Free Sanctuary by Pauline Creeden Page B

I’d hate for you and your family to be locked out.”
    Dad’s face grew hard, and his eyes turned cold. “We don’t know everything about what’s going on. These are just sick people out there bitten by the aliens. We don’t know if these symptoms will just wear off, or maybe a cure will be found. I’m going to my home so we can be there in case Maggie returns.”
    Pastor Billy nodded. “Well, Mrs. Crawford and I will stay here. We want to be available as long as we might be needed. But once they open the gates at Ft. Monroe, we’re going to do everything we can to get as many healthy people where it’s safe.”
    “How many people have been coming to the church since the alien ships arrived?”
    “Our numbers have been down, but that doesn’t mean—”
    “And since the biting attacks started?”
    “None, but tomorrow’s Sunday and—”
    “Look, the church has taken the stand for hundreds of years that there was no life outside of our own planet. And if those ships don’t prove the church wrong, I don’t know what does. Where is God right now? Where was he when my wife was attacked?”
    “Mr. Ransom, I know that you’ve suffered—“
    “Suffered? You can’t possibly know what I’ve been suffering!”
    “I’m sorry that you’ve been facing losses, but we can’t reject God when the going gets tough.”
    “God seems to be rejecting me.”
    Jennie didn’t like the direction this was going. Her mother and father never argued in front of Mickey or even her. To watch her father argue with the pastor about such a weighty issue frightened her. Mickey looked up at him with wide eyes and pulled the thumb he’d been sucking out of his mouth to say, “Daddy, can we go home?”
    Dad nodded and held Mickey tighter. He looked at Jennie and waved an arm in her direction to pull her into him. “Come on, Jennie, let’s go.”
    Jennie focused on the haggard face of the pastor and whispered “Thank you” to him as she welcomed her father’s arm around her shoulders. They stepped out into the faded sunlight of the Saturday afternoon and headed for the minivan. “What about my car, Dad?”
    “Yeah, I guess you should drive it and follow me.”
    “Mickey’s car seat is in the back, too.”
    Dad nodded and said, “Can you grab it and meet me at the van?”
    The incessant droning continued like white noise in the background. Its steady rhythm made her think her chest vibrated even though the monsters were too far away to cause it. They trudged through the leaves that no one was going to rake up because of the dangers of being outside. She looked steadily around for the possibility of a bite victim attack, but Warwick Boulevard was a barren street, devoid of most any life. Even the birds, themselves, were silent, their song drowned out by the static of the incessant alien rumble. Jennie’s mind wandered as she opened the door of her Civic. What kind of winter were they going to have if the summer felt like autumn?
    She unbuckled the booster seat and pulled it out. When she got back to the van, Mickey was reciting Mary had a Little Lamb and giggling. “You’re messing up the words, Daddy. Don’t you know the song?”
    Jennie laughed. Her father either couldn’t remember the lyrics to any song or at least feigned ignorance. But the mess up of simple ones always made Mickey roll with laughter. This was no exception. “Mary had a little lamb. Its sheets were white as snow.”
    “Not sheets—fleece!” her brother yelled, patting their father on the shoulder.
    “Here’s the seat,” Jennie said, as she handed it to her father. She looked up and down the street and noticed a single white car on the overpass of Route 17. The apartment tower on the James River above the overpass stood alone in the background, shining from the reflection of the sun off the water. The empty streets were eerily quiet—no sounds of children playing, people talking, not even dogs barking. Nothing to indicate life. She shivered