The Queen's Gift (Stories of the Alien Invasion Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  This book is dedicated to Cillian, whose very existence inspires me to get my act together and publish all my trunk novels.

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  Thank you for reading!

  About Mel

  Sneak Peek

  ONE

  TWO

  The Queen’s Gift

  Stories of the Alien Invasion book 2

  By Mel Corbett

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2017 by Mel Corbett

  Print Edition, License Notes

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by Mel Corbett.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, contact Mel Corbett at [email protected].

  For more information please visit MelCorbett.com

  This book is dedicated to Cillian, whose very existence inspires me to get my act together and publish all my trunk novels.

  ONE

  MIKEY

  “Where’s Dad?” Mikey hollered at Jordan over the roar of the dirt-bike engines. When the aliens had attacked, Jordan had followed after Dad.

  “Just keep going!” Jor shouted back. “We have to get out of town!”

  After they’d taken Mom, Mikey had circled out on his bike looking for Dad and Jordan… but only Jordan, his jock older brother, was left.

  Jor wouldn’t get in front. Mikey just wanted to follow since he wasn’t sure he could find the motorhome. Still, they tore out onto the desert sands and found the motorhome parked on the side of the road just how they’d left it.

  When Mikey finally dared to stop and look back, Jor was right behind him, and the alien thing that had followed them around Elko was gone.

  “Mom and Dad were smart, leaving the motorhome out here,” Mikey said. His voice wobbled too much. He’d hoped it was done changing, but maybe that was just him trying not to cry.

  “Damn right they were.” Jor dismounted and offered Mikey a water bottle. He must have snagged a few out of the store after all.

  Mikey shook his head. Didn’t matter that he was sweating like a pig. If that was all the water they had left, they needed to save it. Ration it out.

  “You need water,” Jor said. He seemed stern, like he was trying to copy Dad or something. Barely sixteen, he was a jerk and nothing like Dad. Dad who was gone.

  “We shouldn’t drink it all at once,” Mikey said, pushing away the water.

  Jor shrugged and took a sip before loading his bike onto the trailer at the back of the motorhome. If he wanted to drink the water before they were thirsty enough, then that was his choice. Mikey loaded his bike beside Jordan’s. The trailer looked empty with only two bikes on it.

  Jor tried the main door—locked.

  Mikey chewed his lip.

  Jor frowned, then smiled when he caught Mikey looking. Jor attempted to not look worried and tried the driver and passenger doors. Both doors were locked, too, and neither of them had the keys.

  Dad did, and Mom had had the spare. Just in case.

  “We’ll just have to break in,” Jor said. Mikey caught a glimpse of the panic on Jordan’s face before he turned away.

  “And then what?” Mikey asked.

  Jor shrugged, then studied the ground.

  “Jor, what are we going to do after we get in there? You don’t have the keys, and last I checked, you don’t know how to drive stick.” Jor barely knew how to drive at all. He’d flunked driving test last week, and was still stuck with the permit.

  “The bikes are manual,” Jordan said.

  “Not the same Jor. What are we going to do after we bust in?”

  “We’re going to get a change of clothes, the food we have left from Gram and Gramps, shelter from the sun, and be able to take off on our bikes when we need to.”

  Mikey wondered how they would carry all of that on their dirt bikes? Jor seemed a bit overconfident to Mikey, but he didn’t say anything.

  Jor picked up a big rock, moved back about six feet, and pitched it at the passenger window like a heavy, oddly shaped baseball.

  Glass exploded everywhere.

  “Jor! You just needed to break it, not strike it out,” Mike shouted.

  Jor reached through the broken window and let them into the motorhome.

  Mikey frowned at the steering wheel and ignition. They weren’t going anywhere. Neither of them knew anything about cars. How could they even get into the wires under the dash?

  “Go grab our clothes and throw them in a backpack in case we have to take off,” Jor said. “I’m gonna check out the food.”

  Mikey filled up his backpack and strummed his guitar.

  “It’s a lot for two people,” Jor said after a while.

  Mikey said nothing, just kept playing softly.

  “Too bad we lost Gramps’s dirt bike trailer when they took Dad,” Jor said.

  When Jor started dumping out Mom and Dad’s suitcases, a string snapped under Mikey’s fingers. He cursed.

  He knew that wherever the aliens took them, they wouldn’t need their riding clothes, but he didn’t like Jordan throwing out their stuff.

  TWO

  SPC LAWRENCE POOLE

  “Two inbound hostiles headed towards Elko,” the radio crackled. Sergeant Graves wanted Poole’s unit to evac the civvies from Elko and get them to a secured location. Now, that alien scum Al would beat them there for sure. If they didn’t, then Poole’s unit would sure wind up inside Al’s flying coffins. He didn’t want to feed Al’s flying coffins. Only a couple days into the invasion, and they’d already shortened alien scum to Al. Gotta love military inefficiency.

  “Roger that, sir,” Poole radioed back. “We are en route. Do we have air cover?”

  “That’s a negative.”

  If there’d been planes, Al would at least take out the planes before they took out the soldiers on the ground. Bullets didn’t do jack against the flying coffins. RPGs and grenades didn’t do anything against them. Everyone had seen that in LA, San Diego, New York, and just about every other refugee center the brass had tried to set up. Grunts weren’t supposed to know, but everyone knew what was happening. They’d shattered human civilization in mere hours, and
were now picking up the stragglers.

  Poole had been dragging his heels on the way to Elko, purposefully taking back roads through the Nevada desert. He’d told the others the freeways would be all backed up with cars picked clean of civvies. No one had even questioned the decision. If he could only figure out a way to get out of here and take off on his own, he might have a chance.

  “Poole, what’s the plan?” Sanchez, or Suarez, or whatever the other driver’s name was radioed up on Poole’s private channel from the other Humvee. Poole didn’t know the plan. He didn’t even know how he’d wound up in charge in this mess. He sure wasn’t a sergeant to be in charge of a platoon. Of course, they hadn’t called it a platoon when they’d put him in charge, but there were too many bodies for it to be anything else. Up-armored vehicles didn’t do anything against these things any more than it had really kept soldiers safe in Iraq. Poole and Salvador—was that it?—each had a platoon melting in the back as we rolled through the desert. At least it was only June.

  “We take a piss break, then get back on the road,” Poole snapped. “Don’t want to get there at the same time as Al.”

  Truth was, Poole didn’t want to get there at all. This supposedly secured location was way out in the desert, which he liked. There shouldn’t be much around it, but if they were bringing civvies and grunts into it, then there’d be too many people there all too soon. Which meant Al would be paying them a visit.

  He pulled off on the side of the road, and hollered for the soldiers to get out, empty their bladders and all that. Truth was, they weren’t that far from Elko as the crow flies and could have powered along over the desert, but Poole didn’t want to get there at the same time as the aliens.

  “Ladies can grab some privacy in front of the lead truck,” Poole said. “Men, behind truck two.”

  After he divided everyone up by gender, Poole climbed out the truck, too. He couldn’t just sit at the driver’s seat with the ladies in front of him, even if he wanted to. They’d complain about the lack of privacy.

  If Poole wanted to be free of the other grunts, he couldn’t just take the truck and run. They’d hunt him down in the other one. He didn’t take a piss. Pants on, he toyed with his knife. He could flat tire the other truck while they all pissed, then he’d be free to take off on his own. Though, what was the fun in that? He’d joined the military so he could kill people, not so he could run and hide on his own. Didn’t much care who he got to kill. Sure, these jerks all thought he was a hero, if a little trigger-happy. Truth was, he’d just as soon blow off their heads as the enemy’s.

  Poole inched towards the other truck, trying to be inconspicuous. He buried his knife in the tire, then spotted them in the distance. Two flying coffins. A big one and a little one. Word was, the big ones held about fifty people, the little ones maybe ten tops. Sure as sin, as he watched, the big one peeled off from the little one and headed straight towards his unit.

  Fuck.

  Sánchez and his whole crew turned towards Poole. He must have said it out loud.

  Poole pointed at the flying coffin and sprinted towards his truck. Half the others ran towards the truck, trying to fasten up their pants. The women who’d hidden in front of his truck came up from their squats and stumbled towards the back. One jumped into the driver’s seat of his truck. He was not going to take her with him. They’d let one go if they had a big score. They’d seen that before.

  “Move over!” Poole shouted as he clambered into the truck, knife in hand.

  She did as he commanded. Poole started the truck. He had the magic touch. No one else could get that bad boy started. Poole floored it, and a woman fell off the back as the truck lurched into motion. The others screamed at him, but the big coffin was already on them. None of them bothered shooting at his truck. Instead, they turned their weapons towards the big metal box coming at them. Not that it would do much good. Beside Poole, the woman gaped.

  “You just left them there.” He still had the knife in his left hand, but he wasn’t going to stop driving to get rid of her.

  “If they didn’t get in fast enough, it’s their own fault.”

  She leaned back, trying to bring her gun around in the confines of the truck. The cab was big, but it wasn’t designed for aiming an M16 towards the driver.

  “Go back and get them,” she said.

  “If we go back, we’ll be riding the metal coffin to heaven.” Poole shook his head. He wasn’t riding that thing up to Al knew where.

  She inched back a bit more, her back pressed up against the door.

  “You will, or I’ll shoot you.”

  “What about the people in the back? I bet they don’t want to go back to Al.” Poole knew for sure that no one had made it into the back. He’d been too fast for that. The men should have been getting in the back of Suarez’s truck. The one with the flat tire.

  “No one made it back there!” she shouted. Damn woman was observant.

  “No?” Poole asked. “Why don’t you check?”

  In the side mirror, Poole could see Al’s metal arms grabbing the men he’d ditched.

  Her gun wavered.

  Poole spun the wheel hard to the left. Almost rolled the truck, but it did the trick. Her gun swung out with the force of the turn. She didn’t shoot.

  He slammed on the brakes. As they skidded to a stop, Poole let go of the wheel, keeping his foot on the brake. He slammed the knife into her chest, pinning her to the door. She wheezed as she tried to scream. Weak chick wanted to play at soldier.

  He snatched the gun from her hands and tossed it out the window. She pushed at him weakly. He smirked as he realized how hard he was. He could screw her like this, but not with Al right behind them.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. Still had fight in her spirit, but not in her body. Her breath rasped again.

  “We could have partied in the desert,” Poole told her. “Why didn’t you just accept you were safe from Al?”

  She spat at him. Landed on his jacket. He slit her throat and the fight drained out of her. Her glassy eyes stared at him.

  As he drove, he pulled off his jacket and wiped his hand clean. Then, he shoved her and the jacket onto the floor of the truck. There. Now, he was mostly blood free. He grinned and kept on driving towards Elko. Didn’t need the military to be able to kill people now.

  By the time Poole got there, Al would have finished clearing out the city, and he’d be safe to go in and do whatever he pleased. Hopefully, he’d find himself a survivor or two for his own use. Didn’t want to be bored out there in the desert.

  Poole drove along, watching the road, hoping he could find himself some sort of entertainment for the alien apocalypse.

  THREE

  NATE

  An oddly deflated man sat with Nate after the blue men took Rachel. The man looked like he had been fat once, but now loose skin hung around his frame.

  “I’m Ken,” the man said.

  Nate tried to introduce himself, but the room spun again and a chill set into Nate’s bones. While Nate shivered at the chill, blue men appeared with a crate and Ken elbowed his way through the mass of people to collect a bunch of strange, gold-colored balls.

  “Eat.” Ken handed Nate one of the golden balls.

  Nate did as he was ordered, and the fruit was heaven in his mouth—the juice was sweet, but also heavy like cream. He had scarcely sucked the juice from the first, when four more blue men appeared. Two took the cart from the room, and one shoved Ken away from Nate.

  “Hey!” Nate protested, trying to sit up, but he was still too weak.

  “Nate?” grunted one of the blue men. The timber of his voice was all wrong. It was far deeper than it should be for someone so short.

  Nate nodded. The one that spoke grabbed Nate’s feet. The fourth blue man grabbed him under the shoulders. Nate tried to struggle, but he was too weak. They made strange noises, possibly counting in their language, and lifted him after the third noise.

  They carried Nate, squirming, th
rough the drilled out corridors. Nate was too weak to fight, so he focused on watching where they were taking him.

  Everything was so foreign. It was clear Nate wasn’t in a holding pen on Earth, this was their world. Glowing moss lined the ceiling, but the bugs crawling on the ceiling looked normal. He could have sworn they were big ants and roaches crawling up there.

  After turning down a million identical corridors, the blue men opened a door. They set Nate on his feet like a breakable doll, and disappeared, shutting the door behind them.

  Nate stumbled after them and searched for a handle that didn’t exist. He pushed on the door, but it didn’t budge. Defeated, he examined the room.

  What looked like a roast turkey was surrounded by what Nate assumed were more alien fruits. They all sat on a lowered, coffee-style table. A cushion sat next to it. There were no utensils, but in front of the cushion was a round semi-circle of cloth must have been a napkin. Nate sat on the pile of cushions and poked at the bird. Nothing happened.

  Nate grabbed onto the leg and pulled it free. It wasn’t quite turkey. At least, not any turkey he’d ever tasted. It was oily and greasy, and the fat ran down his chin. But it was delicious. He ate not-turkey until my stomach clenched, threatening to heave. If he didn’t stop, he’d be sick from eating too much.

  Nate wondered why he was so special that he got a room to himself instead of being stuck in the big holding cell with the others. The ceilings were high and arched. It had lights, not glowing moss. On the far wall was a mat about a foot wide and a little longer than Nate. Maybe it was a bed, which sounded amazing. The mat was so soft that Nate passed out right away.

  The room was twilight dark when he woke. A shiny cloth covered the food. It looked like the same material as the silver jumpsuits. Again, Nate wondered why he deserved to be made comfortable when Ken’s jumpsuit had been filthy like he’d never gotten a change and had been sleeping on the floor in that same room.

  Then, a familiar voice spoke.

  “How’s it going, handsome?” Rachel asked.

  Nate scanned the room for her, but couldn’t find her anywhere.

  “Rachel?” Nate asked. “Where are you?”

  “How are you doing?” she asked again. “You were almost dead when they took us.”