Authors: John Zanetti
Chrysalis Young
Chrysalis Young
John Zanetti
Amazon eBook 22 Jun 2015 edition
Copyright 2014 John Zanetti
All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover images: Biohazard Rusty 4 Photo, copyright Welburnstuart; Katana Girl Photo, copyright Fotopen. Images courtesy Dreamstime.com. Cover design and production by John Zanetti. Cover copyright 2015, John Zanetti.
This e-book is a work of fiction. All characters in this work are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
With thanks to Edward M Wolfe
Story Description
Amanda, wannabe rock star, meets Chrysalis Young, an alien cocoon girl who desperately wants to hatch, and mayhem follows. The body count rises as Chrysalis and Amanda fight alien dragons, and zombies who are not the undead, but something else.
Fiction by John Zanetti:
The Gardener Who Could See
War of the Shadows
Cantal’s Revenge
Girls with Attitude
(Sci-fi short fiction series) which includes:
Princess
Writing Home
Amalfi Echo
Would You Die For Me?
Chrysalis Young
Amanda was insanely jealous of a girl further up in the queue. She had everything. Looks. Presence. Dressed to kill. Voice to die for, probably. Amanda’s heart sank. As soon as the girl opened her mouth, the judges would be falling all over themselves to put her through to the next stage. Amanda felt a crushing sense of defeat. They were wannabe rock stars queueing outside the Charles Horsey Entertainment and Convention Centre, waiting for their first audition for the Craze competition and she knew already that she was destined for the Fails on YouTube. The queue finally deposited Amanda, and model girl, into the holding room beside the audition chamber. Somehow, Amanda ended up next to Miss Perfect. As the two of them seated themselves, the girl touched Amanda’s hand. Her long nails were needle sharp. Amanda snatched her hand away, rubbing it. “That really hurt!”
Chrysalis Young contemplated the claws she had extended to touch the human girl. She noted that human skin was easily damaged by her claws. She retracted them so they were less damaging.
Amanda stared, amazed, at the girl’s nails as they suddenly shrunk and became softly rounded. “How did you do that?”
“It’s new,” Chrysalis Young said. “Perhaps you haven’t heard of it yet.”
Amanda’s sense of defeat deepened. Of course she hadn’t heard of it, even though she had devoted her entire life to being just the most dedicated follower. But it was still true that if you can’t be hot yourself, be with someone who is.
Amanda was about to introduce herself when a girl, a couple of seats away, threw herself at Chrysalis, grabbing her hair and trying to bite her.
Chrysalis shrunk back, confused. Her minder, back at the ship, triggered a defensive mechanism, causing Chrysalis to execute a martial arts throw. She flipped the girl through the air, straight into one of the concrete walls lining the holding room. The girl hit the wall with a sickening crunch.
She climbed straight back up again, despite having broken her ankle so badly that her lower leg bone poked out through her skin. She stood there with her foot bent underneath, not feeling the splintered end of the bone grinding into the carpet, her eyes staring and unfocused. Then she dragged herself, mucus dribbling from her mouth, across the room towards Chrysalis.
The other contestants began to react, scrambling out of the way, shock and alarm spreading through the room.
Security staff ran in. Two large guys tackled the girl, forcing her to the floor. It took all of their strength to hold her down, and the whole time she was writhing and clawing at them, still trying to get to Chrysalis. A third security guard, a big woman, lumbered in and the three of them dragged the girl out of the holding room.
After a Craze assistant producer had settled the room down, a boy, about 11 years old, in the row in front of Amanda and Chrysalis, turned in his seat and said to Amanda, “The zombie apocalypse has begun. It was gonna happen sooner or later,” he added confidentially.
Amanda gave him the look she reserved for small, smelly, pubescent boys but otherwise ignored him. Sarah, the girl in the seat next to Amanda and Chrysalis said, “Seriously, zombies?”
Sarah was okay, Amanda had already decided and so she said, “They said she hadn’t taken her meds. Or maybe she had taken too much meds. Drugged out, that’s for sure. She’s headed for the psych ward.”
“You’ve got that nailed,” Sarah said. The rest of the room was also happy to accept the drugs explanation and the nervous buzz of anticipation returned to the room while they waited for the auditions to begin.
Chrysalis Young didn’t know what drugs were and didn’t care. Attached to the girl who had attacked her was an alien life-form she knew nothing about. As she thought more about the incident, she decided that it was unlikely the human girl was aware of the alien life-form, dark and hostile, that had wrapped itself around her, clutching her in a tight embrace. During the attack, there had been more of the dark and insubstantial alien forms flitting around other humans in the room, including Amanda. Now the dark forms were gone from her, as they had from the rest of the humans in the room. Chrysalis wasn’t sure what to make of it all. The minder was uncommunicative, and the databanks said nothing much about this planet. Unsure, she left it there for the moment.
Amanda took the glance that Chrysalis gave her as an invitation to introduce herself. Chrysalis did the same.
“Hmm…” Amanda said. “Chrysalis Young. I like that. Is that like, a performing name?”
“I don’t think so,” Chrysalis said. “It’s the only name I have, although when I become an adult I’ll be able to choose a more suitable name.”
“Yeah,” Amanda agreed. “I am so looking forward to the day I can ditch ‘Amanda’ too. What were they thinking of?”
“I like it,” Chrysalis said. “It’s not like any of the names where I come from. They’re all boring.”
“I should have guessed that you’d know exactly the right thing to say,” Amanda said. “Sing me some lines of your favourite song because you’re the complete package as you probably know.” Maybe she was all show and no go, Amanda thought hopefully. And then was annoyed at herself because she already liked Chrysalis. And it was also true that she was going to need someone to cheer for after she totally embarrassed herself in the audition room.
Chrysalis sung a few lines of a song Amanda had never heard of. It didn’t make any difference. Voice like cut glass. Sent chills down your spine. At the very least, Chrysalis was going to get a recording contract even if she didn’t win. Although obviously she was going to win. You’d have to be a retard to think anything else.
“My whole family and my best friend Tazzie are waiting out the other side. What am I going to tell them?” Amanda said. “They are seriously expecting me to go through to the next stage.” She slumped down in her seat, groaning.
“My parents are away visiting. I don’t have any friends here,” Chrysalis said.
Amanda sat up again. “You’re kidding! You haven’t got anyone waiting for you? That’s horrible.” She frowned. “Why didn’t your family come? This is the most important day of your life. They
have
to be here.”
“They don’t like singing so they went visiting,” Chrysalis said. “The minder can’t come in because she can’t move but she stays in contact with me all the time.” She found her phone and showed Amanda the screen which had a big icon on it saying, ‘Minder.’
“Like in a wheelchair?” Amanda said, trying to figure it out because, obviously, Chrysalis didn’t need a babysitter.
Chrysalis considered this. “Yes, like in a wheelchair,” she agreed.
Before Amanda could carry this any further, she was called for the audition. Before she went in, she said to Chrysalis, “I’ll wait for you on the other side, I promise.” Then she paused, puzzled. “When did you have your hair redone after the girl attacked you?”
Chrysalis shrugged. “It looks after itself. That’s also new.”
Yeah, right, Amanda thought, but she was out of time. She hurried through the door, her stomach nauseous as she entered the audition room.
In the audition room, Amanda did her stuff, the judges a blur, and then waited for the floor to swallow her. After a long silence, she looked at the judges who looked steadily back at her, their expressions unreadable. Spinning it out for the audience. Giving them plenty of time to laugh. Amanda waited miserably.
Roman Harding, the executive producer and the boss, said, without looking at the others, “Your outfit does nothing for you. You’re going to have to work on that. Presentation. Presentation!” Then they all smiled and Harding said, “Go on, pick up a pass, you’re through.”
Amanda was completely unable to move. She struggled not to burst into tears.
Tracy Buckingham came out from behind the judges’ desk, hugged Amanda and said, “I get the strangest feeling you don’t know that you could win this. You’d better believe it, but you’ve got a lot of work to do.” She gave Amanda the pass. “Get out of here.”
Her family were over the moon. Tazzie hadn’t expected anything else. “I told you the outfit was crap.”
As she had promised, Amanda waited for Chrysalis.
“They liked me,” Chrysalis said, showing Amanda the pass.
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” Amanda said, waving her own pass.
Then it was hugs and squeals all round again. Except for Tazzie. She didn’t join in the celebrations with Chrysalis.
As Chrysalis watched, a dark form unfolded around Tazzie, hardening into a fluid but more solid shape. The alien flowed about Tazzie, a conglomeration of spines and wings and the suggestion of a fanged mouth. Eyes formed, a cold light in them, and the colder the eyes became, the more Tazzie’s eyes became red and hate-filled. This time Chrysalis reacted before the minder. She extended her claws and slashed frantically at the alien. Her claws were still baby claws and not very effective. The alien died hard. Throughout this, Chrysalis chatted with Amanda’s family and gave not a single hint that she was locked in a death struggle with Tazzie’s alien. As the alien died, the hate-filled stare in Tazzie’s eyes faded and she became friendlier although she did not exactly throw herself all over Chrysalis.
Now other aliens appeared, circling Amanda and her family. The minder threw a protective cloak over the family and Chrysalis, although both the minder and Chrysalis knew this could only be a temporary solution. Neither the minder nor the ship’s databanks had anything further to offer about the aliens, leaving Chrysalis feeling lost and a little bit frightened. When her parents had decided to go visiting, she had been hugely excited that her parents were giving her the freedom to leave the ship and enter the singing competition, but now she wished they weren’t so far away.
Later, at the ship, Chrysalis called her mother. During the long chat, her mother said nothing about the dark aliens which meant that either the minder hadn’t told her about them, or her mother didn’t want to talk about it. Either way, Chrysalis was stymied because unless her mother raised the issue, Chrysalis was not allowed to raise it herself. She had a brief chat with her father and was glad her mother hadn’t eaten him yet although that was likely not far away. She wondered what her new father would be like. The call to her parents still left her feeling lost and alone.
-oOo-
Now the Craze singing competition got down to business. The top 100 contestants went on their first photo shoot and a meet and greet with the public in preparation for their first live performances. They were bussed out to a popular beach. On the way back, the bus containing Chrysalis, Amanda, and Sarah, was attacked by a horde of, well, zombies. At least, that’s how it appeared to Amanda and Sarah, who were the only two from their audition, apart from Chrysalis, who had made it into the top 100.
The zombies had caught the bus at a stoplight. They did the zombie thing. Smashed their heads and bodies against the side of the bus and the windows they could reach, leaving blood and gore sliding down the glass. Some of the windows shattered. Blood-soaked arms and grasping hands waved around inside the bus. Inside the bus, everyone was screaming and frantically trying to get away from the windows until the middle of the bus was a seething mass of panic and terror.
Police units arrived from everywhere. By now, some of the zombies had fallen strangely silent, wandering around confused or sitting on the road with bewilderment on their faces. The police quickly dealt with the rest of them. The show’s staff transferred the shaken contestants to another bus, popped a counsellor on board and they were on their way again. In the foyer of the Horsey Centre, they were met by a senior police officer and Roman Harding, the executive producer, who explained that a party had got out of control and that everyone involved was on drugs. As they had hoped, this settled the contestants down, everyone being only too willing to accept this explanation.
“Are they kidding?” Amanda said. “This is getting to be too much of a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in the zombie apocalypse,” Sarah said. “There has to be another reason for this.”
“Aliens,” Chrysalis said.
“I think I prefer the zombies explanation,” Amanda said.
Sarah disagreed. “Chrysalis is right. Aliens are much more likely than zombies. There have to be aliens out there somewhere. Everyone knows that.” She backpedalled a bit. “Not that I’m saying they’re not out there anymore, that they’re here, like, today and now.”
Amanda was thoughtfully silent. She was remembering the freaky nails of Chrysalis, and her hair which could go from a rat’s nest to a fashion statement in the blink of an eye, performing this little miracle all on its own apparently. “Tell us about the aliens, Chrysalis,” she said.
Chrysalis hesitated but she didn’t really have a choice. She had no other source of information about the aliens other than the humans themselves. The attack on the bus, and her, could have been successful if she hadn’t lashed out in a panic-stricken frenzy with her claws, killing a few of the aliens. Helping too was that the aliens still hadn’t decided what she was and how much of a threat she represented. She might not be so lucky next time.
“Did you see the aliens around the people who attacked the bus? The dark ones?” Chrysalis said.
“First it was zombies,” Sarah said. “Then aliens. Now we’ve got the light ones dark ones struggle. Guys, get a life.” She found her phone, and twisting away from the other two, got into a conversation with a friend whom, she felt, was much more in touch with reality.
