Intruders (Book 2): The Awakening
Page 17
“Oh, take it easy there, big fella.”
Hank’s tongue swiped the side of Griffin’s face. The dog whimpered, not from pain, but from fear. The air was thin. Griffin had a hard time catching his breath. Hank ran back to Rye and started barking. Griffin tried to stand, but lightheadedness pushed him back to the seat.
“Rye. Get up. Something’s not right here.”
Rye didn’t answer.
Griffin grabbed the back of the seat in front of him and got to his feet. Dizziness made it hard for him to focus, but he used the seats for supports, and made his way to Rye. He shook his nephew. Nothing. He shook him harder. Still nothing. Griffin slapped Rye with all the force he could muster. Rye coughed.
“We have to get out of here. The air.” Griffin gasped. “There isn’t enough oxygen.” Griffin tore a sleeping bag from a window. A field of colorful flowers waved in the winter wind. “The flowers? Come on, Rye. We have to get away from these flowers.” Griffin used the seats as leverage until he got to the driver’s seat. He fell onto the seat and started the bus.
“Daphne’s gone,” Rye said. “Zoe and Chrissy, too.”
In all the commotion, it failed to register with Griffin that the girls were missing. Rye tried to open the back door. Hank continued to bark at him.
“You can’t go out there,” Griffin said, punching the gas.
The sudden movement sent Rye tumbling backward. “We can’t leave them.”
“If they are out there, they’re dead. We will be too if we don’t get away from here.” Griffin spun the wheel and sped away.
With the flowers almost out of view, the air began to normalize. Breathing was less labored. The coughing spell left Rye. “They’re not dead,” he said, clearing his throat. “They took them. Daphne told me, the aliens use women for breeding. We have to get them back.”
“We will.”
Griffin pulled the bus to the shoulder of the road. He opened the door and Rye raced outside. Rye looked in both directions, completely lost on where to begin the search. Griffin stepped off the bus behind him, followed by Hank.
“We have to find the den. Daphne said that’s where they take women.”
Rye started toward a patch of woods just off the road. Griffin grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Wait. We have to come up with a plan. If we go in guns blazing, we won’t be able to save them.”
Rye stared at the side of the bus. All color left his face. His eyes drooped. He let out a deep exhale.
“What is it?”
“Aliens didn’t take them,” Rye said. He walked over to the words THREE SURVIVORS painted on the side of the bus. “Humans did.”
“What?”
“This. I saw this on my father’s house. I watched them on his security camera ransack what was left of the place. And again at the airport. Now, it makes sense. They were looking for women. The survivors are women. They’re no different than the aliens.”
“Men did this?”
Rye nodded. “And I’m sure as hell not going to let them get away with it.”
“People should be banding together. Not attacking each other. It’s the only way we’re going to get our world back. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Rye shook his head. “Nothing makes sense anymore. We’ve lost our world, Griff. Everything has turned to shit.”
“I can’t believe—”
“Believe it. The only thing that matters at this point is getting Daphne, Zoe, and Chrissy back. The aliens and the rest of mankind can go to hell for all I care.”
“We will get them back and then we will find a way to take back our world. I refuse to believe anything else.”
A moan grabbed Griffin’s attention. Just off the highway in a ditch was a man, or what was left of a man. He wore a red and white trucker’s cap and a blue T-shirt. Judging by the graying, drooping flesh, he died a while ago. This man wasn’t like the other zombies. His upper body was intact, but below the waist was a pile of green mush.
“Just hit it with a goddamn shovel,” Rye said. “We still have a few hours before dark.”
“This one is different,” Griffin said.
“He’s dead. There’s no difference.”
Griffin thought back to the slime that he trapped in a water bottle. He moved closer to the dead man, keeping enough distance not to become a chew toy. Hank eased beside him and growled. “Stay here.” Griffin patted Hank on the head.
“Come on, there’s no time for this,” Rye said, taking a 9mm from his backpack.
The slime that used to be the bottom half of the dead man moved in the same fluid motion as the substance in the bottle. “It’s not alien DNA.”
“What?”
“Look at this green substance. This guy is turning into a pile of the stuff,” Griffin said.
“So?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd we are seeing less and less dead people walking around?”
Rye started for the bus. “Griffin, I really don’t give a shit about this. I’m going to find Daphne.”
“No, wait. Remember the flowers?”
Rye turned back to Griffin. “What about them?”
“The aliens aren’t using dead people as weapons. They are using them as fertilizer.”
“What?”
“Look where this guy’s legs used to be. See that?” Griffin pointed to a group of tiny branches that resembled roots in the slime. “At some point, the dead stop walking. They turn into this crap, and then bloom into those flowers we saw.”
Rye frowned. “Why?”
Griffin caught a glimpse of something bright purple just through a patch of brush on the side of the road. He walked toward it.
“Where are you going?” Rye asked.
A cluster of purple flowers growing in a pattern resembling an outline of a body lay on the other side of the brush. The flowers were small, nothing like the ones from earlier, but Griffin’s breathing still fluttered as he got closer.
“What the hell…” Rye said, stopping in his tracks behind Griffin.
“They are killing the oxygen.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Oxygen doesn’t harm the aliens.”
“Nothing makes sense anymore. You said it yourself.” Griffin scanned the woods. There were several more patches of flowers in bloom. “And everything has turned to shit.”
The End
By Tracy Sharp and Paul Seiple
Copyright © 2015 All Rights Reserved
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without proper written permission of the copyright owners.
Intruders: The Awakening is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I - North Carolina
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II - New York
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Copyright
More From Tracy Sharp
More from Paul Seiple
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I - North Carolina
&nb
sp; Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part II - New York
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Copyright
More From Tracy Sharp
More from Paul Seiple