Surprisingly there were still people at the hospital. Many of the staff had stayed, or returned, because they knew that there would be people hurt that would need medical help. There was nobody at the front desk, but the lobby and halls were lined with gurneys and stretchers with doctors and nurses scurrying around between them like ants over a picnic lunch.
Normally a simple gunshot wound would be near the back of the line as far as triage went. But Shannon worked here, she knew people. And so Alex was in surgery before he realized what was happening, Shannon right there beside him.
Handing the doctor sharp instruments.
He woke up some time later, still on the stretcher, and back in the truck.
"Where are we?" He mumbled, hopefully coherent.
"We're on the interstate," Shannon told him tensely.
As his senses began to return, he heard the sound of gunfire, and of bullets hitting metal. There was an explosion and the truck rocked sideways, throwing him around in his restrictive straps.
"Let me up."
"No. You'll tear your stitches."
"Let me up please," he said again.
"Alex, no," she repeated as another explosion blossomed right outside of the window.
"I have to help," he pleaded, "I have to help save everyone. Please."
His words and the pleading look in his eyes convinced her. "Okay, but take it easy. I'll probably have to re-stitch you anyway," she lectured as she unbuckled the straps.
"Thank you," he said as he grabbed his hunting rifle and sat up to see what was going on.
A group of about half a dozen invaders in black armor were following them - on foot. Their four legs were working fast as they ran as fast as the truck, occasionally falling back as they raised their rifles to take shots at them.
Karen and John were on the floorboard of the rear seat, covering their heads with their hands as the rear window shattered inward when a round pierced it. But that gave Alex that much more of a clear shot.
Balancing his rifle on the seatback, he zeroed in his scope on the alien in the lead, still some twenty yards away. Remembering what Shannon had told them, and their current situation, he targeted it's leg. With a moderate bang, he took the shot. The alien stumbled and fell, rolling head over heels for several yards before coming to a stop.
He worked the bolt to load another round, then zeroed in on the next one. Bullets slammed into the armored tailgate, and a few made it inside. Two of them tore up the seatback that Alex was bracing on, but he maintained his aim without so much as a flinch. The others shattered the windshield, then ricocheted off of the plate covering it and down into the dashboard.
JJ was leaning out of the front passenger window, also firing at their pursuers, but he wasn't using his scope, so his shots were less accurate. Yet he did hit once in awhile. Alex's shot took it in the chest, a little bit off center, then JJ's hit it in the head, dropping it like a rolling bag of rocks.
More gunfire poured at them, and again a few made it past their armor. One bullet pierced the seat and grazed Alex's arm, then went through the front seat, missing JJ's ass by inches. He nearly pushed himself out the window in surprise.
With only a few of them remaining, and them having run flat out for several miles, the bad guys began flagging and eventually fell behind completely. , though they kept firing until they were out of sight down the highway.
Unfortunately they had radios.
"Look out," Karen shrieked as a missile shot past them and instead blew up a sign that read, Welcome to Salina.
"Where'd that come from?"
"Above and behind."
"Swerve!"
Tony yanked the wheel to the left and jumped into the median just as the highway exploded into a blinding flash of asphalt and rebar, bouncing noisily off of the truck.
"I don't think we can lose this one," Tony shouted as he wheeled the beast of a truck back up onto the interstate, "any ideas?"
"Overpass," Alex pointed to the exit just a few hundred yards ahead.
"Hang on everybody!"
swerving onto the exit ramp, he barely slowed down as he jerked the wheel, nearly rolling them over as they skidded around the corner, plowing over a stop sign and a couple of other road signs. He then slammed on the brake with all of his might, skidding again to a stop directly under the interstate they had just been on.
The alien aircraft, a flying wedge, swept over them and kept going. Apparently these aliens aren't all that smart.
Then a pair of A-10 Warthog planes flew over them, their 30mm cannons pounding it form behind like parents paddling their wayward child. Missiles left smoke trails as they shout out from the attack planes, turning the flying wedge into more of a ground-based Rorschach test.
"Whoo!" JJ screamed as the Warthogs shot overhead, "kick their asses!"
"Go get 'em boys," Alex called out encouragingly.
"They say that bad news comes in threes," Tony said. "I wonder what our third one will be."
"That you're still with us," John quipped, "that's enough bad news to count as three."
"Laugh if you want. I'm still looking out for number three."
"Alex, you're bleeding again. I told you to take it easy."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Next time I'll just let the bad guys shoot us up."
"You're already shot up," she said with teary eyes. "We wouldn't want to lose you."
"Okay," he relented, "I'm sorry. I promise to be more careful."
"Thank you. Now I need a place where I can stitch you back up."
"Well," Tony said, having gotten out of the truck, "there are three truck stops that I can see from here. Take your pick."
"Uh," she looked both directions, then chose the one with the sign she could see best. "That one; 24/7 Travel Center. And there are a couple of motels nearby, so we can sleep in actual beds tonight."
