by Sean Shake
Abigail, too, was asleep, laid out across the bench seat in the back.
I scanned the sky, looking for any ships, any like I’d seen on the TV over New York.
But the only thing in the sky were stars.
I wondered where those F35s I’d seen flying overhead at the gas station had been going, what they’d been doing.
Ohio was basically the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t think of any Air Force Base around here that they would fly from to get somewhere to the west, which was the direction they had been headed.
Wright-Patterson was far west of where we were, and while there was a Guard’s base east, I didn’t think they would have F35s.
It was also strange that they were flying away from New York.
I let my mind go over this as I drove, but after a few minutes my thoughts started getting disconnected, taking on the texture of dreams, and I realized I was on the brink of falling into sleep.
I woke Emma to have her get me an energy drink.
She did so, then promptly fell back asleep.
Lucky girl.
I popped it open and relished the fruity medicinal taste, and soon was wide awake once more.
14
I turned the news on low as we rumbled down the dark, empty highway.
It was more of the same: telling people to stay in their houses, telling people to go to evacuation centers.
It didn’t seem like anyone knew what was going on, or if they did, they weren’t telling the public.
The ships were still above New York City. Unmoving.
Though there had been no evidence that the ships were responsible for what was happening, it would be one hell of a coincidence if it was anything else, and so everyone operated under the assumption that the creatures terrorizing the planet had somehow come from those ships.
Apparently the United States government concurred, because the news reported they had sent fighter jets to attack the ships.
Though, that again made me wonder what those other jets had been doing.
Why were they flying west?
The attacks had been ineffective against the alien ships, of course.
I could’ve told them that. Anyone who’d seen an alien invasion movie could’ve told them that.
You didn’t park yourself in enemy airspace if you thought you were vulnerable to attack.
Oddly, the aliens hadn’t retaliated.
They’d just continued floating there, implacably.
A slightly hysteric-sounding newscaster now was saying people—or what looked like people—had been seen transforming into those aliens.
I thought back to the eyeless guard that had attacked me in the infirmary.
That would explain why aliens would come down wearing a prison guard uniform: they hadn’t. Instead they’d transformed one of us into one of them.
Brutal but effective tactic, if true. Instead of fighting your enemy, just turn them into you.
But it was hard to know what to believe, and I wouldn’t be buying anything until I saw it with my own eyes.
Eventually, the news began repeating itself, and so I turned on some music instead.
I found a country station, playing Girl Crush. I wasn’t much for country, truthfully I wasn’t much for music, but I liked the song.
It reminded me of a better time.
15
By the time we made it to the turnoff for Abigail’s parents’ house, I’d grown sick of both the news and the country music—and the memories that music brought to the fore—and had turned the radio completely off.
“We’re here,” I said.
Grumbles from the back and passenger seats.
“Adelle, we’re here. Which house is it?”
“My name’s Abigail, asshole.”
God, I was tired to have messed that up. That was the problem with energy drinks: they made you feel awake, but didn’t really clear your mind.
They were no substitute for sleep.
“Huh, that’s an interesting name. Abigail Asshole. Were your parents fond of alliteration?”
“Fuck you,” she muttered, sitting up.
“Maybe another time. Right now, we need to get to your farm.”
She leaned over between the seats, and squinted out through the windshield.
Idling as we were, the road noise gone, I could hear the terrible grinding noises the engine was making.
Seemed it wasn’t long for this world after all.
Abigail pointed. “Up there. The one with the Christmas lights.”
“They went all out,” I said, looking at a lonely strand of Christmas lights strung along the façade of a large single-story farmhouse.
“Don’t get a lot of people out here,” she said. “I’m surprised they put them up at all.”
The house was farther away than it appeared, and it took another minute for us to arrive to her farm.
I turned in through the gate, and drove up the road to the house.
There was no driveway, simply a dirt path.
There was a fountain out front, though it looked dry. I stopped next to it, put the truck in park, but did not turn the engine off.
“Why don’t you go see if they’re up,” I told Abigail.
“They’re not up. They go to bed early. They’re farmers. Come on, I’ve got a key— Oh shit.” She was patting herself down frantically. “I forgot my keys.”
Then she frowned and looked up. “Wait. We’re in my—” She sighed. “Oh my God I’m an idiot. The key is on the keyring.”
Wonderful, I thought. I turned the dome light on, and started working the keyring free from the truck’s ignition key.
It was a standard keyring, one of the ones that you had to pull apart and slide the key between to get it off.
I hated those things.
As a kid, I’d once inadvertently jammed one under my thumbnail as I was trying to get a key off.
Let me tell you, that shit hurts. I’d never felt pain like that before or since. Not physically.
“What are you doing? Just take out the keys.”
“I don’t want to turn the car off.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“Maybe.” A few seconds later I’d extricated the keyring and handed it to her. “Go inside. See if it’s safe.”
“Oh you’re sending the youngest girl in to go see if it’s okay?”
“You’re the one who said you felt like you were the blonde in a horror movie.”
“Yeah and you said I’m a redhead.”
“Exactly. So what do you have to worry about?”
She looked around. “Huh, how strange. I don’t see any cameras or crew. And no director called scene, or cut.”
“Would you two shut up,” Emma said from the passenger seat, eyes still closed, head resting against the door. The window was still in its frame, though completely shattered.
I wasn’t about to tell her what to do, but if I were her, I wouldn’t have been leaning my head there.
“Why do I have to go in?” Abigail asked.
“Because it’s your house. Now stop being a baby and—”
Something slammed into the truck.
Abigail let out a short shriek, then something slammed into us again.
I put it in drive and floored it, not able to control my reaction.
Don’t react Gage.
Fuck off old man.
We fishtailed, and the truck sideswiped the fountain as it took off.
I spun us around the fountain and got us pointed out the drive we’d come in on.
“What the hell was that?” Abigail asked.
Before I could answer, something landed on the camper shell, then started making its way forward.
I slammed on the brakes, and whatever it was on the roof flew off and landed in the dirt, just out of the reach of the headlights.
“What are you waiting for?” Abigail said. “Go go go!”
But I didn’t think this truck could take another collision.
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“Come on, Gage,” Emma urged. “What are you waiting for?”
I tightened my hands around the steering wheel, staring intently out the windshield, into the dark.
Waiting.
“Come on,” Abigail whined. “Go.”
I ignored her. I noticed my reflection in the windshield and reached up and turned the dome light off, plunging the cabin into darkness.
I thought of the faceless guard from the prison, with slits for eyes. I thought of the robot, the demon that had crashed into it.
I thought of all the things in the prison.
Why was it that I hadn’t changed, if that was what happened? And if that wasn’t what happened, why was I the one to survive. Why the nurse?
Was it coincidence? Or was it something else?
I thought of the stone, thought of the burning feeling it gave me in my chest, felt it now, a comforting weight there, above and to the right of my heart. Thought of the stab wounds in my back and side.
Thought of how I was able to run, even though I shouldn’t have been able to so soon after the attack.
Something moved beyond the headlights.
I didn’t know what I was waiting for, didn’t know why I was waiting. It wasn’t just to save the truck.
I felt compelled, drawn.
Like it was my responsibility to take out whatever it was that was approaching in the dark.
Then something skirted around the edge of the headlights, dipping in and out faster than I could track.
“Hold on,” I said.
“What do you mean hold—” Abigail screamed from the backseat as the passenger window shattered inward, and a monstrous claw reached in through it, grabbing for Emma.
Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned over, my seatbelt paying out, placing myself in front of her so that instead of digging its claws into Emma, it dug its claws into me.
Then it yanked.
I was pulled toward the shattered window like I weighed nothing at all. The seatbelt fought to keep me in, I felt a snap, the feeling of my collarbone breaking, and then the belt tore.
My shoulder slammed into the roof, something cracking that I hoped was the dome light and not another bone, before I was pulled out of the truck.
I was slammed to the ground as a creature that reeked of death mounted me, claws raking across my face and neck, though they didn’t cut as deep as it felt they should given the pressure and ferocity of the attack.
Being several feet from the passenger side of the truck, we were outside the beam of its headlights, and so I couldn’t see the creature above me, only its outline.
An outline that was only vaguely human.
Then I felt a burning in my chest, and a sensation like dominoes falling into place.
The next time the hand came down, I got my left arm up to shield myself, then struck out with my right, landing a blow.
The creature atop me let out a grunt, then wrapped its clawed hand around my throat and I felt it leaning in toward me, felt its hot breath on my face.
Breath, I thought.
Two could play that game.
I felt for a face, and what I found was not exactly what I had expected, but it would do.
Then I found a mouth, and forced my hand inside, feeling skin scrape off my knuckles and wrist as I shoved my entire fist into the thing’s mouth—a mouth much larger than any human’s should be—and down into its throat, hoping the hot breath wasn’t just an affectation, and that it actually needed to breathe.
It did.
It began writhing, trying to pull away, but I wrapped my left arm around the back of its neck and pulled it toward me, my collarbone screaming in pain, hoping like hell the thing didn’t bite my arm off.
But it didn’t seem to be able to, didn’t seem to be able to get enough leverage, though I could feel it trying.
I didn’t let go, keeping the creature tight against me, keeping my fists balled and trying to push even farther down into its throat, blocking off its windpipe.
I felt as though my fist should slice through the thing’s neck, sever its spine and come out through its back.
But of course my fist was just a fist. I had left—by no choice of my own, mind you—the blade inside the truck, and Emma still had the bear spray.
All I had was my mail-order ninja outfit, my wits, and my experience.
The thing thrashed harder atop me now, it’s legs splaying as though it was trying a grappling mount.
Then something hot started dripping down my arm, and I wondered if it was my own blood.
The weight of the thing collapsed on me suddenly, spasming in death one more time, then going still.
I kept my fist there for the count of twenty, just in case it was trying to fool me. That had happened to me once before, and I was never gonna let it happen to me again.
Then I rolled over and pulled my arm from the thing’s throat, sitting up.
“You two okay in there?” I called.
“I think so,” Emma’s voice called back. It was too dark to see her, and since I had left the truck through a shattered window and not by the normal and less painful method of opening a door, the dome light hadn’t turned back on.
The only light was the starlight, a dim multicolored glow from the Christmas lights on the house a hundred yards away, and the headlights facing forward down the road, but which hardly reached me and the monster at all, here on the side of the road.
“Abigail?”
“You remembered my name,” she said breathlessly, a little hysterically. “How sweet.”
“Back the truck up, get some light on us.”
A few seconds later the truck backed up and angled toward us, the beam of its headlights illuminating the scene.
I got a brief glimpse of something otherworldly, something not entirely like what I’d seen before, but then, before my eyes, whatever had been, faded away, dissolving, and leaving just a human behind.
I glanced up to the truck. “You—”
“Lookout!” Abigail shouted. “It’s coming for you!”
I looked around, my calming heart thudding again, but it was already too late.
16
But it wasn’t another creature come to attack me, but the one I had killed.
Even in death, it still had a trick up its sleeve.
Something green and gaseous oozed from the corpse and floated onto me, clinging to my skin, going up my arm, my neck, and then forcing its way into my nose and mouth.
I screamed.
The girls in the truck screamed.
Then everything seemed to clear.
My collarbone, which had been agonizing, stopped throbbing.
Still on my knees, I looked down, and saw that my hands were in shadows.
I frowned, feeling there was something not quite right about this.
Then I looked up, and saw I was still directly in the path of the truck’s headlights. I looked back down again, lifted my hands in front of me.
I was wearing all black—most American ninja outfits were all black—however I wasn’t wearing gloves, and so my hands should’ve reflected the light from the truck’s headlights.
But they didn’t. They were as black as my ninja suit.
No, that wasn’t exactly right.
They weren’t the same kind of black as the suit. Instead of just not obviously reflecting the light, they seemed to absorb it, to suck it up like a hungry vampire.
The truck door opened, and Abigail came stumbling toward us.
“Oh no!” she said, falling to her knees in the gravel beside the corpse.
Emma got out of the truck too, and approached us. She was staring at me.
“What is it?” I asked Abigail.
“He was our neighbor. What was he doing here?”
“What was that?” Emma asked, still staring at me, not even having glanced at the corpse. “That stuff, that… smoke, it went inside you.”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, I don’t think i
t harmed me. I think it did the opposite.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
I held up my hands again.
She flicked her eyes down to them then back to my face. “You feel okay?”
“Look at my hands,” I said.
“What about them?”
“How dark they are.”
“It’s because you’re wearing a ninja outfit in the middle of the night.”
“But I’m not wearing gloves.”
“You—” She stopped herself, studying my hands now. “What the—” She knelt down, started to reach for my hands, then stopped herself. She leaned in, moving her head around to look on all sides. “But you’re— I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” I agreed. I glanced at the farmhouse. “You still have those keys Abigail?” I asked the girl, who was staring at the corpse of the thing that had yanked me from the truck and tried to kill me, and that was now simply a dead human being, all traces of whatever it’d been, whatever half-glimpsed monster I had seen, gone.
She didn’t answer, not taking her eyes from the corpse.
I placed my hand on her shoulder before I realized what I was doing, then withdrew it quickly.
But nothing happened, the blackness didn’t spread onto her.
“Abigail. Do you have the keys?” I repeated, keeping my hands at my sides.
This time at hearing her name she looked up. “What?”
“The keys to your house, do you have them?”
“Yeah. They’re in the truck still, I think. I dropped them when that— this thing hit us.”
“Go get them.”
She nodded slowly, stood, and walked to the truck like someone sleepwalking.
Emma was still staring at my hands. “Do you feel okay? In control?”
“I feel fine.”
Surprising myself, I added, “But if I start acting strange, you take that blade and plunge it into my heart.”
“What blade?” Emma asked. She was staring at me with a look I couldn’t read.
“On the news, while we were driving, while you were asleep, they said some people saw us—humans—turning into those things.” I nodded down at the body between us. “And now, I just killed this thing, and it turned into a human. Back into a human.”
“You think you’ll turn into whatever that was?”