Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1

by Michele Notaro

  Nolan was still mumbling behind me, but I was trying to ignore his panic. He was only going to make me start panicking too.

  We sat there, watching, horrified, as more people attacked the ones running on the street. Some were using knives, others just had their fists. I even saw a guy with a handsaw in his hands. I had to bite back the bile when I noticed it dripping with blood.

  I was about to suggest just sitting in the car and waiting out whatever the hell was going on, but before the words left my mouth, I saw another crowd coming around the bend up ahead.

  Only this time, it wasn’t humans. It was about five Taoree in all their six-and-a-half foot glory. At first, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. I had a brief moment of hope, where I thought they were coming to our rescue, but that was very short-lived. The Taoree in the front thrust out his arm, palm forward, and the car in front of him flew up into the air, landing on some humans that were running away.

  As soon as the car landed, I saw the one farthest to the right just reach out his long arm and snatch another human up like she weighed nothing. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped her neck, then threw her body at a retreating human, knocking him to the ground.

  “Go, go, go,” Colt yelled, “Run!”

  I gripped the duffle in my lap, opened my door and jumped into the fray with Nolan right beside me. I scanned our surroundings while we waited for Colt and Cal to come around the car. I didn’t think we should stay on the road because that was where most of the people were running. It would be better to find somewhere to hide. I saw a big patch of woods on the other side of a huge field.

  When Colt and Cal caught up, I pointed and yelled, “There!”

  I threw the duffle straps over my shoulder and started running with my companions beside me. There were other people heading in that direction, too. When I glanced at Colt next to me, I saw that he had the map in his hand. That could come in handy—if we survive this. I grimaced at the thought. Next to him, Cal had another bag, but he was struggling to get the backpack over his shoulders. Nolan was on my other side, but he didn’t have a bag. He had probably been panicking too much to think about it.

  I looked behind us to see if the aliens were following us. That was a mistake.

  “Pick up the pace, guys,” I shouted.

  Behind us there was a whole herd of people following and most of them looked… feral. Two of the aliens had also peeled off of the main road and were casually strutting after us as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Meanwhile, I was freaking the fuck out.

  We made it into the woods, so we had to separate a little to weave around all the trees. Nolan ended up a little ahead of me, which was fine since I would be able to see him. Colt stayed right next to me, but Cal pulled ahead some, too. I pushed myself harder, trying to force myself to speed up. I had no intention of stopping any time soon.

  I could hear the sounds of so many running footsteps echoing off the trees and the whoosh of the wind past my ears as we ran and ran. I knew there were people all around us, but I could only focus on my friends. My friends and running. My heart was in my throat and my stomach was left behind back by the car, but adrenaline was running through my system, making it easier to run for my life.

  Nolan had gotten a little farther ahead, but he kept glancing back to make sure we were following. Cal glanced at me, then picked up his speed to catch up to Nolan and run beside him. I was glad they were beside one another because Colt stuck with me and we just followed their path. It went unsaid that we wouldn’t leave anyone alone, even for a second.

  I stumbled over a large branch, then tripped over another one, causing me to fall onto my hands and knees. Colt stopped running as soon as he noticed and backtracked to help me up. He grabbed my arm, pulling me up beside him. When I took my first step, I stumbled, having twisted my ankle in the fall. I shook it off and pushed through, trying to run.

  Colt held onto me, not letting me fall behind. Unfortunately, another man next to us was suddenly taken down by a guy that started punching his face in as more feral people caught up to us.

  “Shit,” Colt said unnecessarily.

  We kept running, but he suddenly threw my arm over his shoulder and started pulling me with more force. After about ten seconds of that, I let go, grabbed the bag I was carrying and thrust it at him. It was easier to run without our bodies so close, but I was clearly slowing us down with the heavy-ass bag and a twisted ankle. It grated on me that I had to give him the bag, but it was literally a matter of life and death, so I tried not to let it bother me.

  He threw it over his shoulder and we took off. We had lost sight of Cal and Nolan, but I tried not to dwell on it. We would find them. Of that I had no doubt. We started running again. My foot hurt, but I ignored it, which was easier without the extra weight. We came into a clearing with a dilapidated house in it. I thought about stopping, but I saw a few other people run in there and figured it was probably too obvious of a hiding place.

  That was confirmed minutes later when we heard a loud bang, like an explosion, and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw smoke. The assholes must’ve blown the damn building up.

  We kept going, eventually coming across a different road with cars and bodies lying all around on it. On the other side was a small river running along the length of the road. Fuck. We were trapped. There was no way we were swimming across without them seeing us. Still, we jumped over the rail, ran down the hill and stopped before we fell into the water. We automatically turned left and started going up the river.

  “J, Colt,” we heard our names whisper-yelled.

  I looked around for the source, my gaze finally landing on my lost friends twenty yards ahead. We picked up our pace to catch up while bypassing a few other non-feral people. I looked behind us again and saw a few people—Ferals, I dubbed them—chasing behind. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  When we finally reached them, Cal grabbed my hand, Nolan grabbed Colt’s, and they pulled us with them into a crevice in the hill. Then Cal started crawling into a huge drain pipe. There were bars blocking off the pipe, but there was still enough room for us to squeeze in close, with Colt and Nolan across from us. Cal and Colt each had a bag in their laps. I half-sat, half-leaned against the curved cement and as soon as I stopped moving, I noticed the shaking in my hands. At first I thought it was Cal’s hand that still held mine, but I soon realized that both my hands were shaking. I was pretty sure that Cal’s were, too.

  I looked over to see Nolan clutching Colt’s hand in his. I guess they found this place while they were waiting for us and decided to each lead one of us here. Colt looked over at me and I could see the fear in his blue-green eyes. I was pretty sure I looked like that, too.

  We were all out of breath, but trying to keep as quiet as possible. Not an easy feat when we had been running for our lives for fuck knew how long. I felt Cal tense beside me when we heard footsteps coming closer. I held my breath.

  We couldn’t see anyone, but we could hear their heavy breathing. I had no idea if it was a feral person, a regular one, or an alien… and I sure as hell didn’t want to find out. Then suddenly, the footsteps picked up their pace and a woman started screaming. A big splash of blood flew and landed right outside the pipe. I clenched my teeth in fear as the woman’s screams fell silent.

  A Feral walked right past the pipe, but he didn’t turn his head far enough to see us. Once he was out of sight, three more people walked by. I was pretty sure they were Ferals since they all had bloody weapons. None of them saw us, either. We stayed there for about twenty minutes with only one other person walking by.

  Then a loud booming voice shouted something in a language I couldn’t understand. It sounded like the voice was right over top of our heads. I assumed it was one of the aliens yelling in Taoree.

  After the person stopped yelling, we heard the same phrase chanted back to him by at least fifty different monotone voices. My eyes went wide as I looked around at my companions and I realized it sounded ju
st like all the crazies yesterday. Were all those Ferals actually the people that went crazy yesterday? I supposed that made sense. Then I remembered the girl with white eyes on the windshield and figured I should’ve realized it sooner. I guess I didn’t really have time to think about it before with people trying to murder me and my friends. The voices started repeating the chant over and over again at least ten times before falling silent again. Then we heard a lot of footsteps above us.

  We stayed in that drain pipe for at least an hour after we heard the last of the footsteps. I was afraid to break the silence, afraid that there might still be a murderer out there, just waiting for us to make a sound.

  Nolan broke first and whispered so quietly that I barely heard him, “You think it’s safe yet?”

  “I hope so,” Colt whispered back.

  We fell silent again for a bit, but I couldn’t take it anymore. It just needed to be said, “So the Taoree have figured out how to control the crazies or the Ferals or whatever you want to call them?”

  They all nodded in agreement, but Colt said, “Ferals. That’s exactly what they’re like.”

  “Ferals it is, then,” I whispered.

  Colt closed his eyes and gently banged his head back a few times, making all of us look at him. He muttered under his breath, “Fuck. Innaku warned me that something like this would happen.”

  “Who the fuck is that?” I asked, alarmed.

  Colt looked me in the eyes. “Remember I wanted to meet my friend last night?” I nodded, so he went on, “His name’s Innaku. He’s Taoree.”

  “You’re friends with a Taoree? Those bastards are trying to fucking kill us,” I whisper-yelled.

  “I met him last year outside of school. He was curious about our culture, so he approached me when I was walking to my dorm one night. We’ve been meeting a few times a month. He taught me some stuff about the Taoree too.”

  I stared at him for a long minute before asking, “He warned you about the fucking Ferals?”

  He shook his head. “No. He just said that his emperor had a backup plan. That human technology would be used against us. Innaku didn’t know anything more than that.”

  We were all silent for a long time as we absorbed the information. Nolan was the first to speak, “What if he was just using you to gain information about humans? Maybe they needed insider information about the college or something. What if he’s one of the Taoree controlling and killing humans right now?”

  Colt blanched and whispered, “I don’t know.”

  I reached over and grabbed Colt’s hand, entwining our fingers, “No point in worrying about it now. Let’s just focus on what we’re going to do right now.” I lifted his hand and kissed his palm, bringing out a small, sad smile on his gorgeous face.

  “He’s right,” Cal added, “no point in dwelling. We’re here and we’re good, for now at least, so let’s figure out what the fuck we’re gonna do.”

  Everyone spent a bit thinking while I idly played with Colt’s hand and fingers. His skin was tan against my pale flesh, and I was distracted by the sight.

  Eventually, I asked, “What’s the plan? We still have a few hours of daylight left. I think we should go the opposite way the Ferals went and find somewhere to crash for the night.” I shrugged because I really didn’t know what else we could do.

  “That’s good. We can’t stay here,” Colt noted. “Come on, then,” he said right before he fearlessly took the first step out of the drain pipe, and giving me a little heart attack.

  I followed immediately and almost bumped into him, since he had stopped to open up the map.

  He turned to look at me. “I bet there’s a neighborhood up ahead.” He pointed to the cluster of small streets on the map. “Maybe we can check there first?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. Sounded fine to me.

  “Let’s go,” Cal said when he stopped beside me.

  I looked back and saw Nolan slowly walking over to us. I stepped back and put my hand on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. I didn’t know how else to comfort him. He gave me a little nod and we followed the Lyons brothers in front of us.

  ***

  We walked mostly in silence, listening for any indication of the Feral or the Taoree, but everything was quiet. We stayed off the main road and stuck to walking alongside the river, which luckily curved away from the street. It took about an hour to make it to a neighborhood. The suburban streets were so silent I didn’t think anyone was left.

  We walked for a few blocks in the eerie stillness before Colt pointed to a random house with a brow raised in question. I shrugged in answer, then followed him to the back porch. We looked into the windows, put our ears to the door and decided it was most likely abandoned. Then Colt tried the doorknob which, of course, wouldn’t budge.

  Nolan pushed him out of the way, and with his elbow covered with a sweatshirt, he slammed it through the small window on the door. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at Nolan of all people doing that, but stayed quiet when he reached through the hole and unlocked the door. When he pushed the door open, nobody took a step inside.

  After a long moment, I rolled my eyes and took the lead. The door led to a small kitchen with yellow walls and a tiny table. Before I walked any farther into the house, I turned and whispered, “I think we need to make sure the house is empty before we do anything else.”

  They all nodded, so I turned around and walked into the living room. I checked in the bathroom, then headed for the stairs with the other three on my heels. I checked two of the bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom without finding anyone. When I went into the last bedroom, I stopped in my tracks.

  There was a woman lying on her stomach, completely covered in blood. She was surrounded by a huge blood puddle that had soaked into the carpet. The others were with me as I froze and took in the scene—and the smell. I heard Nolan retching in the corner. I pushed them all out the door and pulled it shut behind me, deciding that we didn’t need to ever go in there again.

  We made our way back downstairs and into the kitchen, where I noticed another door that I had missed the first time. It opened to a set of stairs leading to the basement. I headed down with Colt right behind me, but I stopped in my tracks before I reached the bottom. There was a man and a small boy clutched together with their necks at unnatural angles. I turned right back around and pushed Colt back up the stairs, figuring that no one else needed to see that disturbing sight. It was bad enough that it was going to star in my nightmares, but I didn’t think it needed to star in theirs, too.

  When we got to the kitchen, I closed the basement door, noticed a slide lock at the top of the door and bolted it shut before turning to my friends. “There’s no one else here.” Swallowing down the bile from the sight, I added, “Let’s see if there’s any food in here.”

  Colt whispered, “Okay,” and the others just nodded their pale heads. None of us could un-see the things we’d seen today.

  We found some bread and peanut butter, so Cal set to making sandwiches. The electricity wasn’t working, but there was some juice left in the fridge that didn’t smell bad yet, so I pulled it out, found some glasses and poured us each a cup.

  After we ate I said, “I think we should push the couch in front of the front door, move the buffet thing in front of the back door and sleep in the living room. I don’t think we should trap ourselves upstairs.” I didn’t need to add where we can’t escape from. That was already implied. “If the doors are blocked, we’ll at least have some warning.” If someone tries to attack us—also implied.

  Everyone got up wordlessly and as quietly as we could, we moved the furniture around. Once that was done, I went upstairs in search of blankets and pillows. The guys all followed me up there and helped once they noticed what I was doing. None of us went back into the room with the body.

  I threw the stuff on the floor downstairs and went into the kitchen where I found the knife block. I pulled out the four largest knives and handed them out. It wasn’t much, but
I felt a little better having something. It was dark out now, so I couldn’t see well enough to search for anything else. That would have to wait until morning.

  Back in the living room, we laid out blankets, and we each had a pillow. I left my hoodie and shoes on, just in case, then lay down on top of the blankets, putting the knife within arm’s reach, with the guys following suit. I lay on the end closest to the door so no one else would have to, Colt was next to me, then Nolan, then Cal on the other end. I pulled a comforter up, rolled onto my side facing Colt and pulled him to me. He turned on his side so I could spoon him and he held onto my hand, lacing our fingers together.

  I could feel him shaking a little, but whether it was from fear, nerves, the cold, or some combination of the three, I didn’t know. I just held him tight, trying to warm him up and make him feel as safe as possible. Nolan and Cal were pretty close to us, too. Everyone was beyond freaked out and terrified, and it was getting colder now that the sun was down.

  No one said a word all night, but I didn’t think any of us fell asleep, even for a minute.

  ***

  Once the sun was up, I kissed the back of Colt’s neck and sat up, knowing that the others were awake too. I decided to resume my search for a weapon, or really, weapons for all of us. I went to a closet under the stairs and was happy to find a metal baseball bat that I passed to Cal, who had followed me. Colt and Nolan were watching from our nest of blankets.

  “I’m gonna keep looking for weapons,” I told them as quietly as possible, “Why don’t you guys fold up some of the blankets, and I’ll find some bags we can pack them in.”

  I got nods in response, which was fine since we were trying to remain quiet. However, I was a little worried that no one else had really spoken since before we got to that house. I figured all I could do was keep going and push them to help so they wouldn’t freak out even more.