not caring what was in their way.
“That settles it,” Eric said and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s leave before we’re the last ones out on the off-chance John is right.”
Carla grabbed Tommy along with the rest of their things. Rob and Grace were now convinced as well, though seemed less sure. They probably figured if everyone else was leaving, they should too.
John looked at everyone in a panic, sweat dripping down his forehead. It was becoming all too real now. They were going outside, likely to their deaths. And everyone smart enough to stay inside would also die because of their refusal to listen to logic. He looked at Helen, who was just as helpless as he was. Something had to be done, something drastic. Words weren’t enough anymore and he wasn’t about to get themselves killed on the count of his friends.
Everyone had their things gathered and were readying to clamor up the stairs when John stepped in front of them between them and the door.
“The hell are you doing, John?!” Eric asked, red flashing in his eyes.
“We can’t leave,” John breathed. “Not yet. Not until we know for sure.”
“I’ve about had it with you,” Eric growled and stepped up towards him.
John pulled out his revolver from behind, stopping Eric in his tracks and causing everyone to take a step back, shocked at this sudden action.
“John!” Helen gasped out loud.
This sudden and desperate act surprised everyone in the basement including John, himself. He never thought in a million years he would need to draw a weapon on his own life-long friends. Yet, here he was. He couldn’t back down now. Not with everything on the line. He couldn’t let them leave. He knew it. In his gut, he knew he couldn’t let them leave.
“John,” Eric said, cautiously, “now just calm down.”
“You want me to calm down?!” John asked incredulously, pointing the gun at his oldest friend. “You’ve been talking out your ass about conspiracy theories and short-sighted speculations and you want me to be calm?”
Carla put her arm out in front of her two kids, coaxing them down the stairs out of danger. Rob did the same with Grace and started inching down the steps with her. Eric, however, stood his ground in defiance, even as John was baring down on him.
“You’d better step aside, John.”
“I’m not moving,” John replied.
“I am,” Eric said back. “I’m leaving this basement with my family and I’ll go through you if I have to.”
“Put it down,” Rob said, softly, in his attempt to diffuse the situation. “Please! You don’t have to do this.”
“Let us go,” Grace pleaded.
“Get out of the way!” Jessica cried.
“Move,” Eric demanded.
It was no use. John stood his ground and no one was going to risk trying to disarm him now, and he wasn’t going to let anyone past. Not with his life on the line. Not with Helen’s.
“John,” Helen called out to him from the back. “Let us go.”
‘Us’, he thought, averting his attention from the others down to his wife.
This momentary lapse allowed Eric to lunge up at John. Both men tumbled down the stairs as the others gasped and quickly backed away. Carla took the kids and hid off in the corner, with Grace following suit. Rob jumped in with Eric and soon both landed on the floor. Within seconds, John was disarmed with Rob holding onto the gun. Eric punched John in the face and would’ve landed several more if Rob hadn’t pushed him away.
“Forget about him, let’s go!” Rob said, holding an enraged Eric back.
It took a few seconds for Eric’s sense to return, but then nodded at Rob in agreement before turning to check on his wife and kids.
Eric, Carla, and their kids were up and out the door not one minute later. Rob and Grace followed, turning to Helen as they made their way up.
“We’ll wait for you in the car,” Grace said to Helen as they exited.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Helen said.
She stared down at her husband, his cheek swollen and his pride bruised. “I can’t believe you did that. Pulling a gun on your friends. What were you thinking?!”
“I’m sorry,” John whispered in disgrace.
“Look, I’m going to stay with Grace a few days. Let you clear your head for a bit,” she said, looking away. “I’ll come back when this is all over. Try and talk them into not pressing charges.”
“I love you,” John said as she started up the stairs.
Helen paused, but didn’t turn. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
With that, she continued up the stairs. John could hear her footsteps across the floor above him, the front door open and close, and the two cars outside start their engines. He wouldn’t be surprised if she never came back after that, if any of them did. It was inexcusable. And for what? To survive an alien invasion they had likely already lived through? He sat up to lean against the wall, looking at the staircase. They were probably right, he figured. There was nothing to fear.
Six months later, John stood in line with several dozen refugees, like himself, shivering in huddled masses as they did every morning for the past several weeks waiting for their daily rations to be issued. Everyone was silent, nobody felt like talking. Not that he could blame them for he wasn’t much for talking either. Like him, they all dwelled on memories of things long past that now seemed like an eternity ago.
He found out pretty soon after the basement incident they had, in fact, defeated the invaders, though not all at once. While the military scored a massive victory, it wasn’t for about a month before they were driven completely from the earth and it was safe to come back out. He awoke one morning to the sound of trucks and tanks rolling by, and crawled, half starved, out of what was left of his basement. A world of cinders and charred remains awaited him.
Hundreds of millions were dead, likely more. No one had the thought or even the resources to conduct a census. No one knew who lived and who died. John did talk once to a lieutenant who stated that every major city in the world was destroyed along with everything within a hundred-mile radius outside. Little was spared apart from the most sparsely populated regions of the world. It was an extermination, pure and simple. For what reasons, was anyone’s guess. All they knew now was they were defeated and the survivors had to keep on living.
For the moment, the few survivors managed to band together with what remained of the military to keep some semblance of civilization going with setting up refugee camps and rationing out food supplies. It wouldn’t last, John figured. Sooner or later, the rations would run out and there would be chaos. He couldn’t imagine the world getting back to normal after this. Some thought it was possible and spoke loudly in efforts to raise morale for the masses. But they were lies. Lies told to make themselves feel better.
