CHAPTER 1
I turned the rifle over in my hands, rotating it slowly back and forth as I stared out at the darkened field. It was eerily quiet, not even the crickets were chirping. But then, it had been strangely quiet ever since The Freezing had occurred. I tried to convince myself that I would become used to it one day, but it hadn’t happened yet, and I knew I was just lying to myself.
There was no way to become used to this. To become accustomed to the lack of noise in a world that had once been alive and thriving with it. To do so would mean that I was ok with the reason behind the quiet. And I was not, nor would I ever be, ok with the death and mayhem that the aliens had unleashed upon us. Never be ok with the horror, terror, and loss that had unfolded because of them. I had lost my mother to them, and I had lost Cade.
My mind shied away from the memory of our last moment together, when he had cut the rope that had been joining us. When he had sacrificed himself for me. He loved me. He’d told me that just seconds before he’d been taken, but I still didn’t understand why he had done it. My life wasn’t worth his. It never would be. It certainly wasn’t worth much since he had been taken from me.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath as I tried to ease the pain tightening my chest. I wanted to be more without him, wanted to be better, but I was choked by my grief, drowning within it and I didn’t know how to swim. Not anymore. I’d kept afloat through my father’s death, I’d had no choice but to continue on after my mother’s, and though I was still breathing, still moving, I was acutely aware of the fact that I was no longer able to live without Cade. Acutely aware of the fact I was a hollow shell of the person I had once been, and that person hadn’t been that great to begin with. I simply couldn’t recoup myself after this loss, simply couldn’t put myself back together it was more fight than I had left in me anymore, unless of course I was killing something. I had plenty of fight and anger for that now.
My mother and Cade had both been lost to the monsters we were guarding against now. Monsters I was sitting in wait for. Monsters that had been strangely scarce for the past couple of days. I didn’t know what that meant, but I did know that I wasn’t going to quit hunting them, fighting them, killing them. Not until I knew for certain if Cade was alive or not.
If there was any chance he was still alive, I was going to do everything I could to get him back.
I leaned forward, my hand tightening on the gun as I stopped switching it back and forth. “Do you see something?”
Bret sat up beside me, his broad shoulders brushing against mine. I didn’t have to look at him to know the tender warmth of his soft green eyes, or the gentle sweep of his dark blond hair. His handsome face was beloved to me, and until Cade had reappeared in my life, and shown me what it was to fall in love someone, I may very well have married Bret and built a quiet, simple life with him. But then I had come to know Cade again, and everything had changed. I loved Bret, I truly did, but Cade owned my heart, he owned my soul, he owned every bit of me. He always would.
It saddened me that Bret had been hurt by what had happened between Cade and I. Saddened me that Bret still held out hope that we would one day be together again, no matter how hard I tried to make him understand that we wouldn’t. Bret wanted to believe my feelings for Cade had developed because Cade had saved my life, and because I had been traumatized by the loss of my mother. He wanted to believe that one day I would become as convinced as the rest of them that Cade was dead, and that I would turn to him again.
But even if Cade really was dead, a fact I refused to believe, I wouldn’t turn to Bret again. I couldn’t. The mere thought of Cade being gone for good was nearly enough to crush me, but if it were ever confirmed I didn’t know how I would react, how I would handle it. I didn’t know if I would be much good as a human being anymore, not that I was all that great right now, but I was terrified I’d become even worse. I did know that I would not seek comfort by turning to Bret again. There never could be anyone else, and I would never do that to Bret. He deserved far better than the cold, deadened person that I had become. Far better than the shattered being I would be if Cade was lost forever. Bret deserved to be loved; he deserved the kind of intense wonder and joy I had found with Cade, even if it had only been for a brief time.
I just wished Bret would finally see that.
“No,” I said softly.
“It’s almost time to head back anyway.”
My fingers tightened on the gun. I leaned slightly back; I didn’t want to go back. It was a parole, just like this one, that had been unable to save Cade’s life, but had saved mine. Though I might not feel like my life was worth much right now, there were others out there that may need our help. They could appear at any moment, just as the seven of us had appeared on the beach out of nowhere. I rose slowly, stretching the taut muscles in my back and legs. Swinging the rifle over my shoulder, I bent to grab the flashlight by my feet. My entire body ached from being immobile for so long, I needed to move around a bit.
Bret grabbed hold of my arm; I froze as he placed a finger against my mouth. Still half bent over, my eyes went slowly back to the field we had been sitting near. We were on the outskirts, surrounded by trees, but I felt incredibly vulnerable all of a sudden. Incredibly exposed, even though I knew that we were hidden.
My eyes narrowed as I searched for whatever it was that had caught Bret’s attention. And then, across the field, I saw a flicker of movement. I retreated back to the ground, trying to make myself as invisible as possible as all of my senses went into high alert. It had been days since we had last seen any hint of the aliens, but now there was something out there, just on the edge of the high grass.
I sensed motion to my right, but it was not the aliens over there. Instead, it was the others from our group. I caught a brief glimpse of Darnell creeping through the underbrush to get a closer look, his dark skin and dark fatigues nearly blended in with the night surrounding him. Sgt. Darnell Hastings held the highest rank, and was in charge of the five remaining soldiers left in our group of survivors. One had been killed, and the other had split off toward Rhode Island in search of his sister and his nieces. I hoped he had made it, but we would never know for sure.
Darnell had taken charge of training the survivors, or at least the ones who wanted to learn how to shoot, fight, and defend ourselves. And the thing I wanted most right now was to fight, to kill, and to destroy every single one of the things that had ruined all of our lives. My heart thumped with eager anticipation of what was to come. I was anxious for blood, anxious for retribution.
Darnell motioned for us to stay where we were. We had been under his strict training for the past two weeks, but he still didn’t think we were capable of much. I chafed at the bonds he placed on us, I wanted this. I needed this.
Darnell continued to creep forward; he made some gesture to Lloyd and Sarah to follow close behind. The three of them had been stationed together for nearly two years; they knew each other’s movements, gestures, and thoughts without even having to speak. Though the aliens had disbanded all military seven months after arriving, these three had lived within the Wareham, Buzzards Bay area. Every day they had met up with twenty three other members of the military from the area to continue their training in secret. Thankfully they had been as doubtful about the alien’s promises of peace as I had been.
They were lucky enough to have been together when The Freezing occurred; eight of them had survived it. None of them had been able to get back to their families, or find them again. They wanted revenge and justice as badly as I did, and I trusted them to one day make me as finely honed a killing machine as they were. It was fascinating to watch them move and work together in near unison. They crept to the edge of the trees, staying low to the ground as they took up new positions cl
oser to the field.
I chewed nervously on my bottom lip as I brought my rifle back around, clasping it tight before me. I wanted to move a little closer but remained where I was. I wasn’t a soldier under his command, but I listened to Darnell. He knew what he was doing, I was still inept. And I wanted him to teach me everything he knew, pissing him off by disobeying him was not going to help with that. Thanks to Darnell, and the situation we had been tossed into, I could handle a gun with far more competency than I could have a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t been very good at firing a gun in the beginning, but lately I seemed to have acquired some strange natural ability for it. We didn’t get to practice often, as we didn’t want to waste ammo or draw attention to ourselves, but the few times I’d had to fire a gun recently, I hadn’t missed.
I focused my attention on the thing moving across the field. I couldn’t quite see what it was yet, but it didn’t appear to be one of the massive tick/octopus/crab/jellyfish looking things that had been able to reawaken the frozen people by violently draining their blood from them. People we still couldn’t figure out how to reawaken on our own. People that we weren’t even sure were still alive anymore, or if we would ever be able to save them. So much time had passed since The Freezing that it seemed impossible that any of them could still be alive within their frozen forms.
However, none of us were willing to give up hope yet.
The thing across the field did not appear to be one of those monstrosities, but just what exactly it was eluded me. I moved steadily closer, staying low as I crept toward the field with Bret on my heels. I did not miss Darnell’s warning look, but I didn’t acknowledge it either as I stopped at the edge of the woods. Whatever was out there, it was half hidden by the tall grass moving ever so gently in the early September breeze.
It was small, or at least smaller than most of the other creatures we had seen until now, as most of them were full and large with blood, human blood. The aliens themselves were exceptionally human in appearance with their dark hair, eyes, and olive skinned to darker hued complexions. They had rarely come to earth before The Freezing, and there was no sign that they had returned since the attack had started.
I doubted they would. They wanted our lives, they wanted our blood, but they despised us, looked down on us, and hated anything that had to do with our planet, except for the abundant food supply we offered. I rested my hand against the rough bark of a white oak, narrowing my eyes as I strained to see across the field. I could no longer see anything about what was causing the movement, but if the motion of the grass was any indication, it was getting closer.
I glanced worriedly at Bret, his jaw was clenched, his eyes fierce. I didn’t know what was coming at us, but the hair on the nape of my neck was suddenly standing on end and there was a cold sweat suddenly trickling down my back. Then, the grass parted and a young girl stepped out. My jaw dropped, my hand clenched on the trunk of the tree. I didn’t know where she had come from, but there was something so lost and forlorn about her that I had the strangest urge to cry.
Her clothes were torn; blood marred the front of the sundress she wore. Her dark hair was a tangled mess as it hung over her thin, delicate shoulders. Her face was streaked with dirt and blood; her eyes were hollow in her thin, pale face. She was so small, so delicate and fragile that my heart ached for her, she reminded me so much of Abby that I nearly burst from the woods and ran to her. I managed to stop myself only because of the fact that Bret had stepped partially in front of me. I didn’t know where she’d come from, but it looked as if she had been through hell.
Darnell gestured to Sarah, one of his soldiers, and then pointed toward the young girl who was staring unseeingly at the woods. Sarah nodded before slipping into the darkness. I knew which way she had gone, but even I lost sight of her almost immediately. When she reappeared it was from three hundred feet away on our right, and she was moving out of the woods.
The girl turned slowly toward her, but didn’t seem to recognize the fact that Sarah was even there. She remained unmoving. She has to be in shock, I thought wildly. The fact that Sarah had a gun trained on her probably wasn’t helping, but I would have done the same thing. If there was one thing we had learned recently it was that anything could be dangerous, and to never let our guards down.
Sarah moved steadily toward the girl, her face remained impassive, but I could sense Sarah’s confusion, her hesitance. Bret grabbed hold of my arm as I made a move to get closer. I wanted to protest his controlling gesture, but I remained silent. I was too afraid to make any kind of noise or motion with Sarah so exposed. Sarah stopped five feet away from the girl, the gun wavered slightly.
“Are you ok?” Sarah demanded. The girl remained silent, unmoving. “Can you hear me? Are you ok?”
I wasn’t breathing anymore; my lungs were beginning to burn but I still wasn’t breathing. Something was wrong, this wasn’t normal. Darnell seemed to sense the same thing as he rose slowly to his feet and leveled his rifle against his shoulder.
Then it happened. It was so fast that none of us had a chance to fire a shot, not even Sarah. One moment the girl was standing there quietly, and the next she was on top of Sarah. At first I didn’t understand what had happened, or who had moved first, but then it all became painfully, clearly obvious. That girl was not a girl.
Or at least not anymore.
Something lashed out of her mouth as she launched herself forward. The tentacle thing/tongue slammed into Sarah’s face with a sickening crack of bone that echoed loudly throughout the still night. I couldn’t move, couldn’t react as Sarah’s face caved in. That thing, which I now recognized as being eerily similar to the tentacles that came from the larger monsters that hunted us, slid down Sarah’s throat as the hideous girl knocked her to the ground with far more force than I would have expected from her small frame.
By the time Darnell recovered enough to open fire on the horrific creature, it was already too late for Sarah. The creature/girl bucked wildly as the bullets tore through her flesh. A strange hissing scream erupted from the thing, it fell back, its tentacle lashing wildly through the air before retreating swiftly into its mouth. Before us the girl/thing seemed to melt. Flesh and bone reshaped into something else, something far different, and yet strangely familiar as one of the ugly, deadly creatures we were more familiar with unfolded from what had once been the body of a young girl.
It was not as massive as some of the others we had encountered, but this one seemed even more monstrous, evil, and menacing than any of the far larger ones. For one thing, it seemed to be able to mimic a human being pretty damn freaking well. That was a trait that none of us had experienced before.
I didn’t realize I was pulling the trigger until I felt the recoil of the gun in my hands. I wanted to scream in horror, wanted to flee, but my darker instincts seemed to have taken over as I pulled the trigger over and over again, continuing to do so even long after the gun was empty. The edge of my mind, the reasonable, still slightly sane part, realized that I should stop shooting. It was pointless to continue to do so. But I could not bring myself to lower the empty gun until Bret grabbed hold of it and forcefully pushed it down.
I was ashamed by the shaking that rattled through me. My teeth chattered. I had lost my mother, I had lost Cade, I had seen far more of these things than I cared to recall, but for some strange reason I was shaking so badly I could hardly stand. What I had just witnessed had rattled me so much I was afraid I might actually piss my pants.
It had looked so human, so eerily childlike. And what it had done, well what it had done was pulverize Sarah’s pretty face with the most disgusting thing I had ever seen before. Even from my distant position I could see there was nothing left to her. Tears choked me as I realized that her own mother wouldn’t have been able to recognize the smashed mess before us.
“It’s ok Bethy.” Bret’s voice trembled as he spoke the words. I wondered briefly if he believed them. I didn’t. “It’s ok.”
I swallow
ed heavily, I wanted to sit. I couldn’t. I had to stay strong; I could not let them know how disturbed I had been by what had just happened. I had to stay on my feet. My hand shook as I slipped the gun back into the waistband of my jeans. I hated the cowardice that the trembling revealed, but I still did not have complete control over my body yet. “No,” I disagreed. “It’s not. It hasn’t been in a long time, and it never will be again.”
It was the first time I had ever expressed that thought out loud. The first time I had truly acknowledged my own growing doubts and fears to anyone else. As I met Bret’s clear green eyes I realized that the worst part was that ever optimistic, endearing, and loving Bret believed it too.
CHAPTER 2
Darnell nudged the edge of the dead thing with the toe of his boot. The girl it had pretended to be was completely gone. It was nearly opalescent again, almost the color of a jellyfish except for the blood it had managed to suck out of Sarah before dying. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Sarah’s ruined face again. She had been a pretty woman with a bright smile and dark hazel eyes. All of that was gone now, there was little left to identify her by. It was just too awful. It could have been any of us; Sarah had just had the misfortune of being nominated to go first.
The creature slumped back to the ground, the tentacle flopping uselessly back as Darnell dropped it. “We should get going,” Darnell said softly. “Private Price give me a hand with the body.”
Private Lloyd Price looked just as shaken and horrified as I felt. His smattering of reddish freckles was stark against the sharp pallor of his drained skin. His clear blue eyes were wide and rolling behind his glasses, his nearly orange hair was standing on end in a thousand different directions. He wasn’t much older than me, nineteen, twenty at most. And it was very obvious that he did not want to touch Sarah’s body; that this was not what the young private had signed up for when he enlisted. I didn’t blame him in the least. I didn’t want to leave her here but if Darnell had asked me to help him I probably would have thrown up.