PYTHEN: An Alien War Romance (Galactic Order Book 1)

by Erin Raegan

  The white things were aliens. At least the space ship sort of clued me in. I had a hard time with that word―aliens. But, I was looking at them clear as day. They were tall and so white, they were nearly translucent. They looked like dim LED light bulbs.

  Their faces―well they didn’t have any. They had no hair, or eyes, or ears, no nose. But they had a mouth, I thought. It was a large slit that sat in the middle of their round head and ran from one end to the other. If it was a mouth and it opened, I imagined it would nearly split their heads in half. They didn’t wear any clothes. But I couldn’t see any identifying body marks, or genders. They were long limbed and smooth. Like a porcelain statue. They were completely still. Just watching, without eyes.

  It was creepy as hell.

  I seriously doubted they were the newest weapon of choice for terrorists―thus aliens.

  I bent and cracked the window, winding the handle.

  “Lauren!” Dale shouted running up to her. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, but she continued to ignore him. He looked back at the van and his eyes flared in panic as he saw me in the driver’s seat. I wouldn’t leave them, I wouldn’t, but he didn’t know that.

  He grabbed her arm and tried dragging her back. She resisted. She started saying something to him, but it was so low I couldn’t hear what it was. Dale shook his head looking from the aliens, and back to us.

  “Peyton.” Viv dug her nails into my skin.

  Movement towards the aliens drew my attention, and I gaped.

  A bat-shit-crazy lady had walked straight up to the taller-than-a-basketball-player ALIEN and reached her hand out for a goddamn handshake.

  I choked and blinked my eyes.

  “Are you seeing this?” Viv breathed quietly. I nodded unable to form words or take my eyes off the train wreck playing out in front of me.

  All the people outside their cars stopped moving and stared, Lauren and Dale with them.

  The alien stared at the woman, or faced her, maybe. It was hard to tell, but its head tilted down towards her.

  I cranked the engine, it sputtered and died again. I winced at the noise cutting through the deathly quiet road, but no one seemed to pay me any attention. All eyes were on the crack pot introducing herself to an extraterrestrial.

  She grinned up at it brightly and my eyes bugged out. She was running, the same as the rest of us. She must have felt the same survival instinct click on yesterday just as I had, but like Lauren, she threw it out the window the second she set her eyes on one of them.

  She held her hand out valiantly, waiting for the world’s first alien hand-shake.

  The alien seemed to vibrate a moment and I sucked in a breath, then its mouth opened, and a high-pitched shriek cut through the air.

  Viv and I screamed along with the rest of the people on the highway and I slammed my hands over my ears. The pain was so intense my vision wavered, and I curled into myself, but I couldn’t look away.

  The alien’s mouth was open, and I could make out dozens of rows of sharp pointed teeth. Hundreds of them.

  Hell no.

  I sacrificed my right ear, yanking my hand off it and on to the ignition key again. I winced as the shriek pierced through my skull and cranked the engine again and again.

  It wouldn’t start. Wet warmth dripped down into my lip. It tasted like blood.

  The alien stopped it’s screeching, and it only gave us a millisecond of reprieve before the one beside it started up. The woman was on the ground crying, bleeding from her nose and ears, curled into herself.

  Her fucking hand still extended for a fucking handshake.

  The screeching stopped for long moments when the second alien closed its mouth, dread incased every bone in my body. The first alien bent towards the way too friendly woman and opened its mouth.

  She smiled shakily up it, like it was fucking saying hello or something.

  And then it ate her hand.

  Holy shit. Some hand-shake.

  Stunned silence encompassed the road. And the woman looked down at her bleeding stub in shock.

  Then she screamed bloody murder, so the alien ate her head.

  Everything pretty much went to shit after that.

  The idiots so eager to join the party minutes before, ran back to their cars. Lauren no longer resisted Dale and they took off back to the van.

  The aliens, well―they went on the hunt.

  Over a dozen aliens, straight out of a horror movie, chased after people―eating them.

  Blood was everywhere, body parts missing. Bile filled my mouth.

  Viv was screaming, and her face was bright red in distress, my hands shook helplessly. If I couldn’t get this stupid van to start, we were so screwed.

  “Oh god, WATCH OUT!” Vivian screamed and pointed ahead.

  Dale and Lauren were running for all their lives, and one of those things was galloping like a gazelle on all fours after them. They would never make it.

  “Okay, okay.” I yanked at the keys and twisted, “Please, please, please,” I chanted again and again. Pumping the gas, I watched Lauren and Dale run for their lives thirty feet from the van. They rounded a parked car in front of us just as the van turned over. “Thank you, god,” I breathed and put the van in reverse. “Viv get the door!” I shouted and screamed at Dale, “Hurry!” The alien’s white hand-like appendage was outstretched and just snagged Lauren’s hair when Viv pushed open her door and climbed in the back.

  “NO!” Dale shouted and tackled the alien. For a such a small man, he took down the alien fast.

  Lauren kept running and dived into the van―just as poor Dale lost half his face. I pressed down hard on the gas and watched the rearview mirror, dodging the few cars behind us.

  “WAIT! DALE!” Lauren screamed and tried to dive back out of the speeding van, I grasped at her shirt, and Viv grabbed her leg.

  “Stop!” Viv shouted. Lauren struggled and ignored us. I nearly crashed in to the medium with my attention divided between her and the road.

  Then something else took all my attention. The same alien that made a meal of Dale jumped onto the hood of the van rattling the whole thing. Or, I thought it was the same one―but seriously hoped that wasn’t Dale’s bloody glasses it spit out onto the windshield.

  Judging by Lauren’s horrified scream, I was thinking maybe it was.

  It clutched at the windshield and hung on tight, beating it’s creepy three-toed feet at the glass.

  “Oh my god Peyton! GET IT OFF!” Viv screamed in my ear.

  “I’M TRYING!” I screamed back and swerved the van. It only held on, cracking the glass.

  “NOW. NOW!” Viv continued and beat her fists against my head rest.

  “HOLD ON!” I shouted and when I spotted in opening behind us, I swung the van around wildly facing the other direction. The alien lost hold with one of its hands and smacked against the side of the van on Lauren’s side.

  It grinned, showing off Dale’s blood and gripped Lauren’s open door.

  “SHUT IT! SHUT IT!” Viv and I screamed together.

  Lauren yanked but the alien was stronger. It climbed around with its long arms, and legs and poked its head through the door.

  Lauren screamed, Viv screamed, I screamed, then it screamed.

  I took my hands off the wheel and slapped them over my ears. When the van swerved out of control I gripped the wheel again, but the movement must have been enough to shut the thing up, because my ears weren’t bleeding.

  “You ate Dale!” Lauren cried and kicked the thing in its smooth head. She must have kicked pretty hard, because it rocked back and nearly fell off. “I was going to marry him!” She cried again and kicked it once more. That one was hard enough because the alien fell and rolled across the ground behind us.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed and watched the alien fade away in my rearview.

  I continued to watch the mirror, I don’t know what I was expecting, but when the horrific slaughter taking place behind us got smaller and smaller,
and I could no longer see the space ship―I realized I was hoping for another car.

  Just one more car.

  Just proof that one more person had gotten away.

  But we were alone.

  Chapter 5

  Peyton

  The van was completely quiet for at least twenty minutes before Lauren’s heart wrenching cry broke the silence. I didn’t know what to say to her. She babbled incoherently, the only words I could make out were my fault, and he’s dead.

  I felt bad for her, and her guilt was misplaced. Sure, she shouldn’t have gotten out of the van, but she wasn’t the only stupid one to do that. Besides, freaking aliens came down and ate half his head.

  You can’t really shoulder the guilt for the actions of a whole new race of species. Especially, the actions of aliens that came from― hello―outer space.

  She was sad, and that made me sad. Mostly though, I was terrified. Everything was so surreal. Hell. Maybe the aliens weren’t even guilty, that woman’s handshake could have been a threat to them. For all we knew she could have been mistakenly giving them the big F U.

  I doubted it though.

  I knew the moment I saw the white aliens to run the other way. I looked at Lauren. She was curled up in the passenger seat, her brown hair mussed and ripped from her pony, her sobs muffled in her knees she clutched tightly. What was it inside her that made her, and the others, want to go toward them?

  “What are we doing Peyton? What about all those people?” Viv sniffled, and leaned on the console between me and Lauren.

  “They’re dead Viv,” I said, my own eyes watering.

  “How can you be sure?” She accused me in the rearview.

  “I- I don’t know. I guess I can’t be sure, but do you want to go back?” I accused her right back.

  She shook her head and looked away.

  “We’ll take this road for a while, we can use the smaller roads the rest of the way home,” I told her and pulled off the highway. I was afraid to keep driving, who knew if more of those things blocked more roads. But we had no way else to get there, and no time to figure out an alternative.

  I did drive slowly though, if there were more, I wanted to see them long before we were on top of them. I did not want a repeat meeting.

  No one answered me, so I assumed no one protested the plan. The van was nearly on empty, so we needed to find a gas station quickly.

  Ten minutes later I pulled into what looked like an abandoned gas station but didn’t exit the car. It looked abandoned, but part of me was afraid a lunatic was inside ready to start a fight over fossil fuels. We weren’t going anywhere without gas though. So, with a look at the others, I sighed and opened my door.

  “Wait.” Viv grabbed my arm.

  “We need the gas, Viv,” I told her.

  “I know, but it’s so empty. There’s no one else here.”

  “Yeah, but that could be good. I’d rather it be empty then a mob of terrified people.”

  “Yeah, I guess. It just doesn’t feel right.” She looked at the gas station wearily.

  “We have no choice,” I told her.

  “Okay, I’m coming with you.” She unlatched the back door. I sighed in relief, truthfully, I didn’t want to go anywhere alone right now.

  “Lauren?” She asked. Lauren ignored her and kept crying into her knees.

  I looked at Viv, unsure if we should leave her alone. She hunched her shoulders to her ears and looked back at the gas station.

  “We’ll be quick Lauren okay?” No answer. “Okay, we’ll be right back.” I patted her on the back a little awkwardly and hopped out of the van.

  On lead feet, Viv and I walked into the gas station.

  When we walked in the bell chimed, but no one stood behind the counter. We stayed there in the doorway anxiously for a moment before Viv looked at me and hesitantly called out “Hello?”

  No one answered.

  “How do we get gas if no one’s here?” Viv asked with wide eyes.

  “We do it ourselves.” I walked behind the counter and looked at all the buttons a little intimidated. Neither of us had a credit card on us, and our brief search through the van showed no money or wallet to be seen. Lauren must have lost hers in the quake like Viv and me.

  Who knew cashier would be a handy skill to have in an apocalypse?

  “What are you doing?” She hissed and looked around the store as if someone would jump out.

  “I’m trying to figure out how to activate the pump,” I told her confused.

  “You don’t work here!” She yanked on my arm trying to pull me away.

  “Stop it.” I shook her off and started hitting random buttons.

  “You can’t steal it!” She whisper-cried.

  I looked at her incredulously.

  “Viv, aliens just invaded, I’m not really worried about cops right now.” I rolled my eyes.

  “You should be worried about me,” a man’s voice said from behind me. Something hard pressed into the back of my head. Oh shit.

  “Sir, we are so sorry, we weren’t going to steal it.” Viv shakily raised her hands above her head. I followed suit, but very slowly, I didn’t need a bullet in my brain right now.

  “No? Sure looked like you were,” he drawled. He had a smoker’s voice, it sounded menacing, and the gun was scary, but I just saw aliens swallow people’s legs whole―I wasn’t as afraid of a gun as I probably should have been.

  “No, no, we would have paid for it!” She cried.

  “Oh yeah, how?”

  “Oh, uh, with um,” Viv looked around helplessly, probably for her purse we didn’t have.

  “Um?” He prompted. I looked at her wide-eyed. Now would be the time to flash her million-dollar smile and get us out of here.

  “You even carry cash, young lady?” He snooted.

  “No sir,” Viv squeaked. “Only credit cards.” I rolled my eyes.

  “It don’t look like you know too much about running credit through my register here.”

  Viv’s eyes teared.

  I nearly fist pumped.

  “We’re so sorry!” She gushed. “We’re trying to get home, because there was this awful shaking, we thought it was an earthquake but it wasn’t, and then we saw a SPACESHIP, and then my fiancé was going to meet us, but we couldn’t get there, and then we got a ride, but aliens stopped us, and Lauren got out, and then this nice lady tried to say hello, and then her HEAD GOT EATEN, AND THEN EVERYONE GOT EATEN, AND I JUST WANT HECTOR!” She sobbed and put her arms down to cover her face with her hands.

  “Oh uh, it’s uh okay, none of that now.” The hard pressure disappeared from my head and I looked around cautiously. There was an old man patting Viv’s back and cooing to her.

  He was barely taller than me, and I was five foot six, any lingering fear left me. He looked harmless staring at her wide eyed and uncomfortable. I wanted to laugh, but that would have been inappropriate. Viv’s tears were genuine. Instead I coughed to hide my smile.

  They both looked at me. I waved.

  “What are you girl’s names?” The man grumped and glared at me, still patting Viv on the shoulder.

  “I’m Vivian, that’s Peyton. Lauren’s in the car,” she sniffled.

  “I’m Colt.”

  “Nice to meet you Mr. Colt.” Viv held out her hand for a shake, but then paled and snatched it back. Colt looked at her strangely. Yeah, I’d never see a handshake the same again either.

  “Now what’s this about aliens?” He asked and furrowed his brow. I looked at him wide-eyed.

  He didn’t know.

  “Oh no, you might want to sit down.” Viv sniffled and rushed to a rolling chair.

  “I’m perfectly fine standing. If you ladies are in trouble, I’m sure the police can give you a hand.” He patted Viv’s hand, “but stealing sure ain’t the way to go about solving your troubles.”

  I looked around outside and realized there were no other buildings in the area. This gas station was all by itself in the midd
le of nowhere, but still, it had been an entire day. How did he not know what was going on? We couldn’t have been the first people to stop by in twenty-four hours.

  “Sir, haven’t you seen the news?” I asked cautiously. Cell phones no longer worked, I doubted the news did, but Lauren said her dad saw something on the news to want her home. Even if the networks stopped working before he’d seen anything, wouldn’t he have thought it strange when no channel worked, or the phones went dead?

  “I don’t watch them televisions. My beer and my hound dog are all I need out here. You young people spend too much of their time on them el-ec-tronics,” he grumped.

  How old was this guy?

  “Ooookay,” I drawled, “Haven’t you had any customers?” You know, desperate people raiding your store?

  “No girly, me and my dog Bobo just got back from our huntin’ trip this mornin’. Come to think of it, Eric was watching the place for me, but he wasn’t here to open up with me today.”

  “Oh, Mr. Colt, I am so sorry to have to tell you this―” Viv looked at him tearfully.

  But she never actually had to tell him.

  Colt cocked his gun. “What in halibut? Is that a UFO?”

  Chapter 6

  Peyton

  Oh great, the space ship was back.

  Lauren screamed from outside.

  A space ship larger than the gas station was hovering above the van. In fact, it was so large I couldn’t see all of it. It blocked out most of the sun, and déjà vu hit.

  Part of me―the irrational, sometimes brave part―wanted to run outside and grab Lauren. Most of me though, wanted to hide behind the little old man with the shot gun.

  Neither won out.

  Instead I stood frozen like a deer and watched white aliens hop out of the space ship and jump down from a hundred feet in the sky. One landed a few feet from the van and Lauren slammed open the door jumping out and running through the gas station.

  Flashes of Dale getting his face gnawed on blazed through my mind, but the aliens didn’t move after her, so she made it inside safely. Well, not so safe surrounded by aliens―but I would have breathed a tiny sigh of relief running through the door.