Sailing to the end of the world

Brian heard about the end of the world by chance. The two military officers - one with an eagle pin and the other with some stars - were whispering in a doorway. This was 15 minutes before the hurriedly called press conference in Detroit's city hall.

"I already sent my kids to the fallout bunker at Selfridge," the eagle guy said in a hushed voice. "I don't know where else to send them. If I could, I would have taken an APC and just gone to our cabin up north."

The star guy shook his head. "Won't matter, I don't think. I don't think any of us will get out of this city once we make the announcement. Everyone is going to panic. They can knock dead anything that uses electronics. We are sitting ducks."

Who, exactly, were the "they" in this whispered conversation? Brian had a suspicion. There had been reports over the past few days of strange military behavior all over world. There had been sightings in the sky, dismissed as drone tests. Former military officers had warned of years of sightings of aliens, but no one seemed to pay much attention. After all, Elon Musk was trying to shut down the IRS.

That was when Brian did something very out of character. He stopped what he was doing without another thought, and ran to his car. Brian was a city planner who came to work in Detroit after being swept up in the joy of rebuilding a city run roughshod by economics, bad leaders and racism.

He jumped into his 2007 Mazda 3 and tore out of the parking garage. When he had moved to Detroit, there was a joke that red lights were optional because so many people ran them and the police rarely stopped anyone. Today, it was true. Brian floored it down Jefferson Avenue toward Grosse Pointe, where he had settled on the edge Detroit. His appetite for urban pioneering had ebbed when his daughter reached kindergarten.

He ran the first stop light and then accelerated. He saw that no one was on the sidewalk and jumped the curb and went past the next light. Horns blasted and one guy actually threw something out his window at him. Brian almost slowed down at this point, but he flicked his eyes at the clock. In 2 minutes, the press conference would begin. He accelerated and passed cars on the left, tearing past a Jeep factory.

When he reached Grosse Pointe Park, one of the five lakeside communities tucked between Lake St. Clair and Detroit, he did slow down. He couldn't afford to have the cops stop him so close to home. The announcement was being made now. He heard the news coming in on the radio.

"We are expecting a global attack to occur and it could begin at any moment. The best thing to do is to seek shelter in basements and wait for more information to come. We have limited information, except that there are more than 10,000 UAVs in the upper atmosphere, spread across most of the largest population areas of the world."

Brian drove onto his lawn. He ran up the steps to his bungalow and burst in. His wife yelped as she saw him scan around with panicked eyes.

"Brian! What the hell!" Mandy said. "What are you doing?"

"Mandy, I need you to grab whatever food you can from the pantry and shove it in a bag and bring that case of water from the basement. We need to leave this house in 15 minutes, or less. Where is Eve?"

"What in the hell is going on? What is wrong with you?" she said, fear shadowing her face.

"It's the end of the world, babe. The aliens are invading and I am not actually fucking around if you can believe it. We have to be out of here as fast as possible. They can shut down anything with electronics. I have a plan, though. But we have to go right now."

"Eve is upstairs. She just got home from school," Mandy said. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Brian didn't answer. He just pelted upstairs and got out his biggest suitcase. It was an oblong and had wheels. He looked at his dresser and closet for a minute and tried to imagine what he would need. He put in every pair of underwear, three pairs of socks, his three favorite t-shirts, two zip-up hoodies, a pair of jeans and a swimsuit. He found the single South African gold krugerrand hidden in his drawer given to him by his parents and threw that in as well.

Then he stuffed in a very similar set of clothes from his wife's things. How many bras should he pack? Three? He looked at the clock. He had 10 minutes left. He ran into his daughter's room and began stuffing clothes into the bag. It was starting to get too full to hold much more. They would have to figure things out later.

He pulled the comforter off his bed and dragged the suitcase down the steps.

"Where do things stand?" he said, looking at Mandy stuffing boxes of food and canned food into a gym bag. She had pulled the case of water from the basement and it was sitting by the front door.

"I almost have everything we can fit for now," she said. "Eve is freaking out. I am freaking out."

He nodded and swept his arm around the kitchen. "Maybe grab a couple knives, a can opener and a pot. Then we need to get the hell out of here. I mean it."

Mandy nodded and grabbed the big kitchen knife and also grabbed a lighter from a drawer and stuffed it into the bag. It wasn't much. It wouldn't last them long.

Brian rushed outside with the bag and put it in the trunk of the car. His neighbors were outside now and everyone was staring at his car in the yard. They were talking to each other and he could hear them talking about the invasion. All he was thinking about was the military and what they had said. No one would be able to leave soon.

He ran back inside and Mandy was leading Eve out of the house. His 5-year-old was wearing a coat that she didn't need in the warm early autumn weather. Mandy had grabbed her favorite MSU sweatshirt and tied it around her waist and held a box of tampons in one hand and the duffle bag stuffed with food in the other.

Everyone outside heard a faint whine and saw what looked like a plane move across the sky at an impossible speed.

"Let's go," Brian said, ignoring his neighbors. He was single-minded now. He didn't know how long he had until the power went out.

When Eve was snapped into the back, he backed off the lawn and raced down the street. He was headed to the marina where his 25-foot Catalina sailboat was moored. The boat had been his father's and he gave it to him when he moved to Florida two years ago. He wasn't that great at sailing it, but good enough for a desperate escape.

He drove into the city park where his boat was stored and right through a gap in the fence, past the parking lot. He dodged barbecues built into the ground and pulled next to the boats. Urging his family to rush, he grabbed the tiny collection of things they had brought. He wasn't sure they had even locked their doors at home.

As soon as he was on the boat, he started the small motor that helped them navigate the marina. If the power went out before he could get out of the berth, it would be hard to get to the lake.

With the ropes off, he pulled out of the slip, banging one side on the bumpers and then he shot the boat forward out of the marina. It cleared the breakwater when they heard a "whoomp" and the engine shut off. His phone turned black. Silence reigned. Only the sound of the boat splashed through the water could be heard.

He and Mandy quickly put up the main sail and he turned north. The only hope they had was to head up the river and keep going north, away from the populated areas. Detroit would be a mess with cars stopped everywhere and no electronics.

Mandy looked at him and shook her head. They had barely spoken since he had rushed in the front door. Eve whimpered and clung to her as the boat picked up speed and Brian unfurled the jib.

"I don't have any pictures. Nothing," she said.

"We're alive," Brian said. "No matter what happens. I am glad we did this."