Intruders: The Invasion: A Post-Apocalyptic, Alien Invasion Thriller (Book 1) (6 page)

“If we’re careful, we can move around in the day time. But
you need to stay right with me, Hank. It’s way too dangerous to go around joy
sniffing. You know?”

Hank did know. I could feel it in the bunched muscles
beneath his fur. In the way he pushed right up against me.

“We’ll be okay if we’re careful. We won’t let them get us.”

We sat on the cold linoleum and I began to try to form some
kind of plan to keep us alive.

* * *

We sat like that for a long time. The cold and the shock of
what was happening had settled deep into my muscles and bones. I felt sluggish
and so tired. Like I could sleep for an entire year.

But I knew that if I didn’t get moving, Hank and I would
both end up dead, one way or the other. The lizards apparently weren’t
interested in Hank, but the dead would be. They didn’t seem to be really picky
about what they ate.

My stomach felt hungry and queasy at the same time, and I
felt weak. Being outside in the cold, hanging onto a tree branch for hours had
given me a case of the shivers that wouldn’t go away.

Looking up at the cupboards, I tried to get up the gumption
to push myself up. Maybe if I ate something, I’d start to feel warm again.

I scanned cupboards and found some peanut butter and a lot
of other things to eat. Crackers, cookies, dried fruit, and granola bars. There
were cans of soup and stew. In the fridge I found bread and an assortment of
lunch meats, cheeses and vegetables. I slapped a peanut butter sandwich together
and began choking it down. Before leaving, I’d make another sandwich and maybe
put some string cheese, granola bars and dried fruit into a freezer bag in case
we didn’t make it back here. I found some bottled water and put a few bottles
into my backpack. Some dog biscuits went in there, too.

Not knowing what the world beyond this street was like
terrified me. I forced myself to breathe, because I kept catching myself
holding my breath. The fear of the reptiles coming back for me or the dead
finding a way in tightened my throat to the point that I had to keep
swallowing.

Breathe. One step at a time. You’re safe
for the moment. What’s next?

Once I knew what I was dealing with, I’d be able to
formulate more of a plan. Right now, the only plan I had was to go out and
assess the situation, and try to find others who had survived the first night
of the invasion.

I finished my sandwich and drank down most of a bottle of
water, then I looked at the huge clock on the wall above the stove. It read
11:31. It was December, so it would be dark by 4:30.

Until then, I hoped the only threat Hank and I had to worry
about were the dead.

Come sundown, we needed to find a safe hideout.

* * *

In Luka’s closet I found a pair of UGG boots that looked
warm. They were size seven. My size. I found some warm winter socks in one of
her drawers and gladly exchanged my hole covered ones for those. The UGGs
hugged my feet and warmed them instantly.

I risked waiting another half hour until the last two
deadies had wandered off in search of something more to eat. The bones of the
old lady and old man had been picked pretty clean. I wondered, as I screwed up
my courage to open the kitchen door, if the dead walking had been incidental in
the invasion or if they really were the cleaning crew. The seemed to be taking
care of the leftovers that the lizards had no use for, or hadn’t gotten at yet.

Judging by the way what used to be Jessica had reacted to
the smell of my blood, I figured I fell into the latter group.

Hank was a leftover.

I was determined that we’d live another day. One day at a
time, my mother had said when she was back on the wagon.

Only for us, I thought it was more like one minute at a
time. If we lasted another day, I’d consider it a real achievement.

Maybe we could eventually be in the survival of the dead and
alien invasion Olympics.

I snorted. The punchiness was getting to me. But then, maybe
that was what would keep me going.

The remains of Mr. and Mrs. Doriga were scattered across the
side yard. The dead, or the lizards, had made a meal of them. The Dorigas
hadn’t been taken by the lizards, so they must have been too old for their
liking.

Except maybe for a meal. It was hard to tell who had torn
into them, the lizards or the dead. Maybe both had. I averted my eyes and let
out a shaky breath. I had to keep it together.

Hank looked up at me and lifted his ears. I patted his head
and kept walking across the lawn. There was no car in the driveway. “We need a
car, Hank.”

Hank took off and ran toward the garage. Apparently he was
used to car rides. The garage door was open, and the current model white Honda
Pilot sat inside, looking pristine, like it had been recently washed.

Grandma and Grandpa had been coming for a Christmas visit,
so it likely had been.

Suddenly Hank’s hackles went up and a low growl came from
deep inside of his throat.

There was something in that garage.

Gripping my knife, I slowly approached the garage, wincing
at the crunching snow beneath my boots.

Two of the dead were trudging around the car. A little girl
with no hair turned slowly to look at me. She was thin and hallow looking, and
the circles under her eyes were deep and purple. She wore a pair of pink
flannel pajamas with stars and moons all over them. She wore a white sock with
purple frills on one foot. The other was bare.

I’d heard of this little girl. Sidney Curtis. There had been
a collection for her about a month ago. She had a brain tumor, and friends of
the family had been raising money for her medical bills. Her family had
mortgaged their house twice to pay for everything that she’d needed.

I recognized her mother from the pictures on the news and
the website. I’d donated twenty-five dollars to her fund. The Sidney Fund.

Looking at Sidney now, I felt a mixture of horror and
complete and utter sadness. I hoped that she’d died before the world had gone
to hell.

Then, as she shambled toward me, growling deep in her dead
throat, it occurred to me that she hadn’t vanished. She hadn’t been one of the
abducted children.

Because she was sick.

Apparently the aliens didn’t want, or couldn’t use,
terminally ill sick kids.

Hank growled back at her, backing down the drive way. He was
the smart one of the two of us, because I headed toward her.

As she reached me, arms out, hands grasping, I jammed my
knife through her eye. She went down soundlessly, weighing so little that it
made almost no impact on the snow.

Her mother walked toward me, short, red hair sticking up in
all directions. She didn’t weigh much either. But then, I didn’t imagine she’d
eaten much, with her nine year old daughter dying a little more each day before
her eyes.

Her jeans and white sweater hung on her skinny frame, and
the area where Sidney must’ve bitten her was dark red. The blood had spread and
dried. Her throat was all but completely torn out. Huge, gaping wounds left her
neck weak, and her head hung awkwardly to the side as she walked toward me, jaw
hanging slack.

“I am so sorry,” I murmured. Not for what I was about to do,
but for what she’d been through before she’d ended up as a deadie. Watching her
child suffer and fade each day. The pain she must’ve endured was unimaginable
to me. It seemed the most cruel and atrocious thing to happen to her.

I wondered if there was anything left of the person she’d
been, behind those dead eyes. But then, it didn’t matter. Killing the thing
she’d become would be the ending of all of her suffering.

Stepping forward, I jabbed my knife sideways, through her
ear, and ripped it back out, watching her fall on top of her daughter.

Hank growled again, looking toward the street.

Turning, I noted that two more deadies had left the houses
they’d been searching for fresh meat, and were heading our way. More would be
joining them soon, I was sure.

“Let’s go, Hank.” I ran into the garage, hoping that the
keys were left in the Pilot.

Nope.

I looked around the garage frantically. “Please, please
don’t let them be in the house.”

Hank growled again, louder.

The two deadies were slowly but surely making their way up
the driveway, and three more weren’t far behind.

I looked around, panic spiking adrenalin through my veins.
Mr. Doriga seemed to have spent a lot of time here. Every man needs a man cave.
There was a long counter at the back of the garage, and cabinets above it.

Hank followed close behind as I began whipping open the
cabinet doors.

The deadies groaned a mere few feet behind me.

One cabinet door left. I held my breath.

On the back of it hung several keys.

But only one that would belong to a Honda Pilot.

I grabbed the key, spinning around as Hank barked wildly.
He’d backed up to the wall, refusing to leave me. I shoved the key into the
pocket of my jacket and gripped the knife.

The closest deadie was almost close enough to kiss me. I
recognized him as a hot guy that used to jog up the street every morning. He
stood in front of me, shirtless. Still, strangely, looking hot even though he
was dead and drooling at me. He still sported a rippling six pack, even if he
did look slightly grayer.

“Too bad.” Shaking my head in regret, I brought my knee back
and booted him in the stomach, sending him stumbling backward, then plunged my
knife through the eye of a middle aged man who’d lived down the street and had
given me the willies, watching me with a dirty leer each time I walked past his
house.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long, long time, creeper.” I
pulled my knife out of his eye and shoved him backwards with my boot.

I risked a glance at the counter behind me and found a
hammer. “Nice!”

Hank was being chased by a heavyset deadie who was doing her
undead version of calling him, which was to toddle after him in a stumbling,
drunk looking stagger and grunt.

“Hey!” I shouted.

She stopped and turned, then came toward me.

“That’s right. Come on over here, Mable.” I didn’t know what
her name was, but Mable seemed to suit her pretty well. Her mouth opened and
closed as she walked toward me. Her hot pink glasses hung lopsided on her face,
and the blood covering her chin, chest and hands suggested that she’d dined
fairly recently.

I swung the hammer back, bringing the claw end of it down on
her forehead. It gave a loud crunch breaking her skull. Grimacing, I yanked it
out. She stood, confused, but didn’t drop. I swung it down on her forehead
again. Still, she stood, swaying.

More deadies were making their way across the street. Two
more were shambling up the driveway.

“Third time’s a charm.” This time, I aimed for her eye. I
swung the claw through the milky orb, and it sank in with a wet, slopping
sound. Finally, she did drop.

If Hank and I didn’t get out of there now, we’d be quickly
over run. The dead didn’t move quickly, and one, two or even three might not be
too hard to kill, but in greater numbers they would be lethal.

I opened the driver’s door to the Pilot and Hank didn’t wait
for the invite, hopping in and jumping into the back seat with a little whine.

The Pilot started up like a dream. It was brand spanking
new.

“Never thought I’d be driving one of these any time soon,” I
said to Hank. “Nice ride.”

It even drove over Mable without a problem.

* * *

“So now we have a hammer and a knife, but I think we should
try to find at least one gun. What do you think, Hank?”

Hank was still lying in the back seat of the Pilot. He
seemed content to occasionally look out the windows at the ever-deadening
world.

And it
was
becoming a dead world.
Things were so much worse on the main roads. Cars had run off the roads, or had
crashed. The dead roamed the streets. I was witness to people being eaten
alive, before my eyes.

One thing I hadn’t thought of was how vicious the living
could be to each other.

The dead and the aliens were a threat, but many of the
living were just as frightening. I watched people being pulled from their cars
and left for dead in the middle of the road by brutal carjackers and scavengers,
who stole their vehicles and belongings.

I saw a mother and infant be swarmed by the dead.

My sense of humor left me.

I sobbed as I drove through the streets as quickly as I
could without crashing or running over any of the living. Stopping would mean
death for me and Hank. We’d be left for dead and likely wouldn’t survive more
than a few minutes, both of us torn apart as we screamed for help that wouldn’t
come.

Tears blurred my vision and I gasped for breath. I made it
through one of the busiest streets and took a side road to avoid more swarms of
scavengers and dead.

Hank and I were safe in the Pilot for the moment. The
Dorigas had just filled the tank, but eventually we’d have to stop for gas.

I drove the side streets, weaving my way out of the city as
quickly and stealthily as I could manage in a blinding white Honda Pilot. The
guns would have to wait. I was getting us the hell out of the city.

I took the first road out toward the most rural town in the
area. I drove dirt roads for miles, heading past fairgrounds that hosted a
country fair every summer. My favorite one, complete with horse pulls and
country crafts.

Those days were over.

When I was sure that Hank and I were far enough in the
middle of nowhere to stop for a pee break, I stopped the Pilot in the middle of
the dirt road and let Hank out.

The wind had picked up, and the air felt raw on my face.
Luka’s ski jacket and my mother’s hat helped to keep me warm, but the cold
still found a way to chill be to me the core.