The Invaders (The Visitors Saga, #1)

by Jay Ford

  Even though we parked as close as we could, we still had to walk through a garden to get to the entrance. The garden had purple and pink flowers that were blooming and waving in the wind, paying no attention that the world was crumbling around them. There were fountains that were no longer shooting water into the sky, so we knew that the electricity was out here. Our footsteps were echoing across the garden – no, city. The footsteps were so loud, I’m sure you could've heard them from my house. I was still not used to everybody being gone, but then again, I didn’t think I ever would be.

  We made it to the large revolving doors and pushed as hard as we could on the door. The door slowly started spinning, taking us into the darkness that enveloped the hospital lobby. It was very warm in the hospital. The electricity had been out for a while because it was very musty.

  We stood there for a moment, letting our eyes adjust to the darkness. Once they were somewhat adjusted, I looked around the lobby. It had a high ceiling that was about twenty feet tall, with chandeliers hanging from it. There were couches placed around a flat screen television and an arcade machine in the corner. The tile floors led to a large receptionist’s desk, and from there, to three different hallways.

  We walked to the fork in the road and stood there for a moment.

  “Which hallway do we go down first?” I asked Alex.

  He shrugged. “I always heard that if you’re in a maze, to always go right, and it will lead you to the exit.”

  “Well, that’s as much help as Batman in space!”

  “Batman in spa–”

  “Whatever! You get the idea! Does this place look like a maze to you?”

  Alex stood there for a moment. “Well, if you go to the center of it, spin around for ten seconds, bang your head really hard, then you wouldn’t know where you were, so you’d be lost, like in a maze.” Alex smiled and nodded his head in agreement with himself.

  “Whatever!” I snapped. “Right it is!”

  Alex walked to the entrance to the hallway and extended his hands in the direction of the hallway. “After you, Batman.”

  I rolled my eyes, and brushed past him, going from the dark lobby to the even darker hallway.

  The darkness was suffocating. It was eating me from the inside out. It would grab a hold of my eyes, and squeeze the life out of them, making them utterly useless. More than once I thought that I was going to be permanently blind. I could see it now, Charlie Freeman: The Man Who Went Blind Because it was too Dark. Oh, wait, there were no more newspapers, so there went that.

  Right after that, I could see something ahead: a light. I wasn’t blind! But I couldn't see where the light was coming from. “You see that?” I asked Alex, making sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

  “Yeah, bro. I see it,” he said.

  We got closer, and I could see what it was coming from. “It’s an emergency light,” I explained.

  “Huh,” Alex puffed. “Why weren’t there any in the lobby?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t care! I can see!” I started laughing.

  “Wow. You’re weird.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  We walked to the door that was underneath the emergency light. “And behind door number one is,” Alex said as he twisted the doorknob. He threw the door open. “The jackpot!”

  Inside were clear cabinets that had different types of medicine and supplies.

  “Look for a sheet,” I told Alex. We dug through the cabinets until we found a single sheet. Alex found it, and we spread it across the floor.

  “All right, we need to find some anti-bacterial cream and some gauze for your leg,” I told Alex.

  Alex went directly to the cabinet that held these items. “I saw them while searching for the sheet,” he explained.

  He sat down on the sheet, and I took a seat next to him. I looked at his leg, as he rolled his pants up. I took in a sharp breath. “Man, that looks bad,” I exclaimed. The wound was large and had dirt all in it. I remember thinking that it must've been a really large screw. Then again, you never know what you'll find in a basket at Wal-Mart.

  “Nah dude, it’s not that bad. Besides, the ladies’ll dig it.” A wicked grin spread across his face. Of course Alex would be thinking about girls.

  “Good luck finding one,” I said laughing.

  “I accept your challenge!” he said, saluting me, and giving me a wicked grin.

  “I don’t think you’ll have much luck if we have to cut your leg off because it got infected. Ah, I forgot, we need some alcohol.”

  Alex’s eyes grew big, as he raised his eyebrows, and his wicked grin became wicked…er.

  “Rubbing alcohol.”

  His face grew long, as he let out a whimper. “That’s gonna hurt.”

  “Bad.”

  “Real bad.”

  I got up and grabbed a bottle off the counter. I popped the cap off it. “You ready?” I asked.

  “Just get it over with!” He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

  I poured it up and down his leg.

  “Holy sh—” he put his fist in his mouth and bit down on it hard.

  “Hey! Hey!” I yelled. “We don’t need another wound! Get your hand outta there!”

  He pulled his fist out. “It freakin’ hurts!”

  “Ya big baby! Get over it!”

  He took in big, deep breaths. Finally, his breath started to slow. “Okay, it’s better now.”

  I grabbed the bottle of anti-bacterial cream. I squeezed it out on his leg and started rubbing it.

  Alex started laughing. “Oh, man! That’s cold, and it tickles!” He laughed even harder.

  I just rolled my eyes and kept rubbing the cream on his leg. If he wasn't my cousin, this would've been incredibly awkward. “All right, that should be good.” His leg looked gooey, and the hair stuck together. I grabbed the roll of gauze and wrapped it around his leg tight. I got up and grabbed some tape, just to make sure it didn’t come undone. Once I was done, I slapped his leg. “All done!”

  He winced. “Not cool, dude. It still hurts.” I stood, and helped him up. He jogged in place, testing out the bandage. “That’s a lot better, though.”

  “Good. Let’s throw some supplies in the sheet and take it out to the car.” I went to the cabinet.

  “Good idea,” Alex said, and he walked to my side. He started filling up his arms with supplies.

  I had no clue what most of this stuff did, but I was just grabbing things at random to fill the sheet up. There were syringes, pill bottles, bandages, ointment, everything but the kitchen sink, really.

  Once we had filled the sheet, the both of us grabbed two corners, and folded it. I threw it over my shoulder like Santa carrying his sack of goodies and started walking back to the car. I headed towards the light from outside that was seeping through the revolving doors.

  “No!” Alex yelled. “Don’t go towards the light, Charlie!”

  I realized that he was being sarcastic. “But, the light,” I playfully responded. “It’s so…pretty!”

  We both started laughing and continued on. It was nice to know that my sense of humor didn't disappear along with everybody else. We reached the door, and Alex started pushing. I helped a little bit, by pushing with my shoulder.

  The door opened to the outside, and I was greeted with a blast of cool air.

  “Man, I think it’s starting to cool down!” Alex said.

  It was the best news that I had heard in what felt like a lifetime. Sad, but true. “Good thing, too. I was starting to get tired of all that heat,” I said.

  We walked to the car, our footsteps the only sound in the silence. Alex unlocked the car and opened the trunk. We laid the sheet on top of the generators, and I slammed the door shut with a bang that sounded like a gun-shot in the silence.

  “What now?” Alex asked, stretching.

  I jogged to the front door, put the key in the ignition, and turned it over once. The clock said it was one thirty-two..
“Well,” I said, returning to the back of the car where Alex was. “It’s getting kind of late, but I want to go back inside and look for some people.”

  If Alex would've had water in his mouth, he would have spit it out. “Are you serious?” he yelled. “After what happened in the store and how dark and freaky it is in the hospital?”

  “Yes,” I responded sternly. “We’re supposed to be looking for people. Most people would go to a hospital, in order to get supplies, like we did. We need to find more people. We cannot survive on our own.” Honestly, I didn't want to go back in there. But we had to find people. I knew we couldn't survive on our own.

  Alex stared at the ground.

  “I’m going in there.” I walked past him and started making my way back inside.

  I heard Alex huff behind me, but I didn’t turn around. “Fine!” he yelled. I heard his footsteps running across the garden. He ran next to me, before matching my pace. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.”

  We reached the revolving door and pushed it open, walking back into the hospital.

  Chapter Eleven

   

   

  We walked to the three hallways. “Let’s go down the middle one,” I told Alex.

  He shrugged, obviously not enjoying this at all.

  I started walking down it, feeling the walls, and reaching my hand in front of me so I did not run into anything. I felt fear try to enter me, but I pushed it aside. I had to be strong, I had to find people, and I had to survive.

  “Hello?” I called out, cupping my hands over my mouth in order to amplify my voice. It bounced and echoed off the walls, before the darkness consumed it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Alex whispered harshly. “You don’t know who could be in here!”

  I just shrugged. “Oh well, too late for that now! Besides, we're looking for people. Shouting for them is kinda the point.”

  “Help!”

  I froze. I felt a hand grip on my shoulder, and I freaked out. I started jumping and yelping, trying brushing whatever it was off me.

  “Dude, it’s just me.” Alex’s voice was quivering. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yeah, I did. It sounds like somebody’s in trouble. Let’s go check it out.”

  “Help!” I heard the voice call out. It sounded weak and was barely louder than a whisper. But since the hospital was so empty, and the whisper echoed off the walls, there was no telling how far away the person was.

  “Help!” it said again. We turned a corner and saw a woman lying slouched on the ground underneath one of the emergency lights. We rushed to her side. I looked down at her and saw she was a police officer. The name tag on her uniform said Garcia. She had long brown hair that was bloodied. Her clothes were ripped, and she was covered in blood. She was clutching her right hand against her chest, but then I saw it. Her hand was gone. I heard Alex gagging, and I started shaking. I was freaking out. My body felt like lead, and I thought I was going to pass out. I had no clue what was going on, but I had to find out.

  “Who did this to you?” I asked as I knelt down next to her.

  “The people,” she said very quickly and barely over a whisper. She had a crazed look in her eyes, like she saw something horrendous, and she was going to be crazy forever. “They were here, and then they weren’t! Here, than gone! Here, than gone!” Her eyes darted around the hallway, only stopping to make eye contact with me for a second, before they started going crazy again.

  “What does she mean, gone?” Alex asked me, panicking.

  “I don’t know!” I said throwing my hands up in frustration.

  “The creatures – monsters – they attacked. They attacked me. My hand! They took my hand! Screaming, I heard screaming when they attacked. They were screaming! I can hear it now! I still hear it!” She clutched one ear with the hand that was still attached and pushed the other ear against her shoulder. “Stop it! Stop screaming!” She started breathing heavily.

  I was gasping for air. I was never going to forget this because it scared me so badly. I thought I was going to puke; my stomach was turning and flipping harder than ever before. My hands were shaking, and my chest was constricting.

  “What are we going to do?” Alex asked. “We need to get out of here. If those people that did this to her are still around…” He shuddered.

  “Grimms,” she said, her head snapping to attention. The sudden movement made Alex and I jump. “The screaming. They were Grimms. The screaming said, ‘Grimms.’” She looked past us, staring into the darkness. “They’re coming.” She started to laugh. “They’re coming! You’re going to be like me!” She started laughing hysterically now. “Here! We’re here!” she screamed, alerting whoever did this to her to our position.

  Grimms. The name swirled in my mind. I wasn't sure what they were, but I did not want to stick around to find out.

  Before I could say anything, there was an unearthly screech. It sounded like a gorilla, but a little more high pitched. It was a scream that turned my legs to lead. Alex and I stood there, frozen by fear. There was the sound of footsteps pounding on the ground, and the screeching continued. It was getting closer.

  I snapped out of it. I turned and shook Alex. “Come on! We gotta hide!”

  We darted for the door that was next to us. Alex ran in, but I remembered something. I went back to Officer Garcia. I wasn't sure why; she was crazy. But I couldn't just leave her out there. But when I got to her, I saw that her eyes were wide open, and her chest wasn't moving. She was dead. I felt sorry for her. There weren’t many humans left, and so every life was precious. Well, before all this happened, every life was still precious. But now, it was really, really, precious. At least she was no longer suffering. I reached down and unclipped her gun. I felt bad stealing from a dead person, but I wasn't going to be in a hospital filled with what the officer called Grimms and not have a gun. I stuck it in the waistband of my jeans and ran back to the room that Alex was hiding in.

  I shut the door behind me. I could barely see anything inside, but I knew that it was a janitor’s closet from the small amount of light that was leaking in from the crack underneath the door. The room was very small, and I felt a mop poking into my stomach. Alex was plastered against the wall, and I stood next to him. His breathing was shaky. “Be completely silent,” I told him. I heard his hair brush against the wall as he nodded his head.

  I took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  I heard the creature – no, Grimms – footsteps come to a halt. I heard it breathing heavily and start sniffing the air. I heard it brush against Garcia’s body, and it started sliding it across the floor, most likely taking it to the rest of the Grimms. I prayed that there weren’t any more, but there’s no way that this Grimm could’ve gone from Wal-Mart to here before us. Of course, that’s what was at Wal-Mart. There’s no other explanation for it.

  Alex started scooting closer to me. “What are you doing?” I said as quietly as possible. He was getting closer, and closer. “Stop moving!”

  “There’s something crawling up my leg,” he whispered, panicking.

  “Do you want to keep your leg? Then you should be still.”

  His foot hit the mop bucket as he tried to kick whatever it was off his leg. The bucket fell over with a loud bang!

  The Grimm let out a grunt. The both of us froze; we weren’t even breathing. My heart was beating out of my chest. I thought it was going to explode. I heard the Grimm shuffle over to us. The light coming in from underneath the door disappeared, as the Grimms shadow covered it. It stuck its nose to the bottom of the door and took in a deep breath. It let out a shout and jumped up to try and open the door.

  I grabbed the gun that was in the back of my pants and cocked it.

  It started fumbling with the doorknob but couldn’t open it. This was very reminiscent to the scene in Jurassic Park, when the two kids were inside the kitchen, away from the dinosaurs, but then the dinosaur figured out how to open the doo
rknob. The kids were able to run away and escape, but Alex and I didn’t have much room to run. At least we had a gun, but I was still scared out of my mind.

  The doorknob clicked, and the Grimm let out a shout in triumph.

  There was another roar that sounded further away. The Grimm closest to us let out a roar in response. There was the pounding of footsteps and a loud crash. It sounded like the two Grimms were fighting! There was the sound of the Grimms roaring, yelping, and crashing into the wall. It sounded like the worst cat fight in history. One of the Grimms threw the other one onto the door to the closet that we were in, and I almost screamed. The door shook and for a second I thought the door was going to bust down. We heard more slamming and screaming, until I heard the Grimm that was losing start running away, and the other Grimm started chasing after him.

  Then, there was silence. We had survived.

  I realized that I had been holding my breath, and I let it all out. I started breathing fast, my mind racing. “Th-those things,” I panted. I took another deep breath. “Had to of been—couldn't of been —”

  “Human?” Alex finished for me.

  I nodded. “We need to get out of here. Fast.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice!”

  I slowly opened the door. I could hear the fighting in the distance, but it was getting quitter, and quitter. I walked over to Officer Garcia. Her eyes were opened. They were frozen in their crazed state. I shut them.

  I knew that something else was going on. This wasn’t just the Visitors making everybody kill themselves – or whatever it was that happened. This was something more. Something sinister. Hate for the Visitors grew stronger inside of me. They were going to pay.

  I stood up, and Alex and I started to sneak off. I felt bad leaving Officer Garcia there, but we had no choice. Our footsteps and heavy breaths echoed off the walls, making me wince every time, because I thought for sure a Grimm would hear it.

  As we reached the end of the hallway, we heard a scream. It wasn’t the scream of a Grimm, it was the scream of a human girl.

  “Help me!” she shouted as loud as she could.

  I looked at Alex. “We can’t just leave her,” I said.