DECIMATED (The Nameless Invasion Book 1)

by Sean Shake

  Abigail went to her grandmother and hugged her. “I’m going. But you stay here, you’ll be safer. We’ll get my parents, then we’ll come back here. Wait it out until the military gets everything straightened out.”

  If, I thought. And I thought that was a big if. Something not at all certain.

  “All right then,” I said. “I want to leave tonight. It’s better to hunt in the dark.”

  It’d been a while since I’d heard any jets or airplanes, and with radio communications out and the internet sporadic, it was hard to know what kind of state the rest of the world was in.

  It was surprising how much bigger the world seemed when you knocked out instant communication.

  Or really, the funny thing was how small the world seemed when you had it.

  Because this was the reality, this was how big the world was. You could scream a message at the top of your lungs, and maybe people could hear you for a mile under good conditions. But after that, nothing.

  You could communicate with semaphore by fires or lights over longer distances, but nothing like that was set up around here, nor I imagined in most places.

  We’d been thrown back into a weird limbo between the modern world and the dark ages. We had electricity and fuel—for now—but very limited communications: low-power short-range radio, a sporadic wired internet, and perhaps landlines.

  Maybe that was why I hadn’t heard jets. No way to direct them. Maybe airports were overrun due to air traffic control broadcasts, and the aliens being attracted to them.

  “How are you going to leave?” Gabriel asked. “We don’t have a car anymore.”

  “We’ll just have to borrow one. Or if they don’t have any to spare, we’ll walk.”

  Abigail groaned. “I hate walking.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here.”

  “No, it’s fine. If I have to walk to find my parents, I will.”

  “You know, your parents might not be all that we find.”

  “I know. And if we find my parents first, I might just come back here and let you go on and fight your battle.”

  But by the sound of her voice, it didn’t sound like she would do that at all. It sounded like she would stay by my side.

  This made me both proud and disappointed.

  I just hoped I didn’t get her killed.

  53

  After a tearful goodbye with Abigail’s grandparents, we left and went to find Mark.

  We found him in a room with a few other people, going over some kind of map.

  When he saw us in the doorway, he quickly walked over, ushering us back as he shut the door behind him. “What’s up?”

  “What are you working on in there?” I asked.

  “Trying to figure out how to save the world.” He looked at each of us, saw the backpack Abigail wore, the duffel bag I held—which was stuffed with water, energy bars, and a few changes of clothes. “You guys planning on going somewhere?”

  “We are actually. That’s why I came to find you. Her parents,” I tilted my head at Abigail, “might be coming this way. It’s not the only road they could take, but…”

  Mark nodded. “Right. Sure, we can keep an eye out for them. And you?”

  “We’re going to look for them. I was hoping you could loan us a car.”

  “Loan? So that means you’re coming back.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  At the door to the parking lot, we stopped at another one of those folding tables with several sets of keys laid out on it.

  Mark grabbed a set, then led the four of us outside.

  “Here you go,” he said, pointing at a car and dropping the keys to it in my hand.

  “So we come full circle,” I said, looking at the car.

  A Prius. These things were fucking everywhere. It was like a different kind of invasion.

  “Mine was blue,” Abigail said. “Not red.”

  I shook my head, and we loaded our meager gear into the back of the car, then piled in.

  “Are you sure you want to drive?” Abigail asked. “You seem to be really bad at that. And also bad luck.”

  I waved to Mark. “Thanks for the car. I’ll do my best to bring it back in one piece.”

  “Just do your best to survive out there. It’s dangerous.” He looked at my hands, which were resting on the steering wheel, then into the backseat at Hunter.

  Then he nodded once and walked away, back into the building.

  I didn’t know why, but I felt like he knew more than he was letting on.

  54

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Abigail asked five minutes later as we wound through the maze-like roads leading from the factory.

  I’d already had to backtrack twice when we encountered roads that had been blocked off by cars or downed trees.

  And the answer to her question was, no, I didn’t know where I was going, but I eventually found my way out anyway.

  Luckily I had a good sense of direction, and didn’t make the mistake of going back down a road we’d already been on.

  Still, it had been a confusing maze, and I again thought how amazing it was that they’d managed to set it up in just a few days.

  Almost too amazing.

  We drove, and I tried to think of nothing, afraid to focus on where my eyeless adversary might be or even think about him for fear he would be pulled to us, content to stay on the road that Abigail said her parents would’ve taken, and the one they would likely be coming back on when they found she wasn’t at her apartment or their farmhouse.

  I wondered if the factory was the only outpost, and if so how convenient it was that we happened to stumble upon it.

  Then again, we had more crashed our way on to it, not stumbled.

  I’d wanted to leave when it was dark out to get a move on, but now as I drove down the deserted highway, the car quiet except for the road noise, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

  I wondered if I had been the one that had wanted to leave as soon as possible, or if I had been pushed somehow.

  If I had been drawn. Compelled.

  We passed through Toledo and took 280.

  It had been a while, and they might already have made it back into Canada. Mark had said he would keep a lookout, but there were other roads they could have taken.

  “You sure this is the way they’d be coming?” I asked Abigail, who was sitting in the backseat.

  “It’s the way we always take to my grandparents. I don’t see why they’d change now if they didn’t have to. And with how empty the roads are, I don’t see why they’d have to.

  I was still unnerved by how empty the world seemed. Not just of people, but of things. I would expect more cars to be abandoned on the road, more bags and suitcases left behind as those monsters took people and converted them into more monsters.

  But it was almost sterile, what was left behind.

  Just the buildings, the greenery. And the road. The endless road.

  There were a few cars here and there. There was even one in the middle of the freeway that I’d nearly slammed into, getting quite an earful from Abigail about how I was bad luck and a terrible driver.

  “I didn’t hit it, did I?” I’d replied to her criticism.

  She’d grumbled some reply I couldn’t hear, and started chewing on the straw to her CamelBak.

  But now as we drove down the empty highway in the dark of the night, the emptiness started to eat away at me. It started to feel purposeful, as though this path had been specifically cleared for me.

  As though this was the way I was supposed to go.

  The problem was, I didn’t know whose will it was making this happen. Was it mine, in order to find Abigail’s parents? Or was it my adversary’s, to draw me to him?

  We’d been driving in silence for a while when Abigail—who I’d thought was sleeping—suddenly shouted, “Stop!”

  I didn’t slam on the brakes, but I got us stopped as quickly as I could, fearing that she had spotted another trap
, a trench in the road that I’d somehow missed.

  The car came to a halt and I scanned the asphalt in front of me, looking for any sign of excavation.

  “What is it?” I asked. “I don’t see anything.” I turned to look at her, and saw she was looking out the back window.

  Then she got out of the car.

  “Abigail,” I called. “What are you doing?” I got out after her.

  She pointed at the sky. “Look.”

  I did, and for a moment my legs went weak.

  It was exceptionally clear, and so we could see those massive ships hovering above New York City.

  Emma and Hunter got out and simply stared in silence at the awe-inspiring—in the true meaning of that word, something both amazing and terrible—sight.

  “Oh my God,” Hunter said.

  The ships floated there in the sky, looking geologic, as though they had always been and would always be there, and I now realized how truly large they were.

  To be visible from this far away they had to be miles and miles tall, stretching into the actual stratosphere.

  “It would be awesome, if they weren’t so terrible,” Abigail said in a quiet voice. Then she looked at me and suddenly wrapped her arms around me, resting her head on my chest.

  I held her, feeling her warmth seeping into me.

  We stood like that for a few minutes, until some clouds rolled in, and the ships were obscured once more.

  Then we got back in the car, and drove on into the night.

  55

  Sometime later, I saw the first moving vehicle other than our own that I’d seen in—well, since Mark and his crew came upon us.

  “Look at that,” I said. “It’s another person. Or people.”

  Being dark out, all I could see from this distance were the vehicle’s headlights. I couldn’t tell what it was, though if I had to guess I would’ve said a truck or SUV, based on the height of the headlights.

  Hunter shifted, apparently ready for a fight. Abigail leaned between the seats and peered out the windshield.

  “Want to go flying into the windshield again?” I asked.

  “Don’t crash and I won’t have to.”

  The car was on the other side of the freeway, separated by a concrete divider.

  “You think they’re dangerous?” Abigail asked.

  “Oh I doubt it,” Emma said.

  We both looked at her.

  She nodded at my hands. “Not dangerous for us anyway.”

  We approached each other at sixty miles an hour, then suddenly we were passed each other, and I heard Abigail gasp. She basically threw herself back from between the seats and looked out the rear window. “Turn around, follow that car!”

  “What’d you see?” I asked, already slowing down.

  “I think that was my parents!”

  Because of the concrete divider separating the two sides of the highway, I couldn’t just drive onto their side. Getting to that side would require me to exit the freeway and get back on, or find a gap in the dividers. I glanced at my fists. Or make one.

  I thrust into reverse, did a 180, then started following on our side of the road.

  “You’re driving on the wrong side of the road,” Abigail said.

  “And if a cop pulls me over I’ll gladly accept the ticket from him.”

  “If a cop pulls you over, you’d probably go back to prison.”

  “That’s a good point. Except for the fact it’s the fucking apocalypse.” And I doubted any cop would have a prison to take me back to, or even be interested in me at all right now.

  That was, unless he happened to have access to my full record.

  He might be interested then.

  We quickly caught up to the car Abigail thought her parents were in, driving alongside on the opposite side of the road.

  I matched the speed of the other car, then honked my horn to get their attention.

  The problem was, it was too dark to see if they saw us, and also too dark for them to see us.

  Instead of acknowledging us, they just moved as far to the right as possible—as far away from us as possible, at least until the next offramp.

  “They must think we’re trying to attack them or something.” Abigail rolled down her window, stuck her head out, and waved at the car.

  I honked again, and after a few seconds, the other car came closer, slowing down.

  I kept my speed matched to theirs so they could get a good look.

  I just hoped it really was Abigail’s parents.

  Then we were moving at fifteen miles an hour, and the other car rolled one of their windows down.

  “Abigail?” the driver called, dividing his attention between the road, and the crazy car on his left.

  “Hi Dad.”

  56

  Abigail’s mother was crying as she and her husband hugged their daughter.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe we found you,” her mother said.

  “We’re the ones who found you,” Abigail said, still hugging them.

  Her father laughed, but her mother just let out a little sob.

  “Yes you are,” her father agreed. “We thought you were thieves or something at first.”

  “I can’t believe it,” her mother said again. “Thank God our battery died.”

  Abigail wiped her eyes, pulling away. “Battery?”

  “After we didn’t find you at your apartment or our house, we started to come back, thinking you might head to your grandparents—”

  “We did!” Abigail exclaimed. “They’re okay.”

  They hugged again.

  “Well,” her mother continued, “we were stuck until we could get the battery charged. It delayed us.”

  “Delayed us the perfect amount,” her father said happily. “Because we were here at just the right time. Just the right time to find you.” He looked over at where Emma, Hunter, and I were standing, his eyes scanning all three of us, before settling back on Hunter. “You going to introduce us to your friends?”

  “Oh, right. This—”

  But I didn’t hear anything else, because that’s when I felt the darkness descending.

  Just like at the Walmart, just like in the infirmary, I knew something was here, before I could see it or hear it.

  I didn’t know if you’d call it a sixth sense, but I knew with certainty.

  That’s when I noticed the towers.

  Two tall cell or radio towers, and we had stopped right next to them.

  I looked out over the field, not hearing the conversation as Abigail introduced us to her parents.

  All I could focus on was the sense of darkness enveloping me.

  A thousand or so feet away, just under a quarter mile, from across the field and out of a thick copse of trees, poured a horde of creatures.

  And I knew among them, would be my adversary.

  “Get in the car!” I ordered them. “Lock your doors.”

  Abigail’s parents looked at me in confusion.

  “What—” Abigail’s mother began, but I cut her off.

  “Get in the car now!”

  But what would good was a car, against this?

  57

  Hundreds of the demonic cancerous beings spilled across the field toward where I stood on the edge of the highway.

  I pushed Emma toward Abigail’s parents’ SUV. “Get in. Get out of here.”

  “I’m not—” she began, but I shoved her harder—she was strong from all that judo, but I was stronger, and I got her into the SUV and slammed the door shut behind her.

  “Drive,” I told Abigail’s father, who was now in the driver’s seat. “Get as far away from here as you possibly can.”

  He’d seen the approaching horde by now, and didn’t need to be told twice.

  I turned and faced them, just a few hundred feet away now, as Emma, Abigail, and her parents sped away down the highway.

  I couldn’t run anymore.

  I had to face my enemy. He may have drawn me here, plant
ed the seed, but it was what I wanted.

  I was finally ready to face him.

  Ready to defeat him.

  I realized Hunter was beside me, and that she was smiling.

  She pulled off her new bra, then moved behind me, wrapping her arms around my body. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yes. This time I am ready.”

  I heard ripping and tearing, and imagined the wings sprouting from her back. They formed faster than they had before, and a second later we were beating up into the air as the first wave of those things cleared the field.

  They lunged at us as I flew toward the concrete barrier, trying to put something between us.

  They leapt over it, and a few even came close to grabbing onto us.

  Several slammed into the Prius, and more climbed atop it and jumped for us, but we were already out of their reach.

  The only thing they accomplished was collapsing the roof under their combined weight.

  Another car down. Sorry Mark.

  “I wish I had projectile weapons,” I said, forming my hands into fists and bringing out my shadow blade and shield.

  You can be the projectile, Hunter told me in my mind.

  Be the sword and shield, I thought.

  Then I realized I was in control of us now, the wings feeling like my own, and dove.

  My blade was raised, ready to strike, when I saw that another group of the creatures had come from the other side of the road, and were pouring onto the highway, blocking the SUV’s escape.

  “Fuck!” Distracted, my blade only grazed across the stony, cancerous skin of one of the hellspawns and then something lashed out at me, piercing one of our wings—I guess it wasn’t as strong as my skin—and I hit the ground in a tumble, Hunter crying out in pain in my mind.

  I quickly got to my feet and flapped our wings, sending us into the air again.

  It didn’t hurt, but I felt Hunter’s pain.

  Sorry.

  It’s okay, save them. I’ll be fine.

  The hellspawns had the SUV stopped now, had it surrounded, but apparently Abigail’s father wasn’t going to let a horde of demons get in his way, because he gunned the engine and plowed right through them.