Taken (Stories of the Alien Invasion Book 1) Page 4

  “Nate, honey, you alright?”

  He stumbled over the dead grass down the arboretum bank, and tipped forwards, half rolling down to the water.

  NINETEEN

  CONNIE

  CONNIE AND HER MOTHER collected the empty bowls of grits from the rest of the family. Her parents and in-laws had cleaned their bowls. Calvin had made a mess of his. The food covered him and the high chair, but that was normal. Wendy’s kids had poked at it, but it was new food and they were little. She just wished they’d eat more.

  She swallowed down the nausea at the sight of the empty bowls and smiled.

  “I’m sorry I woke you all last night, I just… I just had a bad dream and with the aliens and everything… I couldn’t keep it together.” And she still didn’t really want to stay, but if George were staying, she’d stick it out.

  “Sweetheart, we can set up the cars, so if we see something, we can all drive off at a moment’s notice. No one has to block anyone else in,” Connie’s father said.

  She nodded her thanks and hurried into the kitchen.

  “And I’ll listen to the CB in the barn with my dad. No need to get everyone all worked up about every little thing,” George said.

  Fifty people getting taken a couple hours away wasn’t really a little thing, but Connie didn’t argue.

  “Connie, dear,” her mother said. “You barely touched your grits. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “That’s Franky’s bowl, not mine,” Connie lied, shaking her head. “It’s just the aliens got me scared. I don’t think that’s so crazy.”

  She wasn’t telling her mom about the pregnancy, not yet. It was too early to tell, even if the morning sickness kept her from eating much anyway, and with the aliens… food just seemed that much less appealing.

  Connie just wanted to take her baby and her husband and go somewhere, anywhere that there weren’t any other people. Anywhere that the aliens wouldn’t come from them.

  TWENTY

  KAILEY

  EVEN CJ SHUT DOWN after the phones stopped working. The lunch ladies brought out hot lunches on trays. Kailey couldn’t wrap her head around anything. Aliens flew overhead. Then, the phones stopped working. Flying metal boxes with arms were grabbing reporters from the TV station.

  She wouldn’t cry. Not in front of CJ. Instead, she poked at the food on her tray.

  “Can I have your attention please?” the principal asked from the front of the multipurpose room. He held a microphone and his voice boomed over the speakers like a pep rally.

  Kailey looked up from the congealed mush that might have been spaghetti or lasagna before she started playing with it. She stared blankly at the principal. The principal wrung his hands, and Kailey thought he looked strangely pale.

  “We’re being evacuated to the Stub Hub Center,” the principal said. “What’s left of each third period class will stay together. Teachers are responsible for their students, department heads for each teacher. Math classes will be on the same bus together, English classes, and so on.”

  Mr. Johnson didn’t look like he’d recovered, but he nodded, and what was left of his class was called to board one of the school buses. The driver had her little kid sitting in the seat behind her. Unlike Kailey, that little kid had gotten picked up from school.

  The roads were clear on the way to the stadium. They didn’t stop much, not like in the movies where there was all kinds of crazy traffic while everyone tried to get out of town. The bus zipped right through.

  A soldier met them when they got off the bus and led them up towards the nosebleeds to sit and wait for some sort of rescue. Kailey scanned the faces of soldiers, keeping everything organized, but didn’t see her parents at all.

  People poked at their useless phones. Kailey’s throat tightened. She struggled to breathe. She couldn’t put words to it, but this was wrong. Everything was just wrong. Even though lots of people wore suits or McDonald’s uniforms and didn’t look like the refugees on the news, she was a refugee. She didn’t think she’d ever go home.

  Once they sat down, the soldier explained all the protection around the stadium. Fighter jets circled a mile out, the soldiers in the stadium had guns, up-armored vehicles parked in the lot.

  Kailey would ask him about her mom and dad’s units when he finished talking. He kept saying that the aliens wouldn’t be able to reach them past all their defenses and this was the best place to receive food and avoid starvation outside. Kailey’s head spun, but the aliens must not have cared what he said about the fighter jets because, while he was talking, the sky went dark again.

  Kailey stared up at the ship. It would not pass smog. The DMV would not approve of the thick black smoke surrounding it. Orange and green light flickered across the surface. Under the smoke, the ship was rectangular. This was not the Starship Enterprise. The Borg’s cube was less threatening than the massive scarred box that had come for them.

  Floating drones descended on them—the same as the metal things that had attacked the news station—and metal coffins flew through the air, grabbing at people with long metal arms. People started screaming.

  Kailey sat frozen, pressed against CJ.

  The soldier flipped his machine gun over his shoulder and began firing at the drones, but it did no good.

  The bullets ricocheted.

  One bounced off a drone and hit the bus driver in the arm. She screamed and yanked her little boy tight against her.

  Kailey finally stood, but couldn’t run anywhere. The people around her formed a screaming wall.

  One of the coffin shaped drones grabbed CJ.

  Kailey yanked on his arm, bracing herself on the chairs. It couldn’t take him. She wouldn’t let it. She yanked on him, but another drone caught her arm. She punched the metal box with her left hand, clinging to CJ with her right. Then, the drone sprayed her in the face.

  CJ slipped from her grip. She tried to tell him, tell him that he was more than a friend. Tell him that she loved him, but he was gone, and the world went black.

  TWENTY-ONE

  RACHEL

  “NATE!” RACHEL SCREAMED. HE floated face down in the water, his arms flopping uselessly. She ran towards him, swatting at the crows that seemed to understand her defenses were down. She had no rocks to throw.

  She pulled him out of the water. His arms swung wildly, but had all the strength of a wet noodle when he connected. She dropped him on his back on the grass. He coughed and tried to push himself up, but couldn’t.

  “Nate, honey?” Rachel brushed water and pond scum off Nate’s face.

  “I’m fine, just tired.” Nate tried to swat her hands away from his face, but his hands didn’t quite make it.

  “Let me get you some water, maybe you’re just dehydrated.” Rachel filled the bottle in the creek and rushed back to him.

  The crows quieted, as if this was what they’d been waiting for when they started harassing her and Nate. Rachel swallowed.

  “I’m just tired.” Nate’s voice was weak, but she could tell he was trying to be firm. “Set up the tent, and I’ll sleep it off.”

  Rachel listened. God and gods help her. She set up the tent. It was too hot to move him into it yet, but they needed all the protection they could get from the stupid crows. Whether or not it was the right thing to do, even with as light as he was, it wasn’t like she could move him far.

  Maybe he was just dehydrated. She could fix that with water. Rachel pulled out what was left of the charcoal and the wood they’d gathered, and she contemplated a fire to boil the water. That would take way too long for it to boil and then cool back down. No, she’d have to just give him water from Putah creek, pond scum or no, maybe that would help.

  “It’ll be okay,” she kept saying over and over again, but she didn’t know who she was talking to. Nate wasn’t listening.

  Rachel knelt next to him to fill the bottle from the creek and then put it to his lips.

  “I think you’re dehydrated. Drink. It will help.�
�� Rachel prayed she was right. She just hoped that there wasn’t anything too bad in the water. He drank the whole bottle and a second one, then he slept. Rachel watched over him and threw sticks and rocks at the crows when they got too close.

  The heat of the day passed, and he still wasn’t getting any better. Sweat, more than was warranted by the July—or was it August—sun, beaded on his forehead. He started to shiver, even though it was easily eighty degrees as the sun dipped towards the horizon.

  Then, the hallucinations started.

  Nate screamed, swatting Rachel away as she tried to wipe his forehead clean.

  “The birds!”

  Rachel hushed him, she told him the crows were far enough away—and they were. They’d stopped with the dive-bombing for the time being, but Nate didn’t seem to hear her.

  “They’re getting me!” he shouted and kicked and slapped and screamed.

  Rachel backed away. She didn’t know what to do with him. She couldn’t leave him like this. Even if she did, she’d be alone. Besides, there was no one else left. He needed her. She had to take care of him. To the east, false lightning crackled, and the dark rectangular clouds moved in swirling patterns. The crows cawed at her.

  She didn’t have any food or medicine to give him. The buildings had all been scavenged before, so there wasn’t any water, soda or food left in the smashed vending machines. There was nothing she could do, but maybe—maybe those dark rectangular clouds could offer some hope.

  Rachel threw the things off the makeshift trailer on her bike. Their supplies were mostly gone anyway. They just had their threadbare clothes, and the cook pot. She threw it all off the trailer. Then, she spread what was left of their blankets on the rough wood and hoped it would protect his skin.

  When Nate’s thrashing subsided, she lifted his shivering form. He was so light. So, so light. He must have lost forty pounds easy, and he hadn’t been big to begin with. She laid him on the trailer and took the rope the Fitzsimmons had given them. She strapped him to the flat trailer as best she could. She traced it over his torso, across his legs, keeping him in that curled up, fetal position so that he would fit.

  When he was secure, she got on her bike and started pedaling east.

  Whatever the aliens were doing in those ships, whatever they were doing to all the people they had taken, nothing could be worse than watching Nate die like this. Nothing could be worse than being so helpless.

  TWENTY-TWO

  !ESTRAITH

  “DARLING, I LOVE WHAT you did with your hair.” *Rafu ran a hand over !Estraith’s nearly bald head, before continuing to their daughter’s crib. “It’s so striking.”

  The girl had run to her crib and practically refused to leave since the grav-drive failure earlier that day.

  “Are the problems with the grav-drive almost sorted out?” !Estraith asked. “I’m sure Nith was about to take her first steps when the gravity disappeared.”

  *Rafu scooped Nith out of the crib. She wiggled, but didn’t fight as hard as she had when !Estraith had tried to coax the girl out of the crib.

  “I’m not an engineer. The Queen says the problems are mostly solved, but… she said that last time, too.” *Rafu shrugged. “Your hair will surely set new trends back home.”

  “I had it loose when the gravity failed. Nith panicked, and when I dove across the room for her, my hair just wouldn’t get out of my face.”

  *Rafu nodded, but he was caressing his daughter’s dark blue locks. !Estraith could tell he was glad she hadn’t cut their daughter’s hair, too.

  “Let’s go get some dinner in the cafeteria,” *Rafu said, carrying his child from the small metal room.

  “Do you really like it?” !Estraith asked as they made their way through the narrow hall. “I think it will be good for the other pilots to keep their hair like this if we’re going to be making frequent trips, but I… I mean I care what you think.”

  “!Estraith, it’s beautif—” *Rafu froze, stopping midword.

  “Dada!” Nith screamed, but *Rafu remained frozen.

  Nith squirmed, leaning precariously out of *Rafu’s grasp. !Estraith snatched her up for the second time that day.

  “Dada! Wrong?” Nith asked.

  *Rafu said nothing.

  !Estraith swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat. She didn’t know what to say to Nith or what to do with her suddenly frozen husband.

  “Broke?” Nith asked.

  “No, baby, Dada’s not broken.” !Estraith only hoped that *Rafu wasn’t broken. She’d never seen him do this before. It almost looked like when the Queen gave him a complicated message, but he’d never stopped so suddenly or abruptly before.

  “No?” Nith asked.

  “No,” !Estraith said, faking confidence that she didn’t have, but *Rafu slumped towards the ground. Down the hall, she saw another Honored One slump to the ground as well. Her green-clad courtesan had a panicked look on his face. !Estraith was clearly the highest-ranking person around.

  “We need to get the Honored Ones to medical!” she snapped. The young courtesan turned towards her, and !Estraith brushed imaginary dust from her gold jumpsuit. “You! M…”

  “Mbato,” the youth answered, providing his name at !Estraith’s prompting and the panic fading from his face when he saw a dedicated commanding her.

  “I need you to find others to help carry *Rafu and—” !Estraith struggled for the other Honored One’s name. She worked with *Rafu as a flight controller.

  “*Nas?” supplied Mbato.

  “Yes, I need you to find others to help carry *Rafu and *Nas to medical.”

  In her arms, Nith started to cry.

  “Baby, Mama needs you to be brave. Dada’s not broken. He just needs a doctor.”

  “No,” mumbled *Rafu.

  “*Rafu?” !Estraith asked.

  Nith shouted in her ear. “Dada!”

  “No doctor. I can’t—I can’t feel the Queen.”

  The terror returned to Mbato’s face, and Nith felt her own stomach turn to ice.

  “That’s exactly why you need to go to the doctor,” !Estraith said. She cupped *Rafu’s cheek and stared into the second set of eyes above his green ones. The dark sockets looked even more vacant than normal.

  “No. You need to turn the ship around,” *Rafu mumbled.

  “*Rafu?” !Estraith asked. The young courtesan looked like he was about to start crying. !Estraith bit back her own panic.

  “It’s time to go home,” *Rafu said. “We’ve gone too far for the Queen to reach us.”

  The other Honored One began to stir, and the panicked courtesan ran back to her side.

  “No,” *Nas mumbled. “Two days here.”

  “Bring her over here,” snapped !Estraith.

  The youth obeyed. “Thank you, Honored One, for allowing me to serve you in all things,” he said before picking up *Nas and carrying her to !Estraith and *Rafu.

  “Honored One, what do you mean two days here?” !Estraith asked.

  “Queen wants us to…” The honored one trailed off.

  “Honored *Nas?” !Estraith asked.

  “Queen wants us two days here.” *Nas was so quiet, !Estraith could barely hear the honored one.

  “Let’s take them to medical. Can you carry my honored husband?” !Estraith asked the panicked courtesan.

  The youth nodded, terror had returned to his face.

  “I think I can carry her and Nith. Then we’ll stop the ship or turn it around.”

  “No medical,” *Rafu mumbled again.

  “Honored husband,” !Estraith said, returning to the honorifics. “You are not well.”

  “*Nas is right. Two days beyond the Queen’s reach unless… Unless we cannot.”

  “Mission’s purpose,” *Nas whispered. “Queen needs to see what happens when we travel beyond her reach.”

  Two days without the Queen’s guidance.

  !Estraith had never imagined such a thing, but to see the Honored Ones brought low by the distan
ce…

  “Two days without the Queen?” sobbed Mbato. The youth was clearly panicked. “What will we do?”

  “We’ll continue with the mission as per her last instructions,” !Estraith said. “But despite what my honored husband says, I think it’s best, for now, that the honored ones are cared for by a doctor until they regain their strength.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  RACHEL

  NAUSEA GRIPPED RACHEL. SHE was spinning in the dark. She rolled onto her hands and knees, then forced her eyes open, but she couldn’t focus on anything. Others vomited in the dark. Finally, the room settled into focus. Others were crawling up onto their hands and knees like she was. A few stood. Some huddled against a far wall, staring at the new arrivals lying before them. An awful lot were lying on the ground not moving. No one wore shoes. They all wore footie pajamas, including Rachel. The shiny material ended at her wrists in a strange design. She didn’t remember changing; the last thing she remembered was… Nate!

  She needed to find Nate. He’d been shivering, hallucinating, and half dead when they were taken. She crawled towards the nearest person: a woman. She tried moving to the next one. He was thin enough, but it wasn’t him either. She crawled to the next person, doing her best to ignore the nausea building in her stomach.

  “Don’t bother,” a girl said.

  Rachel turned towards the girl and nearly toppled back to the ground. The plump, red-haired girl was maybe three or four years younger than Rachel.

  “Why not?” Rachel asked.

  “You won’t find whoever you’re looking for. No one’s seen anyone they were taken with.” The girl shrugged and helped Rachel to her feet before leading her to the far wall. The girl’s shiny PJs were dirty, not shiny and new like hers.

  “How do you know that?” Rachel asked.

  “Been here over a month.”

  “I have to make sure Nate’s okay.” That was her only priority. She’d been trying to save his life when they’d been taken.

  The girl snorted.