The Taking

former Marine, currently a deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. His composure, his calm voice, his clear direct gaze reminded Molly of Neil.
        "The only thing that worries the skin off me," Tucker said, surely understating the number of his concerns, "is that they won't soon or often come out where we can see them. With the ability to control the weather all around the world, what reason do they have to risk our gunfire, even if our weapons probably are primitive by their standards?"
        "Some of the godless bastards are apparently showing up in the cities," said a squint-eyed, sixtysomething woman with sun-toughened skin, reminding Tucker of the news reports. "They'll come here, too, eventually."
        "But none of us has actually seen one," Tucker said. "Those things on the news might be just reconnaissance machines, drones, robots."
        Vince Hoyt, a history teacher and coach of the regional high school's football team, had features as bold and commanding as those on ancient marble busts of the more iron-willed Roman emperors. His jaws looked strong enough to crack walnuts, and when he spoke in his gravelly voice, he sounded as if he had swallowed the shells.
        "The big question is, what happens if this rain doesn't stop for a week, two weeks, a month? Our homes won't stand up to that kind of deluge. I already have leaks at my place, major damage, and no safe way to get on the roof to fix it in this downpour. They might think they can drown our will to resist, wash the fight right out of us."
        "If rain, why not wind?" asked a young man with curly blond hair, a gold ring in his left ear, and a red tattoo of a woman's puckered lips on his throat. "Tornadoes, hurricanes."
        "Targeted lightning," the sun-baked woman suggested. "Would that be possible? Could they do that?"
        Molly thought of the enormous and evidently artificially generated waterspout churning up from the Pacific, sucking hundreds of thousands of gallons per minute from the sea. Targeted lightning didn't sound as farfetched as it would have yesterday.
        "Maybe even earthquakes," said Vince Hoyt. "Before any of that happens, we've got to decide on a headquarters where we can maybe consolidate an arsenal, food, medicines, first-aid supplies-"
        "Our market already has plenty of food," said Norman Ling, "but it's on a lower street. If the rain keeps up, the place will be underwater by this time tomorrow."
        "Besides," Tucker Madison said, bringing his Marine experience to bear, "the market isn't a defensible structure, not with all those big plate-glass windows. And I hate to mention this, but it's not just ETs we have to worry about. With the collapse of communications, civil authority is breaking down out there. Maybe it's already been swept away. I haven't been able to get in touch with the sheriff's office over in the county seat. No police. Maybe no National Guard, no coherent command-and-control systems to make proper use of the military…"
        "Chaos, anarchy," Lee Ling whispered.
        As calmly as anyone could have discussed this terrifying aspect of civilization's collapse, Tucker said, "Believe me, there are lots of bad people who'll take advantage of chaos. And I don't mean just outsiders. We've got our own thugs and creeps right here in town, thieves and rapists and violence junkies who'll think anarchy is paradise. They'll take what they want, do what they want to anyone, and the more they indulge their sickest fantasies, the sicker and more savage they're going to become. If we're not ready for them, they'll kill us and our families before we ever come face-to-face with anything from the other end of the galaxy."
        A solemn silence settled over the group, and Lee Ling looked as if she were wishing again for a falling moon.
        Molly thought of Render, the murderer of five children and the father of one, last seen walking north on the ridge road.
        He would not have been the only monster freed from captivity this night. When prison and asylum staffs abandoned their posts, perhaps they had left the doors open behind them, either because they were careless or were motivated by misguided pity for the incarcerated. Or maybe in the chaos, the inmates seized control and freed themselves.
        This was the Halloween of all Halloweens, six weeks early on the calendar, with no need of jack-o'-lanterns and cotton-bedsheet ghosts