Intruders: The Invasion: A Post-Apocalyptic, Alien Invasion Thriller (Book 1) (2 page)

Moving quickly, I made my way to the women’s locker room,
just outside the exercise room and pool. I wasn’t scheduled to work, and I
didn’t plan on going back to the college after this night. But I had a score to
settle.

“Let’s see what we can find today, shall we?” I said to the
lock as I held it to my ear and slowly turned the dial. It didn’t take long to
hear the first click. Another twenty seconds and I heard the second. The third
took about a minute, and I was starting to sweat. I like to be quick when I’m
breaking into lockers. It’s better that way.

I used to do it for the thrill of getting away with it. But
since Jessica was born, I’d turned over a new leaf. She deserved better than a
thief for an aunt.

The particular locker I was breaking into now belonged to a
tall cheerleader type who’d tossed a gum wrapped on the floor in front of me as
I was sweeping the floor. Later on, after her class and while I was mopping, she
spit her gum right on top of the mop. The mop was an old fashioned jobbie with
all the strings.

Messy.

The woman’s locker room --- as much a joy for me now as it
had been in high school. Ah, nostalgia. Nice to know that the bitches of my
gender never change.

I’d endured jabs about the red and purple streaks in my
black hair. I’d endured the jabs about my less than fashionable clothes
(according to the fashion squad). I’d even endured the snickers about my worn
combat boots.

But gum on my mop?

Well now, that was a horse of a different color. I was
pissed.

I looked up at her and met her sneer with one of my own. I
knew where her locker was because she walked to it every second day before and
after her 7:00 p.m swim class. And I just happen to have a flare for picking
locks of all kinds.

Call it a talent, maybe even a calling.

Really, though, it was just a hobby. I did it for the
challenge, and never actually stole what I found behind the locks.

Anyway, she shoved her purse, $800 android phone and Gucci handbag
complete with matching Gucci wallet, credit cards, and cash in there.

The lock popped open and I smiled like a kid at Christmas. I
quickly removed it and opened the locker. There was my booty.

“Hello, my lovelies.” I removed everything from her locker
and shoved it into my backpack, including the lock. Then I high tailed it out
of there. As my old combats clicked on the freshly washed floor, I hummed a
merry tune.

Yup. That had been one expensive wad of
gum
. I hoped she’d enjoyed it before horking it at my mop.

Was I afraid of getting caught? Nope. No one here knew my
real name. Joe paid me under the table. Luckily for me, it was just how he did
things. I wouldn’t be back here.

I pushed through the side door leading to the back
staircase, as I didn’t think that using the main stairs or elevator would be
prudent at this time.

I took the stairs two at a time and jumped the last five to
the bottom, then ripped the door at the bottom open and quickly booted it down
the hall. I was almost to the back door of the first floor when a voice made me
jump.

“Hey!”

I spun around on my heel, wondering what I’d do if it was
campus security. Giving up wasn’t an option. They’d take me to the cop shop no
matter what. So I prepared to run.

Three guys were at the other end of the hall. These three
I’d seen before, leering at me and chuckling in the cafeteria as I’d washed the
floors. No doubt they were watching my ass. You keep pretty trim just eating
packages of crackers you pocketed from the kitchen, while the more wealthy
college students chowed down on steak sandwiches or pizza. The smells of which
are heavenly.

But I told myself I didn’t like that crap anyway, as my
stomach growled over and over again.

The middle one, the one I’d already pegged as the alpha of the
bunch, lifted his chin expectedly at me. His hair was perfect, and had more
product in it than I’d ever seen on a girl’s hair. The other two snickered,
chins down, glancing at each other in anticipation.

This wasn’t good. Not even a little.

I was in an empty lower hallway that was rarely used. They
must’ve spotted me walking through here before, and waited for me at the other,
darker end. I hadn’t seen them.

Engaging them would seem like an invitation no matter what I
said, because when you say anything, you open up the lines of communication. So
even ‘piss off, jackwad’ can sound like, ‘hey, big boy, come talk to me’ to the
narcissist.

So instead I spun on my heels and quickened my pace. I was
only about forty feet from the door.

“Hey! Raggedy Ann! I’m talking to you! Want to make some
money? I know you can use the cash. It’ll be real easy.”

I rolled my eyes and walked even faster. Thirty feet.

“HEY!” The sound of footfalls running.

I didn’t need to turn around to know they were now full out
chasing me, and their intensions were not honorable.

But I’m a fast runner. It comes from running in the dead of
night when creepy guys suddenly appear behind me when my car is dead, again,
and I miss the last bus out of this place.

Blasting through the door, I ran full-tilt across the slick,
icy walkway leading to the back end of the building, skidding and falling on my
knees. They were on me in a second. If one fell, there were two others to grab
me. Not many people around at this time of the night in the early winter. None
were at the back of the building. The parking area was empty. My idea was to
lay low and take the wooded walkway to the main parking lot where my car was
parked.

But now I was alone with three assholes who wanted to take
something from me that I wasn’t willing to give. Not while I was alive, anyway.

Maybe that didn’t matter to them.

They could pretty much do what they wanted to me if they got
a good hold on me.

“Get her behind those trees!” The leader of the pack
grunted. Excitement quickened his tone. His breaths were coming quick and
ragged. He’d been thinking about this for some time, apparently.

One grabbed my wrists while the other two each grabbed a
leg, and I screamed my lungs out, kicking and flailing to no avail. I’m a small
girl. I weigh a hundred and five pounds after a big meal, which is rare. I have
a wicked fast metabolism so I burn fat before it has a chance to settle.

I couldn’t believe this was actually happening to me. Campus
rapes happen all the time. Usually, though, the girl is drunk and never reports
it. They’re too ashamed and know the blame will be shifted to them. They can’t
remember if they were
too flirtatious
or not, like it
mattered.

I screamed my throat raw. But nobody was around to hear it.
The last classes of the night haven’t let out yet.

I screamed again and got a punch in the face for my trouble.
They dropped me in a thick copse of trees and I could see the sky between their
heads. Slow, fat snowflakes were falling on my face. In my eyes and mouth. I
felt hot and cold at the same time. The trees loomed above me, branches frosted
in snow. The scene would be gorgeous if I wasn’t about to be raped and beaten.
This was the wooded area around a long bike path which snaked through the
college grounds. Great also for jogging.

Nobody was jogging now.

The leader smiled down at me, his face already flushed with
arousal. “Look, Raggedy Ann. This is happening to you whether you like it or
not. So shut the fuck up.”

“Don’t fight and it’ll be over quicker,” one of the other guys
said.

The third stayed quiet, he stood back a little, like the
reality of what they were about to do to me was sinking in, and it scared him.

I locked eyes with him. “Please.”

He took a step toward me, but stopped. He shook his head,
his own eyes panicked. Like the actions unfolding before him had already been
set in motion and there was nothing he could do about it.

He’d been involved up to now. He’d helped carry me there. He
was into it up to his eyeballs.

Still, I tried again, but it came out as a croak. “Please.”

And amazingly, it seemed to work. The guy stammered,
“Jordan. Maybe we shouldn’t—”

But Jordan already had his jeans shoved down, and was
kneeling between my legs when he said, “Shut up and don’t be a pussy. Hold her
legs.”

The other friend giggled as he knelt on my wrists, keeping
me from fighting back.

But then, like some kind of gift from the gods, I looked up
and saw a ball of fire in the sky, blasting down toward us, sizzling and
sparking, crackling as it lit up the heavens.

Everything stopped.

“Holy shit!” The giggler shouted, and pushed himself back,
standing up.

That left my hands free. While Jordan looked up, I brought
my knee back and booted him in the throat. I heard a crunch. He clawed at his
throat and choked, making gasping, gurgling sounds.

I tugged my jeans back up while the other two continued to
gawk at the thing in the sky.

Taking the opportunity fate had gifted to me, I slid my boot
knife from my combat and stepped forward, slicing the giggler’s face. He turned
to me, eyes wide with shock. I grinned, waving the knife around in front of me,
murder in my eyes.

“Crazy bitch,” he sputtered, blood spilling between the
fingers pressed to the gash in his cheek.

“Yeah, that’s right.” I smiled widely. “Go call a cop.”

He did a comical little skipping move before he tapped his
friend on the arm. “Let’s go.”

The friend, who had made the feeble attempt to stop my
attack, looked at me, shame crossing his face, and followed his buddy toward
the main parking lot.

I kept hold of the boot knife in case there were any other
creeps lurking with the same idea these guys had, looking up at the fire
streaking down from the sky as it rocketed toward us.

It landed with a huge crash, sounding like a bomb in slow
motion.

Heat radiated toward me, and my hair blew backward as a
burning wind swept over me.

I said a silent prayer of thanks as I made my way toward the
landing site, which amazingly, happened to be through the top of the Physical
Education building, housing the gym and pool, and locker that I’d just robbed.

* * *

Everything had a dreamlike quality as I made my way to the
PE building. There was a grayish, silvery dust floating through the air,
coating everything around it. The dust was being dispersed by the wind, landing
in trees and sailing through the air with the wet snow that fell through it.
The smell was sulfuric, and some of the powder landed on my lashes. I blinked
it away. Wet snow dribbled over my cheeks, chilling me. I began to shiver,
despite the heat radiating from the crash site and the steaming ground near my
feet.

Pockets of steam popped and whistled upward, like a pot of
boiling sauce. I looked down at the ground, watching as if hypnotized. The
scene before me was surreal.

Heat radiated from the PE building. The snow had melted all
around it, and bubbled at my feet. I stood just on the periphery of it,
stopping just before the sizzling, popping heat on the ground.

The building was coated in the dust, the ground around it
dotted with glowing embers of various sizes and shapes. A fire had started in
the ceiling where the thing had landed.

A bespeckled kid walked toward me, his eyes round behind his
Harry Potter glasses. “It’s a meteorite. I can’t believe it. Have you ever seen
anything like this?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“This is incredible!” He held up his phone, recording the
flaming, smoking, dust covered site as the sirens screamed toward us. He smiled
at me, his face awestruck, then pointed his phone toward me. “We’re witness to
an historical happening right now. What’s your name?”

“Zoe.” I saw my reflection in the screen of his phone, and
blinked at what I saw. The wild, disheveled girl that looked back had dodged a
bullet because of the meteorite.

But many others died because of it.

The fall-out of the crash hadn’t yet begun.

At that point, I couldn’t help but be thankful for it. I
revelled in the dust falling all around me.

Finally, I was released from questioning. Rayback insisted
on driving me home. My sister and Derek were still at the station being questioned.

The events of the last twenty-four hours had been so
unbelievable, I wondered if I’d been hallucinating. I hoped that I had.

Rayback’s car was cold at first, and I ducked down into the
seat, my thrift store army issued jacket rising around my jaw. The winter hat
on my head was another find from my mother’s things. A pink and grey, whimsical
thing with an exaggerated pom-pom on the top. It was far too cheerful for me,
but it was hers, and strands of her chestnut hair were still woven into the yarn.

I didn’t know why I felt like I needed her things near me.
Little snatches of her with me, at all times. I guess I remembered the mother
she was when Kelly and I were little --- before the drink took over.

The thing I remembered most was her smile. The wide, lovely
smile that lit up her entire face. I remembered her wearing this hat, outside
in the snow, making snow angels with her two small daughters.

I held on to that memory with a death grip, because it was
the thing that reminded me that my mother had loved me at one time.

“Zoe, if you know something, you need to tell me. If you’re
trying to protect Kelly or Derek, you’re not doing them any favors.”

I stared straight ahead, through the windshield at the
falling snow. The wipers moved back and forth steadily, making me feel sleepy.
I felt so tired, and knew that if I closed my eyes right then, I’d nod off
without a problem.

“Do you know where Jessica is, Zoe?”

His words snapped me back to reality. I turned to him and
stared. “No. I wish I did. But I’m . . .”

He watched me, and his eyes were a strange mix of
expectation and compassion. “You’re what, Zoe?”

The words stuck in my throat. I could barely get them out,
because if I did, it would make it real. I whispered them. “I’m so scared.”

“Of what? Tell me, what are you scared of?”

I’d been scared when the three guys had attacked me at the
college. But this kind of fear was real. It was a raw, intense fear that made
it hard for me to even think. It paralyzed me. Jessica was gone. Someone had
her. Was she being cared for? Was she cold? Hungry? Scared? Was she still
alive?

A sob caught in my throat, making me swallow. My breath
hitched. Again, I whispered, because what I was telling him was too horrible to
say out loud. “That she’s dead.”

I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
It would just give Rayback something to grab on to. He’d misunderstand what I
was trying to say. It was fear. Fear. Not guilt. What else could you think when
a two year old is stolen from her bed?

“After three hours, the odds of finding an abducted child
alive drop drastically, don’t they?” I asked him.

Rayback opened his mouth to say something but his cell
chirped. It must’ve been important because even though I could tell he wanted
to ignore it, he lifted the cell to his ear. “Yeah.”

I took deep breaths to try to calm the rising panic
threatening to choke me. It was the most helpless feeling in the world, having
a child you love taken from you and not being able to do anything about it. A
scream began to bubble up in my throat and I swallowed it down. Hysteria
threatened to send me into a shrieking fit.

I opened the passenger door and almost fell out of the car.
My combats sank into slush, and I felt icy water seeping through to my socks.
The freezing air puffed out from my mouth as I took gulps of breath into my
lungs, trying to stop the rush of dread from taking over.

Where is she? Who would’ve taken her?

This isn’t the best neighborhood. I checked her windows,
they were locked from the inside. The locks were not broken.

Could someone have picked the front or back door lock and
snuck past me while I slept on the couch?

But Kelly and Derek had to use their key to get in, and the
doors were both locked.

They could’ve locked the door on the way out, with Jessica.

But we’d been through this, over and over, Rayback and me.
It sounded ridiculous even to me. Unbelievable. But there was no other answer.

Do you sleep walk, Zoe?
He’d asked
me.

No
. But I used to as a kid. I left
that part out. Still, I’d never hurt Jessica. She was the best thing in my
life. I’d take a bullet for her. I’d---

“Zoe.”

Rayback’s voice steadied me, and I turned to look at him.

He stood at the cruiser, slammed the car door and walked
toward me, his face serious. As he approached, his eyes skipped over me.

I hesitated on my feet, still standing in several inches of
slush, water seeping through my boots.

I dropped my gaze and looked down at myself. I was a mess.
Inside and out. I pulled my eyes back up to his.

He had news. And it wasn’t good.

My stomach knotted, my bladder loosening, about to let go. A
faint tremble moved over my body. My teeth began to chatter as my legs grew
rubbery.
Please, please don’t let her be dead
.

I looked up at him, waiting, unable to even breathe.

“There have been more disappearances.” His was face was a
study in bafflement.

I frowned, not sure I understood what he was telling me.
“How many? In Ripley?”

He shook his head. “Thousands. All over the world.”

* * *

Thousands of babies and children, from newborns to ten years
old, gone. Vanished overnight, without a trace.

“What in hell is going on?” I sat watching the news. It was
on every single station. No one could explain it. The children were just gone.

Then came scenes of meteor crashes all over the globe. The
crash at the college had only been one of thousands. Entire cities were coated
in dust.

Of course they had to be connected. But the implications of
what I was seeing flicker madly across the TV screen was too crazy to wrap my
mind around.

Crazy things were happening. People were going insane,
running the streets. News reports showed scene after scene of people locking
their jaws around someone’s arm, throat, or face, blood spurting into the air
and coating them. People were sending in phone recordings.

It was happening all over the planet. The entire world had
gone insane. In a single night. I could still smell the remnants of the meteor
dust in my hair and on my jeans. It had gotten into my eyes, and seeped into my
pores. Would I turn out like those lunatic people on TV?

I booted up my laptop and tried to search the cause of the
bizarre, lunatic behavior people were displaying all over the world. What was
making them go so crazy?

Report after report suggested that it had been something in
the meteor dust. Not everyone seemed to be affected in the same way. The reason
why some people were going insane and others weren’t seemed to be a complete
question mark.

But then I found it. A real time recording on PheedMe made
by a kid of about fifteen years old. He was using a webcam, and kept looking
away, nervously toward some source of noise off to his left.

“If anybody is watching this, It’s eight o’clock, December
10th, two-thousand fourteen.”

A chill crept over me. He looked terrified.

“I know why people are biting. They aren’t alive. They’re
dead.” He sobbed. Wiped tears from his eyes with his forearm. “My dad died of a
heart attack a half hour ago.”

Banging and screaming from off to his left. The kid looked
toward the noise, his face frightened. “I was helping my mom cover him up. He
got up. Teeth snapping at me. Grabbing for me. He got my mother. She hasn’t
gotten up yet but I don’t think it’ll be long. I’ve locked them both in their
room.”

My mouth dropped open. I stared at the screen.

“I’m waiting for someone to come and help me! The dead are
everywhere outside. Banging on the windows. Wandering around the streets. They
are killing people and making more like them, because when you die, you come
back . . . like that. If you can get to me, if you have a gun, I’m at 3
Pinewood Ave in Ripley. Please, help me. I don’t know how much longer that door
will hold.”

He’d kept his webcam on, but he was out of the screen shot
now. I waited, watching for him. Stunned.

Rayback had taken off after making sure I was okay. That had
been about a half hour ago.

I thought of Jessica. Maybe it was better that she wasn’t
here right now. I hoped that wherever she was, it was safer than here.

* * *

I kept watching the kid’s video, then getting up and peering
between the blinds into the streets. There was nothing moving out there. I
wondered if I should try to go out and stock up on food for when Kelly and
Derek came home. And for when Jessica came home, if she ever did. From the
warnings on the news that everyone should stay inside until the situation was
controlled, it might be a while before we could get out there again.

The kid hadn’t made another appearance on his webcam. I
hoped that someone had rescued him. How many other kids were out there, waiting
for help? How many was it too late for?

Stop. One thing at a time
. I tried
to think through the hysteria threatening to take over. I couldn’t help the
nagging feeling of urgency. The feeling that I had to move; to do something.

But what if Jessica came back?

It was a crazy thought, but she had vanished inexplicably.
Maybe she would reappear the same way.

If nobody was here, then she’d be alone. A two year old
toddling around, looking for me or for her parents. I couldn’t bear the thought
that she’d be crying and scared, and completely alone.

So I stayed. I kept surfing the web, going back to the kid’s
video.

Then I bundled up in a blanket on the couch and stared at
the TV, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for some sign that the
insanity was being controlled; that normalcy would be restored.

But in the back of my mind, I knew it never would be. Not
with Jessica gone.

And not with the dead getting up and eating people.

This can’t be happening. It can’t be
happening.

The news confirmed it. The dead were rising. If anyone had a
dead person in their house, they should leave, or get the dead out. Someone
would collect them when they could get to them.

That was the advice people were getting from the news.

Connected to the meteor dust.

The president called for military action.

I barked out a laugh. “Yeah. I guess he did. Smart move.”

Numbness spread over me and I let out a long, hysterical
laugh, the sound of it wild and unhinged.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What I was hearing.

I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and the shock had
wiped me out. The adrenaline had been racing through my veins for so long that
when I finally calmed down a little, trying to think things through, the
absence of the adrenalin spikes left me exhausted.

I didn’t even realize it when my eyes closed.

* * *

“Doe-doe!”

I kept my eyes closed because I thought I was dreaming. I
heard Jessica’s voice calling me. She always called me Doe-doe because she
couldn’t say Zoe yet.

“Doe-doe-doe-doe!” This time the word was accompanied by a
light pat on my face.

My eyes snapped open and a cry escaped me. There she was;
standing in front of the couch, a big grin on her face. Her red curls had
turned white blonde, and her blue eyes were now green, but it was definitely
Jessica. And she seemed happy and perfect.

“Jessie!” I sat up and scooped her up into my arms, hugging
as hard as I dared, afraid to hurt her. “Where have you been?”

“Seeping. I woked up!”

“I see that! Did you have a good sleep?” I sat back and
looked into her now strangely pale green eyes.

She nodded. She held her white stuffed cat by the neck.
“Kitty!”

“Kitty had a good sleep, too?”

Jessica nodded again, her blonde ringlets bouncing.

Where the hell had she been? Where ever it was, she had no
memory of it or of who took her.

“Where mommy?” Jessie asked me.

“I’m going to see if I can get her home. Okay? Are you
hungry?”

Jessie nodded. “Nana.”

“One banana coming up.” I found Netflix for her and put a
children’s movie on. She didn’t need to be seeing what was happening in the world
outside. Dread crept over me. How was I going to keep her safe with what was
going on out there?

I found a banana for her on the counter, which was a day
away from being too ripe. Peeled it and cut it up into bites-sized pieces and
tossed them in one of her little plastic bowls with cute little ducks on them.
I went back into the living room and placed the bowl between her chubby little
legs.

“Milk?” she grabbed a slice of banana in one hand and mashed
it into her mouth. While chewing she managed a gooey, “Pease?”

“Of course!” I grabbed a sippy cup from the cupboard and
poured milk into it. We were getting low. Jesus. How the hell would I get her
the things she needed with this chaos going on? It wasn’t like I could take a
little jaunt to the corner store.

After giving Jessie her milk I left her happily giggling at
the cartoon and stepped back into the kitchen. I used my cell to dial the
number Rayback had given me. There was no answer. I left a message on his cell
phone, letting him know that Jessie had reappeared and was safe. I left out the
part about her hair and eye color changing. Right now it was the least of our
problems.

Next, I called the police station. Nobody answered there,
either. Ditto for Derek and Kelly’s cell phones.