by Sean Platt
It was a massacre.
His eyes could hardly move fast enough over the bodies, identifying the dead, praying his own weren’t among them.
Brent saw movement in the corner of his eyes and raised his gun. He realized it wasn’t an alien before he could fire. It was Marina, sitting at the bottom of the steps, blood soaked from head to toe, clutching a bloody machete.
Beneath her, on the floor, was the thing that had been Otis, hacked into pieces of flesh, black wet tendrils still flopping reflexively on the wooden floorboards. Otis hadn’t just been hacked, his body had been demolished.
Brent tried to imagine that sort of rage coursing through Marina. She’d always seemed so calm and collected. Marina stood, meeting his eyes. She looked like she’d been through hell and back before ending the alien.
Oh, God, please don’t tell me they’re dead. Please.
He opened his mouth, but no words could leave it. He couldn’t ask the question out of fear for the answer.
“They’re okay,” Marina said.
“Who?”
“Your son, Teagan, and Becca.”
Brent sighed, holding his tears.
Behind him, Joe said, “Is anyone else alive?”
Marina shook her head.
Joe fell to his knees, sobbing. Though none of the dead were his family, he’d formed strong bonds with most of the people at The Farm.
Peter and Sammy were silent, staring at the carnage.
Brent raced upstairs to his bedroom door and found it locked. Chunks of alien flesh sat in black blood all over the floor outside the door and leading down the stairs. The fight had come up here.
He banged on the door. “Teagan?”
Seconds later, she opened the door, tears in her eyes. Ben and Becca were in bed, covers pulled up to their chins, crying.
Ben jumped off the bed, running to Brent and leaping into his arms.
“Daddy, you’re okay!”
“Yes, buddy, I am.” Brent kissed his son’s head over and over, squeezing him tight, thanking God that his son, and Teagan and Becca, were alive.
They didn’t have a scratch.
Teagan moved closer and hugged both him and Ben. Becca climbed off the bed and joined.
“How?” he asked. “How did you all survive?”
“Marina. She somehow fought the thing off. I heard her right outside our door, and I tried to go out to help, to make sure it didn’t get in here, but she shoved me back inside the room and finished it off.”
Teagan’s voice cracked. “I was so afraid.”
Brent continued to hug them then finally broke the embraces and said he’d be right back. He had to take care of something downstairs.
“Don’t go, Dad!” Ben threw his arms around Brent’s waist.
“I’ll be right back. The monster is dead, don’t worry. I just want to thank Marina.”
Teagan pulled Ben back into bed. Brent made a break for the door and closed it softly behind him.
He went downstairs where Marina was still standing in a daze while Joe, Peter, and Sammy walked around and surveyed the dead.
He met Marina’s eyes. She wasn’t staring at, so much as through, him.
“Thank you.”
Marina nodded. Brent expected her to make some joke or mention how he was lucky he asked her to stay behind, but she said nothing. She merely nodded, staring through him, white knuckling the machete as if the alien might return to life at any moment.
He reached down to take her machete. She flinched and tightened her grip.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “It’s dead.”
Marina relaxed her grip and let go.
He would have to ask Teagan to lead her to the bathroom so she could wash up, but first he needed to talk with Joe and the others.
He set Marina’s machete against the wall. She stayed standing, staring at nothing. He went to Joe and the others. “What do we do now?”
Joe’s eyes were still wet.
“What do you mean?” He looked around at the bodies. “What can we do? They’re all dead!”
“No, we’re not all dead. And we need to consider that this wasn’t a random attack. An alien posed as Otis! More could be coming. We can’t stay here.”
“You’re right,” Joe said. “We need to get to the backup site.”
“That’s not all,” Brent said.
Peter and Sammy came over.
“Whadya mean that’s not all?” Sammy asked.
“This.” Brent pointed at Otis. “We’ve never seen anything like this before. The aliens aren’t just invading people’s bodies. They’re changing their shapes — to look like us! We need to tell the others.”
“You know the radios don’t transmit that far north,” Joe said.
“I know. Someone has to go tell them.”
Joe shook his head. “I can’t even think straight.”
“I’ll go,” Sammy volunteered.
“Me, too,” Peter said. “What about you, Brent?”
He didn’t know what to say. Brent could only think about Ben, Teagan, Becca, and a devastated Marina at the bottom of the stairs.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9 — Paul Roberts
Paul’s stomach did summersaults as the tri-winged shuttle left The Island, ascending to the giant mothership floating overhead.
The shuttle’s cabin was the size of a large cargo van, with seating for ten. But Paul was alone, save for the Guardsman sitting across from him dressed in all black with a mirrored black helmet.
He considered trying to read the man’s thoughts but didn’t know if he was human or host. If he were a host, then the alien might detect Paul’s probing, which would give the aliens reasons for suspicion if they didn’t have any already.
While a Guardsman always accompanied Paul to the mothership, his presence today was particularly intimidating. Paul couldn’t help but wonder why Desmond had called for him so urgently. What had he discovered? Paul had been cautious to keep his anti-alien thoughts to himself, but what if one of the aliens had somehow found his true feelings? He wondered if Desmond had heard Emily’s complaints. Or maybe she’d grumbled to someone already, before he told her to keep her dissatisfaction to herself. The aliens didn’t tolerate dissension. You were either with their program or against it. Speaking or acting out against them led to one of two things: excommunication to The Wastelands or — Paul shuddered — a forced hosting.
The idea of them using him, or God forbid Emily, as hosts for one of the aliens chilled him to the core. Paul would sooner die than “become one” with their species, as Desmond referred to the process.
They’d been fortunate to be among the free humans allowed to live on The Island. But they were only free because Desmond valued Paul’s contributions to their program. The moment his contributions ceased to matter or were outweighed by some other thing — such as Emily’s preteen rebellion — they would no longer be of value, no better than the humans stockpiled in Warehouse 11 waiting to be hosts.
The shuttle docked in one of the mothership’s many bottom decks. Paul’s stomach continued to churn.
The shuttle door opened. Paul stepped out, trying not to show his nerves, and followed the Guardsman through the spacious gray, dingy bay, past the control room, and to the elevators leading to the upper levels.
The entire mothership was a technological marvel made by a species thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years more advanced than humans. It was surprisingly similar to human engineering, from lighting to elevators to the bays and the rooms’ basic layouts. But a part of Paul wondered if this was by design, appealing to the humans who worked on the ship, to soften assimilation. The ship’s upper levels, where Paul had sometimes occasion to go, were quite different — metal walls were replaced with black organic tissue not unlike the Ferals, replete with the selvion lights beneath their skin.
The elevator opened to the command center where he and Desmond usually met, a circular room with a long dark glass tab
le and several large paper-thin monitors lining the walls. The monitors showed video feeds coming from the many shuttles scouring The Wastelands, along with security footage from some of the factories and warehouses aliens maintained in The City.
Desmond was seated at the table’s head. Beside him was Wasterman, his second in command, a broad-shouldered tall man in his fifties with sunken dark eyes, gray hair, and a wide nose. Paul was never certain if the man was among the free humans or host to one of the aliens. The man barely uttered a word, ever, and always looked like he was contemplating the many ways he could kill the closest man, woman, or child. A stark contrast to Desmond’s charisma.
“Have a seat.” Desmond pointed to Paul’s usual chair, which seemed a half mile away on the other side of the long conference table.
Paul sat. He felt Wasterman watching him, scrutinizing Paul’s every move.
What do they know?
Relax. If they knew anything, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be carried away by The Guardsmen. I’d never see it.
If this was an ambush, Paul was unprepared. He couldn’t even clear his mind of thoughts he shouldn’t be having. Not only was he at their mercy, but he had no allies, nobody to protect Emily. They were on their own in enemy territory. The few free humans living on The Island were like him — too scared to fuck up a good thing.
Desmond spoke. “Have you noticed anything different about the hosts we’ve been bringing in lately?”
As head of processing, it was Paul’s job to ensure they weeded out any humans who would make poor hosts. Rejections were too high, and constantly climbing, harming aliens who endured the psychological, and oftentimes physiological, harm that followed rejection.
“Other than the dropping lack of quality hosts, no, sir.”
“And what, in your professional opinion, do you attribute that lack of quality to, Mr. Roberts?”
Paul wasn’t sure if Desmond wanted the truth or a comfortable lie that didn’t lay any blame at the aliens’ feet. Paul could read any human he met with an almost 99 percent certainty, but the aliens were a different story. Particularly Desmond, whose temperament was too mercurial to effectively decipher.
“Well,” Paul hedged his response, “I have two theories.”
“Go ahead.”
Paul tried to ignore Wasterman’s glare.
“Well, my first theory is that the best hosts are those who haven’t experienced much trauma. But the longer these people are out there in The Wastelands, the harder it is on them. Harder it is to find pure souls, so to speak.”
“Yes, we know. And we’re already taking measures to counter that.”
“Measures?” Paul said, surprised, wondering why this was the first he was hearing about such measures.
“Later. First, your second theory.”
This was the part Desmond probably wouldn’t want to hear. But Paul’s value was based on shooting straight, no matter how difficult the news might be to deliver.
“I think the Ferals aren’t helping the matter.”
“How so?”
Discussing the aliens was a precarious affair. The Ferals were a slightly different species than the Pruhm. They were an evolutionary step beneath the aliens on the ship, killing machines ravaging anything they encountered. Even so, Paul was hesitant to suggest extermination of the Pruhm’s creation, their pets, or whatever else these things were to them. His attempts to dance around such proposals before had been met with hostility from Desmond, for reasons Paul couldn’t quite understand.
He’d have thought that the aliens aboard the ship would want to protect whatever humans were left after the plague. There were more than nine hundred aliens aboard the ship, who were known as the Pruhm, but who referred to themselves as The Eternal Ones, a conceited title if he ever heard one, waiting for a potential host. They couldn’t live on Earth’s surface without a host, and there was only so long the mothership could maintain a livable environment in the ship’s upper decks before they started dying. It seemed to Paul that the problem of finding enough humans was starting to outweigh whatever sentimentality Desmond, or the others, held for their wild brothers.
Paul gambled with blunt honesty.
“Forgive me, sir, but the Ferals are savages, feeding on the very humans your kind needs to survive. The situation is getting worse not better. Exponentially so. And they’re not interested in using the humans as hosts.”
“And how would you suggest we handle this?”
Paul met Desmond’s eyes.
“You need to kill them.”
Desmond smirked, as if he’d led Paul down this path.
“I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Roberts. But I have a third theory. Something that I’m disappointed to find you’ve overlooked.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s another influence out there, and it’s spreading, infecting the humans and Ferals alike, sullying them.”
“Another presence?”
“It calls itself The Light,” Desmond laughed, “seeing itself in some good versus evil battle with the Ferals, or as it called us, The Darkness. But such terms as light, dark, good, evil — none of that means anything. Those are human constructs, and this … Light … has been tainted by the very humans it strives to protect.”
Paul leaned forward. This is the first time he’d heard anything about Light or Darkness. And he also noticed that Desmond had referred to the Ferals as us. Was he one of them? “Are you saying there’s another alien species out there?”
“We started to think the same. But it has been tainted, ruined. Trying to thwart our destiny for reasons I can’t fathom.”
“We? Are you saying you aren’t the same, you aren’t an Eternal One?” He called him that, as the Pruhm didn’t like being referred to by their proper names, preferring their chosen title.
Desmond smiled. “I am not Pruhm. I am also not The Light nor The Darkness. I am something that’s never been, but has always been.”
Paul didn’t want to say he had no fucking clue what Desmond was saying. Fortunately, he didn’t need to.
“I am self-aware evolution. We, with the human’s help, can do what all matter, what all life, yearns to do — realize our full potential. But in order to do that, we must work together to make it happen.”
“What do you need?” Paul tried not to think about their endgame. Did a single species mean that he, and Emily, would eventually be hosts for these fuckers? Or victims of this so-called evolution, made extinct?
“We need to find this source of Light and extinguish it once and for all.”
“How do we do that?”
“That is what I’m going to show you. It begins with a child who is no longer a child. His name is Luca Harding, and he is the biggest threat to this new world.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 10 — Emily Roberts
Emily pressed her face to the shuttle’s right-side window, looking down at The Wastelands below.
She was surprised to find that the aliens hadn’t destroyed as much of The City as she’d imagined. In the stories she’d heard, from her father and others, the aliens had come down in their ships and blasted away major capitals around the world. She’d imagined The Wastelands as nothing but smoldering piles of rubble, maybe a few buildings poking up from it.
But most of The City was actually intact. Many of the buildings were overgrown with vegetation, and some were missing entire sides, while a few leaned to the side as if a giant had started to tip them over then got distracted and walked away. Pipes had burst through some roads while other roads had huge gaping holes that went down deep into darkness. The shuttle soared overhead, sending a herd of deer racing away from what had once been a large parking lot where cars now rusted and rotted forever.
“Wow,” Emily said, smiling at the sight below. Despite the destruction, there was something promising in what remained — signs of life fighting back, reclaiming what the aliens had tried to destroy.
Sutton, one of three other students c
hosen for the tour, pointed at the deer and asked, “What are those?”
“Deer, I think,” Emily said to the blonde girl who’d never really talked with Emily before, despite their class being so small.
“Yes,” their teacher, Mr. Pace, said from the front of the cabin, “those are deer. The Wastelands are full of deer, dogs, pigs, and wolves. Without people, the animal population is out of control.”
“What about the Ferals?” Kenny said. “Don’t they eat the animals?”
Emily watched as the teacher’s expression changed from smiling and happy to something else. She couldn’t read it. Maybe he was annoyed by the question. Emily wasn’t sure if the teacher were among the hosts or a free person too. If he were an alien, perhaps he didn’t appreciate disparaging comments about the Ferals — despite the fact that everyone on The Island was told to avoid contact with the Ferals at all costs, that they were deadly aliens run amok.
Mr. Pace cleared his throat. “The aliens typically eat humans not animals.”
“Eww,” Sutton said.
Chris, who was sitting in the back of the shuttle, pushed his long brown hair from his face. “Better watch out, Sutton, or they’re gonna eat you next.”
Sutton raised her hand then extended her middle finger.
Emily laughed.
“Now, now,” Mr. Pace said. “None of us will be eaten.”
Chris murmured, “None of us?”
Emily looked at Mr. Pace, certain he must have heard the comment basically accusing him of being an alien. If Mr. Pace had heard him, he said nothing and didn’t react.
Emily turned and met Chris’s eyes. He was a year older then she, and known for causing trouble. Nothing too serious but annoying to the teachers — and charming to some of the girls. Emily was surprised he’d been among the students chosen for the tour. Not only was he always getting into one thing or another, he was obnoxious like most overly aggressive boys were.
Why is he even on this trip?
It was easy to see why the others were there. Sutton was pretty and popular — her father was a big shot at one of the mainland factories. Kenny was one of the smartest kids in class. And Emily, well, Emily wasn’t sure why she was picked, either. She didn’t think of herself as especially smart. Perceptive, yes. But she’d never been particularly interested in learning history, remembering facts, or anything having to do with math. And nobody knew about her gifts.