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  I stopped chewing on the toast that Mary made for us, and I took a sip of the tea with fresh milk.

  “There is a place,” Will said. “Where the ship we came in landed. It’s called The Landing. It carried as much equipment and items as we could to start a new colony on New Earth. When the Monsters attacked and wiped out most of the humans on there before they were dispersed into communities the Officers of the ship, were preparing; there were some survivors. Such as my family and your Mom and you. And then there were the Raiders who tried to steal everything there was on the Landing and amongst other survivors,” Will said.

  “My father and a few of the Survivors went to the Landing to protect the supplies. They were able to shoot down many of the Raiders, but a few got away or ran away, looking for easier pickings elsewhere. Because my father helped the Survivors with that, they gave him the military weapons, helicopter, and vehicles to hide, for safe keeping.”

  “Were other supplies still kept at the Landing?” I asked.

  “Why?” Will asked.

  “I think it was where Mom was heading to try to find some supplies. I don’t know if Mom knew about the Raiders or what really happened at the Landing the day the Monsters attacked,” I said. “But she was heading there when she disappeared.”

  I brought out the photo of my mother, and Will grabbed it out of my hands.

  “That’s Jana,” Will said. “The Officer I kept following when I was 6-years-old. No wonder I liked you from the start. She was pregnant at the time I knew her. I kept following her around and asking her questions about the baby, wondering all about the baby.” Will turned to me and said, “Turned out that baby would be you.”

  “You knew my mother then,” I said, happy to find someone who knew her. Happy that it was Will.

  “She was my friend,” Will said. “I was the only child on the ship, and she was an important person on it. She still found time to play with me. She was a very kind person, and I will never forget it.”

  “So you will help me get to the Landing? Could you help me find out what happened to my Mom?”

  Will got up and said, “If Jana is still out there, then we should find her. I know where the Landing is, Evie. It’s a bit of a hike but we can take the vehicle. It’s about time we test that thing out.”

  “Good,” I said. “I was about to tell you I was planning on leaving today. I’m healed, and Mary is fixed up. We need to be on our way.”

  “I sorta knew you were leaving today,” Will said. “I wanted you to stay with me, but I can’t keep you here when you have other places to go.” He kissed me then.

  Mary came out wearing her suit and helmet. “Look,” I said. “Mary’s ready to go.”

  “Will you be ready to go soon?” Will asked me.

  “I had began my mission with the purpose of finding out what happened to Mom and also to get some valuable supplies for my place. I didn’t expect to meet you, Will.”

  “That’s fortunate for both of us,” Will said. “Evie, I am fine staying here and watching the cows chew grass or I am fine going along with my girl and her robot sister to find out what happened to one of the greatest woman mentors I knew. So which choice do I have but to follow you.” He kissed me. “You already know I love you. But what you are about to find out is that you will fall in love with me, too. Hard. Head-over-heels hard.”

  I had to smile at him for that.

  In a few minutes, we were packed, dressed, and equipped to go.

  We took the vehicle outside the cave and up to the surface after Will sealed the entrance of the cave with a large metal door resembling a wall of the cave.

  “Camouflage. Clever,” I said.

  “So no one would know it’s there, except us,” Will said.

  Then we were on our way.

  ELEVEN

  We are back out in the open, and I was enjoying the ride as we were driving pass more caves, rivers, and mountains. Much of the terrain remained barren as we drove pass. Desolate, desert-like, no place where humans would be able to live in for a long time without Shelter.

  When the sun began to give way to the night, we stopped and pitched a tent near a river. Will began cooking a quick meal, while I filled water bottles with the river water. I popped in a sanitizing pill in each bottle to neutralize the water, before handing it to Will.

  We were quiet for most of the trip, trying not to trigger the Monster’s appearance or to attract attention from possible Raiders. So far we had a pleasant trip. Even scenic, as we drove over the terrain.

  Unfortunately, being quiet worked for most of the ride, but the smell of Will’s cooking didn’t.

  Hidden behind one of the large rocks, a shadow appeared. Large, hulking, and menacing. Hands grabbed me from behind as I was eating. “Will!” I yelled out, trying to warn him.

  Will pulled out his guns and was pointing at the person behind me.

  “Drop your gun or I’ll kill her,” A man said gruffly.

  Will’s eyes lit up, and he said. “I thought you were dead.”

  “You wished,” the man said.

  “I thought my father and Vice Commander Thomas killed you,” Will said.

  “No, they thought they did, but I escaped. They killed my colleague, thinking it was me.” I turned my head around to get a look at the man while he was talking to Will. He was much older than Will and I. Even older than what my father would’ve been if my father had lived. The man looked dirty as though he haven’t taken a bath in years. His stringy hair was long and shaggy. His face was sweaty and lined with wrinkles, dried out by the sun. He had a tube running from his nose to a backpack on his back. An oxygen mask?

  “Don’t look at me like that, girl,” he said. “I haven’t had a decent place to sleep in for years. Wandering around from one place to another. It would be nice to be able to sleep in a nice tent like this. And have a vehicle like this,” he said. “Right, young man? If you can give me this, plus the food, I won’t kill this pretty girl I have in front of me. She smells nice too, and she feels nice.” He moved his hands deliberately close to my breast. I didn’t like him touching me there. I didn’t like him touching me at all. He was vile, and his touch was nothing like Will’s touch. I slapped his hand away from me.

  The man slapped me back and pulled me closer. “Feisty, aren’t you?” he said. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me close in front of him and said, “I haven’t had a woman for so long…”

  Will’s eyes flashed with anger. “If you harm a hair on her, you’re dead,” he said.

  “I’m the one holding the gun,” the Raider said. “I’m the one with the power.” The Raider pulled me closer, and he was now trying to take off my helmet. “I could use one of these nice fancy oxygen helmets,” he said. “Instead of this filthy tube.”

  Will’s face filled with panic. “Don’t take off her mask.”

  The Raider said, “Why not? I want to see how beautiful this woman is. If her face is as beautiful as her body, then I’d like to see it. But first…give me some food.”

  Will fixed a plate of food and was walking towards us with the plate of food.

  “Smells good,” the Raider said. “Beef stew? I can’t believe it. I haven’t had beef stew since I was back on Earth.” The Raider pushed me aside, too hungry to care if I ran away.

  Or I thought. He pulled me back and tried to take off my helmet.

  I fought back, kicking him in the stomach. He threw down his plate, and shot at me.

  “Evie!” Will cried out, running towards me.

  Mary had jumped in front of me, blocking me from the bullets.

  The Raider pushed her down, when she didn’t fall to aim another shot towards me.

  I tried jumping out of the way before I had a loud explosion near me. I froze, sure I was hit.

  I felt dizzy, but then the Raider fell down in front of me. His eyes looked up. Dead.

  Will was immediately holding me, his arms around me as he whispered “Evie. Evie. Are you alright?”
>
  “Yes,” I said. “Mary blocked the shots or I would be dead.”

  “Mary?” Will called out. “Mary, how are you?”

  Mary began moving and stood up. “I have holes in me. But I will regenerate.”

  “Come on,” Will said. “Let’s get going.”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” I said. “He was another human. Don’t we need more humans to repopulate Earth again?”

  “Evie,” Will said. “You’re so innocent. Not all humans are good. Especially him. If he lived, he would have tried to kill us. And a pretty girl like you…he would have done so much… I can’t even say it.”

  “How could another human treat other humans so cruelly?” I asked. I remembered watching all the videos and news footage of wars, crimes, rapes, and murders. The brutality of humankind against others throughout history.

  “He’s worse than the Monsters,” Will said. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth, Evie. The Raiders like him, led by him, massacred most of the people on the ship, and had the nerve to tell the remaining survivors the Monsters killed them all. It was true, that some people were killed by the Monsters, but in the end…it was a fellow human being who massacred nearly everyone. Including your father, Vice Commander Thomas. My father told me about it before he died.”

  “What really happened at the Landing?” I asked. “How did Vice Commander Thomas die?”

  Will said, “Vice Commander Thomas had gone back to the Landing to fight off the Monsters, which he had heard were attacking the people on the ship.”

  I thought back to the video of Thomas telling my mother to run. So he was returning back to the ship to fight the Raiders then.

  Will continued. “Thomas thought who or what had attacked the ship were the Monsters…the ones exactly like the ones from Old Earth. But when he reached the Landing, he found my father along with some of the Officers, the Commanders, and others fighting the Raiders. It was mostly that man lying dead right there and his colleagues who had plotted and carried out a mass killing of innocent people on the ship.”

  “No wonder why my father in his video to Mom, said he was going back to fight them off.”

  “So the Monsters didn’t attack the Landing?” I asked.

  Will shook his head. “They did, but only after the Raiders were defeated or ran off. The Officers thought the Raiders would be back for another attack so they sent my father away, along with the important military equipment and vehicles.”

  “But what about the Monsters?” I asked. “Didn’t they attack the Landing? I don’t understand. I thought it was the Monsters that wiped off the humans on the ship?”

  “My father was able to drive this vehicle and the military equipment in a container to our farm. He thought it would be safe to go back to the Landing after he had placed the equipment into the hidden Barn. He told my mother and I that he would go back to check on the Landing to see how he could help. Well…he went back to the Landing…and found everyone there…dead.”

  “Could it be the Raiders again?” I asked.

  “No, my father had witnessed the last victim being consumed by the Monsters before he hurriedly drove off as fast as he could back to the Farm. He was sure they were the same as the ones back on Old Earth.”

  Will stopped and said,” Listen. Do you hear that?”

  We felt a gush of wind and heard rustling in the air. The sky had darkened.

  Will stopped talking and said, “Hurry, let’s pack up and leave now.”

  We moved fast, quickly taking down the tent, packed it up, along with all of our belongings and climbed into the vehicle. “Let’s go now!” Will said.

  “Wait. Mary,” I said, looking back to see where she was. Mary wasn’t in her seat.

  Then we heard the screaming. Mary’s high-pitched screams. They were screams of sheer terror. They were the same screams she cried out when the Monsters attacked her outside the Shelter.

  “Mary,” I yelled out. “Hurry, get in the Jeep. Do not fear!”

  She was standing where the Raider had fallen. Screaming. Pointing at him.

  It was a terrifying sight as the man’s body began to move. As if invisible hands were on him, he was lifted and then placed on his knees, his dead body posed into a horrifying pose, and his face molded into a terrifying expression. That of the screaming man in the painting. No sound was coming out of him since he was dead.

  But it was Mary who was staring at him and screaming.

  “They’re using her…plugged into her electric circuit to broadcast their awful screams…” I said.

  I looked at Will and he had an expression of disbelief.

  “What is happening?” I whispered.

  “It appears the Monsters had taken over the Raider’s body,” Will said. “And…they are using Mary to get to you…to terrify you.”

  It was working…I felt the chills go down my spine. I could feel the wind touching my hair, like frozen fingers combing through, touching my scalp and touching my face. It was horrifying to watch Mary screaming like that…

  “Will, hurry, drive. Fast. Drive out of here as fast as you can,” I said.

  “Fight it, Evie,” Will said. “Think of all the things you love. All the things that make you proud.” He gunned the pedal, and we went flying. Down the canyon and down to the rocky road.

  As I focused my mind on everything I love. Mom, Mary, Dad, and even Will…his kisses, his words of ‘I love you’, I could feel the chilly hands lift from my head.

  But I could still hear that awful screaming from Mary.

  Fight it.

  I remembered Mom’s words to me to no matter how small we feel. No matter what odds there is…always keep fighting. Never give up.

  My mind locked into focus mode. My mind steeled itself from the attack.

  “You have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” a familiar Old Earth quote came in mind.

  “Love is the Greatest Magic,” a quote from a book called Bitter Frost appeared in my mind.

  “Mind over matter,” another Old Earth quote appeared.

  Every positive quote I knew came flying into my head. My years of watching films, reading books, studying history, and learning from the past paid off with a wealth of happy memories and empowering sayings that made my mind stronger and wiser.

  Hope. The word jumped into my mind. You have to have hope. Because Hope is what I want for New Earth. For the survival of Humankind.

  I could hear the cacophony of terrifying voices that surrounded me, drift away.

  Finally, I was free of the Monsters’ terrifying fear.

  We had driven for most of the night. We were now far from where Mary stood screaming next to the dead screaming Raider.

  And ahead of us in the horizon was the largest ship I had ever seen. It looked almost like an entire city was encased in the round disc-like ship that jutted out from the ground.

  “That’s the Landing?” I asked.

  Will nodded. “That’s the Landing,” he said. He had driven non-stop all night in the freezing cold, and he had circles under his eyes. I pulled him to me to hug him. He looked surprised.

  He pulled me towards him to give me a kiss. “We’re here. I told you I would get you here.”

  “It’s huge,” I said.

  “It’s supposed to be as big as a city,” Will said. He handed me my backpack and my guns. He filled his belt with ammo and guns. “It looks nice out here,” he said, “but inside…it became a graveyard.”

  “My Mom might be here,” I said.

  “Then let’s go,” Will said. “Just be careful. We don’t know what’s inside. Monsters or Raiders. Or even something else I haven’t learned about yet.”

  “Raiders are people,” I said. “We know how to fight those. But the Monsters…I was wondering, why didn’t they attack you last night but Mary and I?”

  Will shrugged. “Who said they didn’t.”

  My mouth dropped. “I’m sorry, Will. You were attacked by them, too? And you had to drive. I’m
sorry, Will. I should have helped you. I was so focused on fighting them off. I was on the verge of losing it, but then my mind started fighting back. It wouldn’t let them intimidate me. If I could figure out entirely how to fight them off, I’d like every human being know. So they can fight back. I’d let Old Earth know. How do you fight them? You didn’t even seem affected by them.”

  Will smiled. “It may be because I am not afraid of them. It’s also because I grew up having different brain activity than most people.”

  I turned to him and asked, “What made you different?”

  “I may be different, but my parents never treated me different. Your mother never treated me differently. You see, Evie, I was diagnosed with being on the Autism Spectrum when I was little. People had always said I always had a different perspective than other people. They said I was always thinking on the brighter side than most people. I also didn’t respond the same way to certain stimuli when I was younger. And I had always been different. It was a good thing my parents raised me differently. Because I was on the Spectrum, they raised me to always look on the brighter side, to always think happier thoughts.”