Intruders (Book 2): The Awakening

by Tracy Sharp

  Griffin planted his free foot on Hal’s shoulder and kicked, knocking the zombie backward. Griffin steadied the light, but it still strobed around the room. Hal came for him again. There was no way Griffin could swing the ax with force and hold the light. He waited until his friend’s head was in direct light, and then he dropped the flashlight and swung the ax.

  The force stopped when the ax made contact. Wetness splashed against Griffin’s face. He let go of the handle and grabbed the flashlight. Hal was on his back, with the ax wedged into the top of his head. Griffin wiped his forehead and looked at his hand, which was covered in his good friend’s blood. A rush of guilt overtook him. He fought it off. The thing on the floor wasn’t his friend. Griffin wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

  ***

  The flight of stairs drained what little energy Griffin had left. For the past week, his only food source had been chips and candy. His body wasn’t prepared to tackle the apocalypse. He opened the door to the roof and took a deep breath, hoping to be re-energized by fresh air. Nothing was fresh. It shouldn’t have surprised Griffin, but the shock stole what little hope he had left. The stench of death and plumes of smoke were products of a dying world. He took a seat on the HVAC unit and entertained the thought of flinging himself off the side of the museum.

  “What’s the point? It’s their world now.”

  Death was inevitable. He walked to the edge of the building. Never one for heights, the distance to the ground robbed Griffin of breath. He stepped back.

  “What the hell am I doing? What if Rye does show up?”

  The setting sun meant there was only about an hour of daylight left. Enough time to clean the solar panels, but not enough for repairs. Griffin laughed, the sound strange to his ears. He had no tools. Nothing to fix anything.

  A thick coating of dust blanketed the supports for the panels, almost hiding them. Griffin took a bottle of water from his bag. After taking a swallow, he turned the bottle toward the solar panels. They weren’t covered in debris. They weren’t damaged. They were gone.

  “Those bastards took them.”

  He took another swallow of water, put it back in his bag, and wiped the dust away from one of the supports, praying that he would see his reflection in a panel. Nothing. Not one panel was left. There was no way to restore power to the museum, which meant it was no longer a safe haven.

  Commotion below, accented by a loud knocking, drew Griffin’s attention away from the missing panels. A group of at least ten lizard aliens were congregating outside of the museum. Each alien had two zombies ahead of them with chains around their necks like dogs. Griffin froze in awe, not even fearing the look down. This was the first time he’d seen the aliens. A brief smile broke through the horror that paralyzed his face.

  “Jake, you would love to see this.”

  The aliens disappeared as they started up the steps to the museum.

  “Shit. They’re using the dead to hunt.”

  Griffin was trapped on the roof. There was nowhere to hide inside the museum. From studying the aliens, he learned their sight was poor, but their hearing was exceptional. The zombies were their eyes. Even in pitch black, Griffin would not have a chance. The slightest movement would trigger both the aliens and the zombies. Even if he made it back to the Bunker, power was depleted.

  There was a fifty-foot drop to the ground. The roof was Griffin’s prison. He thought about trying to secure the door, but the aliens were smart. That would be a sure sign that someone was there.

  The knocking sound stopped. He looked over the edge again. No aliens. They were all inside the museum. Griffin swung left, and then right, looking for a place to become invisible. All that was on the roof were the HVAC and the solar panel supports.

  And they were coming.

  There was a small space between the roof and the bottom of the HVAC. Griffin took his backpack from his shoulder and tossed it into the space. He lay down and wedged himself underneath the unit. There was no room for movement. He tried to turn a little to his left side. The metal didn’t budge. He couldn’t move his body an inch. Thumping in his chest made him want to scream.

  Griffin bit down, gritting his teeth. Sweat poured from his forehead into his eyes. The stinging sensation caused him to flap his eyelids. It was like stoking a fire. His eyes burned even more. His breathing shallowed — short, swift breaths, stealing more oxygen than they provided. Griffin’s legs started to shake, creating a jangly sound against the metal.

  Stop shaking, he told himself. Burning bile crept up his throat. Calm down. A feeling of floating crashed over Griffin. He closed his eyes and fell into the darkness that had stalked him since he left the Bunker.

  ***

  “Right there, Jake, look.” Griffin pointed to three flashing lights in the night sky.

  “It’s just a plane, Griff, listen.” Jake cupped his ear. There was a hum, faint, but it was there. “Plane. UFOs are silent.”

  As a kid, Griffin spent most summer nights chasing the lights. Clear night skies provided many opportunities to hunt for UFOs. But most nights would end with Jake trying to teach his younger brother that you didn’t have to witness things for them to exist. Some things were good at staying hidden. The discussions would usually lead to playful wrestling matches that ended when their mother broke them up.

  “All right, boys, it’s getting late. Time for bed.”

  Griffin’s eyes sprang open when something banged against the metal of the HVAC. Shadows crept underneath, pushing through the first light of morning. The shadows made it hard for Griffin to make anything out. The shuffling sound hinted at zombies. The knocking left no doubt that aliens were on the roof. Another bang, and then another. The dead were running into the HVAC. Was this their way of barking? Telling the hunters, “Here’s the prey.” Or were they just dead people with not enough sense to realize they were dead? Griffin hoped for the latter.

  After a few more bangs, there was silence. Tension eased in Griffin’s muscles, which were almost numb from being trapped in the same position for so long. Relief was short-lived. The muscles cinched, like the tightening of a belt, when something slapped the roof next to his ear. It flailed around. He closed his eyes, picturing a fish flopping out of water, and tilted his neck away from the clatter. Metal cut into his forehead when he tried to stretch more. The sensation of a spider crawling over his face let Griffin know he was bleeding. It hurt, but he continued to press into the metal.

  The flapping sound turned into a scraping right next to his ear. The noise lessened as it moved away from Griffin. A shadow shifted. A weak ray of sunlight made it possible to see what was mining for Griffin — a tongue. A long tongue with tiny hairs moving in different directions. When it pulled back, Griffin caught a glimpse of two red eyes. The light reflected off them as if they were crystal.

  Griffin braced for another prodding. It never came. The shadows seemed to hide from the sunlight. He waited a few minutes before sliding out from underneath the HVAC. He didn’t care that the air was still polluted with the remnants of destruction. Griffin sucked the decay deep into his lungs, thankful to still be breathing.

  “I like to believe you saw that, Jake. The tongue on that thing stretched at least four feet.” Griffin placed his hand on the roof for support before trying to get to his feet. Tingling on the soles of his feet mimicked needle pricks. Numbness in his legs faded, replaced with a dull ache. A sticky, wetness oozed between Griffin’s fingers. “Great…that’s just what I needed…a dead guy’s blood on my hands.” A thick, green slime clung to his index finger before breaking free and splashing onto the rooftop. “Well, that’s not blood.”

  There was a puddle of the green substance next to his hand. Griffin grabbed a water bottle from his bag. He chugged most of it, leaving just enough to wash his hand. He placed the bottle next to the foreign substance and with the cap he scooped as much as he could into the bottle. “I spy alien DNA?” He laughed. The laugh was like a life preserver to a comedian who wa
s bombing.

  Making jokes, no matter how awful they were, was a coping mechanism for Griffin. The only way the situation could be worse was if the alien tongue had found him. He eyed the slime through the plastic. It gave off a sheen that seemed to move. He brought the bottle closer to his face. Steadying it, a faint wave moved through the material, mimicking cilia. Hair-like structures swayed like tiny tentacles. More branched out. These weren’t cilia. They were roots. Something was growing inside the bottle.

  Griffin placed the bottle on the HVAC unit, fearing that whatever was forming inside the plastic would soon outgrow its prison. He took his eyes off the slime long enough to grab a Snickers from his backpack. Eating the candy bar, he watched as the roots branched to the cap of the bottle.

  “Just what in the hell are you?”

  Chapter 10

  Chrissy Wittmore was dreaming of the Monster High cake she’d picked out for her twelfth birthday party tomorrow when the nightmare monsters came.

  She couldn’t hear them, but she could feel the vibrations of their movements — dead hands pounding on the apartment door. She didn’t know how many there were, but judging from the vibrations, she was guessing there was more than one. Five or six, at least.

  A buzzing feeling next to her had awoken her in the night. The voice-to-text alarm had sent vibrations to her cell phone beside her, and it had told her in bold letters to get to the panic room.

  And she had. The panic room was located right off Chrissy’s bedroom. She’d leaped from her princess canopy bed, sending a whisper of a breeze against her back as her peach coverlet puffed up and fell back down to the soft mattress.

  The memory was a hard, cold ball in her belly and tightened her throat. Tears threatened, but she refused to cry. She couldn’t afford the tears. Her mouth was dry, and she was so thirsty.

  Chrissy swallowed down the fear and grief, trying to focus.

  The monsters had come five days ago. The alarm signal had gone out to the police. But they couldn’t help. Nobody could.

  She was dizzy with dehydration and hunger. The room wasn’t meant for long-term hiding. There had been a few bottles of water on the shelf, but now they were gone.

  I’m going to die in here. The thought sat heavy on her narrow shoulders. There was no one left in the world. She knew it. She was it. The lone survivor. No one could’ve survived against the things she’d watched — hands clamped to her mouth, open in a silent scream — as her parents had been dragged out by the nightmare creatures that night.

  Chrissy felt tears threatening again as she felt the vibrations of the dead hands slapping and pounding against the door. They couldn’t make it up the outside wall of the luxury Manhattan apartment building like the other spidery creatures that had come that night. Their limbs skittering as their oval heads moved up and down. Sniffing us out, Chrissy thought.

  She didn’t think they could smell her. The creatures, two of them, had given the panic room a quick sniff over but hadn’t paid much attention to it. She’d stayed statue still, and they hadn’t seemed to notice her.

  In the first couple of days, the monitors in the panic room still worked. But they hadn’t for days now. She couldn’t use her eyes to see the things that were looking for stray humans. The insect monsters hadn’t come back. But the dead were here. When she could see them on the monitors, she’d watched them wander away and then come back, trying to get in.

  Chrissy had to find a way out of the building or die. It was as simple as that.

  Maybe she wasn’t the only person left in the world. Could there still be others out there hiding like her? Other kids in other panic rooms, trying to wait out the dead?

  Chrissy had been born deaf. She couldn’t hear anything, but not being able to hear had forced her to hone her other senses to razor sharpness. She could smell things others couldn’t. She felt the vibrations and rumbles of thunder long before anyone heard it approaching, and she read body language like nobody else she’d ever met. Because of her disability, Chrissy had become a master at reading any situation, whether people were involved or not. She could read a simple landscape and know if people had been there recently, just by the way grass moved (or not) in a breeze.

  People who knew her thought it was supernatural, but it was just a skill, like any other.

  It was just what she’d had to do to make up for her lack of hearing. She’d paid special attention to everything.

  Live or die, Chris? If she decided to live, she’d have to move quickly, before she became too weak to make the decision.

  Did she want to live in a world that belonged to the dead, and to those strange, alien creatures?

  No. But do I really have a choice?

  Chrissy took a deep breath and unwrapped her arms from her shins. She placed her hands on the floor and pushed herself up.

  Maybe there were other kids out there who needed help. Maybe small ones. The thought of that made her want to cry again.

  No more crying. Now, you fight. You survive.

  It was daylight now. She didn’t think the alien monsters came out during the day. They must be like vampires. Allergic to the sunlight.

  But the zombies, they came out no matter what time of the day it was. They had no aversion to sunlight. She could avoid them. They were sluggish and stupid, and as long as she was quiet, she could fool them. She could be as silent as a ninja. During hide-and-seek with her cousins and her best friend Rudy, she’d proved it again and again. They’d never heard her coming as she’d crept up on them, or when she’d snuck off to another spot before they caught her.

  Those skills would really be put to the test now.

  Chrissy wasted no more time. She crept to the door of the panic room and unlocked it manually. There was a manual unlock feature in case there was a power outage. Her father had thought of everything. He was (had been) a real estate mogul (the news features called him) and had their luxury Manhattan apartment pretty tricked out for any and all emergencies.

  But he hadn’t planned for a zombie apocalypse/alien invasion.

  Who could’ve predicted that?

  The lock gave, and she held her breath. The pounding had stopped, no longer moving up her feet and into her legs, and it hadn’t resumed. Not hard enough to register on her honed vibration detector, anyway.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped back into her bedroom, one pink polish toed foot after the other. She caught her own reflection in her dresser mirror as she walked to it. Her wavy golden hair stuck to her neck and hung around her shoulders in disheveled locks. Her brown eyes (doe eyes, her father had called them), wild and wary looking.

  Chrissy dropped her gaze to the drawers, grabbed out her new athletic socks and pulled them on. She changed her pajamas for a pair of jeans and a purple long-sleeved waffle shirt. She found her Monster High backpack and moved to her closet, and then threw in a pair of jeans and leggings, and two long-sleeved winter tees. It seemed that everything she owned were bright pastel colors.

  Bright colors seemed wildly inappropriate now that the world was ending. It didn’t seem right, wearing cheerful colors when your parents were almost certainly dead. Maybe even everyone you had ever known and loved were dead.

  Color choices are the least of your problems, Chrissy.

  Moving to the hall, she crept into her parents’ room, her throat tightening. She opened the big accordion-style mirrored doors and found her still wrapped birthday gifts at the back. Her mother always hid them in the same place. Chrissy knew what was in them. She’d told her mother exactly what she’d wanted for her birthday.

  Unable to stop the tears, she allowed them to spill down her cheeks as she ripped open the first box. Inside laid the sable-colored Bear Paw winter boots she’d sent her mother the link to. The next, larger box contained the red LL Bean ski jacket she’d also emailed her mother the link to. She and her best friend Rudy and her cousin Mira were supposed to go skiing at Pine Hills Mountain in December. They went every Saturday in the winter.

&
nbsp; Chrissy pulled the boots on and shrugged on the new ski jacket. The jacket was a tad bit big, but her mother always ordered a size up because she’d grow into it by the end of winter.

  I’m only twelve years old. How can I do this on my own? She swiped at her tears with shaking hands.

  Because you don’t have a choice. Don’t think about it. Just do it. One step at a time.

  She let out a deep, shuddering breath and looked around the bedroom. Her mother’s sleep T-shirt lay on the bed, ready for her to change into. Her Kindle e-reader lay on the side table.

  The big, memory foam slippers she’d bought her father for his birthday last month sat beside the bed. His tablet lay on his side table with his reading glasses on top.

  This was the end of life as she knew it.

  Chrissy turned and headed out of the room and padded slowly and lightly across the thick, plush carpet. It was cold as she walked closer to the living room, where the balcony doors had been smashed in by the nightmare creatures when they’d broken through them.

  Shivering, she moved to the front door, where the dead had been scratching and pawing for days. Gently, she laid a hand on the cool wood and waited. She felt their movements on her palm. They were still there, shuffling around in the hallway. She’d never get past them.

  There was only one other way out.

  Through the balcony doors — the way the insect monsters had come in. She tried to avoid stepping on the shattered glass lying on the carpet, but to get to the balcony doors, she couldn’t help stepping on a few smaller shards.

  The dead heard her. The vibrations of their mindless pounding resumed in earnest. It felt like small bombs going off near her. There were more hands slapping the door now. It felt like when she’d visited her aunt in Upstate NY and a train had gone by a few streets over, and the floor had trembled beneath her feet.