Intruders (Book 2): The Awakening

by Tracy Sharp

  Griffin braced himself against the wall and sat on a step. His chest fluttered. His stomach cursed him. The uncertainty of who was waiting for him in the lobby made him rethink his decision. Maybe he could survive on the roof a few more days. He looked back up the steps into emptiness. The door was out of view, but he was good at math. The roof was closer than the lobby.

  “That’s the easy way out,” he said with a hint of a Southern accent, as he tried to imitate his brother. “Come on, Griff, do you really want to be known as the guy who takes the easy way?” Griffin stood up and kept moving down the stairs. When he reached the floor above the lobby, he stopped to catch his breath, only to lose it again. Voices, he thought, as he listened.

  “Look at this place. It looks like New York City if New York City was Hiroshima.”

  Definitely a woman, Griffin thought, easing closer to the door. He cracked it, just enough to get a better listen.

  “She’s right. I just hope Murphy is still alive.”

  Griffin closed the door and pressed his back against the wall in the stairwell. “I’m pretty sure these women aren’t looking for me because of my ‘Date a Scientist’ profile.” Griffin took a few steps away from the door.

  “He’s alive. He has a safe room just like my father’s. It could withstand this damage. Griff is safe in his cocoon somewhere. We just have to find it.”

  Griffin made his way back to the door. “Rye?” He pried the door open, this time creating an opening big enough to get a look.

  “There’s that word again. Can we please stop saying cocoon?” a woman said before opening the door to the ticket room without a care, as if she worked there. A teenage girl followed behind her, wielding a hand ax.

  “I’ll stop saying cocoon, if you start checking to make sure a space is clear before trouncing in. Do we have a deal, Xena?”

  The man behind the voice came into view. His back was to Griffin, but there was no denying that it was his nephew.

  Chapter 12

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Rye. But for the future, I’d rather be more like the Bionic Woman.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. But you’ll always be my warrior princess,” Rye said.

  “That’s because I’m always saving your ass.”

  “Can you two flirt later?” I asked. “In case you forgot, we’re here to find Murphy.”

  The sound of a door creaking caused us to draw our weapons and prepare for a fight. This was becoming as common as breathing, but it never got less stressful.

  Taking out deadies was child’s play now, but it was getting dark out. Night brought the crawlers. These things were much worse than childhood boogeymen. Every sunset reminded me of the horror that lurked beneath our feet. The hives of humans. The torture. The pain. The breeding.

  I looked at the veins pulsing through my hand as I tightened the grip on my ax. It was just a piece of metal. Good for carving up a deadie, but useless against a crawler. Daphne had a slightly bigger ax, but still no match for crawlers. Rye had a machete. That would do a little more damage, but the crawlers were reptiles, and some reptiles were able to regenerate lost tails. With our luck, crawlers had the ability to regenerate anything lost.

  “Did you hear that?” Daphne asked.

  Rye nodded and held the machete like a baseball bat. The creaking grew louder, echoing off the destruction in the museum’s lobby, making it impossible to pinpoint. We spun in circles, expecting the worst, only to be relieved when a man stepped out of a hallway. I zeroed in on him with my flashlight. He was tall and skinny, but looked healthy. Underneath a graying beard, his skin was pale, but his cheeks were rosy. This one was alive. I loosened the hold on my ax.

  “Rye?”

  Rye lowered the machete to his side. “Griff? Is that you?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “Don’t say that too loud,” Daphne said. “Human flesh is a delicacy these days.”

  “Not mine. I’m rotten,” Griffin said, stepping into the beam from my light and moving toward me.

  I cracked a grin. “Aren’t we all a little past our expiration date?”

  “Got an extra light?” Griffin asked me.

  “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  He chuckled and pointed at my flashlight. “This kind of light.”

  Warmth rushed to my cheeks. Thankfully, no one could see the embarrassment. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. We have more in the car.”

  “Why aren’t you in your office?” Rye asked. “That has to be the safest place here. Don’t tell me they’ve found a way in.”

  “No, it was more like I wasn’t going to have a way out. I had no choice but to leave.”

  “Is the museum clear?” Daphne asked.

  “For now. I had to put a dear friend out of misery. I spent last night on the roof while aliens searched the place. Did you know they’re using the dead to help search?”

  “Like hunting dogs,” Rye said. “If the aliens have been here, there’s a good chance they won’t come back. They didn’t see you, right?”

  “I hid under the HVAC. I don’t think so. Something probed around me, but…”

  “It was a tongue. A long fucking tongue,” Daphne said.

  “I was just getting to that. I guess you’ve already figured out these things have long…” Griffin paused. “Fucking tongues.”

  “It’s not safe to stay here tonight,” I said. “They’ll come back.”

  “She’s right,” Daphne said. “I don’t know why they didn’t kill you, but if one of those tongues flopped anywhere near you, they know you’re here.”

  “It was getting light,” Griffin said.

  “Speaking of light, there isn’t much left. We should get going, if you guys think they’ll come back,” Rye said.

  A clanking sound to the left of us turned the lobby to dead silence. Round-eyed, we looked around at each other.

  “Are you sure you’re alone?” Rye whispered to Griffin, handing him a hunting knife.

  “I thought so. It came from the herbivore exhibit just beyond the entrance.”

  “Let’s just get out of here and not waste our energy,” I said.

  The commotion became louder. I started for the door when a bone rolled toward my feet. A small-framed girl appeared from the shadows. Her eyes were huge as she stared at us.

  “Get away from it, Zoe,” Rye said.

  I backed away and moved closer to Daphne.

  “It’s just a scared little girl,” Griffin said, walking toward the girl.

  Rye put his arm in front of Griffin. “It’s not a little girl. It’s one of those things. We’ve seen them rip men a lot bigger than you to pieces.”

  The girl took a few steps toward Rye as he shined her flashlight in her eyes. “Stop,” Rye said, but the girl kept coming toward him. He swung his machete in her direction. She ran back into the darkness of the herbivore exhibit.

  “She’s not one of them,” Daphne said.

  “One of what?” Griffin asked.

  “The aliens have done something to the kids they abducted. They’re no longer kids—”

  “They’re fucking monsters,” Rye said, interrupting Daphne. “Bloodthirsty savages. We can’t risk it.”

  “Remember Zoe?” Daphne asked. “You thought the same about her. Without her, we would have never made it here.”

  “You didn’t feel a tingle?” Rye asked. His words were tinged with uncertainty.

  “Nothing. I’m telling you, she’s like us.”

  “Like us? Tingling? Will someone fill me in?” Griffin asked.

  “Daphne has this thing where she can sense when aliens are nearby. She gets a tingle,” Rye said.

  “Like electromagnetic hypersensitivity?” Griffin asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Can we diagnose me later? There is a little girl hiding in there,” Daphne said.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” I said. Seeing her come out of the shadows reminded me of my niece Jessica. I couldn’t save Jess
ica, but I could save this girl. She was much older than Jessica, but fear knew no age. She had to be terrified beyond words. The beam from the flashlight led me through several piles of scattered bones.

  I called out to her. No response. I caught a glimpse of movement behind a display explaining how the Iguanodon gathered food.

  “It’s okay, we aren’t going to hurt you,” I said.

  The girl scooted farther behind the display. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled toward her, shining the light on her face. I turned the light slightly toward me, so she could see that I meant no harm. “I know you’re scared, but you can come with us.”

  She stared blankly at my face for a moment before allowing a brief smile to sneak out.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She spoke barely above a whisper. “Chrissy.”

  I smiled at her, shining the light downward. “Hi, Chrissy. I’m Zoe.”

  Chrissy didn’t respond.

  “I’m Zoe.”

  Still nothing. I flashed the light upward again, so that she could see me. “Don’t be scared. I’m Zoe.”

  Chrissy’s eyes zeroed in on my mouth. She watched intently until the last word and smiled again. I smiled back, realizing that she was reading my lips.

  I spoke clearly. “Are you deaf?”

  Chrissy nodded.

  “Poor thing. You must be terrified. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  Chrissy took my hand. We walked back to the lobby. Rye and Griffin were off in a corner, talking among themselves. Daphne was resting against a replica of a raptor next to the ticket window.

  “Everyone, I would like for you to meet Chrissy.”

  Rye and Griffin turned to me. Before anyone could say anything, the doors to the museum sprung open and a horde of deadies rushed in, tripping and stumbling over each other. A good portion of them fell, but several made their way toward me. I pushed Chrissy behind me and stuck the ax into the forehead of a decaying woman. I didn’t have time to free it from her skull. More deadies moved toward us.

  “Hide!” Daphne screamed. “There’s too many of them.”

  I took Chrissy’s hand and slid under the ticket turnstile. We ran into darkness.

  “They’re not alone. Aliens are with them,” Daphne said.

  Daphne’s words were distant but haunting. Chrissy and I were on our own, at least for a little while. We ran to a display showcasing mammoths. Chrissy let go of my hand. She looked at me.

  “Hide,” I said to her.

  We scattered, in different directions. Chrissy was used to hiding. She was small, and I knew she could find a good hiding spot. Still, I was scared for her. She was only a kid. I couldn’t take it if she were dragged away by the lizards, those wide, terrified eyes searching for me as she was snatched between the strange front legs of the crawlers.

  I took the closest hiding spot I could find and slid flat beneath a bench seated in front of a display of prehistoric elephants. A baby mammoth hid between the powerful legs of its parent, whose huge, long tusks pointed in the direction of a saber-toothed tiger. The outlook for the elephants might have been bright, had they dealt with only one tiger, but they were surrounded by two others.

  I tried to slow my breathing as my gaze scanned for Chrissy. God, I hoped she was in a safe place. Well, a safer place. There were no safe places anymore.

  Then I caught sight of a color that didn’t fit in the mammoth display. A small piece of the pink hair tie that held her ponytail back flashed as she looked up from beneath the baby mammoth’s legs. She was on her belly, and it was dim in the museum, but still, the emergency LED lights still worked.

  Fear for her blasted through me because she was moving. Only slightly, but it was enough for the crawlers to detect her. I risked movement to wiggle the fingers of one hand at her. She caught it right away and for a second the terror in her eyes tripled, and then recognition as she realized it was me.

  Stay still, I mouthed to her. They can sense movement.

  She gave a slight nod and became as still as a statue.

  I tried to do the same, but my entire body trembled in the confines beneath the bench. They were coming, and I’d been so lucky up until now. Could I be that lucky again?

  Then I heard them: the scratching and clicking of lizard-like claws on the polished floor. Lots of claws. There were several of them moving through the museum.

  Chrissy felt it beneath her. Her hands lay flat on the floor and her face looked pale around her wide, horrified eyes.

  We stared at each other, both feeling a terror so complete that it felt like a different plane of existence.

  I willed her to remain still. To slow her breathing.

  Then we saw the first set of lizard legs. These ones were different than the ones I’d seen, which kind of skittered along, close to the ground. These walked on their hind legs, like T. rex’s would. As more followed and then spread out, I saw that they looked like a cross between a human and a T. rex. Their heads were no longer dome-like, but more rounded, like a human skull, and their faces looked humanoid in nature. But the eyes were small and black. Their vision was likely still underdeveloped because they still came out at night.

  But I was betting that would change before long. These things were clearly evolving. Soon they’d be able to tolerate the daylight. Then it would be even harder to avoid them.

  That had been the plan all along. That’s why they were breeding with human women.

  Two, three, four of them moved outward, razor-sharp teeth chattering back and forth, deep-set nostrils flaring in sickly green/gray skin. They would sniff us out if we stayed in these hiding places.

  Chrissy’s eyes were squeezed shut. Watching them made it hard not to just run, shrieking, through the museum. I watched them while she felt the vibrations made by their claws on the tiles.

  They’d fanned out, and were systematically checking the different areas of the museum, moving over the top of and between the displays. Working together to ferret us out.

  Hank and I had been nearly face-to-face with one of these things before. I was pretty sure their sense of hearing was far better than ours.

  Chrissy couldn’t hear herself breathing, but I could hear the little gasps she made as she tried to control the fear that made her shiver under the baby mammoth.

  I watched her, willing her to open her eyes.

  One of the lizards must’ve heard her because it was circling back around our way.

  Her trembling turned into shuddering. Her panting became more panicked, louder.

  Finally, her eyes opened to look at me and I moved my fingers to my lips, hoping she’d get the message.

  Her lips snapped shut. She visibly tried to silence her breathing. Her chin and lips quivered and her body stilled.

  I gave her a single, slow nod.

  The crawler made another check of each display, moving quickly, its head darting into spaces as it sniffed and then tilted sideways, almost birdlike.

  The sight of it was horrible.

  Finally it moved away, rounding the corner like the alien things had, and I prayed that Rye and Daphne had found good hiding spots, or better, had somehow made it out.

  But then, it was night. These things could be anywhere.

  I waited until the sounds of their clicking teeth and tapping claws had faded completely, and then cautiously moved out from under the bench.

  Chrissy moved out from beneath the baby mammoth, and looked around, like she didn’t quite believe the fading vibrations.

  I mouthed: We have to get out of here. Find a better hiding spot. This isn’t safe.

  What about the others? she mouthed back to me.

  We’ll catch up with them later, I silently told her, and then tipped my head in the opposite direction the lizards had gone in.

  I didn’t know where it would take us, but I figured going the opposite way was the way to go.

  We padded quietly past the mammoth display, a display of prehistoric plants, a
nd approached the dinosaurs. A couple of smaller dinosaurs chewed on some strange-looking plants while a Triceratops stood watching.

  Several flying reptiles hung overhead, looking ready to swoop down and grab us. One looked like a flying pelican, another like a sharp-headed, huge bat, while another resembled a prehistoric duck. I’d always thought all flying dino birds were pterodactyls. I’d have to brush up on my dinosaur history in my spare time.

  On the other side of us was an exhibit of prehistoric fish. Lining one wall were several shark jaws, each bigger than the other, one so huge that several people could fit between those jagged teeth. The last was the life-sized head of the megalodon, which jutted out of the corner of a wall, as if it had smashed its way through it. The wide jaw was so enormous that the top teeth loomed several feet higher than us. If this great fish had been alive, it could easily have swallowed us both whole.

  I grabbed Chrissy’s hand and tipped my head toward a long, darkened corridor.

  Her face looked wary, but she followed me, anyway. I hoped I wasn’t leading us both to the slaughter.

  Along the right side of the exhibit were fossilized dinosaur prints, in varying sizes, fossilized dinosaur eggs, and several sharp teeth. A little farther back were armored dinos. There stood a Stegosaurus, its plated back curved as it sniffed the ground. We passed a dino with spikes jutting out along its back, and another with a plated back and spiked tail, and another with small, rounded bumps covering it from its back to the end of its tail.

  The corridor widened considerably, the exhibits fanning out on either side. More ancient fish bones lay to the left of us — a huge, hanging whale skeleton — but on the right, we came to the larger dinosaurs. Herbivores, the sign read. A brontosaurus stood munching on the leaves of an ancient tree, a cute almost camo-spotted dino with a long point on its head and a duck bill kind of face stood next to a leafy bush, while another odd-looking thing with a fanlike head looked on.

  But here were the more fierce dinosaurs. Carnivores. The meat eaters. A thin, spindly thing called the Oviraptor watched us with yellowish eyes, its long, almost snake-like tail floating out behind it. A thicker, more muscular creature with webbed feet and creepy green eyes faced a huge T. rex, whose jaws showcased rows of deadly sharp teeth, made especially for ripping into meat.