DECIMATED (The Nameless Invasion Book 1)

by Sean Shake

  “Call them to make sure.”

  “It—” Emma began, but stopped.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “I’ll wake them up,” Abigail said.

  “And that’s a bad thing, how?” I asked.

  She sighed and pulled out her phone. Then, “I don’t have a signal.”

  “What about you?” I asked Emma.

  “No,” she said, looking at her own phone.

  “Guess we’ll surprise them.” I started up the truck and pulled carefully out of the parking lot, driving around the overturned Prius and other pickup truck.

  “Left or right?” I asked, sitting at the exit.

  “Right. But it’s a long drive.”

  I looked at the gas gauge. “Is a good thing you’ve got a full tank.”

  The drive was uneventful.

  At least the first thirty seconds of it.

  Then a giant robot landed in the road in front of us.

  12

  I slammed on the brakes to avoid the ten-foot-tall robot, as the road was too narrow for me to get around it.

  It stared at us as we skidded toward it.

  It didn’t seem worried that we would hit it.

  Which we did.

  I expected us to instantly come to a halt, like we’d hit a brick wall.

  The airbags deployed as we slammed into the robot, making my ears ring and filling the cabin with white dust, but we also knocked the machine down.

  We canted slightly to one side as we partially ran over the thing.

  Before I could say anything or get my wits about me, we started to tip, as the robot or whatever-it-was under us crawled out and in the process partially lifted the truck.

  That thing was strong.

  I realized that Abigail was screaming.

  Then I saw why.

  From out of the passenger-side window, I saw a creature with wings and horns and malignant growths all over its body was charging at us.

  Then we tipped over on our side as the robot finally got free from under the truck, and all I saw out the passenger window was blacktop.

  There was a loud crash as demon collided with machine.

  Meanwhile, the truck rocked back and forth on its passenger side panel, undecided on whether to settle left on its wheels again, or right on its roof and crush us.

  Finally its indecisiveness passed and it came to rest on its tires.

  I whistled in relief. “That was close.”

  The windshield was miraculously intact, though the passenger window had shattered, but was still in the frame.

  “Oh my God,” Abigail said, looking at the scene before us.

  “That ain’t God, sweetie,” I said.

  In front of the truck, the hellish winged creature and the robot were fighting.

  I could feel the punches they were landing on each other in my chest.

  Green blood and metal parts flew as they pummeled one another.

  The blood seemed almost lighter than air, as it flowed around like a gas and settled on the asphalt or blew away. Some blew toward us, and I glanced at the shattered passenger window.

  We needed to get out of here.

  The truck was still in gear, the engine still running, though the hood had been seriously smashed in from colliding with the alien robot and apparently ever single airbag in the thing had deployed.

  I tested the accelerator, and we inched forward. “Hallelujah.”

  I stuffed the airbag back into the steering wheel as best I could, then crept us around the edge of the road—the robot no longer standing in the middle of it—trying to stay far away from the battling monsters and the clouds of green blood.

  They didn’t seem interested in us as we passed them by and continued on down the road.

  I brought the truck up to fifty, keeping the RPMs low, wanting to get a look at the wheels and the engine before pushing harder.

  Abigail and Emma turned around in their seats, looking out the rear window.

  “What are those things?” Abigail asked.

  “Whatever they are,” I said, “just be glad they’re more interested in each other than in us.”

  That now confirmed everything the news had said: mutated animals, demonic mutants, and robots.

  Now if we could only figure out why they were here, and how to get rid of them.

  A few minutes later, after getting what I felt was a safe distance away, I pulled into an empty gas station, as jets flew overhead.

  I stuck my head out the window and scanned the sky. “F35’s. At least they’re not bombers.”

  “Are you in the military?” Abigail asked.

  “Go see if there’s anyone inside,” I told her, gesturing at the mini-mart. It looked empty from here, but it didn’t hurt to check.

  “Me?” she asked, as though I’d asked her to cross an active battlefield filled with mines.

  “Yes. I can see you the whole way. You’ll be fine.”

  She reluctantly got out and headed toward it.

  I glanced at the gas gauge, saw that it was still full—if we were losing any from that collision, it was slowly—then popped the hood and got out.

  Emma came up beside me. “Bad?” she asked, as I grimaced at what I saw in the engine bay.

  “It’s not good. But it’s not terrible either.”

  I crouched down to examine the metal bumper. It looked like it had been partially eaten away.

  I ran my finger over a dissolved bit. I thought back to her Prius, the partially disintegrated areas on the doors. “Was this here before?”

  Emma shrugged.

  I lowered my head to the ground to look under the truck, checking for anything hanging off the undercarriage.

  The gas station had bright enough lights that I could see that all looked okay. Nothing hanging down, and it didn’t look like we’d sprung any leaks. Not anything serious, anyway.

  Under the hood again, I fiddled with the alternator belt, which seemed loose, and wondered if things had gotten shifted around when we’d collided with that robot.

  If so, the engine was probably not long for this world.

  “Will it get us to Abigail’s parents?” Emma asked.

  I stared at her, trying to shake off the feeling that she’d just read my mind.

  Finally, I said, “No way to know for certain.” I looked around at the empty gas station. “Doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice anyway.”

  Emma scanned the area. “Yeah. I’m surprised that it’s so empty. I know we live in a small town and it’s the middle of the night, but there’s usually someone out.”

  “Everyone else is probably staying inside like the news said. Or gone to an evacuation center.” I turned and peered through the large windowpanes of the mini-mart to check on Abigail.

  She was wandering around the little store.

  I went around to the driver’s side and reached for the keys, then hesitated.

  It might not start again if I turned it off.

  I leaned out and looked around.

  Still no one. I grabbed the bear spray and handed it to Emma. “Get in the driver’s seat. If you see anyone, honk the horn.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going to see what’s keeping her.”

  “Get me some SunChips if they have any.”

  I gawked at her.

  “What? I’m hungry from all this running around. I like SunChips. A lot. The craving is… insistent. I’ve tried to push it away, but it’s just distracting me. Better to give in.”

  “Didn’t I tell you guys to bring food? Looks like you have plenty in the duffel bag.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t keep junk food in the house. Trying to keep our figures.” She gestured at her body.

  “Well you’ve been doing a good job. But I think you’ve earned a treat.”

  She rolled her eyes, and got in the truck.

  After grabbing the short ninja blade, I went inside and fo
und Abigail, arms full with junk food. She was currently behind the counter, and reaching up to the packs of cigarettes, trying not to drop her load.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Currency. At the end of the world, cigarettes are always currency.”

  It seemed like a silly idea—who were we gonna trade with, and for what?—but then again people did like their cigarettes, and you never knew when some currency would come in handy.

  In prison, people used other things—coffee and junk food—since cigarettes were too rare and expensive to use as currency.

  But out here in the real world, maybe she was right.

  I scanned the store, and spotted a souvenir rack with some bags hanging off it.

  I sheathed the blade and grabbed a bag from the rack.

  OHIO, THE HEART OF IT ALL it read. Below this was a picture of what I thought was City Hall.

  Like anyone would want souvenirs reminding them of their time in this podunk town.

  “Good idea,” she said, slightly embarrassed, as she dumped her loot into the bag I held open. “You’re not going to scold me for stealing?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You. Go find some SunChips, I’ll take care of this.”

  “For you? Or for Emma?”

  “For your roommate.”

  “Salsa and Cheddar it is.”

  As she raided the potato chip aisle—an aisle she apparently had ignored, judging by the bags and bags of candy in the sack, along with a few energy drinks—I unloaded all the cigarettes. Then, after a second’s consideration, all the cash from the cash register too.

  I looked up at the security camera and gave it a little shrug. What can you do? that shrug said.

  The world ends, overrun by alien horrors—gotta get by somehow.

  It was just too bad they didn’t sell guns here.

  It would be good if we could stop by a Walmart and load up.

  I wondered if Walmart still sold guns. Hopefully they at least still sold shotguns and rifles.

  A shotgun would be good for the girls. Didn’t really have to aim.

  Spray and pray.

  I went to the coolers, which were still on, and found a Miller High Life forty. I cracked it open and took a swig.

  Then I took another.

  God that was good. The champagne of beers indeed.

  I was about to take a third swig, when I stopped myself, remembering that my tolerance was at zero after my time in prison.

  As a consequence of keeping to myself while locked up, I also didn’t have access to any illicit substances, like hooch, and hadn’t bothered making my own.

  I screwed the cap back on and stowed my new friend in my bag.

  “Oooh,” Abigail said from beside me.

  “Jesus. You should be wearing the ninja suit. Don’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “I forgot about alcohol. We should stock up. I can drink now.”

  That’s right, she was only nineteen. Couldn’t buy alcohol, not in America.

  I thought back to my twenty-first birthday. Drinking had not been what was on my mind. Not dying, and not getting caught, those had been my two primary concerns.

  The memory of that time seemed distant as I stood in this abandoned, brightly lit mini-mart, as though then and now were separated by a large, uncrossable gap.

  But while the gap was uncrossable, it wasn’t that large.

  So much had happened since then, and it felt like it had been ages and ages, but it wasn’t all so long ago as that.

  Abigail had grabbed another bag from the souvenir rack while I was reminiscing, and I saw that it was now full of SunChips and other assorted varieties of snacks.

  “The world ends and you decide to let yourself go, huh?”

  “It’s not like there’s any men around to impress.” She winked at me and bit her lip.

  Copying her friend Emma, I rolled my eyes at her. It was a very alien gesture. I wasn’t sure I even did it right.

  In any case she didn’t seem to notice, and started going through the cooler.

  “Yes!” she said, grabbing a six-pack of like Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

  I shook my head. Girly drinks. But she was a girly girl.

  I had to admit, I liked me a girly girl.

  13

  “What took you—” Emma began, then saw the bags we were holding. “Jesus, did you rob the place?”

  “Yep,” Abigail said cheerily. “But don’t worry, the world’s ending.”

  “We don’t know that,” Emma said.

  “We just saw a demon fight a giant robot. That seems pretty world-ending to me. Plus those ships floating in the sky over New York.”

  It was an odd thing. Why were they just over New York? Shouldn’t they be all over the world?

  The sightings of the animals and demons and robots were.

  From Tokyo to Shanghai to Bangkok to Taiwan, from Denmark to Russia, California to Maine.

  Even Alaska.

  There didn’t seem to be a place on earth that hadn’t been affected.

  Even the places like Africa and parts of the Middle East where there had been no word from—that lack of communication was itself a message. A message that said: We’re fucked.

  But the ships themselves were only over New York City.

  Three massive skyscrapers floating in the sky, as though someone had plucked up one of New York’s many, and glued them into the fabric of reality, fixing them in the air.

  Had they really spread this fast just from New York?

  Emma scooted over to the passenger seat and I got in.

  “Bitch,” Abigail groused, as she got in the backseat.

  “I’m older, so I should get shotgun.”

  “Whatever. I’ll just eat all your SunChips.”

  “Don’t you dare. Give me a bag of those.” She turned around and reached in the backseat, snatching a bag.

  She tore it open, and a slightly artificial smell of salsa filled the truck cab.

  “You’re not going to mix them?” Abigail asked. “I got Cheddar too.”

  “Too hungry.”

  I leaned my head out the window, listening for any sounds, as Emma crunched chips beside me.

  I didn’t hear anything. At least anything loud enough to be heard over Emma’s crunching.

  But I figured that anything dangerous and close enough that we’d need to worry about it, would be easily heard over that.

  So I rolled up the window and pulled out, heading in the direction that we had been going before we stopped at the gas station.

  “Still going to the farm?” Abigail asked from the backseat.

  “Unless something better presents itself.”

  A second later I heard a drink opening in the back. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw Emma drinking a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

  “Don’t get drunk,” I said warily.

  “This? Psh. I can drink a six-pack of these and not feel it.”

  “She’s exaggerating,” Emma said. “She can drink one, and not feel it. But she’d still be a little buzzed.”

  “Well I’ll drink half. We can split it.”

  “I’d rather stay sober right now,” Emma said. “Besides, I’ve got my chips.”

  “You should tell me where your parents’ house is before you get too drunk to remember.”

  Abigail pshawed, but told me, and we drove along in a silence regularly punctuated by the crunching of chips.

  The truck now smelled of salsa and cherry lemonade.

  It was making me hungry.

  “Give me some of those,” I said, holding out my hand to Emma, though not taking my eyes off the road.

  Emma put some chips in my hand and I shoved them into my mouth.

  It was the first thing I’d eaten in hours. Now that I thought about it, I realized no one had brought me lunch today.

  “If I knew you were just going to inhale them, I would’ve given you something less
delicious and valuable. You’re not even enjoying them.”

  I swallowed “I enjoyed them. They gave me nourishment.” I held out my hand. “Give me some more.”

  She turned in her seat, grabbed another bag of chips from the back, then set them in my lap. “Here, eat these.”

  I looked down. They were SunChips, but plain.

  I shrugged, popped the bag open—getting a shout from the backseat at the sudden loud noise, followed by a curse as Abigail spilled her drink on herself—and chowed down.

  We didn’t come across any monsters on the way out of town, and we were soon the only people on the dark, unlit road.

  “I really hope we don’t break down out here,” Abigail said from the backseat, looking out the window into the darkness. “It’s so dark.”

  “It‘s not the dark you have to be afraid of,” I said. “In the dark, you may not be able to see people, but they can’t see you either.” After a second I added, “Unless they have night vision goggles. Then you’re screwed.” Or unless they weren’t people at all, I didn’t say.

  “Were you in the Marines?”

  “I think we’ll be fine though. Assuming we don’t run into anything else.”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to think you’re not such a great driver.”

  “I’m a very good driver.”

  I saw her roll her eyes at me in the rearview as she took a swig of Hard Lemonade.

  I kept the truck at a steady fifty-five, keeping the RPMs low, not wanting to push it.

  The drive was hypnotic. Nothing on either side of us but grass and field. Nothing ahead or behind but open, empty road.

  There were probably houses or farms somewhere in those fields to our sides, set a ways back from the road. But if so, it was too dark to see them now. There were no lights anywhere.

  The only illumination came from the stars above in the moonless sky.

  Since it was so hypnotic, it became a struggle to keep my eyes open.

  I didn’t know why, I had done pretty much nothing but sleep the past few days.

  Thinking of the prison infirmary made me think of my wounds.

  They hadn’t hurt for a while now.

  Maybe it was because Emma patched them up. But no, she’d only bandaged them, not given me drugs.

  I looked over at said person and found her asleep, her face faintly illuminated by the glow of the truck’s center console screen.