Enjoy.  120 votes for next update or July 16th

This is posted early in place or I Survived due to me moving over the past two days and being unable to write.

cover by @Thatsmebatman

He puts the phone up to his ear, “Hello? Jamie? Yes, I’m on my way.”  Henry rests one hand on the top of the steering wheel and balances it to keep the vehicle steadily going forward.  The large highway is nearly vacant during this period between lunch and the end of shift and he takes full advantage of the six open lanes with only two other cars in view.  He knows that in an hour this highway will be packed bumper to bumper. 

Henry looks across the dash.  On the other side of the silver cross hanging from the rearview mirror he can see a few cars speed by on the other side.  He’s glad that’s the side he’ll be coming back on after this short trip and that that’ll be the side opposite of the evening traffic.  “Jamie, Jamie, we can talk about this when I get there, don’t worry.  I’ll be there in five minutes.  Just hold on and make sure nothing explodes—keep the cool.  Okay… okay… bye, seen you then.”  Henry pulls the phone away from his ear and sets it on his lap, “Damn,” he curses under his breath.  One of his clients is having a huge issue at the office and it’s so dang emergency that it can’t wait till the evening.

He wipes the sweat off his forehead and glances down at the gas, which is about half way.  He really doesn’t like driving in the middle of the day, his car has no AC.  Trying to keep his mind off the intense heat and the sun pounding down onto the dash half blinding him he keeps his glance low, watching the speedometer more than the road.  A flash.  He glances up.  The center divider is gone and he’s the only car left on the road.  The six lanes across he’s used to driving has turned into twelve lanes.

“What the… fuck?”  He lets out under his breath while releasing the pressure on the gas.  He looks around the empty void of asphalt for some sign of why the entire highway has turned into a single mass of empty road.  He didn’t remember crossing by any construction signs and he was sure as hell the last time he checked this highway wasn’t closed for any reason.

He slowly presses the break and slows until he’s at a complete stop.  For Jamie this may be longer than the expected five minutes.  He rolls down the window and pokes his head out, looking for some sign of life.  It’s eerie still outside, there’s not even birds.  He considers his options and decides that he must have missed something.  His heart pounds with the idea of running a roadblock entirely on accident, how could he have gone this far without anything pulling him over?

He slowly opens the car door while putting his little baby in park.  He looks around the black desert.  Having no center divider of any sorts is concerning on its own, but where is everyone?  He looks behind him to see about a thousand feet back or so there’s an exit.  He thinks it best to just reverse and take that, this road must be closed and he must have missed it.  He turns back around to see a hundred glimmers in the distance.  He squints his eyes to see dozens, no hundreds, of cars all racing towards him.  They come at him like a herd running away from predators.

No time to think.  He jumps into his car, flings it into reverse and slams on the gas.  His little red car jerks as it starts and speeds almost uncontrollably backwards.  He looks forward.  It’s not enough.  The wall of vehicles comes at him way faster than her can reverse.  They’re on him in seconds, all types of cars of all colors, shapes and sizes.  It’s like a race and he’s going the wrong way.  Henry quickly jerks the steering wheel sending his baby horizontal along the lanes and aims at the off ramp.  As he does the cars make contact.  He recoils for the expected impact while swerving his car in attempt to reduce the damage.

Nothing.  No crash, no whiplash, nothing.  He opens his eyes to find himself parked on the side of the highway while swarms of cars race down the highway.  No one changes lanes, no one swerves, and they all move at the exact same speed.  With his heart racing he watches the army speed by in complete unison.  How did he not get hit?  How did they miss?  He knew for sure they were right on him with no signs of slowing.  It’s a miracle that he didn’t get slammed right then and there.

While allowing his breathing to slow Henry looks into the review mirror.  Directly in the center of his mirror is a middle-aged black man.  He’s standing very upright, is husky in build and has some kind of wire going up to his ear.  Henry peers at this man, the man puts a finger to his ear, nods once, and starts walking over to the car.  Whatever this man wants Henry has no idea where he came from or how he got there, but he wants nothing to do with him.  He switches the car into drive and rolls down the off ramp.

As he pulls up to the stoplight he looks into his rearview again to see a black SUV slowly cruising behind him.  He keeps an eye on this SUV as he makes a left on the green.  The SUV is the only other car to have exited, which doesn’t make sense since all the traffic on that highway is going the opposite direction.  He drives slowly down the road while keeping an eye on the SUV.  He takes a left, a right, then pretends to go forward while taking a hard left.  The SUV cruises behind him the entire time, almost without effort.   

What the hell is going on?  This really isn’t his day, first the highway then this?  His phone rings, he springs up so fast he hits his head on the ceiling, this causes his phone to fall off his lap and he bends down real quick to grab it.  He pulls up to a red light and eyes the SUV as he answers, “Uh hello?” Jamie, it’s Jamie, “Jesus Christ, you scared the crap out of me, yeah I know I’m late.  The highway was closed, had to exit early.  I’m trying to get there on the side roads, may take a bit longer… hey, hey, did you know of any race or anything on the highway?  No?  No… okay, I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

He looks behind him again, a stocky man with short blond hair and a bland purple shirt has gotten out of the passenger side of the SUV.  This man was walking towards the car.  Henry looks up, the light’s still red.  “Come on… Come on…” he hisses as he watches both the red light and the man.  The man gets up alongside his window and reaches down for the passenger door.  “Fuck it.”  He slams the gas and runs the red.  The man stops and stands upright as the SUV runs the red after him.  His worst fear, the black SUV is following him. 

He turns at random down a few more streets to see a second SUV in front, same make, same model.  Running out of options Henry eyes a parking spot between two cars he jerks his car perfectly into the tight fit in hopes to juke those following him.  He looks around.  The side he parked on has a park with several palm trees lining the sidewalk and a grass field, a little further is a few sand pits and a couple volleyball nets.  To the other side and across the street is a large parking lot which is empty except two other cars.  This parking lot is right up against a large glass skyscraper with two or three floors of brick at the bottom.  Right at the edge of the parking lot is a phone booth.  Across from that skyscraper is an identical building, minus the outside parking lot. 

Henry gets out of the car and looks both ways, neither of the SUV’s are seen, maybe he juked them?  He slowly crosses the street and heads into the parking lot thinking the way they’d least expect should be the direction he goes.  He walks fast, but tries not to run to attract attention.  There’s still no reason why these guys are after him or what’s going on.  As he nears the phone booth it rings once.  He stops and looks at it until it rings again.  He slowly approaches the booth, public phones don’t normally ring.

The phone rings again, he goes over and pulls it off the hanger, “Hello?”

“They’re everywhere.  They’re everywhere,” a voice comes back.

“Who is this?” Henry asks as the other line clicks dead.  Spooked he hangs up the phone and walks slowly along the wall of the building, keeping an ear out in case the stranger calls again.  Just as he reaches the edge of the building he looks across the parking lot to see an SUV pull up alongside his car.  “Shit.” He curses as he dips around the building and into its shadow.  He pokes his head out and watches as two men step out of the SUV, both with plain clothes and little ear plugs.  They walk around his car and after seeing he’s no longer in it nod their heads and turn to explore the park.

Henry lets out a sigh of relief.  “Mr. Cooper.”

He turns around fast and his heart goes into his throat.  Right in front of him is a middle aged man with short hair and an earpiece.  They found him.  He looks behind him to see the pair that started towards the park has turned around and is also heading towards him.

“What the hell do you guys want?”

“You’re going to have to come with me Sir.”

“No.” he goes to push the man, his hands go through the man like they would through a waterfall, as he passes through the guard of sorts the guy turns into smoke and disperses into the air.  “What the fuck?”  Henry whispers as he looks behind him to see the other two have crossed the street and are now half way through the parking lot. 

He picks up a jog and runs away from the two agents, as he nears the far end of the building two more turn the corner in front of him, “Shit,” he panics and turns right, going through the door and into the building.  He enters a tight lobby, there’s a small hall with elevators on either side and a receptionist desk crammed at the far end.  There’s no one at the desk.

He speed walks to the end and looks down both the halls.  Both are empty.  He decides it best not to go up for fear of getting trapped and takes one of the halls.  As he speed walks down the halls one of the doors opens and a skinny tall man in his forties with round glasses and long blond hair tied into a pony tail reaches out and grabs him.  The man throws Henry into the room and slams the door.  “Get the hell off me!” Henry shouts, throwing his hands up, prepared to fight, “I didn’t do anything, just get away!”

“Woah, Woah, calm down,” the man says, putting his hands up and backing away from Henry’s fists, “Did you get my call?”

Henry lowers his battle stance, “What?”

“My call, did you get it?”

“Yes?” he asks unsure of what this guy is talking about.

“You see them too right?  They’re everywhere. They’ve been chasing me for days, not sure where they came from but they just don’t stop.  You try to touch one yet?”

“He just—”

“Vanished, I know.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself, have come to two solutions.  The world has been invaded by aliens and they’re picking us off one by one… or we’re dead.”

“Dead?” that one resonates with Henry, he couldn’t be dead, he just talked to Jamie after all this shit started happening, must be the other one.

“What do we do?”

The other man nods his head slowly, “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”  He looks hesitantly around the otherwise empty room.  In one corner is a pile of canned food and a few water bottles, it looks like the blond man has been here for a while, “You would have led them here, we have to go.”  He pokes his head out of the door, “let’s go.” 

Henry steps out, he also looks both ways, at the far end of the hall, the end opposite of the lobby, is a stubby bland man with a little earpiece, “Uh…”

“Todd.”

“Todd there’s one over here.”  Todd turns to see the guard start marching forward.

“Yeah there’s one here too,” he says pointing at the more menacing one in front.  “Let’s go.” Todd leads Henry forward.  As he nears the guard he swings at it, causing it to dissipate similar to the one Henry tried hitting earlier.  Todd turns into the hall and Henry hears him mutter, “Shit…”

Henry turns to see half a dozen of the guard type figures standing at the far end of the ground floor.  The hall opposite of theirs has three or four coming down and the one they just traveled has two more.  Ding.  The elevator right in front of them hits ground floor and opens.

A man in a business suit walks out and turns for the exit.  Henry holds his breath as the man in the suit slowly approaches the mysterious gang.  The businessman walks through the ghosts like they weren’t even there and continues out the door.  That man didn’t see anything.

The guards all look at the elevator door.  Todd looks at that same door.  They take one step and Todd sprints for it.  Henry follows on instinct.  They both slip in before the guards can get to it and Todd presses the button for the highest floor and button mashes the close.  One of the guards reaches his arms out and gets within inches of the elevator as the door fully shuts.  Henry lets out the breath he’s been holding as Todd pushes the numbers for floor twelve and floor nineteen.

“What are you doing?” Henry asks.

“We split up, less chance they’ll get both of us.”

“Why, they can’t touch us.”

“Yes they can…” He pauses as he lets that information sink in, “They’ll try to use the elevators to guess what floor we end up on,” he pushes fifteen and twenty six, “Now they won’t know which floor we exit on for sure,” he looks at Henry, “Don’t let them get you, and get out.” Henry nods.  He pats his pockets to realize he left his phone in the car, there’s no way to contact Todd if he escapes. 

The door opens, “Get out now.” Henry listens and exits on floor fifteen.” He looks at his options, several other elevators are moving, most down but there’s at least one more going up.  He holds his breath as he watches the numbers tick, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen.  He let out a sigh, they didn’t pick his floor.  He looks at his options; a window is not a choice.  His only other path of escape besides hiding out somewhere on the floor would be the stairs. 

He heads for the door near the end of the lobby section and push it open slowly.  He looks down, doesn’t seem any of the men decided to take the stairs.  He begins to make his way down.  He gets to the fourteenth floor and hears a door very close by open.  He peaks his head over the railing and sees one of the guards poking his head over and looking up.  They make eye contact.  Shit.  He turns and begins heading back up as the man follows.  Henry begins to run up the stairs and the pace of the man picks up as he continues up until there’s no more.  A door sits at the very top and he pushes into it.

The door swings open and light floods in.  He shields his eyes as he steps out onto the windy rooftop.  There’s nothing here except cement and a three foot concrete railing bordering the edge of the skyscraper.  He catches movement behind an electrical box and moves to one side.  Behind the box is Todd.  One of the guards is behind Todd and holding his hand over Todd’s mouth and nose.  Todd is clawing at the man’s hand.  Fuck, the stranger is suffocating him!

Henry gathers his courage and charges at the guard.  As he gets closer he sees Todd’s eyes roll back and the stranger push his hand one direction against Todd’s chin and the other on the back of his head.  Todd’s neck snaps like a twig and he drops like a ton of bricks right as Henry dives at the man.  The stranger dissolves and Henry slams into the ground like he tackled air. 

His arms scrape against the pavement and he bends over in pain, but not for long.  He stands partway up and goes over to Todd.  Todd’s eyes are still open and there’s this horrible bump protruding from his neck from where it has been snapped.  Henry lifts the body in his hands and Todd’s neck flops awkwardly over.  A tear comes from his eyes as he looks up at the access hatch to the roof.  Six more of the mysterious men with their short haircuts, bland colored shirts, and earpieces are blocking his only escape.  Henry backs away and bumps into the ledge.  He slowly turns and looks over the edge to the thirty stories below.  He then looks back at the men as they slowly approach.

All six at once recite, “Sir, you need to come with me.”

“No.” he trembles as he pulls himself up and stands at the edge, “No…” he stumbles as he thinks over those two possibilities Todd gave.  “No…” he slides his feet back as the men get to the ledge and reach out.

He leans back, “No………”