Chapter 1 #2
“No. Absolutely not,” Aletta said, as she gave the corpse a wide berth and strode decisively onwards, one hand gripping Dylan’s forearm tightly as if she could drag her sister away from the shocking sight.
No way would she consider that people had been responsible for whatever had happened to that person, let alone cannibalism.
Oh god. What had happened to everyone?
A distant scream drifted through the fog. Dylan froze, her eyes wide as they met Aletta’s. That was not the sound of a child playing. It was pure terror.
The hairs on Aletta’s arms lifted, and she shivered.
“What was that?” Dylan asked, her voice high and too loud in the quiet of the abandoned street. Aletta shook her head. Whatever it was hadn’t sounded human.
That’s insane.
Aletta’s breath was coming rapidly as she strained to hear, frozen in place. Another scream, this time longer and most definitely not human. No, she shook her head again. That was impossible. It was probably just the fog distorting the noise.
Aletta pressed her lips together and shook her head. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close to them, and they needed food. There was no point in worrying about something they had no control over.
That’s what she told herself, anyway, even if her rapid heartbeat betrayed her as a liar.
“Let’s get moving.” She forced thoughts of anything but finding food down deep inside, and strode onwards, ignoring the ache in her stomach from not eating and pretending she wasn’t straining to hear more screams.
By late afternoon, Aletta was exhausted, and, going by the way Dylan barely lifted her head when they heard the occasional distant scream, she was as well.
They’d found four more stores, but all had been cleaned out.
The best luck they’d had was finding a case of water in an abandoned car.
They’d drunk their fill and stuffed their backpacks with as many bottles as they could, hiding the rest of the case to collect on the way home.
Home. Aletta didn’t see the point of returning to the small apartment, with no one around. They needed to get out of the city.
But that was a problem for tomorrow. Today, they needed food. Tonight, they’d find somewhere safe to sleep and then move on in the morning. She’d had a vague thought that they might be able to ask someone for help. Surely the police would be out helping those who were left?
But no. She shouldn’t have been surprised to discover they’d been left to die, like the many corpses that littered the street, their rotting flesh fouling the air. She’d long since given up speculating on what had happened to everyone, on where they’d gone.
The sun was setting, and the cooler air made the fog thicken around them as they reached yet another ransacked shop.
This one was large—one of the better stores in this part of the city—with an actual fresh produce section.
Nothing was fresh now; what had been left had rotted on the shelves, a cloud of flies lifting as Dylan walked too close to a display.
“Gross,” she said, her voice muffled behind her mask.
They trailed through the empty aisles, the shelves bare, stopping at the far side of the empty store. Dylan leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.
“I just need a minute,” she said, closing her eyes and dropping her head against the painted brick of the wall that was covered in brightly colored posters.
Aletta took off her backpack and dropped it on the floor next to Dylan. “All right. I’m going to have a look out the back.” She pointed to a door with a mirrored glass panel bearing the words ‘employees only’ in block letters. Dylan nodded, not even opening her eyes.
It was safe enough, Aletta supposed. They hadn’t seen a soul all day—at least not living—and Dylan was exhausted. Better to let her have a moment to rest. Maybe there would be something back here that had been missed?
The door opened easily enough, but the gas arm swung it shut with a bang, making Aletta jump and lift a hand to her chest. The corridor was empty and lit only by the weak light filtering through the glass pane on the door.
She was rummaging through the cupboards in the employees’ break area when she heard a scream. Any thoughts of food were forgotten as a second scream sounded.
“Letty!”
Aletta sprinted back down the corridor to the door, desperate to get to Dylan. She gripped the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. She jiggled it, turning it one way and then the other, using all her strength in her desperation to get to her sister.
“No! No! Leave me alone!”
Aletta’s head jerked up, looking through the one-way glass.
She gasped, hands pressed to the glass as she strained to see, as Dylan was dragged past by her long blond hair.
She was kicking and screaming, gripping her ponytail in what must have been an attempt to ease what had to be incredibly painful.
Aletta pulled the handle again. This time something clicked, and the door jerked open, and she threw herself through the opening and into the store.
“Let go of my sister!”
Dylan’s attacker was clad from head-to-toe in black.
Black combat boots, black pants, black shirt with the sleeves ripped off, black mask.
Both biceps were tattooed with the same symbol—he must be a fan of symmetry—and he was huge, towering above the shelves.
Dylan looked like a child in comparison.
He stopped, barking something in a language Aletta had never heard, and then turned, dismissing her and continuing to drag Dylan after him.
“Hey!” Now he was making her angry. She picked up a discarded tin can from the floor and lobbed it at him, hitting him in the back of the head. He stopped, turning slowly to look at her with menacing eyes.
He dropped Dylan and strode toward Aletta, who took a step backward. “Run, Dylan!” She screamed, hoping her sister would listen, and then bolted for the front of the store.
She didn’t dare turn around as heavy, booted feet thumped on the linoleum behind her. Aletta grabbed the edge of a row of shelves, swinging herself around the end of the aisle and careening into Dylan just as she emerged from the next row.
They gripped hands and ran, oblivious to anything but the sound of their footsteps and heavy breathing.
They shot out of the building and into the car park, the dim light barely brighter than the inside of the abandoned supermarket.
Aletta glanced over her shoulder to see their pursuer stop in front of the building, staring down at his watch.
Why wasn’t he following them?
“Letty?” Dylan pointed a shaking finger to a large, wedge-shaped black vehicle that hadn’t been there when they’d entered the supermarket. “What’s that?”
While they’d been inside, the fog had thickened. It was like trying to see through a misted window; only indistinct shapes and muffled noises indicated they weren’t alone. But movement had the fog swirling, and the looming shape Aletta had at first taken for a bus came into view.
It was sitting in the center of the parking lot, about thirty yards in front of them. Short legs extended like landing gear from the underside, and a ramp lowered from the back.
The lack of wheels had Aletta frowning. How had it gotten there?
Then wings unfurled from the sides, snapping into place with a metallic click, before starting to shift slowly up and down, like a dragonfly.
The fog swirled around the ship with each pump of its wings, sending gusts of damp air across the car park to stir Aletta’s hair.
It had to be an aircraft of some kind, so why not a spaceship?
It wasn’t like today hadn’t been weird enough.
She turned back to the store to see their pursuer look up from his arm with a frown, something flashing on the face of his watch.
How did he still have working electronics?
He looked up and strode determinedly toward them, breaking into a jog as he shouted something in a language she couldn’t understand.
“I have no idea what the fuck that thing is, but we have to get out of here.” She grabbed Dylan’s hand and darted to the left of the strange ship and toward the entry to the parking lot, still hidden in the fog.
He shouted again, his footsteps right behind her, and then his fingers dug into her upper arm, pinching painfully. She twisted out of his grip, dragging Dylan with her.
And then she heard the scream.
The same scream they’d been hearing all day, this time much closer. Dylan whimpered, her hand shaking in Aletta’s. She shot a look back at their attacker, but he had frozen in place, his eyes wild as he took a step backward.
She pushed Dylan behind her and spun on the spot, trying to see what had made the noise, but the fog was too thick. Then a dark shape moved just out of sight between them and their exit.
No, not a dark shape. A cockroach. A ten-foot-tall cockroach with a black shiny exoskeleton that glittered with the colors of the rainbow as it turned toward Aletta and Dylan.
It was blocking their only way out. She turned to keep an eye on the cockroach while still keeping the ship in view. Two more of the big guys in black had stepped out, and all three were now standing back next to the ship as if ready to make a quick exit.
She looked from the cockroach to the ship and back. They were trapped.
“Fuck.” Aletta herded a shaking Dylan behind her.
There was no way they were going anywhere near that cockroach thing. It reared up on its back two legs. They weren’t going back into that supermarket, even if they could get past the ship. She’d watched enough horror movies to know how that ended.
So that only left one option.
She grabbed Dylan by the shoulders, staring into her eyes. “Whatever happens, I love you. Ok?”
Dylan gaped at her. “What? No, don’t—”
“You have to run. Hide. Get out of the city. It’s worse than we thought, Dee. Save yourself.”
She took a step toward the alien, because spaceships, so why not aliens? Hell, those others were probably just another two-legged variety.
“Letty!” Dylan yelled.
The alien chittered and tilted its head to one side like a dog trying to understand a new stimulus.
“Letty! Don’t leave me!”
Aletta squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear sliding down her cheek.
She clenched her hands into fists, opened her eyes, and took another step toward the alien.
It opened its maw, showing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
She stared up at it in terror as it opened its mouth to scream—or more like screech—the sound they’d heard before.
A reply came from the distance, then it clicked and hissed at Aletta, taking a step toward her.
Dylan screamed. “Letty!”
The bug took another step toward Aletta, and whatever bravery she had felt fled. What was she thinking? They’d seen the evidence of what this thing could do, and she wasn’t armed. She had no idea what it was.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Aletta turned and started to run toward Dylan, who had sensibly retreated until she was almost at that strange black ship.
They say that time slows when death nears. Aletta had always scoffed at that, but now? She felt like she was running through mud. Like one of those awful dreams where you can’t move and some unknown terror is bearing down on you.
But this terror was real.
“Letty!”
Dylan had been grabbed from behind by one of the goons, her feet kicking as she struggled in his grasp. She had to get to her.
Aletta’s feet pounded on the hard ground of the parking lot, she leaped over a concrete barrier that had once kept shopping carts from careening into customers' cars, and stumbled, landing on one knee.
“Fuck!” She wasted no time getting back to her feet.
“Help!”
Dylan was being dragged backward up the ramp onto the ship. Aletta wasn’t stupid. They were bigger and stronger, but they also weren’t facing down this monster that was chasing after Aletta. They were running from it.
And taking Dylan with them. Well, they could take Aletta, too. No way was she going to be separated from her sister.
There were at least ten yards to go when the monstrous cockroach landed with a loud thump, blocking her way to the ship.
Aletta skidded to a stop, her chest heaving. The monster screeched again, so close its fetid breath blew Aletta’s hair back from her face.
A grinding of cogs in need of oil sounded as the ship’s ramp began to close. The dragonfly wings pumped harder, the fog swirling around the ship like water on the surface of a bath.
“Letty!” Dylan’s terrified cries were barely audible over the engines.
“I’ll find you, Dee! I promise!”
The ramp slammed shut, blocking Dylan from view as the black ship lifted off the ground and shot into the sky with a deafening whoosh that pushed the fog in swirls around her and her would-be predator.
The monster staggered sideways, turning to look at the ship. Taking advantage of the distraction, Aletta turned and ran.