"So that's the question, folks. Stay and fight, or keep going up into the mountains."
"I vote to stay and fight," JJ said.
"Me too," Marcus agreed, "these guys deserve to get their asses kicked."
"I bet they could really use a nurse in a combat zone," Shannon said. "I vote to stay."
"I don't know what good I'll be," Alisha said, "but I'll do whatever I can. I vote stay."
"I doubt that they have any use for a psychologist," Tony said, "and I'm not a fighter. I vote to go."
"I vote to stay," Karen said, "I'm no soldier, but I can hack the hell out of 'em."
"That just leaves you, John."
"I was a soldier," he said, "and I don't want to leave my brothers to fight alone. If we can help, then I'm all for staying and fighting."
"Okay, that's seven to one for staying. Tony?"
"I'm going where you guys go. So if you're staying then so am I."
"Good. It's settled then."
Before they had gone ten miles, they ran into trouble. A group of about twenty alien invaders appeared on the interstate in front of them, at the top of an overpass, and one of those damn hover tanks was behind them.
"Bad guys at twelve o'clock," John yelled for everyone to hear, then floored it, catapulting the bus at high speed towards them. He raised the bulldozer blade to protect the windshield until he could just barely see over it.
Alex opened up the hatch in the ceiling of the cab, rifle in hand, and got up for a better shooting angle, while Marcus leaned out the passenger window and began shooting with his pistol.
Bullets ricocheted off of the dozer blade in a shower of sparks. Marcus' pistol barked again and again. The crack of Alex's rifle sounded every few seconds. The bus engine roared higher and higher as they gained speed.
And then they hit.
Half a dozen alien soldiers were caught by the blade and forced back as the bus hit the tank with a deafening and bone-jarring crash. The tank went spinning off to the right and off the side of the overpass, landing with another metal-screeching crash.
"Damn," John said, "I'd love to get my hands on that hover tank."
"We'll grab the next one, okay?" Marcus said, "Just keep driving."
The smoke grew thicker in the air as they approached Aurora, a suburb of Denver. The smell of burning wood and other things filled the air with a sickening thickness. Most of them wore bandanas or masks over their faces to try to keep it out.
The flickering red light of fires resolved into an entire trailer park on the left side of the interstate that was completely engulfed in flames. It was thankfully difficult to see the park through the thick smoke. The gagging smell of burning flesh made them all want to vomit.
The sound of gunfire could now be heard over the engine. Intermittent bursts of staccato popping interspersed with the occasional low thunder of an explosion.
"Hey," Marcus said, "how'd he get here?"
The naked man they had seen at the Manhattan High School could just be seen running through a field between them and the flames of the trailer park. He still had a gun in either hand, and was running for all he was worth, his junk swinging in the breeze.
"Who is he?" John asked, barely able to take his eyes off of the running man.
"Dunno. We saw him in Manhattan."
"I think the smell is making me hallucinate," Alisha said, "is that guy naked?"
"Yep. Naked and batshit crazy."
"Hay, crazy man," John yelled out the window, "want a ride?"
The man obviously heard them, because he raised a hand and waved at them without breaking stride. But he just kept running, teeth bared and arms pumping.
"I guess not," Marcus said.
A little further on, they entered a valley of fire. Buildings on both sides of the highway were ablaze, the smoke so think that they could barely see a block ahead. Bodies could be seen, both human and alien, some of them on fire. Collapsed buildings and flaming cars were nearly all that they could see. It was as if they were descending into Hell.
"Take this exit," Alex told John, "go south on I-235. There's a base south of here."
"Roger boss."
Fire and destruction was all around them. It was as if the entire city had been destroyed. Being on the interstate kept them from getting too close to the flames, but the heat was palpable. While it warmed the chilly October evening, they would have preferred to have been cold than to witness such savage destruction.
"We must have died and gone to Hell," Alisha said with a stricken look on her pale face, all of the blood having drained from it.
For miles the scenery remained the same, with only occasional structures still standing, practically untouched. Alisha gagged, and opened the side door to throw up noisily onto the road, the smell finally getting to her.
A deep thrumming sound, loud enough the be heard over the diesel engine, grew in intensity, seeming to come from the sky above them.
"Shit," John shouted, "I think they found us."
One of the wedge-shaped ships appeared out of the smoky cloud cover, seeming to hover in the air with no obvious propulsion. It descended slowly towards the interstate exchange ahead of them until it was just a few feet from the ground. It must have been two hundred feet wide, and just as long.
John slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel to the side just to avoid ramming the thing. They crashed through the low concrete barrier and onto an access road running alongside the interstate.
A single missile launched from the wedge ship, but instead of hitting them directly, it landed just in front of the bus, tossing the whole rig onto it's side, throwing out sparks as it slid several yards along the road before coming to a stop just in front of a Radio Shack store.
