Occupation: A Post-Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (Rise Book 1)

by Nathan Hystad

  Dex now found himself five miles west of the factory in Detroit. What a dump. The place was building god knows what, and it was one of the smaller facilities in the region. No wonder these two managed to escape. Still, he drove close enough to see three hovercars parked outside the fence, evidence that the Overseers had a presence there. Whatever they were building held some importance. Dex didn’t really give a rat’s ass.

  He was parked on the side of the road. It was the perfect spot for someone associated with the terrorists to seek shelter. If he was one of them, he’d stay clear of the highways, and he’d head toward a remote house. Dex would make sure to stay away from the Seeker’s five-mile radius too. He stepped out of the car, seeing fields in every direction, the chill wind blowing chilly air through the tall grass. It was abnormal to be this cold in the middle of summer, and rain was beating down.

  Dex fidgeted with his matchbook, flipping it between his fingers, when he spotted it: a solitary footprint in the ditch leading west. He walked over to the muddy trench and crouched beside it. He saw more. Two sets, and they were filling with rainwater. His heart raced as he glanced at the direction they led. There was a house a half mile away.

  He returned to the car and decided to drive there instead of following the trail through the tall grass. If this was his target, he had a notion they’d have entered this house. He pulled up the gravel driveway, which was covered in thick, hearty weeds, and parked in front of the porch. He didn’t expect them to be still inside. It had been a couple days, and anyone with minor intelligence would have moved on.

  He wasn’t an idiot, though. He grabbed his Glock and moved to the house before stepping onto the rotting front porch. With careful steps, he made it to the front door, pressed the handle latch, then used his foot to kick it open. The place was dusty, but he made out fresh footprints on the dirty floor.

  Inside the living room, a skeleton lay sprawled out. “Nice touch,” he said, following the steps to a door. There was a numbered door lock and he swore under his breath. This would all add to his delay. They’d been here, and maybe they were still inside. He couldn’t leave without investigating, even on the off chance.

  Instead of messing around with the lock, he returned from his trunk with a sledgehammer, and beat the device from the door. He was a great Hunter but only a half-assed locksmith, but he’d finished the job. He wiped the beading sweat on his forehead with the front of his t-shirt and dropped the sledge handle onto his leather jacket beside him.

  Grabbing his Glock, he headed down the steps and found a musty old room with wood-paneled walls. They’d been here. He knew it. He walked the perimeter of the space and glanced up at the ceiling. The layout of the upstairs implied there should be more to the basement. He laughed when he saw it; the crack in the wood paneling where a sliver of light slipped through.

  He fumbled with the panel before figuring it out. With a rough push, it clicked open, the secret doorway revealing another room, this one clean and immaculate. A table with chairs lined one wall, cabinets and containers the other. There were even bunks for sleeping.

  “Nicely done,” he admitted. But he knew it had to be the terrorists. He went to the cabinet and found it unlocked. He swung it open and saw five weapons inside, each used, but in great shape. An AK45, two handguns, and a long-range scope rifle sat in the cabinet and Dex’s hand shook with excitement as he touched the AK. He set it back with care.

  He couldn’t believe there were people who had access to this kind of stuff out there. The terrorists were always touted as Vermin to him and the other Hunters. They were a threat to the Occupation, hence a threat to the Hunters' cushy livelihood. What had he been doing all this time? If there was a real opposing force, shouldn’t the Hunters band with them to fight back?

  What good would a few guns do against the aliens? He’d seen their ships; he’d witnessed the power of the Trackers killing humans. Humans tried to fight them twenty-five years ago, and all that happened was more death.

  Dex stood there with his mouth open, deliberating his existence for two minutes before snapping out of it. He was more determined than ever to track these Roamers, but for different reasons now. He needed to learn more. He needed to find out if there was really a group of them.

  He heard a car door slam shut as he gently closed the cabinet and snuck out of the room, sealing the secret door shut. He ran upstairs, and held his gun out, ready to an attack.

  “Looky what we have here,” a deep voice called from the front door. It was a Hunter named Tubs. It was ironic, because he was the most physically fit man Dex had ever seen. Apparently, he’d been a fat little kid before the incursion, but he was now two-fifty of pure muscle. Dex didn’t mind him, but it could be like talking to a wall at times.

  “Tubs, I’m surprised to see you,” Dex said. The other Hunter’s head was shaved bald, and a day or two’s growth was coming in, covering the back half only. He sported a thin mustache, finishing off the odd look. A scar across his left eye confirmed the danger the man represented. Dex would fight the brute if he had to, but he didn’t want to.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever pass your driving test,” Dex joked, trying to keep the nervousness from his voice.

  Tubs grinned at him. “Right. Keep ‘em coming. What’d you find?”

  Dex shook his head and slid his gun into the holster, lifting his hands up to show they were empty. “Nothing here. Trail dies. Better get out there and check on it.”

  Tubs walked in, and Dex needed to lure him out of the house. If he picked up a sniff of the terrorists here, the Overseers would tear this place apart, and Dex would be interrogated or worse. He didn’t need that in his life. “There’s nothing here. Let’s keep moving, pair up for a while?”

  Tubs glanced at the skeleton in the living room and nodded. “I wouldn’t mind taking a look around first.”

  What was with this guy? Dex had to think fast. “Did you see the bottle Cleveland was drinking the other day?”

  Tubs nodded.

  “Come on. I have a bottle in my trunk for you,” Dex said, walking past Tubs through the front door and onto the porch. He hoped the big man would take the bait.

  Dex didn’t look back as he walked down the steps and onto the gravel driveway toward his car.

  “Wait up. Where’d you find it?” Tubs asked, trailing after him.

  Dex let out a sigh of relief, feeling the tightness in his chest recede. “Creston. Last job. Got some smokes too if you’re interested.”

  “Smokes. Those are ancient. How the hell do you find this stuff?” he asked as Dex opened the trunk. He grabbed a bottle of whisky and pressed it into Tubs’ hand with a glance back to the house. Hopefully, no other Hunters would end up there, but he couldn’t control that. At least when they did, Dex would be long gone.

  As if to prove his manliness, or stupidity, Dex lit a smoke up and unintentionally coughed as he took a stale inhalation. “Come on; if they were here at all, it means they’re heading west. You want to lead the way?”

  Tubs nodded again. He was in the Hummer and he rolled his window open. “If you can keep up.” And he sped down the driveway, leaving Dex alone with his car and a bad feeling.

  Chapter 27

  Cole

  The rain became very heavy in a matter of seconds as Cole ran back through the door thoroughly soaked. The two of them exchanged raised eyebrows at the suddenness of the downpour; a kind of awkward moment of human interaction that he’d missed.

  “Suddenly got colder,” Lina said as she hugged her arms and rubbed some warmth into herself. She went to tend the fire as Cole reached for one of the coats they had been using as bedding for her.

  As more sticks were added to the fire to combat the sudden chill brought by the cold winds and the heavy rain, a hint of a sound tickled Cole’s consciousness.

  “So,” Lina said, “I was thinki—”

  “Sshhh,” Cole hissed at her, his head cocked to one side and hi
s mouth open.

  “What is i-”

  “Sshhh!” he said again more fervently this time. There, he heard it again. Or did he? It was like hearing a remembered sound in his mind, not sure if it was a real sound or just an echo of memory. He heard it again. This time, his body only allowed for a second of panic before he reacted.

  Cole held a finger to his lips, helped her into the coat, held up the straps as she zipped up the waterproof jacket before slipping her hands into the straps. He put on a similar jacket and hefted his own pack, yanking on the straps to tighten it as he scuffed ash onto the flames to try and kill their fire.

  Her wide eyes told him she needed to know what had spooked him so much, and he leaned in close to her ear to whisper a single word to chill her spine.

  “Seekers.”

  Hiding was out of the question, seeing how obvious it was that people had been living there with the evidence on show. He considered the prospect of suspending them inside the dark shaft of the well until the threat had passed, but his fear of that plan going wrong pushed it away. Dying a cold, terrified, agonizing death in the icy water so far below the surface was not a prospect he relished.

  There was nowhere else they could hide, which left one option. Run.

  Chapter 28

  Sw-18

  SW-18 watched the three drone feeds simultaneously. Running all three inputs at once slowed down the processing speed significantly, but it was quicker to scan a larger area and focus its full attention when something of note was flagged.

  Footprints flagged on one drone, not as an alert but simply a record of human presence to be catalogued and checked by the analytics program when the Seeker was next downloaded. SW-18 saw it and immediately redeployed the two drones to that location.

  What the Seekers didn’t know, because they had no consciousness and no ability to interpret data with anything resembling choice, was that the rain would have washed away any substantial tracks in the last twelve hours, making that discovery very significant.

  SW-18 started off at a lumbering trot in the direction of the prints, using half of its functional running memory to monitor the drones and the other half to travel safely in the storm, which meant moving slower than it wanted to. The side of the hill it ascended was slippery and threatened to topple it with each additional drop of rain. About halfway up, it was forced to discard active control of the drones in order to divert its full memory capacity to negotiating the slick climb.

  Nearing the top, a gunshot blasted the air, sounding like the storm had graduated to thunder and lightning. SW-18 pushed for the crest as another noise forced the memory banks to be sifted through for the correlating entry.

  “We have to go,” Cole said, grabbing her arm a little tighter than he needed to.

  “Can’t we hide?” she asked, “Won’t it leave if it can’t find us?”

  “It’s obvious we’re here,” he told her with another tug on her thin elbow forcing her off balance. “There’s nowhere we ca-” Barking from outside made him stop and stare through the grimy windows.

  In the low light, he could make out a hovering silver shape near the storeroom door and saw the exposed canine teeth of the coyote standing its ground against the drone. Knowing he only had seconds before it shot at the animal, he ripped open the door and advanced on the Seeker with the butt of the shotgun pulled tight into his shoulder.

  BOOM, schuck-schick.

  The drone didn’t disintegrate, but it did spin wildly out of the air and bounce off the stone wall before hitting the wet dirt. Cole hadn’t stopped moving as he had fired and reloaded, reaching the Seeker as it tried with futility to return to the air. Cole raised a boot heel and stamped on the damaged machine, finding it oddly hollow and unsubstantial.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see if Lina was with him, relieved to find that she was. He ran for the rear slope of their hilltop bastion as the coyote behind them erupted into a barking frenzy.

  It took SW-18 only a few more seconds to crest the rise and aim automatically for the simplest path inside the low walls where the noises had come from. It arrived at the same time as the other two Seekers, and as another gunshot was muted slightly by the falling rain and the oppressively heavy air, it slipped through a gap in the stones instead of risking jumping across the wall, unable to see what was on the other side. It was already diverting memory power to the other two drones to take over wireless control of them when an unexpected noise accompanied the sensation of flying. SW-18 realized it had fallen for an old hunter’s trap.

  The coyote started to bark at an insanely high pitch, full of rage and hate for what had arrived at the edge of the slope, and as Cole saw what was happening, he almost fell with the shock of seeing the Tracker.

  The dull metal and battered body work couldn’t disguise what had come for them. He believed their time was truly up, as he had never been this close to one of the deadly robots before.

  As far as he knew, nobody had. Nobody alive anyway.

  When he thought it was all finished, the Tracker shot skyward on a slingshot as its head was half pulled from its body by the wire of the snare snapping tight around it and jerking it off the ground. The weight of it made the struggle worse, banging it into the metal pole hard enough to bounce away and spin around crazily.

  Cole didn’t hesitate, lining up his shotgun again and firing as he advanced on it. He had to kill it, or they were both dead. He fired all seven of his remaining shots, racking the slide again and clicking the trigger on an empty chamber as Lina appeared beside him and added her own booming report to the show.

  The shrill whine of a drone made both of them scrabble for a reload as another Seeker came through the rain directly at them. Cole fumbled the shotgun round in his hand, dropping it to the mud by accident, and desperately tried to wipe it clean on his pants leg. Lina managed to reload first, and her shot rang out too close behind his ear, making him flinch away.

  The world went quiet for him, save for a high-pitched shriek permeating his senses and whiting out any thoughts he had. He was on his knees, his right hand sinking into the sludge. Sound returned with the small thud of the damaged drone slamming into the ground beside him and flailing its small appendages to try and move upright and into the air.

  He brought down the butt of the empty gun to crunch the frail body once before grabbing Lina’s hand.

  “Run,” he said, unsure how loud he spoke, as his hearing wasn’t fully restored. She pulled her hand from his and ran with him, hardly able to believe they’d survived the attack.

  Chapter 29

  Alec

  They walked for another mile or so before Monet stopped them. “We wait for nighttime.”

  That ended up being two hours, but with the cloud cover, darkness came sooner rather than later, and eventually, Monet was leading Alec toward the gargantuan warehouse.

  It wasn’t long before he saw the great Lake Michigan beyond the huge complex. He’d never seen such a sight.

  “Come on. We don’t have time to stand and gawk. The trucks leave at dawn and we have to be on the right one,” Monet said, trudging forward. The entire facility was fenced, but once again, it wasn’t much more than a four-foot wooden structure that was easy enough to scale and climb over.

  A Seeker hovered overhead, but they were hidden beneath the tree canopy, so it kept moving. Alec’s heart beat so loudly, he worried a drone would hear it and come for them. None did.

  “Are they always so easy to evade?” Alec asked.

  “They’re not watching for people coming in. Rarely happens. They’re only worried about people leaving, and I use the word worried loosely. On the off chance someone does escape, they have Trackers and Hunters to clean up,” Monet said.

  “How often do Roamers escape?” he asked.

  Her eyes were steeled as she looked at him without any hint of kidding. “Not often. As close to none as you can imagine.”

  This sent a shiver up his spine, and he fiddled with his pack, trying t
o take his mind off a potential capture. What were they doing? They were heading into one of the region’s largest warehouses. He’d even seen the massive Overseer space vessel on the ground near the building.

  The place was likely to be teeming with them. Alec wondered how many of the aliens a ship like that could hold. It had to be hundreds, maybe thousands. He’d only ever seen a few at a time. How many were there on Earth? How many ships like this did they have? He wished he had answers and hoped Monet could fill him in later.

  But she didn’t even know where her own team’s base was located, so that didn’t bode well for them. There were so many unknowns, but the one thing he was fairly certain about was that they were going to be caught, or worse, sneaking into the enemy’s warehouse.

  Alec tried finding his bearings. They were within the basic fenced area of the warehouse, and the ship was half a mile away. He saw movement between it and the gigantic facility. Was it the Overseers walking there? Was he that close to so many of them?

  His skin crawled as he recalled the scent of the alien’s skin as it neared him when Beth was shot. It had stared at him with dead yellow eyes. He would have been less disturbed if the gaze held malice instead of indifference.

  Big trucks entered from the highway on the other side of the facility. Monet had called them semis. Their headlights shone in the dusk. His eyes followed them to the loading bays of the building. There had to be twenty or thirty of them parked

  “That’s a lot of trucks,” he said.

  Even Monet looked surprised. “You’re not kidding.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  “Never.” His heart sank.

  “How are we going to know what truck to sneak onto?” Alec asked.