Getting Home

  Copyright © 2018 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  The images in this book are used with the permission of: Ollyy/Shutterstock.com; briddy_/iStock/Getty Images; ilobs/iStock/Getty Images; 4khz/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Moore, Stephanie Perry, author.

  Title: Getting home / Stephanie Perry Moore.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2018] | Series: Attack on Earth | Summary: High school senior Bailey Clarke and her younger brother, Blake, must trust strangers to help them reach their father’s home when an alien invasion causes their bus to break down.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017049272 (print) | LCCN 2017060634 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541525856 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541525757 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781541526280 (pb : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Survival—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction. | Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction. | Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M788125 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.M788125 Gg 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049272

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-44559-35490-2/12/2018

  9781541531000 mobi

  9781541531017 ePub

  9781541531024 ePub

  To my little brother, Franklin Dennis Perry Jr. Oh, the adventures we took growing up. Thankful we always had each other’s backs. May every reader know home is in the heart as long as you take care of those you love.

  On the morning of Friday, October 2, rings of light were seen coming down from the sky in several locations across the planet. By mid-morning, large spacecraft were visible through the clouds, hovering over major cities. The US government, along with others, attempted to make contact, without success.

  At 9:48 that morning, the alien ships released an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, around the world, disabling all electronics—including many vehicles and machines. All forms of communication technology were useless.

  Now people could only wait and see what would happen with the “Visitors” next . . .

  Chapter 1

  We were on a bus ride from Atlanta, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, when the blast came. The trip had started badly—with Momma giving me a lecture about taking care of my younger brother, Blake, while we visited our dad—and it hadn’t gotten better from there. For the past hour, the guy in front of us had been talking loudly on his phone about a college visit that had gone wrong and had refused to move his seatback up when Blake had asked him to. The white couple sitting across the aisle were bickering about something. Everyone else on the bus seemed to be gossiping about the alien spaceships that had appeared this morning.

  I’d been trying not to look at my phone. I knew my inbox would be full of texts from Momma back in Atlanta or from Dad in Montgomery. And my newsfeed would be clogged with coverage of the so-called Visitors. I couldn’t believe people thought it was real.

  After the bus had made its first stop on the route, we’d been traveling back to the interstate highway when we suddenly heard a strange buzzing sound. The tires skidded and screeched as the driver tried to keep control of the bus. It began to turn and the front half shot off the pavement and into a ditch next to the road. Everyone began screaming as they slammed forward into the seatbacks.

  My phone fell out of my hand as my head jerked into the seat in front of me. “You okay?” I asked Blake. I reached down to grab my phone from the floor. A vehicle must have been coming down the road behind us—it rammed into the side of the bus toward the back.

  Then another vehicle slammed into the bus. I tumbled into the aisle, but before I could get too far, the guy sitting in front of us grabbed my shoulders to steady me.

  My ears were ringing and my eyes had trouble focusing. I could hardly hear anything over everyone’s panicked screams. “Thanks,” I mumbled to the guy. He helped me back to my seat. In the back of my mind I registered that this was the same jerk who wouldn’t move up his seatback when my brother asked. Instead he’d spent the entire bus ride yelling defensively into his phone about “not my fault” and “someone must’ve planted those steroids on me.”

  “Bailey!” my brother called out to me. He stared at me with wide eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Now that I had enough time to look, I could see that Blake’s right foot was hanging inward at an awkward angle that made my stomach flip. He pulled up the leg of his jeans with shaky hands and revealed a rapidly swelling ankle. “It slammed into the wall when we crashed,” he explained.

  Fifty percent of me wanted to holler, but the other fifty percent took over, keeping me calm. I moved Blake’s leg so it could rest on my seat. Then I grabbed my phone to search for how to take care of an injury like this, only to realize my phone had died. The calm started to slip away.

  “Somebody help me!” I spun around in a circle, looking for anyone to help us. “Please! My brother is hurt.”

  “What’s wrong?” the guy from the seat in front of us asked. He peered around the seat and his eyes widened when he saw Blake’s foot.

  He took a deep breath then gave Blake a quick smile. “Let’s take a look at that.”

  I stepped aside in surprise. The guy couldn’t have been much older than me—seventeen or eighteen, I would guess. But I could barely think, and I didn’t know if my fingers would work even if I wanted them to, so I was ready to let just about anyone help at this point.

  “Doesn’t look too bad. Might just be a sprain,” he said. Then he looked around at the bags we had tucked beneath the seats. Most of it had shifted, so my backpack was shoved too far under another seat to reach it. He pulled his belt loose from around his pants. “Does anyone have anything that can be used as a brace?” he asked loudly.

  “I have a pair of knitting needles,” the woman sitting across the aisle from us said. “Would that work?”

  “Better than nothing,” the guy said.

  She pulled the knitting needles from her bag and quickly handed them over. He looked at the man sitting next to her. “Can I use your belt too, sir? And your sweater, ma’am?”

  Armed with a yellow sweater, two belts, and a pair of knitting needles, the guy turned back to my brother. “What’s your name?” he asked, rolling up the jeans so they were neatly cuffed just below Blake’s knee.

  “Blake.”

  “Nice to meet you, Blake. I’m Colby. This might hurt a little, but you’re gonna be okay.” Blake nodded bravely.

  Colby wrapped the sweater around Blake’s foot and ankle, tugging the sleeves into a tight knot. Then he lined up the needles on either side of Blake’s leg and secured them using both belts.

  “Well, that should keep it stabilized for now,” he said. “Till we can find something better.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said as he stood. I moved to sit next to Blake. “How did you know how to do that?”

  Colby shrugged. “I play football—you get pret
ty used to setting injuries.”

  Blake eyed the letterman jacket Colby was wearing. “Hey, you’re Colby Grant! You’re one of the best safeties in the state.”

  I had no idea who that was, but Blake followed high school and college football religiously. I was just happy to see that he didn’t seem to be in too much pain.

  “What’s going on out there?” the man across the aisle asked. His wife had pressed her head against the window, trying to get a look at the road ahead of us. Bailey and I tried to see out our window too.

  There weren’t many other vehicles on the road. But with damaged cars smashed into the front and back of our bus, there was no way it would be able to get off the street.

  Nervous voices rose inside the bus, and the bus driver stood up to face us. “Okay, everyone, just calm down!” he shouted.

  “Where are we?” someone in the front asked.

  It was impossible to tell. We were on an empty country road, with nothing but trees and fields on either side of us. There weren’t even signs along the street giving mile markers. I tried to remember how long we’d been on the road. It was about a four-hour trip from Atlanta to Montgomery, and it had been nearly two hours since we said good-bye to Momma and climbed aboard the bus. That first bus station we’d stopped at had looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where the nearest town was.

  “I think my phone died when I dropped it,” I said, turning to Blake. “Can you check where we are?”

  Blake held up his phone and looked at it in surprise. He showed me the screen—also black. “I was just playing a game on it before we crashed. That’s weird.”

  I turned to the couple sitting across from us. “Um, excuse me, can either of you check where we are?”

  They both pulled out their cell phones and looked at them in surprise. “My battery must have died,” the woman said. She started digging through her bag. “My charger is in here somewhere.”

  “Is anyone’s phone working?” someone called out then. Everyone seemed to be checking their phones, and none of them seemed to work.

  “The radio is dead too,” the bus driver said. “I can’t get in touch with the station.”

  People began to panic again. The rising voices made my head spin again. Blake started to shift, but he hissed and quickly reached for his leg, rubbing at it tenderly just above the makeshift ankle brace. “It really hurts,” he said.

  “Just sit back. You’re gonna be okay,” I told him, trying to keep calm. He was only thirteen. He was always fighting with Momma about how he was old enough to do things on his own, but I could see from the look on his face that, deep down, he was freaking out.

  “All right, all right,” the bus driver said, raising his hands. He lifted the cap off his head and wiped the sweat away from his face. Then he let out a long breath of air, glancing back at the bus’s dead dashboard.

  Everyone had quieted, waiting as if he’d be able to give us some sort of answer.

  He looked out the windows, then back at us. “For starters, let’s all get off the bus. Some fresh air might do us all good.”

  Having something—anything—to do seemed to make people feel better already. This was familiar. We could all handle collecting our luggage and getting off the bus. Everyone immediately jumped into action, gathering as many of their belongings as they could and filing out of the bus.

  I had managed to yank my backpack from under the seat and find Blake’s. But Blake was already taller than me—and heavier—so I could barely do more than help him stand up. Seeing me struggle, Colby stepped in and let Blake wrap an arm around his shoulder. The couple next to us offered to help carry our things as we made our way off the bus.

  The five of us picked a spot in the grass. The trees were farther away than Blake seemed ready to walk, and the fall morning sun was hot for this time of year, but at least we were outside and no longer breathing in the stale air of the bus.

  We checked Blake’s ankle. It would probably need to be x-rayed and looked at by a doctor, but this setup was better than nothing. “Thanks for all your help,” I said to the others.

  “I’m Allison,” the woman introduced herself. “This is my husband John.” She looked at Blake and me. “Are you two traveling alone?”

  “Yeah, we’re supposed to spend the fall break with our dad in Montgomery.” I left it at that. No point in telling this stranger that we wouldn’t have to make this trip if our dad hadn’t abandoned us for a cushy job in another state. Momma kept telling me I was being dramatic about it. In my opinion, I was just keeping it real.

  “How are we gonna get in touch with Dad?” Blake asked me. “He’ll be worried when he doesn’t hear from us.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that right now,” I told him, thinking of all the times in the past year that our father had not made us a priority.

  After about a half hour of sitting around, we noticed some people were beginning to walk down the long stretch of highway. With my brother’s ankle swollen and darkness just a few hours away, walking was the last thing I wanted to do. But doing what I wanted wasn’t a choice. We were stuck here, and walking the other half of the way to get to my dad seemed to be the smartest option.

  “Do you have some ice in your pack?” Colby asked me.

  “Yeah, some.” Momma had packed us each a lunch for the bus ride. I quickly dug into the insulated lunch bag to grab a handful of ice cubes.

  “Wrap some in this,” he said as he handed me a towel with the Hillview University logo on it. “We’ve gotta leave. We need him strong.”

  “Nice towel,” I remarked. Hillview was one of the top schools in northern Georgia. It was well known for its impressive athletic programs. “Do you go there?”

  His face fell. “Nah. I was just there on a recruiting visit, but . . .”

  I remembered the snippets of his phone conversation that I’d overheard—something about “not my fault” and steroids being planted. “Didn’t go so well?”

  “Yeah. I’d rather not get into it.” He looked away.

  While Colby and I talked, the adults had been arguing about what we should do. I longed for my parents so they could tell us the answer. I also wished my cell was working so I could call them and let them know we were okay. But was that a true statement? Was being stranded in the middle of nowhere with an injured brother really okay?

  As I finished wrapping the ice around Blake’s ankle, a foul odor hit my nose—gasoline.

  “It’s a leak,” John said. “We’ve gotta get away from this bus now.”

  Some people still seemed reluctant to leave. Colby looked down at where I was kneeling and said, “I don’t know what anyone else is doing, but gather your stuff. We’re getting out of here.”

  He said it like we were a team. I didn’t know him. However, I’d seen enough disaster movies to know that there was strength in numbers. I’d rather stick with this guy than be alone with my brother.

  “Do you think it was them?” a man standing near us asked the man he was traveling with. “The Visitors?”

  “Has to be,” the other man said. “How else would all of our phones die at the same time? And the bus crash?” He gestured to the road where there was a buildup of crashed or stopped cars. “All the other cars are dead too. You think that’s a coincidence?”

  I couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation as they made their way toward the road with their suitcase. My stomach dropped—I hadn’t even thought about the Visitors.

  The idea of venturing off into the unknown was scary enough on its own. I had no idea where we would go, which direction we needed to take. We had hardly any food on us, and we had nothing with us to provide shelter.

  But thinking about the aliens—those so-called Visitors—made my heart speed up. What would they do next? Were they going to show themselves—attack us directly?

  Don’t think about that now, I told myself. I couldn’t worry. As my mom had always told us, I needed to take care of the things I could cont
rol and not worry about the things I couldn’t.

  So, step one: we knew we had to start walking if we had any hope of finding our dad. After grabbing my things, I looked over at Blake. His backpack was on his back. Even with his injured foot, he was tough and ready to jet.

  Before we could get moving, though, we faced another dilemma. As trivial as it seemed, we had to decide if we were going to take our luggage. The extra clothes, toiletries, and whatever else we had in our bags could help us survive, but the weight could slow us down.

  “What do you wanna do, sis?” Blake asked me.

  As I turned to respond to him, I was surprised to notice several of the others were watching me, listening to what I was about to say. Apparently everyone—even the adults—needed someone to tell them what to do at this point. “I think we should take our bags, and if they get too heavy or slow us down, we can always dump them later,” I said. My brother nodded. I noticed that most everyone else did what Blake and I had agreed on.

  I realized that until we were back with our parents, if I could just stay calm and think quick on my feet, we might actually be able to get through this okay.

  Allison walked over to me. “Hey, are you guys still planning to go on to Montgomery?”

  I looked over at Blake and nodded. “I think so.”

  “John and I talked it over—we were supposed to catch another bus in Montgomery before heading on, so we’d have to pass through there anyway to get home.” She gave a nervous smile. “I know you don’t know us, but we’d be happy to make sure you get there safe.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, feeling myself tear up. The events of the day seemed to come crashing down on me all at once. I felt exhausted from all the arguing with Momma, worrying over Blake, and now trying to figure out what was happening. I was only seventeen—I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew Blake was looking to me for what we needed to do. Having someone else reach out and offer to look out for us, to take some of the burden off my shoulders, helped.