Earth (The Invasion Trilogy Book 1)

by Frances, Jessica

  “That was really a generous lady. I hope they… I hope…” Lisa’s voice falters, and since Hank has two hands on the wheel driving, she moves her head to my shoulder and cries.

  “They’re going to be okay. I have a good feeling,” I try to assure her. “They looked like they’ve been married for a while. What do you think they meant about the tree and Jacob?” I ask, trying to move her away from thoughts of death.

  “I saw a photo hanging up of them looking a lot younger with a kid. He was sitting on a swing tied to a branch and they were standing on either side of him. I saw a few other photos, but the kid never aged past ten or eleven. I assume he must have passed away,” Hank explains.

  I sigh. So much for getting the topic away from death.

  “I always thought I’d have children.” Lisa shifts her head to the side of my shoulder. “I wanted to have five kids.”

  “Five!” Hank gasps, and I smile because I know how much he cares for her. I think deep down both of them know that they have feelings for each other and have probably pictured their lives together once they get over being too chicken to admit it to each other. Five kids obviously hasn’t factored into Hank’s fantasy.

  “Yes. I had a big family growing up, and it was wonderful.” Lisa sniffles. I can already tell the direction of her thoughts are about to move to her family. Definite heartache territory.

  “How about you, Hank? How many kids were you planning?” I quickly ask.

  “I thought two would be plenty.” He turns and looks at Lisa, maybe considering that big family with her. I feel horrible because, with the world ending, they won’t get to experience it now.

  “How about you, Mattie? I’ve never seen you go on a date with someone more than once. Did you think you’d ever settle down and have a family?” Lisa asks, moving off my shoulder so she can see me properly.

  “I don’t know. I wanted to just focus on my career. Guys just get in the way of that,” I state, having believed that fully up until this moment. If the world hadn’t been ending, I still wouldn’t have cared about guys or a future with them, but now that I won’t ever get the chance to marry or have children? Yeah, now I’m angry that the choice has been taken away from me—from everyone.

  “They don’t have to get in your way; they could have been a fun distraction from training and studying. I never thought I’d be the fun one in a friendship group. Back home…” She sighs, but then surprises me by not breaking down on us. “Back home I was the boring one. I loved staying in with my family, loved school work.”

  “Well, you’re both boring compared to me. You’re just lucky I decided to be your friend and up your cool factor.” Hank takes his eyes off the road to give us a quick wink to show he’s only kidding.

  “We’re lucky you decided to be our friend?” Lisa snorts, and I share a quick glance with Hank. It’s the closest thing to a laugh we’ve heard since news of the invasion broke. “I remember a very different story. Do you remember that night, Mattie?”

  I smile at her, remembering it well. “Yes, you dragged me to some stupid frat party, and before we even got in the door, I tripped over some large lump who was chucking his guts up.”

  “Yeah, and then when we tried to get someone to help him, he grabbed my leg and begged me not to tell anyone because—”

  “Shut up!” Hank hisses, attempting to place his hand over her mouth while keeping his other hand on the wheel.

  “Because he had only drunk two beers and he didn’t want the guys to make fun of him,” I finish off, too far away from him for retaliation in any way.

  Lisa pushes his hand away and keeps talking. “Yep, and then he tried to stand up and his pants fell down because the reason he’d gone outside in the first place was to take a piss.” Lisa giggles.

  “Now who was that guy? Surely not cool-man Hank over here.” I tap my chin, pretending to think really hard about that night.

  “Hmm, I’m not sure, Mattie. How about the second night we spoke to Hank? I think I can remember that one. It was after a basketball match, and that guy John told us how to get out a back way to avoid the large crowd dispersing very slowly.”

  “Oh, yeah. We ended up in the guy’s locker room where Hank was whining because his teammates had taken away his clothes after his shower.”

  “You know John set that up, right?” Hank mutters, annoyed.

  “I do know you were so shocked when we walked in that you dropped your towel right in front of us.” Lisa reddens as she recalls the memory.

  “Yeah, I was quick to turn around, but you took a little longer to move.” I nudge Lisa with my elbow and wink at her.

  “I was in shock. I mean, he was hard!” Lisa gasps.

  “Stop! Stop talking!” Hank quickly brakes along the road, the headlights still shining in front of us as he hides his face in his hands.

  “Ew, I didn’t need to know that!” I wince because now I have that mental image in my head. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d been quick. As soon as I saw him in a towel, I’d started to turn, so by the time the towel fell, I didn’t actually glimpse a thing, and I never felt the need to ask Lisa for any details on Hank’s anatomy.

  “Well, it was huge! How was I not supposed to look at it?” Lisa sounds innocent, but when I look at her, I can tell she is nervous. She glances at Hank and he lifts his head away from his hands to stare at her.

  “Huge?” He smiles now. I feel like I’m about to really not like being stuck in this car with them.

  “Well, yeah, massive even.”

  “Oh, God,” I whine, putting my hand over the door handle, ready to bolt if they take this now flirting conversation any other place I don’t want to know about.

  “You know I was only hard because I saw you walk in. I’m always turned on when I’m close to you. You’re—”

  I open the door and jump out, shutting it closed behind me, thankfully missing out on anything else they’re saying.

  Unbelievable. It’s the end of the world, we’re heading into a potential warzone with the scariest and weirdest looking machines in the existence of the world, and they’re flirting?

  They pick now to admit their feelings! Although, I suppose now is as good a time as any. I’ve never felt like a third wheel before, yet now I get to spend my last days on earth watching those two love birds flirt, kiss, and God, I hope not anything worse.

  I take a short walk, glancing at the darkened sky above and imagining myself back home. I think about my parents, remembering their laugher as they cooked dinner together. Every night without fail they prepared dinner together. It was their time to spend with each other and they both loved food. They loved making it, and in my dad’s case, eating a lot of it. He wasn’t as fussy about what he ate, but Mum’s a health nut, and she’d always make sure every day we ate enough fruit and vegetables. It worked for my sports diet to eat healthy, so I never minded. I know Hannah had a secret stash of chocolate in her top drawer, though.

  I smile, remembering the night we had a food fight. It started with me accidently flinging my mashed potatoes off my spoon. They’d landed directly in Hannah’s face. I knew she was furious. We all froze for a second and I waited for her tantrum. We’d already been fighting for days, so my own defences rose, ready to be just as angry as she was feeling. Some days, I had genuinely hated my sister.

  Dad saw our faces and it was only a split second later that he threw a handful of peas at Mum. She’d been shocked, too, but when I giggled, she quickly retaliated and threw back her own portion of mashed potatoes straight into his face, hitting his eyes.

  Hannah started laughing then, and we all got straight into it. It felt like it went on for hours, however it must have only been minutes later that we ran out of ammo. We were all covered in food and laughing so hard. My stomach hurt the next day from laughing so much. I’d only been nine; Hannah was seven. Two years difference isn’t a long time, but for us, it had always been forever. We were so different from each other, and now she might be gone fo
rever.

  I move around the front of the truck, my eyes staying away from any windows where I might see something I can never un-see. Hank has left the headlights on, helping me to notice a black haze in front of the truck. The sky is darkening overhead, but this feels different. There is definitely a wall of black haze in front of us.

  The sound of a door opening draws me back towards the car where Lisa steps out, patting her hair down at the back. Her lips are slightly swollen and her eyes are dazed. It’s obvious her and Hank have just been making out in the car.

  “Mattie?” she calls out my name.

  I move in front of her and give her an obvious stare. “You guys finished sucking face now?” Honestly, I’m not even annoyed. I’m happy that Lisa doesn’t look so desolate. I’m sure that awful look will return soon enough, especially once we enter Canada. For now, though, she looks almost content, so I’m happy for her and for Hank, too. They’re both my best friends.

  Lisa blushes at my words before I poke my head into the cab, seeing Hank appears to be in the same blissful state as Lisa. “Sorry about that. We should keep moving.”

  “Don’t be sorry, I just wish you guys had woken up to your feelings last year, and well away from me, for that matter.” I smile, squeezing her arm as she assesses my face to make sure I’m not actually mad.

  “We just sort of got lost in the moment. We’ll control ourselves better next time, I promise. I don’t want you to feel left out.”

  “Trust me; leave me out as much as possible. I don’t need to add to my nightmares. You’ve already reminded me that Hank isn’t a girl and has a penis. I don’t want to add anymore to that,” I joke, watching Hank squirm in his seat. Lisa climbs back into the truck, and I stand at the open doorway. “I’m happy for you guys, truly.”

  I watch some of the tension leave Lisa’s body. She must have been worried how I would react.

  “I found something over here, something weird. Come have a look?” I stare at Hank.

  “Sure, you wait in here,” he tells Lisa and then steps out of the truck, shutting the door before Lisa can offer a protest.

  I quickly move to meet him, not wanting to have to hear her complaining, too. As I round the truck, I catch Hank adjusting his pants and wince when I comprehend why.

  “What is that?” Hank figures out immediately what I wanted to show him.

  “I don’t know. Do you think it’ll be dangerous to go through?” I have images of being disintegrated as we move into the strange haze. The thought gives me shivers.

  “We haven’t even made it into Canada yet and we’re already finding the weird shit?” Hank complains then horrifyingly, he moves his arm directly into the darkness.

  “Hank! What the hell!” I gasp, holding my breath as I wait for his screams of agony.

  Instead, he moves his arm back through the haze and we both look it over using the light from the headlights to make sure nothing sinister has happened to him.

  He’s fine.

  “So this isn’t going to kill us, but I don’t know what it means. Keep going or turn back?” he asks me.

  “I don’t know, but I’m freaked out here.”

  “So am I. We keep that away from Lisa, okay?” He eyes me carefully, and I nod to say I agree. Lisa is barely handling this as it is, she does not need us stressing her out more.

  “So what do we do?”

  “I really want to see what is happening in Canada. We’re close to Vancouver, and I want to take a peek. I say we keep going.”

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath, trying to summon some inner strength.

  “You know we keep losing countries when they go silent and we can’t talk to them. Maybe that is what this dark haze does; it cuts off communication.”

  “Maybe. Come on, let’s get back to the truck. I can feel Lisa’s anxiety from here.”

  We both climb back into the truck with Lisa in the middle again. I watch her reach out and take Hank’s hand as he starts up the truck, pushing us forward again. With her spare hand, she grabs hold of my hand as her head rests over my shoulder.

  We drive through the black haze in silence. I can’t help but tense up as we move through it, though. However, nothing happens. A few minutes later, I let my shoulders drop and rest my head over Lisa’s.

  ***

  We cross the border not long afterwards, which is eerily void of any people. There are several upturned cars and I think I see blood on the road, but the headlights move away from it as we keep driving.

  I begin to worry that perhaps we shouldn’t be coming here. Are we just fast-forwarding our own demise by entering Canada? Should we have stayed back where we were left by the government? At least we weren’t alone there—well, not exactly.

  It’s obvious from our drive to Vancouver that the outer places have already been attacked. I’d say they started on the outskirts of Canada and worked their way inwards, which explains why there hasn’t been an influx of Canadians running over the border into an invasion-less America.

  This whole situation is completely messed up. No one was prepared for this. I’m not even sure we ever would have been. I mean, there are conspiracy theories about alien races, and everyone knows of the people who claim to have been abducted. They’re crazy people telling stories that aren’t possible, though. Except now we’re under attack, and while we aren’t under attack by little, green men, having those slick machines attacking us is just as farfetched. However, now that we are being attacked, perhaps little, green men and strange abductions aren’t crazy after all.

  I think back to the strange metal machine we’ve seen on the news. For them to be taking out entire countries at a time there must be hundreds of thousands of them, maybe even millions. What hope does humankind have to survive against them?

  We drive through many quiet towns, and as we near Fraser River, I notice an unnatural light filtered over the city. It’s bright and out of place. I’d almost say it was daylight except for the fact that it isn’t coming from the sun and it is the middle of the night. In the distance, there are loud, screeching noises, screams, explosions and the air smells of smoke.

  “What is that light?” Lisa whispers, her hand gripping onto mine hard enough to bruise as her body shakes next to me.

  “I don’t know, but I think this might be as far as we can go,” I mutter, my own voice shaking.

  “We’ve come this far; I need to know what we’re up against.” Hank shifts so his back rests against the door as he stares at us both. “We’ll drive over the bridge, and then you guys stay with the truck. I’ll go check things out and figure out what we’re up against. If it’s too much, I’ll find us some supplies and we’ll get the hell out of here. We can head back to the states and hide out in the North Cascades National Park. We’ll be able to hide easily in there.”

  “No! It’s too dangerous, what if… what…” Lisa begins sobbing. Hank wraps her in his arms, holding her against his chest.

  I completely agree with Lisa, yet I keep my opinion to myself. There is something about the screams that are pulling at me. I know they should be a warning and a sign to stay away, instead I feel a pull to them. There is human suffering going on, and I feel a need to help if I can.

  It takes Hank several minutes to calm Lisa down, and then he starts the truck back up and we keep moving.

  Going over the bridge, I can’t help feeling exposed and watched. It’s eerily quiet on the streets where we are, several cars are upside-down and crushed over the bridge, but there is a big enough gap to fit us through.

  There is no human life anywhere, not even bodies. Where is everyone?

  Once we’re on the other side, Hank stops the truck, and when he gets out, so do I.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, moving around and grabbing hold of the passenger side door before I can close it on Lisa.

  “I’m going to come with you.”

  “No, you need to stay here and look after Lisa.”

  “It’s quiet here, so obviousl
y those things have already been and gone. You are more likely to need my help than Lisa.”

  “Guys, how about no one leaves?” Lisa whispers.

  “The sooner we go and take a look, the sooner we’ll be back and know what to do,” I state, slipping past Hank and taking several steps away from him before he thinks about manhandling me back into the truck.

  “Maybe you should come with us? I don’t like the idea of you being alone here,” Hank says to Lisa as he leans into the truck and caresses her face lovingly.

  “I don’t know if I can handle seeing… I don’t want to face what my family had to already. It’ll give me nightmares.” Lisa sniffles. I’m pretty sure she’s five seconds away from bawling her eyes out again.

  “Okay, look, just stay hidden, and if you see anything that is off, get away from here. Head back to America, and I will find you. We’ll be as quick as we can, I promise.”

  I step away, knowing I’m not going to be left behind, deciding to give them some privacy.

  I stare at the surrounding buildings, taking in the shattered glass, and in some cases, completely collapsed structures. It looks like a tornado has been through here.

  I try to prepare myself for what we’re about to see and face, but I could have never been ready for what Hank and I are about to see. Lisa was right to want to stay behind; I will never get rid of the nightmares that will live with me from what is waiting for us.

  Chapter 4

  Marduke

  Two Days Earlier

  My brother chases me for several blocks. I push people out my way, shoving them in some cases. I know I’m running for my life, and unfortunately for me, my brother is fitter and stronger than I am. There is no way I can outrun him, not for long. He also has the added advantage that he’s spent more time outside in this world. He knows this place better than me. I’ve only ever gone to the park to watch her or followed her to the campus. If I haven’t been watching her, then I’ve been back at the apartment.

  The ground shakes again and there are more screams. I lose my footing and fall to the ground, scraping my legs and ripping away the material, grazing my skin. I chance a look behind me, seeing a lot of people have fallen down, too. The ground keeps vibrating under me as Ival’s head pops up from the mass of bodies lying on the ground, looking directly at me. He is close to me, only a few people between us.