Written by: ivojovi

VILLAGE OF WINNEBAGO, ILLINOIS, USA

August 18, 8:57 AM

If there was one thing I hated to do more than anything, it was asking for help from a neighbor I hadn't spoken to in three years.

Kade Sterling, the neighbor, had ruined my marriage.

But now was not the time to wallow in sadness. The world had turned to shit, and there was no guarantee that we would survive this. I was preparing to go outside for the first time since the alien ship had arrived. If I could, I would have kept hiding behind my sealed doors and windows like I had been for the past two weeks. But I needed my damn portable generator to work. There might be electricity now, but for how long?

I took my dark-colored hoodie and stuffed a paring knife inside my pocket for my protection. Despite the low crime rate in this area, looters had gone rampant. An alien race ambushing us didn't scare me as much as people who thought killing each other was the only way to save themselves. It was the most vile scenario in which I might die. I shivered at the thought.

After locking my door, I scanned to see if anyone was out being suspicious. The stretch of houses on my street seemed quiet for now. The skies were no longer visible; however, low light still passed through during the day, giving us a small amount of visibility. We were situated in the Twilight zone directly under the gigantic alien craft that hovered thousands of feet overhead. I looked up to see it in its actual size. Peeping through my sealed windows hadn't really materialized the weight of the situation.

Like I said, the sky was gone. The ship had replaced the sky.

"Fuck." I whispered in dejection.

I hurriedly trudged to my lawn to get to the other side of my neighbor's house. His motorcycle was nowhere to be seen, but I knew he was home. I had heard him loudly grunt at night, hoping to the heavens he wasn't doing what I think he was doing.

I got to his door and checked to see if anyone had appeared nearby. Today was the day I would not get jumped by someone I knew in this village. With a deep breath, I raised my hand and knocked on the door. There was no answer after a few tries, so I started banging a little aggressively. I almost started to wonder if he had died inside when the door opened abruptly.

"What?" he grunted in anger.

Although he had fury in his eyes, we both knew we couldn't raise our voices in order to avoid others from discovering that the houses were occupied. Most people who had enough money to evacuate had already left; those who had stayed were getting desperate and dangerous.

"Hey, neighbor!" I whisper-yelled, sounding chipper.

"You have avoided me like the plague for the last few years, Ember. Drop the act. You need something?"

I guess he didn't buy it. "Okay, yes, that's why I'm here. I need help to fix my portable generator."

"What makes you think that I'm going to help you? Find somebody else."

"Wait! Please. I'll do anything."

"Go home, Ember." He said with finality, about to close the door on me.

But I wasn't ready to give up. As I gave him a quick once-over, I noticed his rough appearance and pale complexion. He looked like he hadn't eaten a full meal in weeks, and had been suffering. Glancing lower, I saw his leg was covered in bandages, dried blood seeping through.

"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned.

"It's none of your business."

He let out a subtle grunt of pain, and I knew something was wrong. I pushed the door open further, and found out that he was leaning on crutches.

"Okay, I've seen enough. Here's the deal, Kade. You get a full meal, maybe a few extras, and I'll help you clean up your wounds. In return, I get my generator fixed." I offered.

I could see on his face that he was inwardly fighting to reject my offer, but we both knew it was too good to pass up. With what this entire country was going through, it had probably been weeks since he had a good meal. And everyone needed to eat. Eventually, I saw his shoulders drop in defeat.

"Fine."

"I knew you'd say yes. Let me help you get to my house."

We walked back to my house in slow steps. I let him put his weight on me to ease the pressure on his leg and prevent any more bleeding. It was a challenge, but it wasn't like I hadn't lugged enormous boxes of liquid detergent to the basement on my own.

I secured the locks to my house. We'd be safe here. There was everything anyone needed to last months—including a basement overflowing with inventory from my couponing addiction. Once we were locked in, I situated my neighbor onto the couch. He groaned in pain as he tried to bend his knee, but I encouraged him to lie down and stretch his legs out.

"Now, relax. I'll be in the kitchen to cook us some brunch."

Kade grumbled a thank you and I immediately got to work. The basement was my comfort zone. Rows upon rows of canned goods and bottles were lined up on shelves, neatly labeled and organized into identical piles. I had gotten into food canning last year, and the colorful jars stood across repurposed bookcases, each shelf dedicated to preserved meats, fruits or vegetables. It was my corner of order in the middle of all the chaos, and the reason I had survived for the past two weeks.

Who was crazy now? Extreme couponing wasn't as useless as everyone told me.

People had judged me for hoarding a bunch of food and products that I could never use up in time before they expired. But I wasn't that selfish. What they didn't know was I would donate a portion of my stock to my local food banks and homeless shelters. It helped many people, plus it was just a great way to get amazing deals for a small price. I never guessed my neighbor would be one of the people I helped with my coupon stock, though.

I decided on cooking pasta, having a few spaghetti boxes left. I would use my homemade tomato sauce and cooked chicken breast that I successfully canned a few months ago. My house was silent; the only noises heard were the water boiling in the pot and the sizzling of minced onion and garlic in the pan. This was what it had been for the last few years: silence and loneliness. The loss I'd suffered was something I could never recover from, and the silence was the only thing loud enough to muffle the wailing of my heart.

Glancing away, I glimpsed the locked door at the end of the dimly lit hallway. The cheery robin's egg door always invited me in to visit, but I hadn't stepped foot in the untouched nursery for a long time. I had tried to convince myself several times to just get over it and do a deep clean. But a big part of me would never be ready.

My thoughts were in the dark again, and I nearly forgot I had company over. The smell of the delicious meal reminded me I had a guest, so I set two plates on the table and toasted some frozen bread slices. Kade looked quite dehydrated, so I got him a Gatorade from the food pantry. After setting everything, I helped Kade off the couch to the dining table.

When he sat down and saw the food, his eyes lit up. Then he sensed I was watching him, and set his face back into a stoic expression as he looked up.

"You can go ahead. Enjoy it if you want." I told him.

"How did you keep them fresh?"

He sounded bewildered. I didn't blame him. Some shops had closed the moment the alien chaos began. Food deliveries had ceased and consumer goods were scarce.

"You'll think I'm a lunatic if I tell you."

"Between aliens and you being crazy, I don't think there's anything more that could shock me at this point."

"You're right. I'm known for being the crazy coupon lady who does food canning at home."

"No judging here. But food canning? What for? You can buy those in the store."

I was about ready to fight him. People hadn't really seen the positive side of what I was doing. All they believed was that I was insane for inviting botulism into my system. But I had to give my neighbor a chance. He was just being curious.

"I get great deals in a farmer's market when I buy in bulk. I can't finish them in one go, so I put them in a jar and do a pressure canning process."

"That's too much work," he commented whilst stuffing another bite into his mouth.

His reply irked me. "Well, the hard work I put in just saved you from dying of hunger."

"Fair enough."

We continued to eat our brunch in slightly tense silence. He was an asshole, although I never really knew him. But I needed to keep my temper at bay if I still wanted him to help me.

As I calmed myself down, I was in the mood again to keep my end of the bargain, and settled him back into the living room. Before I could treat his leg, I needed to get him clean with a towel bath.

"We need to remove these bandages, apply antiseptic, and wrap them in new ones. It's going to hurt for sure." I told him.

Treating his wounds took longer than expected. The bandages had not been changed in a while, and blood had crusted over them. They stuck to the wound too, which never got the chance to heal properly. It was a gruesome task, but it was nothing compared to what I had to clean up at the preschool. Kade was quiet, trying hard to fight through the sting.

"So... what happened to you?" I asked while wrapping his leg in bandages. "Why didn't you evacuate like everyone else?"

"Motorcycle accident. I didn't break anything, but I got a pretty bad road rash which resulted in a skin graft. I just got home when the alien thing happened. No groceries, no medical supplies, and no one to help me around the house. I couldn't really leave. I've been in terrible pain since."

So, that was the loud grunting noise at night.

"It must have been—" I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence when Kade interrupted me.

"Hey, Em. Look."

His eyes were staring directly at my TV. All the screens that were found in my house lit up at the same time at noon. We tuned in, knowing what number was going to appear today.

13

Whoever ran the ship was trying to communicate something. For the optimistic, it could be a countdown to be the biggest welcome party of the century. For me, Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction had been my anthem since it all began. Who was right? We would never know.

"Any idea you have on this, Kade?" I questioned.

"Not a clue. There's no point in finding out. Leave that to the conspiracists," he said with no interest.

"We have a lot of time to guess."

"Aren't I here to fix your generator?" He retorted, looking annoyed.

I guess no small talk then. "Right. Are you able to go down the stairs?"

"I feel a bit better, but I'll still need help. Thanks."

I slowly led Kade into the basement, making sure he didn't suffer too much. It had already been a long morning for the both of us.

When we got to the bottom, he gave a long low whistle as he saw the mother lode of supplies. "Damn, Ember. You weren't joking when you said you're the crazy coupon lady."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I chuckled. "Let's get to work."

Since he couldn't crouch, I got him to sit on a small platform cart so I could easily wheel him around if he needed to move. The dusty old toolbox, which had been kept under the dark stairway, found its purpose. Handing him a flashlight, Kade got to work.

I knew Kade worked as an auto mechanic. My ex-husband used to take our cars to get checked a few times at the garage. I'd taken the chance to ask him for help as a last resort, assuming he knew how to check generators. He hadn't said that he couldn't do it, so I was more hopeful.

"Didn't you have this maintained?" His voice was muffled by being hunched over.

"Uhh. I didn't know that I had to?" My voice was unsure. Nobody told me about these things. My ex-husband was the handy one.

Kade heaved a sigh. "Where's your husband?"

"Excuse me?" I asked in disbelief. His innocent sounding question had triggered my trauma. The fuck was he on about.

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

Was he for real? There was no hint of remorse at all. "We already got divorced three years ago," I reminded him.

He stayed oblivious. "Shit. That sucks. I didn't know, sorry."

"You really don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"You're the one who ruined my marriage!" I hadn't meant to scream, but this was all a fuckload of bullshit.

"Ruined? How?" His brows furrowed in confusion.

The ugly crying had started, but I needed to release this pent-up anger. It was time to confront my demons. All this time, I was the only one who had been suffering. These men might have been entitled to an exit ticket to freedom, only having to feel the pain in their heart. My husband apparently hadn't been able to withstand the loss of our stillborn child, and left me with a house I could barely afford on my preschool-teacher's salary.

But as a woman, that loss had been a part of me, growing for a full cycle of nine months only to be welcomed into this world with not a single breath of life. It wasn't just the heart that suffered. Losing such a big part of myself was the ultimate destruction that made me question my existence. What was the point of this life if I couldn't share it with my baby?

After I managed to calm my tears, I faced my neighbor.

"You told me he cheated."

Kade had the audacity to laugh awkwardly at my pain.

"That wasn't what I implied. I only told you I saw him with someone and asked if you knew her when they came to your house while you were at work. Was this the reason you were mad at me? I never intended to ruin your relationship."

"I talked to him about it that night. He told me you were lying."

He sighed and looked me in the eye. "I didn't want to meddle, but I saw them kissing in the driveway, and I knew something wasn't right. There was a high chance the bastard manipulated you."

"No..."

"Em... I might not understand your situation, but I know what I saw."

All those memories of us shattered. The warning signs that I tried to ignore rose up like angry red flags.

"He–he couldn't... He said he would never... We were going through such a big challenge and it was so easy for him to forget about me..."

"I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of it." Kade put a hand on my shoulder to offer his comfort. The simple gesture took off the heavy weight that I was dealing with emotionally. He didn't know how much I had went through, but it was enough. Kade Sterling had been a friend all along.

The tears that I had to pour out today were the last time I would grieve for my ex-husband. As I took a deep breath, I let go of the pain. It was time to move on. I grabbed the neckline of my shirt and wiped the tears and snot off my face.

"You good?"

I could only nod in reply.

"Well, the good news is I'll be able to fix your generator. Bad news is... we'll need to do a supply run to get the parts we need."

"We should probably figure out how we're going to go out safely. For now, let's call it a day." I told him, feeling very tired. There was still a risk of what could happen to us out there, and I had dealt with enough outside for one day.

"Your call," he shrugged.

"I'm sorry about everything, Kade." I blurted out. He needed to hear my apology.

"Don't worry about it. It was just a stupid misunderstanding."

I laughed softly because he was right. We were facing a worldwide phenomenon allegedly involving aliens; my problems didn't feel so big and important against that, and I needed a friend with me.

"You can stay here until everything blows over, Kade. I honestly don't want to die alone."

We shared a look, and no words needed to be said. He had my back, and I had his. It was going to be one hell of an adventure fighting off this invasion together. 

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Find more stories by ivojovi on Wattpad.

A home baker by day and a writer by night. Jovi R is the author of the Wattpad novel The Other CEO, which won a 2014 Watty for being the People's Choice with now over 50 millions reads. She leans more into writing contemporary romances with a soft spot for brooding men in suits.