Hunted by the Alien Vampire

by A. M. Griffin

  “And I need to do more,” Xrez said, cutting the speaker off harshly.

  “You are the new Game Warden. It is not your job to help prey to the next Level. Your job is to ensure hunters are getting their credits worth by keeping the gaming arena new, and refreshing.”

  “Providing hunters with formidable prey is my job as Game Warden.” There was a loud growl. “I don’t know what my father was thinking with this idea of his.”

  “I wish you would trust in your father and trust the process, Xrez.”

  “This is something that I can’t leave to fate, Bradliix. My father’s legacy and my tenure as the new Game Warden depends on a successful hunt.”

  Fanian smiled to himself and backed away from the door. The information he had was far greater than he could’ve imagined. He wanted to bang on the door and reveal all that he had discovered, right then and there.

  Patience.

  He had to decide what he would do with this information and how best it would suit him.

  MIRANDA HUDDLED WITH her kids under a tree with big purple leaves. The leaves were huge and spread out in big fronds. They blocked out the waning sun, obstructed the sky, and gave them protection from the relentless rain. Although the leaves wouldn’t provide any kind of protection against predators, she felt somewhat safe.

  After the evening alarm had sounded, she’d cried. Relieved, they’d survived another day, and without coming into contact with any alien hunters or animals who wanted to steal Lexi away. She didn’t have to worry about Adam noticing her tears. The fat raindrops provided a perfect cover to hide her anxiety.

  She busied herself, using a dab of baby soap and water to scrub Lexi’s cloth diapers. She couldn’t get them thoroughly clean, but they were clean enough. The kids were out of their wet clothes, fed, tucked into the sleeping bag, and drifting off to sleep when Ben’s strained voice came over the comlink. “Ben, here. Esme? Are you out there?”

  Miranda paused from laying out the wet clothes and frowned. Had Esme left Ben too? Why would she go? Without Miranda and her kids dragging them down, Ben and Esme could’ve made a formidable team.

  “This is Payton. Esme is with me.”

  Miranda stiffened. Something must’ve happened for Esme to end up with Payton. Something bad.

  An audible sigh came from Ben’s comlink. “Where is she? Let me speak to her.”

  “We’re holed up in a cave,” Payton responded.

  Hmm. Could they be in the rocky mountainous area she’d seen from the bridge?

  “I wish I could tell you where, but I have no clue,” Payton continued. “She’s sleep. I’m watching her snore. Do you want me to wake her up for you?”

  “No, no. We had a harrowing day. Some of those aliens set a trap for us, and I got hurt.” Ben grunted in pain. “My ankle is sliced up really bad here.”

  Miranda slumped. She’d been right. Something had happened. She scrubbed a hand down her face. They would never forgive her. After all the help they’d given her, she’d left them when they needed her. With a banged-up ankle, how would Ben survive now?

  “Are you going to be okay?” Payton asked.

  “Yeah, eventually. I called for a first aid pod-thingie, and I’ve got my ankle wrapped. I found a hollowed-out tree. I think I’ll stay here a while to recover.”

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Miranda said, fighting through her guilt. With hands gripping the side of her face, she shook her head over and over again. “If I was there, maybe I could’ve helped you.”

  “Miranda?” Ben let out a strangled sound. “We were so worried about you. The kids?”

  She glanced at them. Exhaustion had finally won, and they were both deep in sleep. “They’re fine.”

  “Good,” Ben said. “I’m glad you guys weren’t here. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done. I’m happy you and the kids are safe. How about everyone else?”

  “Min? Yesenia?” Danny asked in a tight voice.

  “Here,” Min said.

  “Here,” Yesinia said, choking out a cry.

  “Where’s Kaylin?” Ben asked.

  “She’s...she’s gone,” Danny said in a pained breath. “They set a trap for us too. She stepped into some kind of netting, and we couldn’t get her out. We...left her.”

  Miranda inhaled a sharp breath. This was the second time someone mentioned a trap. She hadn’t thought about those. She’d spent the day watching out for aliens. Not traps.

  Payton inhaled sharply. “What?!”

  “We should’ve tried harder to save her!” Yesenia wailed.

  First Spencer and Mary Ann, now Kaylin. They were being taken away one-by-one. Miranda forgot about the wet clothes and climbed into the sleeping bag with her kids and hugged them tightly, needing them close.

  Are we next?

  “We tried our hardest to get her out,” Danny said. “If we hadn’t left when we had, we would’ve been caught too.”

  “Danny’s right,” Min said with a sniffle. “They almost got me too, but I was able to fight one-off and poke him through the eye with a sharp stick.” She sniffled again. “I had to call a pod. And even then, I was dumped right in front of a different hunter, and because we can’t call for pods one after the other, I couldn’t escape.”

  “Oh, God, Min,” Yesenia cried.

  “I’m fine. Luckily he didn’t want me. He just wrestled with me for a few minutes, then stopped abruptly and basically told me that I did nothing for him, and he wouldn’t claim me.”

  “Listen,” Payton interjected. “I know you guys like grouping up, but you can’t do that anymore. When they saw the four of you together, they probably thought it was a smorgasbord of prey. Remember what Esme’s alien said? We have to survive. That’s all we have to do to win and go home.

  Whoever brought us here only gave us a means to escape and food so we could make this hunt more interesting for them. We weren’t meant to win it. We know the aliens leave when the alarm sounds in the evening and come back in the morning. So you know what we should do?”

  “Hide during the day and only come out for food and other necessities at night,” Ben said.

  That didn’t sound like a bad idea. Miranda had stressed all day wondering when the hunters would pop out from behind one tree or another to take them away. She’d thought it was inevitable. She didn’t have any discernable survival skills worth mentioning as Ben had. But if they could hide during the day and only come out at night, they’d at least have a fighting chance of making it through the rounds and going home.

  “Exactly!” Payton confirmed. “For the past two nights, I’ve been out scouting for different hiding places, calling for food pods, getting everything I need. Then, during the day, I sleep. I only ran into Esme because I was thirsty and had wandered too far from my rocks.”

  “Your rocks?” Min asked.

  “The pods can’t get through the rocks, so I’ve been sticking close to rocky terrain. If the aliens are caught here when the evening alarm goes off, they get a terrible shock. They have to be where a pod can pick them up when the evening alarm sounds. At least that part is in our favor.”

  Maybe we should head toward that rocky area? Was that toward the West?

  Miranda chewed on her bottom lip. It was so far, though. It would take them days to make it there. A pod? Although there was no guarantee a pod would take them exactly there. As far as she could tell, the pods were random with no way to direct them toward any specific destination.

  Miranda picked up Adam’s wrist. He still had three lines next to his pod icon. So did Lexi. Because she’d used a pod to leave Ben and Esme, then another to get away from the not-monkey area, she only had one line left. Together they had enough pods to give it a try.

  One of them would eventually take them to the rocky area or close to it. Could she be frivolous as to waste pods meant to help their escape?

  She sighed. No. She had to keep the pods for emergency use only. Like getting away from hunters and baby-napping animals.

&nbs
p; “In the state I’m in, I won’t be wandering anywhere anytime soon,” Ben said.

  “That’s smart, Payton,” Yesenia said through sniffles. “I’m going to look for a hiding spot. Right now, I’m out in the open.”

  “I’m going to do the same,” Min confirmed.

  “While you’re out, stock up on food and water,” Payton added.

  “Thanks, Payton,” Danny said.

  Miranda had plenty of food and water, but for good measure, she used her comlink, Adam’s, and Lexi’s to call for more, stuffing the water canvases and protein bars in Lexi’s already heavy diaper bag.

  She glanced around her small space. She could barely see out, which meant it would be hard for anyone to see in. It would also be hard to keep two active children quiet during the day. But she had to try. Their survival and freedom depended on it.

  She should set some traps of her own. How hard could it be? She’d seen enough survival shows to know the basics.

  Miranda fought off a yawn. Her eyes were heavy, but she had to get to work unless she wanted them to end up like Mary Ann, Spencer, and now Kaylin.

  Her kids depended on her, and she wouldn’t let them down.

  Chapter Four

  Miranda sat at her work desk, checking herself in her compact mirror for the hundredth time in the past hour.

  Today Lucas was returning from his business trip, and she wanted to look her very best. They hadn’t seen each other for over two months and had only spoken on the phone a few times since he’d been gone. He’d asked her to give him space. He was in London, overseeing the acquisition of another company. But that wasn’t why he’d requested space. He was finalizing his divorce and didn’t want his wife...soon to be ex-wife, to find out about her or Adam.

  With the divorce in the works, they would finally be a real family. Everyone would be happy. According to Lucas, his wife had wanted out of the marriage for a long time. She had her own lover and had only married him because their parents were close friends. It had been the parents who’d wanted to join families to secure an economic alliance many years ago.

  Miranda took a deep breath and snapped the compact mirror case closed.

  This had been three years in the making. She’d started at Hanson and Sons as an unpaid intern while she was at University. She’d been a wide-eyed international student in America for the first time from Ireland. After she’d graduated with a finance degree, the company had offered her a full-time permanent position as a financial advisor.

  She’d known Lucas was off-limits. He was married with grown children. But when he’d told her the history of his sham marriage and how it was in name only, she’d given in to his advances.

  Now, all these years later, Lucas would be free to marry her and become a full-time dad to Adam. No more hiding their relationship. No more sneaking around. No more late-night calls. No more hotel meet-ups.

  She rubbed her stomach, feeling the almost unnoticeable bump under her hand. Adam would have a sibling soon. Lucas didn’t know about it yet. She planned to tell him today. It would be happy news. She hoped.

  The elevator at the end of the hall dinged, and, “Hiya, boss,” was passed around. Her heart fluttered. Eagerness pulsed through her. Lucas was finally back.

  Miranda could barely contain the jitters. She stood, smoothed down the front of her skirt, and headed to greet him.

  Shriek! Shriek! Shriek!

  Miranda woke with a start, her heart lodged in her throat. Instinctively she reached for Adam and Lexi. She glanced around wildly.

  Jungle. Jungle. And more jungle.

  “Are the monkey’s coming to get us?” Adam asked with a yawn.

  Miranda covered his mouth with a hand. “Shhh, only whispers now, remember?”

  He pulled her hand away from his lips and whispered, “Are the monkey’s coming to get us?”

  “No. We left them at the bridge. The pod carried us far away this time. I think they won’t be messing with us anytime soon.” At least she hoped. Lexi smacked her lips and yawned. Miranda yawned as well. Her eyelids were heavy, and her eyeballs burned. She was exhausted and shook her head, trying to wake fully.

  Crap. She’d been up half the night setting the traps around their campsite. She would be running on fumes today. This was not the place to operate with a clogged mind.

  She rummaged through the diaper bag, taking stock of their protein bars. With three people to feed, she could always use more. She pressed the food icon on her comlink and did the same to Adam and Lexi’s. She gave Adam a protein bar and dropped hers and Lexi’s into the bag. She gave Adam his water container and poured a little of Lexi’s into her bottle and swished it around to clean it.

  Ideally, she needed a bit of dish soap to add to it, but nothing about her situation was ideal. When the bottle was clean enough, she added a few baby formula scoops and filled the rest with water.

  She tried not to think about the single canister of powdered formula. Luckily, if it could be called luck, right before they’d taken her from Earth, she’d bought a new can to add to the half-empty can already in the bag. She had enough for maybe twelve more days if she only used half of what the directions called for and supplemented Lexi’s meals with protein bars she pre-chewed for her. Miranda took a deep breath. Hopefully, they would be long gone and back home well before she ran out of formula completely.

  “Can you feed Lexi for me?” she asked Adam, who still looked sleepy.

  Adam nodded and held out his free arm. Miranda wedged Lexi against him. Her butt was sitting between his crossed legs. Adam wrapped his arm protectively around her. Miranda gave Lexi her bottle, and she grabbed it hungrily, instantly taking it to her mouth. She took a few seconds to study them. They were a dynamic duo. Thick as two peas in a pod.

  No matter how her life had turned out, she wouldn’t change anything. If she hadn’t given in to Lucas, she might’ve still had a nice paying job in America with a husband and other children, but she wouldn’t have Adam and Lexi in that scenario. They were the only thing that filled her heart with joy and made the past four years of heartache bearable.

  She gave them both a smile. Adam smacked his lips, chewing vigorously on his food, and Lexi giggled around the bottle nipple.

  I have to make it through this for them.

  Miranda pressed her comlink, and the sleeping bag folded down, and she stored it away. With that taken care of, she got up and went to her main trap. She’d been so tired last night she couldn’t be sure if it was any good.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all she had to keep them safe from anyone coming down one of the paths to capture them. She stopped short at the boundary of leaves she’d hoped didn’t appear noticeable. She pulled another handful from the surrounding trees for good measure and threw them down, using her foot to scatter the leaves around. She couldn’t see the sticks she’d placed strategically across the hole she’d dug in the ground.

  Maybe a hunter won’t be able to see them either. The hole wasn’t nearly deep enough for a hunter to fall inside and get trapped. Although the rain had made the dirt soft, there was only so much digging she could do with her bare hands. Her poor fingers and nails would take days to recover. When she’d dug, she hadn’t been going for depth. She’d only wanted the many sticks she’d sharpened with a nail file and stuck in the mud, with pointing ends to the sky, to at least slow a hunter down and give them enough time to flee or call for a pod.

  Miranda turned, thinking of all the other possible ways a hunter could get to them. Three. More if the hunter was willing to cut through thick vines. Her stomach knotted. She massaged the area with shaking fingers.

  Be smart. Be crafty. Be one step ahead of the aliens.

  As she made her way back to where Adam and Lexi were, she patted her front pocket where the taser her mom had gotten her for her birthday rested. It scared away any of the druggies who thought she was an easy target because she was at a bus stop with two kids. How effective would it be on an alien, though?


  “I hope I never have to find out,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say, mommy?” Adam asked with a mouth full of food.

  Miranda shook her head and went back to him. “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “Are we going to leave after Lexi finishes her bottle? I want to follow one of the birds that keep watching me.”

  He tilted his head back, and Miranda followed his gaze. A brightly colored bird with feathers of different shades of orange perched in one of the tree branches above Adam.

  A bird. An actual regular looking bird.

  That shouldn’t have mattered to her, but it did. This was the first normal-looking creature they’d happened upon since coming here. The bird tilted its head to the side and let out a large squawk.

  “We’re going to try something new from now on. You know how some animals sleep all day and are only active at night?”

  He giggled. “They’re called nocturnal.”

  She placed a finger over her mouth. “Not so loudly. We’re still hiding from hunters.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “Hunters? Like the kind that hunts animals?”

  Shit. Miranda hadn’t meant to use that word. “Um. Not exactly. But yes.”

  His eyes opened wide. “Are they going to kill us?”

  “Oh, honey, no. I didn’t mean to scare you. Remember the other day when those men in costumes jumped from behind the tree and scared us?”

  His face was solemn as he nodded.

  “They work for the campground. It’s all part of the adventure package. If we’re good at this adventure, they won’t find us, and we’ll win at the end. But if they do catch us, they’ll make us leave the campground, and we won’t win or get a prize at the end.”

  “Wow. Why didn’t you tell me we get a prize if we win? Mommy, you should’ve told me that first. What kinda prize?”

  She had to think fast. “A medal.”

  Adam rubbed his palms together gleefully. “Ohhh, I want a medal.”

  She dropped to a knee in front of him. “I think that if we behave like those nocturnal animals, we can avoid the hunters and win the game. I know we can’t change our sleeping schedules like nocturnal animals, but we have to try. When that alarm rings in the morning, we need to avoid the hunters. And when it goes off at night, then we can move about and be as loud as we want because the hunters aren’t working any longer and get to go home to their families.”