ALPHA WAVE

Chapter 8: The Plan.

As we approached the house, my heart sank at the sight of two patrol cars parked outside. Two more were stationed a block away, and a white cleaning van parked in the opposite direction.

They couldn't be more obvious if they tried.

Meanwhile, the entire property was cordoned off with yellow hazard tape and a large red 'X' spray painted on the door.

This can only mean one thing: "infected." That explains the moving truck parked next door, and why everyone was deliberately choosing to cross the street instead of walking by our house. You would think our house was the black plague. To add insult to injury, some people even had the audacity to take pictures of our home. The nerve of those people is beyond comprehension, snapping pictures like a bunch of no-good varmints. I was two seconds away from giving them a piece of my mind.

We've been parked in the car a few blocks away from the house for the past hour, racking our brains to come up with a plan that doesn't involve any crazy shootouts or getting ourselves killed. Ivor has been uncharacteristically silent. I caught him glancing at the paper bag in the back seat from Frazier a couple of times. I can't help but take a peek at that bag myself and wonder what was in it.

Mm...

"Oh look, is that the Saviors?" I feign a gasp of shock.

"Mm-hmm," he replied absentmindedly.

"Hey, is that a unicorn riding a hippo?"

"Aye," he says, still lost in thought.

"Okay, what gives? You haven't insulted or threatened me in the last hour or tried to fling me out of the car. Does this silent grumpy-pants mood have anything to do with Frasier or that bag?"

"None of your business," he snapped, annoyance clear in his tone.

Something was obviously bothering him.

"Woah, no need to bite my head off. I was just asking."

"Then don't," he scowls. "We aren't—"

"I know, I know, we aren't friends. No need to keep hammering that point home. So, what's the plan? I can't see a way out of this that doesn't end with us staring down the barrel of a gun or getting locked up in the clink." He took another glance at the bag in the backseat and started the engine. "Where are we going?" I hastily fastened my seatbelt.

"The house," he replied curtly.

"But what about the patrol cars? And the plan?"

"Don't worry about the cars. Just get to the house."

"And the plan? We can't just drive up to the house and hope they don't see us. Unless that's the plan, we get out of the car waving our hands and shouting,' Here we are, come and get us!'"

He puts me out a few blocks and tells me to run before ramming the stolen SUV into the van creating a diversion that got the attention of all the other patrol cars. It was the stupidest plan ever, but it was the only one we had.

While he was out there distracting them, I scrambled up the trellis and into my aunt's bedroom window. My aunt's room was in complete disarray as if a tornado had blown through it. Drawers were pulled out, clothes were scattered everywhere, and the mattress was flipped over. Despite knowing that my aunt was not a neat freak by any means, seeing her personal space in such a state of turmoil was a painful sight.

Those bastards!

After a quick outfit change into my ripped jeans and an old Tee I had left behind, I hastily rummaged through the bedrooms, bathroom, and attic, hoping to stumble upon any trace of the flash drive. It was enough to make me madder than a hornet in a soda can. And knowing those low-life scumbags had already scoured through those same areas, made it look like they had already found it. But I know my aunt wouldn't make it that easy. There has to be a reason why she came up here...