 
The Visitors Saga

The Invaders (The Visitors Saga, #1)

By Jay Ford

Published by Jay Ford at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Jay Ford

© 2014, Jay Ford  
authorjayford@gmail.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

I rolled out of bed on the last normal afternoon of my life.

I stumbled into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. I ran my fingers through my short brown hair and grabbed my toothbrush. I stared at myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth. It was a beautiful Saturday in Boston, which meant I had no school and no plans whatsoever.

"Charlie!" My mom yell up the stairs.

"Asleep!" I yelled back.

"You left the dishes in the washer! Come get them out. Now!"

I grumbled an okay under my breath, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I turned on the TV, wanting to watch something to keep me entertained as I unloaded the dish washer.

Little did I know that the second before I turned the TV on, would be the last normal one of my entire life.

The flat screen TV flashed to life, and I stood in horror at what I saw before me.

"Mom! Dad!" I yelled.

Mom came running out of her office, while Dad came from the living room.

"What is it?" Dad asked.

I couldn't say anything. I pointed at the television screen in horror.

"Oh my God!" Mom shouted.

I turned the volume on the TV up. A large male reporter stood in front of the camera, his black hair whipping around in the wind. He did nothing to keep the fear out of his well defined face. "As you can see behind me," he began in a shaky voice, "what looks as some sort of aircraft has appeared above the White House. There has been no contact made that we're aware of, and there's nothing on the aircraft that identifies which country this ship originated from."

I tuned out his words. I stood in awe of the piece of engineering artwork that hovered above Washington D.C.. The sleek black ship shone in the early afternoon sun. It's engines screamed very loud, causing the reporter to yell in order to be heard. The ship spanned twice the length of the White House, and looked to be a few stories tall. I couldn't tell its exact height, but I could tell that it towered into the sky. It cast a shadow that covered the White House in darkness.

I heard my dad let out a frustrated sigh, jolting me out of my hypnosis. "The phones aren't working! I can't get ahold of Jesse."

My heart sank as I realized that my Aunt and Uncle lived in D.C. along with my cousin Alex. "I thought they were on vacation?"

Dad shook his head as he continued to try and call. "Just Allen. On Business." He ran his fingers through his hair as a robotic voice came from his phone. We're sorry, but all— Dad hung up before it could finish its patronizing tone. "I'm going to go see if I can get a better signal outside," Dad said over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

I turned my attention to the screen. Disbelief covered me like a blanket. I began going through a list of countries that could've posed the technology to build something like that. I thought of a new country the second I thought of the last. I tried to think of a reason as to why they would do this. Was it to display their power? Building a ship like that and then parking it above the White House was pretty powerful.

Maybe it the U.S. were the ones behind it, showing the rest of the world that they weren't to be messed with. I hoped that had been the reason, because I was actually kind of scared. It's hard for me to admit; I've always been the tough, smart alec kind of guy, but this was nothing like I'd ever seen before.

"Mom," I began.

"Yes?" she replied, looking up from her note pad for two seconds before returning her attention to it.

"What are we going to do?"

She began chewing on her thumbnail as she peered into the distance trying to think of an answer. "I don't know," she said in a somber tone. "Hopefully this is just a display of power," she said echoing my earlier thoughts. "If we were going to be attacked, they'd have done it by now. The real question though is why they haven't been blasted out of the air."

"Why would they—" then I realized. If an airplane, much less whatever the thing above it, came anywhere near the White House, it would've had some F16 and Americas finest escorting away or shooting it down from the sky.

Mom interrupted me by placing a hand on my shoulder. Her warm comforting gaze softened my fearful one. "It'll be okay, Charlie. We'll be fine."

Somehow, I doubted that. Then I thought of a question that I couldn't help but say aloud. "What if they're going to attack us using biological warfare? They could be attacking us right now."

A very fearful look came across her face. "Oh dear. I hadn't considered that. That would be very bad, very bad indeed. We need to stock up on Germ-X, gas masks, disinfecting wipes, gloves." I heard her continuing her list as she walked to her office. A few moments later, she walked out of her office with her purse and car keys in hand. "I'll be back!" she announced.

I looked back at the television at the chaos that began to erupt. I knew that I couldn't let my mom go to the store alone. I didn't want to go, but we would need those supplies. There wasn't going to be another chance to go. "Wait!" I called out to Mom before she closed the front door. I grabbed my cell phone off the counter as I walked out of the kitchen. "I'm coming with you," I told her.

She smiled a nodded her head. "Thanks," she said as she walked towards her car in the driveway.

I shut the door behind me. People all around packed up their cars. I didn't know where they planned on running to, but I secretly wished we were doing the same. I got into the car as Mom started it. I reached over and turned on the AC.

"Let's get in and get out as fast as we can. I don't want to be gone for long," Mom said as she put the car in drive and pushed the button to open our security gate.

I nodded my head in agreement. "I bet it's going to be crazy in the stores."

That was an understatement.

****

We parked and began our long walk towards the store entrance. From the outside I could already tell that this was not going to be a simple trip. People were coming out with baskets filled with supplies, while others were outside selling stuff they had just bought for an increased price.

"This reminds me of one of your books, Mom," I told her as we walked. Mom was a bestselling author with all sorts of movie deals. She had a ton of books out, and was working on three that I knew of at the time.

"Let's hope it's not like one of my books!" She said with a laugh. "If it is, keep an eye out for werewolves."

We continued walking, and as we reached the store, we realized just how crowded it was. It was like Black Friday times a hundred. People were everywhere, loading their baskets up with everything they could find.

Mom and I grabbed one of the last baskets there were, and began to make our way through the crowd. "Let's get to the water first."

"If there's any left," I said.

Mom ignored my pessimism, and we inched our way to the water isle that was at the back of the store.

People everywhere were shouting and arguing over supplies. I stayed on guard, ready for anything. No telling when someone would snap and start attacking another person.

We reached the water isle, and it was completely deserted. There wasn't a single drop of water anywhere down the isle. Or so I thought.

"There's a jug over there," Mom said. She pointed to where one had fell underneath the isle.

I jogged to get it, but somebody else had entered the isle and made a dash for it the same time I did. My senses went on high alert, and I prepared for anything.

I reached the jug first, and picked it up. The man reached it just moments after I did. He was wearing a business suit that looked tattered and worn.

"Hey kid," he said. "Give me that."

I looked at him like he was crazy. "Sorry, I got it first." I said, trying to hide the fact that my voice was shaking. I turned around and began walking towards Mom. The man grabbed my arm and turned me around.

"I said give me the water."

"Hey!" my mom shouted. "Get your damn hands off my son."

The man looked up at my mom and scoffed. He looked back at me. "Give it here!"

I shook my arm free from his grasp. "Get your own water, asshole!" I yelled at him.

His eyes flared with anger. He grabbed me with both of his hands and slammed me against the empty isle. The metal jammed into my back, causing me to wince in pain. I struggled against him, but he had a tight grip.

My mom ran up to him, and nailed him with a hard punch to his face. The man let go of me, and stumbled side ways, gripping his chin.

"Bitch!" he shouted.

Anger boiled inside of me. I dropped the water, and jumped onto the man, tackling him to the ground. I punched him hard in the face, but he was able to get a hand on my chest, and pushed me off before I could hit him again.

I slammed into the ground, and the breath rushed out of my body. I coughed and struggled for air. I sat up, preparing for him to attack me again, but Mom got to him first.

She pulled out her pepper spray, and shot a stream of it directly into the mans eyes. He shouted and howled in pain, clenching his eyes.

I got up as fast as I could, and grabbed the water. Mom and I ran back to our basket, and got out of the aisle as soon as we could.

"I'm not leaving since we're already here," Mom began, "but we need to hurry about and get out of here."

I nodded in agreement. "It's probably only going to get worse."

Chapter Two

"Your Aunt Jesse is going to be spending a few days with us until the government figures out what's going on," Dad said as Mom and I walked in from the store.

Ah, Aunt Jesse. She was Dad's sister, and had been adopted from China. She was pretty cool, and really funny too. "Yeah, okay. What about Alex? Is he coming too?" Alex was my cousin. We were both the same age, but we were't that close. I hadn't seen him in forever. Although, from what I could recall, he mostly kept to himself.

"Well, if Jesse is coming, then obviously he's coming too," Dad said sarcastically. He is where I got my sarcasm from. It irritates me when he uses it on me though. He can be Mr. Sarcastic, but when I'm sarcastic, all of the sudden I'm being disrespectful.

"When are they getting here?" I said, ignoring his remark. I let out a deep sigh, trying to show my irritation, but in the least "disrespectful" way.

"They're on their way now," Dad said, ignoring my pitiful sigh. "They should be here in about eight, eight and a half hours."

"All right, cool." I turned to go back up the stairs to my room.

"Charlie," Dad called up the stairs. I turned around and looked down at him. He had a stressed look on his face. "I love you."

"Yeah, okay." I sighed and went to my room. When my dad said something like that, it meant he was scared or really stressed out. My guess was both.

The sun began to go down, casting an eerie red glow on everything outside. I looked out my window, trying to see if everything was still chaotic. I couldn't see much since my room faced away from the street, but I could hear endless honking of horns as people both fled and entered the city.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Earlier I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but now I was feeling safe inside my home. If the store was to be any indication of how things were going to be, I wanted to stay right where I was: at home with my family, safe.

I looked at the clock. 7:30 blinked on its electronic screen. Alex wasn't going to arrive for eight hours, so it would be around three-thirty/four o'clock in the morning before he got here.

I turned from the window, and walked downstairs. Mom was in the kitchen unloaded the groceries, while Dad watched the news.

"What's for dinner?" I asked Mom.

"I don't know, find something. I'm not feeling like cooking anything."

I nodded my head. "I'll make something."

I preheat the oven, and threw a pizza in when the oven was hot. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and checked my Twitter. I tapped on what was trending worldwide, and unsurprisingly, everybody was talking about the ship.

There was one that caught my eye at the very bottom of the list: Aliens Over America.

My heart skipped a beat, and I felt a chill go down my spine. I clicked on it, and the a spinning circle came up letting me know the tweets were loading. I tapped my finger on the back of my phone, and impatiently whispered for it to hurry up and load. It felt like it was taking an eternity.

Connection Error. Check your connection and try again. Twitter may also be down.

I sighed, frustrated. I knew our internet was fine, so it had to of been that Twitters servers were overloaded. I leaned back on the kitchen counter while my mind swirled with thoughts.

What if it was aliens? I shook my head and chuckled. "You sound like a lunatic," I told myself. I tried pushing the idea out of my mind, but the seed of the thought stayed back there. I just couldn't shake it. It seemed so absurd, and yet it actually made a bit of sense.

I turned on the TV in the kitchen. It was still on the same news channel as it had been earlier. There were shots of the ship from every angle as it hovered over the White House, unmoving. I paused it, and scanned every inch of its shining black hull. There was no identification on it. No flag painted on, no sets of numbers, nothing. If this was some country trying to make a power play, they would've had at least a flag painted on it in order to let people know who they were. If not, they would've come forward and said they were the ones who did it.

I hit play, and the news reporter repeated the same things he did earlier. It just showed up, hasn't move, and no one has any idea where it came from.

I heard the TV in the living room on a different channel, but the female reporter was saying almost the exact same thing. I walked in there and sat down on the couch next to Dad's chair that he was leaning forward in, watching the television with unblinking eyes.

"Any ideas?" I asked.

He shook his head no.

"Have you talked to any of your Air Force buddies? They give you any inside info about what is going on?" I asked him. Dad had been in the Air Force for fifteen years, but he left when Mom started making enough money from her books so we could settle down somewhere and he could be a teacher like he always wanted.

"Nope. The ones that are still in the Force are way too busy dealing with this to talk to me, and the ones out of it are calling me asking if I know anything." He sighed and looked out the window at the setting sun.

I thought about whether or not I should bring up the alien idea so he could tell me I was crazy and there was no way that it could be true. But I was afraid that he would say the opposite. "What country do you think built it?"

Dad waited a moment before responding. "Honestly? I can't think of a single one. We had nothing in development anywhere near the size of that thing, and I can't imagine another country could build something like that without there being a leak, or at least rumors."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Or what I wasn't hearing, rather. It was sounding like my dad was coming to the same conclusion that I was grappling with.

Before I could work up the courage to ask Dad if he thought maybe it was alien, the oven timer went off. I got up from the couch, and got the pizza out of the oven.

I cut it up, grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge, and sat down on the living room couch.

The news cut to a shot of what was probably thousands of people surrounding the White House fence. Police were trying to break the crowd up, but people were starting to get resistant.

My stomach twisted, and I began to get really hot. "Are they about to start a riot?" I asked.

"They've already started," Dad said.

The news cut to a shot of people attacking a wall of police officers, while the officers threw tear gas into the crowd, trying to calm them. There weren't nearly enough officers, and the rioters broke past them, and began to shake the White House fence. It swung and swayed as Secret Service members began to raise their guns at them, yelling at them to stop.

I held my breath and clenched my fists, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Enough people pilled onto the fence that a section of it fell down, and people began to stampede onto the White House lawn. The Secret Service began to fire shots into the crowd, trying to stop the horde of people, but there were too many of them. The charged past the agents, trampling them beneath their feet. They busted down the White House doors, and flooded inside. The news helicopter lingered on them, until it quickly panned to the roof where people began to storm onto. They started shouting at the ship indiscernible things. All of them had a crazed look on their face.

I couldn't believe what was before my eyes. People stormed the White House, overpowered the Secret Service, ran atop the roof, and were now yelling at the ship that hovered fifty feet above their heads.

I realized I still wasn't breathing, and started again. My pulse raced, and my entire body oozed sweat. "Can you believe this?" I asked Dad.

"I..." he paused. "I can't. I really can't."

I starred at the TV screen, but I wasn't paying attention to what was on it. All I could think about was Aliens Over America.

****

I laid back in my bed and stared at the ceiling. So many things were rushing through my brain, I could not even think straight.

I heard my phone vibrate on the table beside my bed. It was Jared.

"Hey," I spoke into the phone.

"Dude. What the—"

"I have no clue," I interrupted.

"Bro, my 'rents are freaking out! They're packing all of our stuff! Apparently, my Uncle Bill has some nuclear bomb shelter that we're moving into!"

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea," I said nervously. The fact that he had an uncle that had a nuclear shelter didn't even surprise me. We all have that weird uncle.

There was a silence. It was followed by a sigh. "Dude, you aren't seriously freaked by this, are you?"

I paused before answering. "Well, it is a little bit...weird."

"Man, I thought you had some balls or something! This isn't something to be scared about!" Jared said.

"Chill! I mean, seriously. You've seen the movies!"

"Yeah, I have. I've seen the dudes shooting up the bad guys and daring them to mess with us! That's what I'm doing. I'm not gonna sit around in some fallout shelter with my parents and my dope head freak uncle! I'm gonna go kick some ass!" He was practically yelling now.

"You aren't being serious, are you?" I asked, concerned. I've never heard him act this way.

"Dude! You're turning into a chick! Grow a pair, why don't you! Wasn't your dad in the Air Force or something? You should come with me and be a hero like him!"

"For one thing, my dad hasn't fought in a battle in his life! For another, I'm not an idiot! You do whatever you like, but I'm not going anywhere near that ship. You have no idea what's in it, anyways! I might not be bad guys."

It was silent for a few moments before Jared spoke up. "Whatever, dude. I'll call you sometime." And with that, he hung up.

I threw my phone against the wall. He was so dumb! How was he even going to fight them? It's not like you could walk up to the ship and be like, "Uh, hey, Mr. Ship, could I please shoot you?" And it's not like the government was going to hold up signs saying "We need teenagers to help us shoot these bad guys because we don't know what to do even though we have an army."

I laid back down in bed, my mind swirling with frustration and confusion, until eventually, I fell asleep.

Chapter Three

At ten in the morning I was woken up by the sound of somebody opening my squeaky bedroom door. I jumped up out of bed, breathing hard. I couldn't see because my eyes had some gunk caked over them. I started to freak. I rubbed my eyes really hard, trying to get the stuff off. When I could see again, I was expecting to see an alien standing in the doorway with a phaser, waiting to take me to their ship. Instead, I saw Alex standing in the doorway. He looked really tired from lack of sleep. His jet black hair was long in the back, kind of short in the front, but still really thick. It was like China's version of a mullet. He had black, thick, square glasses that made his hazel eyes look larger than normal.

"Oh, bro, you scared me big time," I said, taking big breaths.

He dropped the bag that he was holding in the middle of the doorway. He shuffled over to my bed, barely picking his feet up – successfully kicking some of my things across the room – and fell face first at the foot of my bed.

"Uh, hi," I said.

"I'm hungry," he said, lifting his head off my sheets and looking me in the eye.

Something was off. Alex's eyes look hysterical, and not the funny hysterical.

"Do you taste good?" he asked and inched closer to me.

"Uh, bro, chill dude." I looked around my room for an escape route or some sort of weapon. My breathing became erratic. I grabbed a pen that was on the table beside my bed. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.

He slowly got closer to my face. I inched as far back as I could, my shirtless back meeting the wall.

"Just back off, dude. Something's going on. Maybe you caught something in D.C., but you're not yourself."

He ignored my orders and started licking his lips. Something was definitely not right in his head.

The next second, he lunged for me. In mid-air, he turned into a creature that had a hundred eyes. It had legs all over its body like a centipede and sharp teeth with saliva connecting his top and bottom teeth. He let out a blood-curdling roar as he lunged for my face. A scream lodged itself in my throat, refusing to come out.

Right as he was about to sink his teeth into my head, my scream un-lodged itself. I sat up – screaming – in my bed faster than a speeding bullet. I looked around me; my room was dark. I grabbed my phone next to my bed. It was two-thirty in the morning.

It was a dream. It was just a dream.

I let out a deep sigh and fell back into my bed. That alien idea was really starting to get to me. I decided that I was going to wait up for Alex. Well, at least that was what I was telling myself. Really, I was too scared to go back to sleep. But sleep eventually won out, and I finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

****

At ten in the morning I was woken up by the sound of somebody opening my squeaky bedroom door. I jumped up out of bed, breathing hard. I couldn't see because my eyes had some gunk caked over them. I started to freak. I rubbed my eyes really hard, trying to get the stuff off. When I could see again, I was expecting to see an alien standing in the doorway with a phaser, waiting to take me to their ship. Instead, I saw Alex standing in the doorway.

Talk about déjà vu.

I inspected his body for extra legs. Nope, none.

"Uh, hey dude," I said cautiously.

He dropped his bags in the doorway and sleepily walked to my bed, his eyes barely open. He dropped face first at the foot of my bed.

I reached for my pen.

"Imsh shost tisshred," he mumbled. I could barely understand him because he was speaking into my sheets.

He was lying on my feet, so I pulled them out from underneath him, and sat up in bed before replying. "What did you say? You were kinda talking into my bed," I said.

"I said, 'I. Am. So. Tired!'" he screamed, emphasizing every word. He didn't move his head, though, so he was still yelling into my sheets.

It took me a few seconds to decipher what he had said. "You're so tired?" I asked.

"Yesh."

"You didn't sleep in the car?"

"Nosh."

"Why not?"

"Too scarshed. Andsh Ish can't sleepsh in carrsh."

"All right, dude. I'm going to get up now. You can use my bed if you want."

"Thanksh."

I jumped out of bed and quickly left the room, just in case he turned into one of those centipede monsters. Again.

I ran downstairs and heard Aunt Jesse talking in the living room. "Hi Aunt Jesse," I said as I entered the room.

"Hello Charlie," she said with a fearful voice.

Mom and Dad were sitting around her on the couch with grim looks on their faces.

"So, any news?" I asked.

Dad shook his head. "It's still just sitting there. The White House is totally overtaken though, which worries me."

"Why's that?"

"Well, that means the U.S. probably are not the ones behind this. If we were, we'd be taking back the White House. Instead, we're leaving it alone."

I looked at him, confused. "What does that mean?"

"It means the government is to busy trying to figure out what to do about the ship and figuring out where it came from, so they don't have time to worry about a house."

I sat down on a chair next to the couch, taking in the gravity of what this meant. If the we weren't the ones who built it ship, that means someone probably parked it over the White House, and is probably preparing to attack. Unless it was just to show their power, but that still would lead to a war. No doubt about it. They basically invaded America, and no way the government was going to let that slide. But if this did mean war, I wasn't so sure we could fight a country that had that technological capability.

But then I remembered what I saw yesterday: Aliens Over America. Who or whatever was inside that ship, I knew it wasn't going to be good for any of us.

Chapter Four

I was reading theories about the ship at six in the afternoon when Alex woke up.

"Dude, I had the weirdest dream," he said sleepily, as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Whatever it is, I've had weirder. I guarantee it," I said without looking up from my laptop. "Why'd you guys get here so late? I thought you were going to get here early in the morning."

"The roads were crazy. It was bumper to bumper until we finally got out of D.C. Even then, we had to go twenty under. Anybody who isn't a raving loony, or has a death wish, is leaving town."

I sat there for a moment, mulling over telling Alex my theory about where the ship came from. I decided to tell him. I just had to get it out there. "Do you think that maybe the ship was actually an..." I struggled to get the words out. "Alien ship?"

Alex's face brightened. "You too?! That was actually the first thing I thought of."

I felt so relived. I knew other people thought the same as I did, but having someone right in front of you say they believed you validated my thoughts. "Why do you think they're here? Assuming they are aliens, of course."

Alex shrugged. "I have no idea. Everything I think of sounds crazy, like this is some scifi movie or something."

"Yeah, I feel the exact same way."

There was a moment of silence as we both thought about why they could be here.

"What do you call them?" Alex asked.

I was slightly taken aback by his question, but I didn't realize until just now that I had just been calling them The Aliens. "Nothing, really."

"I heard someone on the news call them The Visitors. Calling them that makes the idea seem less crazy than it is when you call them aliens."

I chuckled. "It sounds crazy no matter how you say it."

After that, we talked for a while, throwing out crazy theories. Some sounded like they could actually be true, while others were just plain ridiculous.

"I'm starving," Alex said after we had been talking for a while. "I didn't get to eat on the way up here. We just drove. And drove. And drove...and drove."

"Let's go see if somebody's cooking anything." The two of us left the room. We ran downstairs to see what was cooking. When my feet met the cold wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs, I froze.

My mom was cooking in the kitchen.

"Oh, no. Oh please God, no," I whispered to myself.

Apparently, Alex heard me because he responded, "I thought Aunt Reese was a good cook?"

"She used to be, but she's on one of her health kicks right now. She's probably making rice cakes of death right now." Every once in a while, Mom used to get on this health kick. She would cook the most ungodly things and expected us to eat them. Secretly, she thinks it's disgusting, too. That's why she only does it every once in a while. She would start feeling guilty for over-indulging on soft drinks and candy snd go on a strict healthy diet. Thankfully, she only subjected Dad and I to this torture on the rare occasions when she fixed supper. "We have to get Dad. He'll give us money to go get some food. We gotta be sneaky about it, though. Mom wouldn't be happy if she found out."

Alex nodded. We tiptoed across the family room and into the living room where Aunt Jesse and Dad were talking.

"Dad," I said quietly so Mom would not hear. "Mom's in the—"

He held up his hands. "Way ahead of you, son." He reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenty dollar bills. "Call me when you get to wherever you're going, and I'll tell you what your Aunt and I want."

"Thanks, Dad." I turned around and snuck out the door, with Alex right behind me.

"Are you sure we should be going out right now?" Alex asked as we walked to my car.

"Everybody who wants to get out of town have left already, so everybody else is probably holed up in their houses. Besides, there's literally every fast food restaurant you can think of just a couple miles away. We'll be there and back in less than thirty minutes."

The two of us got in my Jeep. Alex still looked unsure about the whole thing, but he probably just didn't

I reached into the cup holder and grabbed my keys. "So, what do you want?" I asked Alex as I started the car and backed out of the driveway. I pushed a button in the Jeep that opened the big gate that led to our house. Our house was in a really high-class neighborhood where every house had a large gate and fence surrounding it. Our fence wasn't cement or some other rock like most of the other ones, though, it was iron rods.

"Uhhhhhhh," he said, thinking. "I don't care. What do you have?"

"Well, they have, uhhh, you know...stuff." I sighed. "We'll just see once we get there."

It didn't take long, as my prediction was right. The highway was relatively clear. There were just a handful of cars.

"All right," I said as I pulled up to a stop light after exiting. "There are your choices. Take your pick."

He sat there for a moment, thinking. "Honestly, I don't care."

I let out a grumble. I hate indecisiveness. "McDonald's it is."

"Well, I don't really like McDonald's," Alex whined.

"Dude, you said you didn't care."

"Yeah, I know, but now I do."

I pulled into the McDonald's parking lot.

The inside of the McDonald's wasn't very crowded, so it didn't take long for us to order our food. We decided to eat here, and call Dad before we left. Miraculously, Alex found something to eat.

We were almost done eating when the few voices that were quietly talking were silenced. They were all staring at the wall right behind me.

"Dude," Alex whispered as his mouth fell open.

I turned around to see what they were all gaping at, and I let out a gasp when I read the news headline flashing on the TV behind me.

The Visitors are gone.

Chapter Five

Everybody sat there in silence as the news reporter told us what was going on. "This news is just coming in from our sources in the capital, but apparently, the ship has vanished. There has been no indication as to where it has gone to. All of this began when a ship appeared over the White House on Friday evening. Now, after making no contact, they have left. There is no word as to who is responsible for the ship, as no one person or country has stepped forward. The ships operators are simply known by most as 'The Visitors'. We will have some footage of the ship leaving for you momentarily. We are still awaiting an official statement from the president. This story is developing."

Once it went to a commercial break, people in the McDonald's started to cheer. I, on the other hand, just stared at the television screen. They were gone. The things that plagued my dreams, my every waking thought, were finally gone. It was as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I let out a big sigh and sunk back into my seat. I let a smile escape across my face. I look over at Alex, and the same look of euphoria is glazed across his face.

I got up from my seat and called Dad. It rang a few times before he answered.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Dad," I said with glee. "Did you hear the news?"

"Yeah, I saw it." He didn't seem too happy about it.

"It's pretty awesome."

Silence.

"Well," I said awkwardly, "what do you want? We're at McDonald's." Dad told us what Aunt Jesse and he wanted.

"Be careful, son," he said before he hung up. "This isn't over yet."

"I know, Dad. I'll be safe."

I hung up, and I went to order the food. Once I got the it, Alex and I left.

"I am so glad that they're gone" Alex yelled once we got in the car.

"Oh, yeah dude, totally. I knew they weren't going to do anything to us," I lied.

"Bull! You were more scared then I was!" Alex laughed.

"I don't think anybody could be more scared then you were, but you're right, I was maybe just a little freaked out."

"Whatever," I heard Alex say beneath his breath. He let out a chuckle.

"You think this is it?" I asked.

Alex didn't say anything. "I don't know. Why? Do you?"

"It'd be stupid of The Visitors, or whoever it is, to do all this for nothing. It definitely isn't over yet."

Alex said nothing. He just sat there, pondering what I'd said.

We got on the highway and started cruising towards the house. The news was on, but there weren't any new developments. The talking began to fade out, replaced with static.

"What the heck?" I said as I beat the dash of the car. "Stupid radio."

A couple of cars in front of us, a truck lost control, and slammed into the cement barrier separating the two roadways.

"What in the world?" I yelled. My heart beat quickened and my legs felt like they turned to jelly. "Oh shit."

All of the cars started losing control. Some crashed into each other, some crashed into the cement barriers. An explosion lit up the sky on the other side of the highway. An eighteen-wheeler carrying gasoline crashed into some other cars, blowing them all up.

I couldn't think. I froze, not paying attention to where I was going.

"Get us out of here!" Alex screamed, breaking me from my trance.

I dodged a car that almost slammed into us from the side. Cars began to pile up everywhere and I tried my best to weave around them.

I looked to my right just in time to see a pickup truck slam into the side of my Jeep. I didn't even have time to scream. The Jeep flipped as glass shattered and airbags deployed. I felt shards of glass cut into me. I bit down on my tongue hard, tasting blood in my mouth. The Jeep flipped a second time. Everything happened in slow motion. I watched as things were being tossed around inside of the car. My phone flew by my head, missing it by inches. The top of the Jeep slammed into the cement barrier. The roof came crushing down on top of me.

Then, silence. The only noise that I heard was the sound of gas trickling and Alex's ragged breathing. The gas dripped in a steady rhythm. It was actually somewhat peaceful. My eyelids grew heavy, and I was forcing myself to stay awake. Finally, I gave in, and sleep embraced me in its cold, black arms.

Chapter Six

I woke up to the smell of smoke reaching my nose. My head throbbed, and my thoughts hazy. I opened my eyes and a blinding light flooded my vision. I instantly shut my eyes, my head hurting more than ever. I became aware of my seatbelt cutting into my neck. I tried to adjust my neck, but it was useless. I realized that the seatbelt was the only thing keeping me from falling to the ground, since the Jeep was on its side.

I tried opening my eyes again. This time, I shielded my eyes with my hands and let my eyes slowly adjust to the light. It was daytime. We had been sitting in the middle of the highway bleeding out all night long. I couldn't believe we had not bleed to death, and that nobody came to rescue us.

I pushed these thoughts out of my head, and I immediately turned my attention to Alex. His body hung above mine, his seatbelt holding him up. It cut deep into his neck from all the pressure on it. Blood dripped on my face, and I wiped it off. We had to get out of here.

"Alex," I tried to say, but it just came out as a hoarse whisper. I built up saliva in my throat and swallowed hard. My throat screamed in pain. I did this a few more times until my throat felt somewhat moist. "Alex," I said again, this time it came out sounding almost normal. Alex still did not respond. I reached up with my hand and shook him. He let out a groan. At least I knew he was still alive. The truck had hit us on the passenger side totaling it. I was baffled at the fact that he survived. That either of us survived. It was a miracle.

I tried to shake him again, but it was hopeless. He wasn't waking up any time soon. It was up to me. I was going to have to drag him out.

I reached over to unbuckle my seatbelt, but it would not unlock. I pushed it harder and harder, but it was useless. I yelled in frustration and banged my hand against the dashboard. I closed my eyes and sat there for a minute, breathing hard. "Calm down, Charlie," I comforted myself. "Just calm down. Everything will work out. Just focus." Focus. I had to focus. It didn't matter how we survived through the night or why everybody all of the sudden decided to try and kill themselves. I just had to focus, and get Alex and I out of there and into safety.

"Help!" I called out because I had no idea what else to do. "Can anybody hear me? Help me! Please!" There was no answer. I felt frustration beginning to rise on the inside of me. Anger was starting to take control. "Stop it!" I scolded myself. "Get a grip!" I yelled on the top of my lungs.

I just sat – no – hung there, clueless on what to do. Then, I remembered something. When I had first gotten my Jeep, my mom insisted that I buy a first aid kit to stick under the seat and one of those seatbelt cutter/window smashing devices. I just did as she told me and then completely forgot about it. Until now.

I reached over to the glove box where the seatbelt cutter is at. I could barely reach it. I had to wiggle up in my seat as far as I could in order to reach it. I slipped two fingers underneath the handle and popped the box open.

I dug through the box very carefully; I didn't want to knock anything to the floor. I couldn't see inside of the box, so I was relying completely on feel. I felt what I believed to be the cutter, and gripped it tightly. I pulled my hand out of the box. Success. It was the cutter.

I let out a laugh. I have absolutely no clue why, but I did. The cutter was the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. It had a yellow and blue handle, and at the end of it, a pointed hammer was sticking out. Midways up the handle sat a slit where a very sharp razor was held, making a v.

I slipped the seatbelt inside the v and pushed down as hard as I could. The razor cut through the seatbelt like butter.

No longer being held up by the seatbelt, I came crashing to the ground. I only fell a few inches, but it still hurt when my head banged against the door. I was being cut to pieces by broken glass. I lay on the ground for a few moments collecting my thoughts and waiting for the pain to subside.

Once the pain had gone away as much as possible, I placed the cutter in my back pocket and slowly, sat up. I was squatting on my legs as I started to crawl out where the windshield used to be. I crawled out on my hands in knees, getting even more cuts. Once I had made it out side, I slowly got to my feet. I brushed the glass off me, checked to make sure that no bones were broken and stretched really big. I was still in awe by the fact that I had nothing broken, and I had survived such a horrendous crash.

All these thoughts were wiped from my brain, though, once I saw the devastation that surrounded me. Most cars on the highway were a burnt, black shell (save for my Jeep) and the sky had a thick haze of smoke coating it. The damage was devastating. Smoke billowed from a nearby building. I looked to my right, and I could see the tail end of a helicopter sticking out from a pond that was in front of a very nice hotel.

What the hell was going on? Why did everybody all of the sudden want to kill themselves? Where were the rescue crews?

I pushed these thoughts out of my head when I remembered Alex. I hobbled over to the truck (my legs were stiff from being in an awkward position for hours) that did this to us and climbed on the mangled hood. I crawled to the edge of it, looked into the passenger side window, and down onto Alex. The right side of his face was a bloody pulp. I crawled as far as I could into the Jeep; my head was almost in Alex's chest. I wrapped one of my arms around him and with the other reached into my back pocket and pulled out the cutter. First, I cut his lap belt. Secondly, I slowly cut the belt that goes across his chest. I cut it little by little, each cut taking more weight off the seatbelt and more weight onto my arms. Finally, I cut completely through the seatbelt, and Alex fell into my arm. I quickly threw the cutter out the window behind me, and with that arm now free, I quickly wrapped it around him before my other one gave way and I dropped him.

I slowly pulled him up, then inched backwards. Pull up; inch back. Pull up; inch back. Finally, I was outside of the Jeep, and pulled Alex out completely with one big heave. I collapsed on top of the truck's mangled hood, and Alex fell on top of me. I laid there for a moment, breathing heavily. I pushed Alex off me and sat up. I did a quick check over Alex, and he had no broken bones. I was totally baffled.

I jumped off the truck and walked over to where the seatbelt cutter had fallen and placed it into my back pocket. Once Alex came to, we were going to figure out what in the world is going on.

This whole thing was weirding me out. Well, I guess "weirding" is the lightest way that I could put it. I was scared. Again. Just when the Visitors left, along with my fears, everybody suddenly got a death wish, ushering in a new fear. One question that had been lingering in the back of my mind the entire time pushed itself to the top of my pile of questions. Why not me? Why hadn't I suddenly started hating everything and decided to try to kill myself? I couldn't answer these questions. I had no explanation – logical or otherwise. But nothing was really "logical" anymore.

I decided that while I was waiting for Alex to come around, I would wash all this blood off me. I gave up on any rescue crews coming. They were probably spread thin or something. I began to walk to the pond that was in front of the hotel that was next to the highway. Shells of what used to be cars were all over of the road, making it difficult for me to cross. The sun beat down on me, hotter than ever.

I made it to the grass median separating the highway from the service road that led to the hotel and the various other businesses. There were not as many "cars" on the road, so it was an easy task getting to the pond. The main pond was dark and nasty from the gas and oil that spilled from the helicopter that had crashed into it.

To the right of the main one, I saw other smaller ponds. I half-walked-half-stumbled to the pond, my throat rejoicing because of the coming refreshment. I fell to my knees at the edge of the nearest pond and dumped my head into it. Ice-cold water rushed over my face, washing away the dirt, sweat, and blood. I used my hands to scrub away the stubborn dirt and blood, simultaneously washing the blood and dirt off my hands. I lifted my head out of the water, took another deep breath, and plunged my head back into the pond. The refreshing water felt so good on my face. I held my head under the water for as long as I could. My lungs began begging for oxygen, so I lifted my head out of the water, and gasped for air. I put my head back in, this time halfway, and started taking gulps of water. My throat thanked me, and I felt energy returning to my body.

I ran my hands across my face and shook water out of my hair. Something felt weird. I ran my hands across my face a couple more times, not believing it. I looked down at my reflection in the water. The water was disturbed and rippling. The water settled at an agonizingly slow pace. It finally did, and I let out a gasp. There was not a scratch or bruise on my face. I looked down at my arms, and the only scratches on them were the ones that I suffered from my escape from the Jeep.

I realized that The Visitors made everyone want to kill themselves, and then healed those left.

Chapter Seven

I poured the water out of the bucket I found onto Alex's face.

He sat up quickly, sputtering water, wiping it off his eyes. "Wha-wha-what?" he said looking around. He was looking from car to car, and finally, his eyes rested on what was left of the Jeep. "Christ!" He exclaimed. He stuttered, looking for words. "H-h-I mean, wha-wha, how in the world did we..." He stopped talking, and looked up at me, eyes wide.

"Follow me," is all I said. I turned to walk towards the ponds. He quickly stood and followed.

I weaved through the cars and tried not to chuckle every time Alex let out a gasp. We finally made it to the ponds. I brought Alex to the one that was next to mine, since the one I used was dirty. I pointed at the pond. "Look," I said.

Alex bent down to look at his reflection in the pond. He let out a scream that, if I hadn't known better, could've sworn came from a girl. "Is that...blood?!" he exclaimed, feeling his face.

"Yep! That's blood all right!" I said, smiling. "Do you feel anything?"

"No! Nothing at all! I don't feel any wounds. Nothing!" he said franticly.

"Exactly," I said, crouching down on my knees to get eye level with him. "The Visitors did something. They planted a death wish into just about everybody's brain, except ours. They healed all of the wounds that we suffered from the crash."

"Well, that was awfully nice of them!" Alex said sarcastically.

"Tell me about it." We sat there for a few moments, thinking. "Well," I said finally. "You get cleaned up. I'm going to go see if my phone survived the crash. Maybe we aren't the only ones who didn't kill themselves."

Alex chuckled. "Man, this has got to be the weirdest, scariest, craziest thing that has happened in history."

"Yeah, and the second happened Friday."

I started making my way back to the Jeep, trying to process what we were going to do. I knew that first we were going to go to my house. It was only about a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel. After that, though, I had no clue. What about my parents? Were they still alive? I couldn't bear the thought of them dying. But what if they had? What would Alex and I do? I shook these thoughts out of my head. I told myself that they were still alive. They had to be.

I realized that I was standing in front of the Jeep in a daze. I snapped to attention and got to work looking through the Jeep.

I got on my stomach in front of the windshield and looked in. All I saw was glass, airbags, trash from the backseat, along with a pair of extra clothes that I keep in the back that somehow made its way to the front seat. I grabbed the white t-shirt and tore two long strips off it. I wrapped the strips around my hands to protect them from the glass and started digging around the Jeep. I remembered my iPhone flying past my face during one of the flips – can't remember which one – so I dug around the side of the car that was on the ground. I saw my Dad and Aunt Jesse's McDonald's food and felt a pang of sadness resonate on the inside of me. I turned that sadness into determination. I had to find my phone and get out of here. I picked up the McDonald's bag, and there was my iPhone.

I pulled it out from the mangled wreck and took a good look at it. It had a blue case that covered the back and sides but unfortunately did nothing to protect the front – the part that really mattered. It was a mess. The screen had been shattered beyond recognition. I tried pressing the lock button, but nothing happened. It was destroyed.

I let out a deep sigh of frustration and tossed the phone back into the Jeep. Well, there went that plan. I mean, I hadn't been expecting much in the first place. I expected it to be cracked or something, but not as badly damaged as it was. I thought maybe I might be able to at least see enough of the screen to try and make a phone call. I guess that is what I get for having such high expectations.

I turned from the wreck and started making my way back to Alex. "How's it goin'?" I asked when I made it back to the pond.

Alex, who was lying on the ground staring into space, responded by grunting.

"Yeah, me too." I sat down next to him.

"What are we going to do now?" he asked.

I noticed that a tear was traveling down his face. "Well, once you're ready, we're going to make our way back to my house. See if our parents are still there. Then, who knows? Maybe look for other survivors. I'm not sure. We'll figure it out as we go along."

"I need to see if my Dad is all right," he said as he sat up.

"We'll try calling him when we get back to the house." I suddenly thought something. Stupid me! How come I did not ask before? "Alex, did you bring your phone with you?"

He shook his head. "I forgot it back at my house. Mom and I were going to go get it replaced."

Figures. "That's fine." I said, more to reassure myself than Alex. I stood up and offered my hand down to Alex. I helped him up. "We better get going. The sun's starting to get high. It's probably around noon."

"Yeah, okay," he muttered.

We started the walk back to the house, Alex dragging his feet. I heard sobs escaping from his mouth. He was trying hard to hide it, but was not doing a very good job of it. It was then that I realized that I could never show any weakness in front of him. Even though I was only older than he was by a few months, he looked up at me. He needed me for guidance, leadership – courage. He needed me to be courageous for him.

As I walked away from the hotel, the car wreck – car wrecks – I realized that I was leaving everything behind. I was leaving my old life behind and stepping into a completely new one.

Chapter Eight

Alex and I turned to the right onto the street that my – our – house was on. We slowly made our way up the road trying our best to prolong the inevitable truth. Still, we had a tiny glimmer of hope on the inside of us. We survived, so why not our parents? They had to be there.

We made it to the house finally. I stopped at the edge of the driveway, outside of the twelve-foot cast iron fence and looked up at the house. Its blue two-story self stood exactly where we left it. The fence showed no signs of damage from somebody crashing their car into it as so many others in the neighborhood did.

I walked over to the keypad that was in a box on the edge of the gate and entered the code. The gate didn't budge. I tried again. Nothing. I punched my fist against the gate in frustration, and let out a grunt. I remembered that Alex was standing over me, and quickly stood up, brushing invisible dirt off my shirt. "Power must be out. We can't climb the fence; it's too high. There's a secret gate in the back. Follow me." I jogged around the property until I was in the back center of the house. I inspected each of the rods in the fence for the mark indicating where the secret gate was. I found the rod that had a cut straight through near the top. I pulled on it, and the road came off the fence. The rod next to it was cut in the same way, and I popped it off like I did the other. Alex and I squeezed through, and I turned and placed the rods back in their place.

"Secret gate, huh?" Alex smiled. "Way cool."

"Well, what can I say? Mom was a fan of theatrics." The mention of her reminded me that she could possibly be waiting for me inside the house. I ran to the back door. I reached underneath the welcome mat and grasped for the spare key. My hands touched cold metal, and I slid the key out from underneath the mat and picked it up. I inserted the key into the lock and twisted. The door let out a satisfying click. I took in a deep breath, opened the door, and walked in.

The house was dark. Dark and quite. I turned right, and started for the kitchen. Alex closed the door and was right on my heels. "Mom?" I called into the darkness. "Dad?" I heard no reply.

"Mom?" Alex tried, hoping for a different result than I had, but he had the same. "Mom," he said again, more like a statement, and less like a question.

"They're not here," I concluded, my head dropping.

"No, no, no. They have to be. We haven't searched the whole house! We can't give up! They have got to be around here somewhere!" Alex voice was shaky, obviously holding back tears.

"All right," I let out an exasperated breath. I already knew in my gut that it was useless. "You go search upstairs. I'll check down here."

Next thing I knew, Alex was already halfway up the stairs.

When he was all the way up, I walked into the kitchen. I fell back against the refrigerator and slowly slid down to the ground; the cool metal of the fridge soothing my sore back. I placed my head on my hands and ran them through my hair. What was going on? Where were they? I silently sobbed. The tears began following down my face and coming to rest on my chin, trying to decide whether or not they wanted to plunge down onto my shirt. They ultimately threw themselves onto me like people jumping off a cliff and dashing onto the rocks. I found this fitting since that's what so many people did just that last night.

Then I realized something. Even though the tears "killed" themselves, they still made my shirt wet, the remnants of the tears being their "bodies".

I jumped up from my seat on the floor. I went through the living room and to the washroom where the door leading to the garage was. I opened the door, and my nostrils were assaulted by the smell of gasoline and rubber. I walked to the middle of the garage where my mom's car was. I lifted the beige car cover off it in one swift motion. Sitting there was my mom's maroon Camry. I moved from the Camry to my dad's car parked next to it. I lifted the black cover off it and underneath it was Dad's blue FJ Cruiser. I stood staring at the cars. They obviously did not hop in their cars to kill themselves. Then I remembered.

Aunt Jesse.

I lifted up the garage door that the cars went through to get outside, and sitting in the middle of the driveway was Aunt Jesse's black Suburban. So how did they kill themselves, and where are their bodies? I asked myself.

I made my way back inside, trying to figure out the answer to the question that I never thought I would ask myself. "Alex?" I called once I had made it back to the kitchen.

"In here," he called from the living room.

I walked into the living room and saw him lying down on the couch. "No dice?" I asked.

"No dice," he replied.

I let out a big sigh and dropped onto one of the recliners – not Dad's, of course. That would always be Dad's chair, and I was not about to start sitting in it.

"I was thinking," I started, hesitating because I didn't know how to put it into the right words. "What...what if, they didn't kill themselves?"

Alex sat up, giving me a weird look. He raised his eyebrows, signaling for me to continue.

"Well," I continued. "I mean, you didn't find any bodies upstairs, did you?"

He quickly shook his head.

"And I checked in the garage, my parents' cars are still parked in the same place. I checked in the driveway, and your mom's car is still there, also."

"What are you getting at?" he asked, puzzled.

"Well...I'm not exactly sure, to tell you the truth. But I think it is safe to say that they didn't kill themselves. Not here, at least."

Alex sat there, staring at me as if I was a Visitor. "Maybe they went looking for us?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. If they did go looking for us, they have taken one of the cars, right? I mean, if you just looked out the window, you wouldn't think that the roads were as bad as they were. They would've thought that the roads were okay to drive on."

Alex, now sitting upright, stared at the wall with a glazed over expression on his face. Finally, he spoke. "What are we going to do?" He accepted the fact that they weren't here, and we might not ever find them or their bodies.

"We need to go look for other people. You know, ones who didn't kill themselves – or whatever it was that happened. We cannot be the only ones."

Alex let out a big sigh before standing. "Well, we better get to work."

I stood up and walked over to him. I pulled him in, and gave him a big bro-hug. "It's going to be okay," I reassured him.

"Okay," he said shakily. "It's going to be okay," he repeated. Then, he began to sob. He was crying harder than anybody that I have seen cry before. I couldn't blame him at all. He wasn't doing it because he was some wimp. He was doing it because his old life just got ripped away from him. I just stood there, holding him tight as his body shook from crying as a single tear silently ran my cheek before absorbing itself into Alex's shirt.

Chapter Nine

The sun was low on the horizon when Alex and I made it back to the house. We had been going house to house, knocking on doors seeing if anybody would answer. I felt like I was a Boy Scout again. We canvased almost the entire neighborhood, and unfortunately, depressingly, disappointingly, whatever-is-worse-than-those-things-ly, we were the only ones – to our knowledge – still alive. It was so strange. I never thought in a million years that something like this would happen. I was very, very afraid. I wasn't prepared for any of this, and I had no idea how to survive. My parents were always there to provide for me, to keep me safe. Now that they were gone, I was lost without a compass. I was regretting not listening to them and not spending more time with them. I wished I could go back and not play on my Xbox as much as I did. I would've spent that time with my parents. I guess what I've heard all my life is true: you've never know what you've got until it's gone. That's one saying I wished I never experienced the meaning of.

We went for the refrigerator before realizing that the food in it had probably already started to go bad because of the power outage. So instead, we raided the cabinets. We grabbed a bag of chips and some granola bars. I never realized how much of our food had to stay cool in order for it to be good to eat. "Tomorrow," I said as I threw a granola bar wrapper in the trash. "We need to go to the store to get some non-perishable food."

Alex nodded. "And the food banks. Pretty much all of their food is non-perishable. I think it's a requirement or something."

I nodded and grabbed another strawberry granola bar. I shoved that one down and then another. I realized that the two of us had not eaten since last night. Being in a car wreck, getting knocked out for an entire night, having just about everybody on planet Earth disappear – including your parents – and running around the entire neighborhood can be taxing on one's appetite.

In the end, we tore through two boxes of granola bars and a bag of chips.

Once we were finished, I stood from my seat at the kitchen table. "I'm going to bed. I'm wiped."

"Well, where am I going to sleep?" Alex asked.

"I'll get the air mattress, and you can sleep in my bedroom floor."

I went upstairs with Alex close behind me, and I pulled the air mattress out of the hall closet. We laid it out across my bedroom floor. I grabbed some candles that were in some of the other rooms and lit them in my room so we had some light. The mixture of the different scents of the candles gave me a headache, but I tried my best to ignore it. It's not like we could fumble around in the dark. I went back to the closet to grab the air pump. We hooked it all together and aired the mattress up.

When it was finished, Alex plopped on top of it. "Ahhh," he sighed. "This feels soooo good!"

I went to my closet and grabbed a pillow and a set of sheets. I threw them on top of him. "Here," I said. "Put these on. I'm going to get ready for bed."

"Yeah, okay," he said, reluctantly standing to put the sheets on.

I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, put on some night pants – no shirt, um...ahem..."relived" myself, and put on my retainer. I never wore it, even though my parents always urged me to. I decided that I was going to start wearing it, no matter how uncomfortable it made me. I regretted not doing it when they told me to. I regretted a lot of things that I did – and did not – do with my parents. Now they were gone, and I was going to have to live with those regrets for the rest of my life.

I sulked back to my room. Alex was passed out on his bed in a pair of red pajamas that looked a lot like a pair that I owned. I blew out all of the candles in the room and fell onto my bed.

All the things that had happened today pushed themselves to the forefront of my mind, refusing to let myself sleep – my parents being front and center. I was surprised at how well I was taking all of this. I wasn't pretending everything was fine—it definitely wasn't—but I tried my best to accept it and move on. I pushed the thoughts out of my mind. I took a deep breath in, and let it out. In, and out. In, and out. My mind went blank, and I slipped into a dreamless slumber.

****

The sun seeping through my blinds woke me up. I grabbed the watch off the ground beside my bed and looked at its face. It said it was nine thirty-two. I looked over, and Alex was not in his bed. I sat up, walked out of my room (successfully stumping my toe on the air pump), and jogged down the stairs.

"Alex?" I called. For a split-second, I was scared that he disappeared like everybody else, and I was all going to be all alone.

"In here!" Alex called from my mom's study.

I threw the door open and ran in. I had not been in the study in a long time, but it still looked the same. The walls were a dark grey, and bookshelves lined one of the walls. On the other side was a large glass and stainless steel desk that held most of Mom's many notebooks, her laptop, and lots of pages covered in red ink. Sitting in the chair in front of the laptop was Alex, red pajamas and all.

"Dude! What are you doing in here?" I exclaimed. My mom never let me come in here, and I didn't want to start.

"Just playing Solitaire," he breathed out.

I forgot everything, and went to go stand by him. He wasn't doing so hot. "Wow. You suck at this."

Alex laughed. "I'm not sure it's possible to suck at Solitaire. Mom was always way better at it than I was, so maybe I just don't have the 'eye' for it or whatever."

It saddened me that he was speaking about Aunt Jesse in the past tense. It made everything seem final, like they really were not coming back. Since Alex accepted it, I had to for sure, now. I felt a wave of sadness begin to grow in my stomach, but I quickly shut it down.

"What are we going to do?" Alex asked, leaning back in his chair, giving up on his game.

I looked at the ground. I tried not to think about what we were going to do. I always thought in the back of my mind that this was all some crazy dream. That my parents would walk through the doors and tell me what to do. But now I couldn't avoid the topic any longer. I thought about it for a moment, before replying, "I guess we can go get some food and supplies, or something. That's where everybody else would be out. Maybe we can find out more about what's going on."

Alex stroked an invisible beard on his chin. "Sounds good to me. It's better than sitting here, letting the computer kick my butt at Solitaire."

I let out a laugh. "It's Solitaire, dude. You aren't playing against a computer. I think it's just because you suck at it."

Alex shrugged. "I have to come up with some sort of an excuse!"

****

I pulled Dad's FJ into Wal-Mart, parking right in front of the door. I didn't think there'd be any police officers giving me a ticket for parking in the fire lane.

"We need to get some generators first," I told Alex, as we walked to the door.

We walked right into it.

"Oh my god!" Alex yelled, grabbing his nose.

"That was painful," I rubbed my nose.

"I'm guessing the power's out?"

"Wow. Never would've guessed," I said sarcastically. "We're going to have to pry the door open."

I placed my hand on one side of the electric door, and Alex did the same on the other side. We pushed as hard as we could, and the door squeaked open.

"Stay here," I told Alex. He extended his arms and acted as a door stop. I grabbed a basket and put it between the doors, keeping them open so we wouldn't have to pry it open again, just in case it decided to close. "Let's go," Alex said

We started making our way towards the generators. It was easy to see, thanks to the windows on the roof letting the natural light from the sun in. It was all so surreal. We were walking around Wal-Mart, by ourselves, no power in the whole store, and grabbing everything we could see. I never thought something like this would happen. I definitely was not enjoying it. I wished everything would go back to the way things were. I'd go to school and get yelled at by my teachers and Dad any day of the week over this.

We made it to the aisle with the generators on it. "Let's grab a couple of the biggest ones they've got," I told Alex.

"Sure thing, boss," he said sarcastically.

We stacked two generators in Alex's basket and then did the same to mine. We grabbed a couple of gas cans, too, since these generators were gas powered.

We started walking back to the car, our footsteps echoing in the eerie silence of the store that was always bustling with activity. The store that just a couple days earlier I was in with Mom and it was a total mad house. I felt a shot of pain shoot through me at the thought of my mom. I couldn't believe she was gone.

We pushed the basket that was keeping the doors open and replaced it once Alex and I squeezed through. We loaded the generators and gas cans into the back of the vehicle – having to set down the back seat in the process.

Once the baskets were empty, we started making our way back inside.

"Where to first?" Alex asked once inside.

"Well, food, I guess," I said. We started making our way to the food section.

We grabbed all the food we could. The baskets were filled with cookies, chips, cereal, and candy; we also grabbed some soups, crackers, and bread. We were going to get some milk for the cereal, but that had already gone bad. That was fine with me, though. Frosted Flakes still tasted like little morsels of heaven, even without the milk.

"Let's get some paper, and stuff, so we have something to do, like draw," Alex said, once the baskets were almost full.

I was never good at drawing, but we went to get some paper anyways. I was grabbing some pens. There were so many of them. Every year when I would get school supplies, I would spend forever trying to figure out which pen was the perfect one. However, my pursuit for the perfect pen futile; I never found one.

I was grabbing a couple of packages of pens when I heard a scuffling noise. My heart skipped a beat, and I immediately felt light headed. There was somebody else here! I slowly walked to the end of the aisle and poked my head around the corner. There was nothing there.

I shook my head, blaming the noise on my stress, and went over to help Alex pick out which notebook he should get (although, he could've gotten any of them, really).

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"Hear what?" he said, not looking up from the notebooks

"Never mind. It was nothing. Hurry up so we can get out of here." I was starting to get the feeling like I was being watched. And even though we were supposed to be looking for other people, I had a really bad feeling about this.

"I think I'm gonna go with the blu–" There was a grunt. Alex stopped mid-sentence, and froze. He heard it too.

What was that? he mouthed.

I don't know, I mouthed back.

There was a loud bang, the sound of things being knocked over, and footsteps pounding on the ground in quick succession.

Alex threw the notebooks down and took off running towards the exit. I took off after him, leaving the baskets behind. An un-earthly roar came from behind us and echoed off the walls. Fear and adrenaline coursed through my body, accelerating it forward. My legs were moving faster than they ever have before. Everything was streaking past me, but I did not dare look back. All I knew was that the man chasing after us was not friendly at all. He sounded demented or possessed. He was panting like a dog and grunting like some wild animal at the same time.

The exit was right in front of us. Alex reached the cart first and barreled through it. He grabbed his leg, and grunted in pain, but kept on going. I squeezed through the doors as they were closing. I heard the man slam into the doors and start banging on them, trying to get them open.

I ran to the driver's side of the car. I jumped in the front seat and started the car. I threw it in drive and slammed on the accelerator. The tires spun, before gaining traction, and propelled us forward. I swerved through the parking lot as fast as I could, only slowing down enough to not flip the car as I turned onto the road.

Chapter Ten

Alex and I were driving through the streets. My body buzzed from the adrenaline that flowed through it. I started shaking slightly, and my legs felt weak. I looked over at Alex, and he had his head against the headrest breathing in through his nose and out his mouth. He moved his leg, and let out a whimper.

"What is it?" I asked franticly. "Are you hurt?"

Alex let out a sharp breath as he moved his leg up to show me. He had a long gash going from his kneecap to his upper thigh. "There was a piece of metal sticking out of the basket, probably a screw or something. When I ran into it, it cut me."

"You need some gauze for that. I don't know whether or not Mom got some when she went shopping." I looked up, and saw that we were driving by Cook Memorial Hospital. "Let's stop in there. We can get you some bandages, and maybe get some medicine. Just in case."

"Yeah, okay," Alex said as he put his foot down. "Let's just hope there are not any scary dudes chasing after us."

Alex was trying to make a joke, but I didn't laugh. It actually freaked me out a little. I did not want to go in there after what just happened, but we didn't have a choice. Alex's leg could've gotten infected if I didn't do something about it, and soon.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot, again, parking as close as I could to the door. Man, I was getting kind of lazy! Oh well. I did just had the most traumatizing two days of my entire life (or so I thought at the time). The least I could do was park close to the door. Besides, my legs were feeling like Jell-O, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could walk.

Even though we parked as close as we could, we still had to walk through a garden to get to the entrance. The garden had purple and pink flowers that were blooming and waving in the wind, paying no attention that the world was crumbling around them. There were fountains that were no longer shooting water into the sky, so we knew that the electricity was out here. Our footsteps were echoing across the garden – no, city. The footsteps were so loud, I'm sure you could've heard them from my house. I was still not used to everybody being gone, but then again, I didn't think I ever would be.

We made it to the large revolving doors and pushed as hard as we could on the door. The door slowly started spinning, taking us into the darkness that enveloped the hospital lobby. It was very warm in the hospital. The electricity had been out for a while because it was very musty.

We stood there for a moment, letting our eyes adjust to the darkness. Once they were somewhat adjusted, I looked around the lobby. It had a high ceiling that was about twenty feet tall, with chandeliers hanging from it. There were couches placed around a flat screen television and an arcade machine in the corner. The tile floors led to a large receptionist's desk, and from there, to three different hallways.

We walked to the fork in the road and stood there for a moment.

"Which hallway do we go down first?" I asked Alex.

He shrugged. "I always heard that if you're in a maze, to always go right, and it will lead you to the exit."

"Well, that's as much help as Batman in space!"

"Batman in spa–"

"Whatever! You get the idea! Does this place look like a maze to you?"

Alex stood there for a moment. "Well, if you go to the center of it, spin around for ten seconds, bang your head really hard, then you wouldn't know where you were, so you'd be lost, like in a maze." Alex smiled and nodded his head in agreement with himself.

"Whatever!" I snapped. "Right it is!"

Alex walked to the entrance to the hallway and extended his hands in the direction of the hallway. "After you, Batman."

I rolled my eyes, and brushed past him, going from the dark lobby to the even darker hallway.

The darkness was suffocating. It was eating me from the inside out. It would grab a hold of my eyes, and squeeze the life out of them, making them utterly useless. More than once I thought that I was going to be permanently blind. I could see it now, Charlie Freeman: The Man Who Went Blind Because it was too Dark. Oh, wait, there were no more newspapers, so there went that.

Right after that, I could see something ahead: a light. I wasn't blind! But I couldn't see where the light was coming from. "You see that?" I asked Alex, making sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me.

"Yeah, bro. I see it," he said.

We got closer, and I could see what it was coming from. "It's an emergency light," I explained.

"Huh," Alex puffed. "Why weren't there any in the lobby?"

"I don't know, but I don't care! I can see!" I started laughing.

"Wow. You're weird."

"You're one to talk."

We walked to the door that was underneath the emergency light. "And behind door number one is," Alex said as he twisted the doorknob. He threw the door open. "The jackpot!"

Inside were clear cabinets that had different types of medicine and supplies.

"Look for a sheet," I told Alex. We dug through the cabinets until we found a single sheet. Alex found it, and we spread it across the floor.

"All right, we need to find some anti-bacterial cream and some gauze for your leg," I told Alex.

Alex went directly to the cabinet that held these items. "I saw them while searching for the sheet," he explained.

He sat down on the sheet, and I took a seat next to him. I looked at his leg, as he rolled his pants up. I took in a sharp breath. "Man, that looks bad," I exclaimed. The wound was large and had dirt all in it. I remember thinking that it must've been a really large screw. Then again, you never know what you'll find in a basket at Wal-Mart.

"Nah dude, it's not that bad. Besides, the ladies'll dig it." A wicked grin spread across his face. Of course Alex would be thinking about girls.

"Good luck finding one," I said laughing.

"I accept your challenge!" he said, saluting me, and giving me a wicked grin.

"I don't think you'll have much luck if we have to cut your leg off because it got infected. Ah, I forgot, we need some alcohol."

Alex's eyes grew big, as he raised his eyebrows, and his wicked grin became wicked...er.

"Rubbing alcohol."

His face grew long, as he let out a whimper. "That's gonna hurt."

"Bad."

"Real bad."

I got up and grabbed a bottle off the counter. I popped the cap off it. "You ready?" I asked.

"Just get it over with!" He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

I poured it up and down his leg.

"Holy sh—" he put his fist in his mouth and bit down on it hard.

"Hey! Hey!" I yelled. "We don't need another wound! Get your hand outta there!"

He pulled his fist out. "It freakin' hurts!"

"Ya big baby! Get over it!"

He took in big, deep breaths. Finally, his breath started to slow. "Okay, it's better now."

I grabbed the bottle of anti-bacterial cream. I squeezed it out on his leg and started rubbing it.

Alex started laughing. "Oh, man! That's cold, and it tickles!" He laughed even harder.

I just rolled my eyes and kept rubbing the cream on his leg. If he wasn't my cousin, this would've been incredibly awkward. "All right, that should be good." His leg looked gooey, and the hair stuck together. I grabbed the roll of gauze and wrapped it around his leg tight. I got up and grabbed some tape, just to make sure it didn't come undone. Once I was done, I slapped his leg. "All done!"

He winced. "Not cool, dude. It still hurts." I stood, and helped him up. He jogged in place, testing out the bandage. "That's a lot better, though."

"Good. Let's throw some supplies in the sheet and take it out to the car." I went to the cabinet.

"Good idea," Alex said, and he walked to my side. He started filling up his arms with supplies.

I had no clue what most of this stuff did, but I was just grabbing things at random to fill the sheet up. There were syringes, pill bottles, bandages, ointment, everything but the kitchen sink, really.

Once we had filled the sheet, the both of us grabbed two corners, and folded it. I threw it over my shoulder like Santa carrying his sack of goodies and started walking back to the car. I headed towards the light from outside that was seeping through the revolving doors.

"No!" Alex yelled. "Don't go towards the light, Charlie!"

I realized that he was being sarcastic. "But, the light," I playfully responded. "It's so...pretty!"

We both started laughing and continued on. It was nice to know that my sense of humor didn't disappear along with everybody else. We reached the door, and Alex started pushing. I helped a little bit, by pushing with my shoulder.

The door opened to the outside, and I was greeted with a blast of cool air.

"Man, I think it's starting to cool down!" Alex said.

It was the best news that I had heard in what felt like a lifetime. Sad, but true. "Good thing, too. I was starting to get tired of all that heat," I said.

We walked to the car, our footsteps the only sound in the silence. Alex unlocked the car and opened the trunk. We laid the sheet on top of the generators, and I slammed the door shut with a bang that sounded like a gun-shot in the silence.

"What now?" Alex asked, stretching.

I jogged to the front door, put the key in the ignition, and turned it over once. The clock said it was one thirty-two.. "Well," I said, returning to the back of the car where Alex was. "It's getting kind of late, but I want to go back inside and look for some people."

If Alex would've had water in his mouth, he would have spit it out. "Are you serious?" he yelled. "After what happened in the store and how dark and freaky it is in the hospital?"

"Yes," I responded sternly. "We're supposed to be looking for people. Most people would go to a hospital, in order to get supplies, like we did. We need to find more people. We cannot survive on our own." Honestly, I didn't want to go back in there. But we had to find people. I knew we couldn't survive on our own.

Alex stared at the ground.

"I'm going in there." I walked past him and started making my way back inside.

I heard Alex huff behind me, but I didn't turn around. "Fine!" he yelled. I heard his footsteps running across the garden. He ran next to me, before matching my pace. "You aren't going anywhere without me."

We reached the revolving door and pushed it open, walking back into the hospital.

Chapter Eleven

We walked to the three hallways. "Let's go down the middle one," I told Alex.

He shrugged, obviously not enjoying this at all.

I started walking down it, feeling the walls, and reaching my hand in front of me so I did not run into anything. I felt fear try to enter me, but I pushed it aside. I had to be strong, I had to find people, and I had to survive.

"Hello?" I called out, cupping my hands over my mouth in order to amplify my voice. It bounced and echoed off the walls, before the darkness consumed it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Alex whispered harshly. "You don't know who could be in here!"

I just shrugged. "Oh well, too late for that now! Besides, we're looking for people. Shouting for them is kinda the point."

"Help!"

I froze. I felt a hand grip on my shoulder, and I freaked out. I started jumping and yelping, trying brushing whatever it was off me.

"Dude, it's just me." Alex's voice was quivering. "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah, I did. It sounds like somebody's in trouble. Let's go check it out."

"Help!" I heard the voice call out. It sounded weak and was barely louder than a whisper. But since the hospital was so empty, and the whisper echoed off the walls, there was no telling how far away the person was.

"Help!" it said again. We turned a corner and saw a woman lying slouched on the ground underneath one of the emergency lights. We rushed to her side. I looked down at her and saw she was a police officer. The name tag on her uniform said Garcia. She had long brown hair that was bloodied. Her clothes were ripped, and she was covered in blood. She was clutching her right hand against her chest, but then I saw it. Her hand was gone. I heard Alex gagging, and I started shaking. I was freaking out. My body felt like lead, and I thought I was going to pass out. I had no clue what was going on, but I had to find out.

"Who did this to you?" I asked as I knelt down next to her.

"The people," she said very quickly and barely over a whisper. She had a crazed look in her eyes, like she saw something horrendous, and she was going to be crazy forever. "They were here, and then they weren't! Here, than gone! Here, than gone!" Her eyes darted around the hallway, only stopping to make eye contact with me for a second, before they started going crazy again.

"What does she mean, gone?" Alex asked me, panicking.

"I don't know!" I said throwing my hands up in frustration.

"The creatures – monsters – they attacked. They attacked me. My hand! They took my hand! Screaming, I heard screaming when they attacked. They were screaming! I can hear it now! I still hear it!" She clutched one ear with the hand that was still attached and pushed the other ear against her shoulder. "Stop it! Stop screaming!" She started breathing heavily.

I was gasping for air. I was never going to forget this because it scared me so badly. I thought I was going to puke; my stomach was turning and flipping harder than ever before. My hands were shaking, and my chest was constricting.

"What are we going to do?" Alex asked. "We need to get out of here. If those people that did this to her are still around..." He shuddered.

"Grimms," she said, her head snapping to attention. The sudden movement made Alex and I jump. "The screaming. They were Grimms. The screaming said, 'Grimms.'" She looked past us, staring into the darkness. "They're coming." She started to laugh. "They're coming! You're going to be like me!" She started laughing hysterically now. "Here! We're here!" she screamed, alerting whoever did this to her to our position.

Grimms. The name swirled in my mind. I wasn't sure what they were, but I did not want to stick around to find out.

Before I could say anything, there was an unearthly screech. It sounded like a gorilla, but a little more high pitched. It was a scream that turned my legs to lead. Alex and I stood there, frozen by fear. There was the sound of footsteps pounding on the ground, and the screeching continued. It was getting closer.

I snapped out of it. I turned and shook Alex. "Come on! We gotta hide!"

We darted for the door that was next to us. Alex ran in, but I remembered something. I went back to Officer Garcia. I wasn't sure why; she was crazy. But I couldn't just leave her out there. But when I got to her, I saw that her eyes were wide open, and her chest wasn't moving. She was dead. I felt sorry for her. There weren't many humans left, and so every life was precious. Well, before all this happened, every life was still precious. But now, it was really, really, precious. At least she was no longer suffering. I reached down and unclipped her gun. I felt bad stealing from a dead person, but I wasn't going to be in a hospital filled with what the officer called Grimms and not have a gun. I stuck it in the waistband of my jeans and ran back to the room that Alex was hiding in.

I shut the door behind me. I could barely see anything inside, but I knew that it was a janitor's closet from the small amount of light that was leaking in from the crack underneath the door. The room was very small, and I felt a mop poking into my stomach. Alex was plastered against the wall, and I stood next to him. His breathing was shaky. "Be completely silent," I told him. I heard his hair brush against the wall as he nodded his head.

I took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

I heard the creature – no, Grimms – footsteps come to a halt. I heard it breathing heavily and start sniffing the air. I heard it brush against Garcia's body, and it started sliding it across the floor, most likely taking it to the rest of the Grimms. I prayed that there weren't any more, but there's no way that this Grimm could've gone from Wal-Mart to here before us. Of course, that's what was at Wal-Mart. There's no other explanation for it.

Alex started scooting closer to me. "What are you doing?" I said as quietly as possible. He was getting closer, and closer. "Stop moving!"

"There's something crawling up my leg," he whispered, panicking.

"Do you want to keep your leg? Then you should be still."

His foot hit the mop bucket as he tried to kick whatever it was off his leg. The bucket fell over with a loud bang!

The Grimm let out a grunt. The both of us froze; we weren't even breathing. My heart was beating out of my chest. I thought it was going to explode. I heard the Grimm shuffle over to us. The light coming in from underneath the door disappeared, as the Grimms shadow covered it. It stuck its nose to the bottom of the door and took in a deep breath. It let out a shout and jumped up to try and open the door.

I grabbed the gun that was in the back of my pants and cocked it.

It started fumbling with the doorknob but couldn't open it. This was very reminiscent to the scene in Jurassic Park, when the two kids were inside the kitchen, away from the dinosaurs, but then the dinosaur figured out how to open the doorknob. The kids were able to run away and escape, but Alex and I didn't have much room to run. At least we had a gun, but I was still scared out of my mind.

The doorknob clicked, and the Grimm let out a shout in triumph.

There was another roar that sounded further away. The Grimm closest to us let out a roar in response. There was the pounding of footsteps and a loud crash. It sounded like the two Grimms were fighting! There was the sound of the Grimms roaring, yelping, and crashing into the wall. It sounded like the worst cat fight in history. One of the Grimms threw the other one onto the door to the closet that we were in, and I almost screamed. The door shook and for a second I thought the door was going to bust down. We heard more slamming and screaming, until I heard the Grimm that was losing start running away, and the other Grimm started chasing after him.

Then, there was silence. We had survived.

I realized that I had been holding my breath, and I let it all out. I started breathing fast, my mind racing. "Th-those things," I panted. I took another deep breath. "Had to of been—couldn't of been —"

"Human?" Alex finished for me.

I nodded. "We need to get out of here. Fast."

"You don't have to tell me twice!"

I slowly opened the door. I could hear the fighting in the distance, but it was getting quitter, and quitter. I walked over to Officer Garcia. Her eyes were opened. They were frozen in their crazed state. I shut them.

I knew that something else was going on. This wasn't just the Visitors making everybody kill themselves – or whatever it was that happened. This was something more. Something sinister. Hate for the Visitors grew stronger inside of me. They were going to pay.

I stood up, and Alex and I started to sneak off. I felt bad leaving Officer Garcia there, but we had no choice. Our footsteps and heavy breaths echoed off the walls, making me wince every time, because I thought for sure a Grimm would hear it.

As we reached the end of the hallway, we heard a scream. It wasn't the scream of a Grimm, it was the scream of a human girl.

"Help me!" she shouted as loud as she could.

I looked at Alex. "We can't just leave her," I said.

"I know."

We turned around and took off in the direction of the screams.

Chapter Twelve

Keep screaming, I thought. Just keep screaming.

Since the girl was inside a room, and the hospital had a bad echo, it was hard to tell where she was at. But even though we needed her to scream, the more she screamed, the more chance Grimms would hear. Although that's why she was screaming in the first place.

The screaming got louder, and Alex and I finally heard the room she was in was just around the corner. I plastered myself against the wall, and Alex did the same. We slowly walked to the edge of the hallway, and I peeked around the corner.

I could barely see because the emergency light was on the other door across from where the room the girl was in, silhouetting the Grimm. However, I could tell that he was trying to dig his way into the room.

"Okay, we're here now. You can shut up!" Alex said to himself, but acting like he was talking to the girl.

I turned to him. "There's only one of them. I don't want to alert the others to our position, so I'm going to knock him upside the head with the butt of the pistol. You stay here, just in case things get...complicated."

"Uh, not to rain on your parade, but they probably already know that we're here," Alex said.

"True, but they must know that the girl is this Grimms or something. You heard what happened last time one of these things got in the way of the other one's...human." It was hard for me to say that, something that I would've thought was ridiculous just a few days ago. I continued, "A gunshot would alert them to us. Plus, I want to save bullets."

"Man, this is some crazy stuff," Alex stared at the Grimm. "Grimms and all that stuff. What's going on?"

"I don't know," I said turning around, preparing myself to take out the Grimm. "We'll worry about that later. Right now, we need to get this girl, and then get the hell out of here."

I crouched down and started slowly sneaking up behind the Grimm. This thing had really been going to town on the floor! I was shocked to see that he was actually making a hole in the concrete. Albeit, a small one, but a hole nonetheless. I was beginning to question whether or not the butt of the pistol was going to do any damage to the head of the Grimm. It was too late to turn back, though, 'cause I was right behind it.

I raised the pistol high above my head, and let out a grunt as I brought it down on the back of its head as hard as I could.

It didn't even faze him.

He turned around, and let out a roar right in my face. Blood and saliva sprayed me. I stared at it in fear, wanting to move, but I couldn't. It jumped on me, tackling me to the ground. It started to try and bite me. I threw the gun, freeing my hands, and I grabbed it by the throat. Right as I touched it, I heard screaming rack through my brain. There were tons of them. Most of them weren't saying anything at all. It was just hundreds and hundreds of screams. Some were man and woman, young and old, loud and soft. But there was a whisper that was louder than all the screams. It was whispering confidently, as if the source of the voice knew that he was supreme. Grimm. It just said that over and over again. Grimm.

Fear coursed through my body, my muscles clenched tight, as I held its throat inches from my face. It looked up from my throat, and looked at me in the eyes. Its eyes looked human. They were bright, blue and didn't look alien at all. For a split-second, the screaming stopped, and the whisper changed from Grimm, to something else. Sa—

There was a loud gunshot, and the Grimm's head exploded. Its brains covered my face, and even a bit of it went into my mouth. The body went limp and fell on top of me. I pushed it off and sat up as fast as I could. I got on my knees and threw up all over the ground. It was all too much.

Once I was done, a stood up shakily, and wiped my mouth on my arm. I couldn't help my wonder what it was the Grimm was about to say. I stopped thinking about it, though. I didn't matter anymore. What's done is done. I looked at up Alex. He was standing there, holding the pistol. "Uh, thanks," I said shakily. I was still weak from expelling my measly dinner all over the ground.

"No problem. No one and nothing messes with my family," he said with a hard look on his face.

I saw something in Alex. For a split second, he wasn't my scared cousin; he was brave. I knew that he had my back, and he was never going to let anything touch me if he could help it. And I wasn't ever going to let anything touch him, either.

"Let's go get the damsel in distress," Alex said, pointing at the door the girl was in, who had stopped screaming. He handed me the pistol.

We opened the door, and looked around. It was hard to see her in the darkness, but we heard her sobs.

"Over here," I heard a raspy voice say.

I looked in the corner and saw she was curled up in it. I walked over to her and got down on my knees. Not the first time I've done this. "It's okay," I comforted her. "We're here. What's your name?"

"Sarah," she said, her voice was very raspy.

"Hi, Sarah. My name is Charlie." I was starting to get good at this thing.

"And my name's Jesus," Alex said impatiently. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

Sarah lifted her hand to me, and I helped her up. She brushed the blondish-brown hair out of her face. It was sticking to it from the tears.

Alex was standing in the doorway as I helped Sarah out. "I hear them! They're coming from that way!" Alex told me as we got into the hallway.

Great. He was pointing towards the way we came: the exit.

"We gotta run!" I told them. I let go of Sarah and started running the opposite direction of where I wanted to.

I looked behind me, and Alex and Sarah were right on my heels.

I couldn't believe this. I was actually being chased through a hospital by strange creatures who wanted to kill me. This was the type of thing that I had nightmares about when I was little. But I guess if dreams come true, then so do nightmares.

"Where are we going?" I heard Alex yell.

"Whichever way they're not!" I yelled back.

The sound of multiple roars from Grimms reached my ears. That's right. Grimms. Plural. More than one. I guess they figured out that teamwork works. There was a cacophony of roars and footsteps pounding on the ground in quick succession behind us. Close behind us. We reached the end of the hallway, and we could go either left, or right. I had no idea which way to go in this hospital, and I was scared that I was going to hit a dead end. However, I heard more Grimms coming from the right. "Left!" I yelled. I wasn't going to let those Grimms get me, Alex, or Sarah. I started to reach for the pistol, but I decided against it. I didn't want it to slow me down, and from the sound of it, I probably didn't have near enough bullets.

My stomach started twisting into knots the size of King Kong's fingers, as a tiny voice inside my head started telling me that we were not going to make it. It was dark. The only light was from the occasional emergency light that wasn't busted because of the earlier work of a Grimm. The sound of footsteps – both human and Grimm – grew in my ears, making the knot in my stomach grow larger.

I was drained both emotionally and physically. My legs were starting to give out on me, along with my brain. After all the things of done – seen – today, I started to think that if I made it out of this, I would go crazy. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to make it out of this, though. It's not like I had anybody to go home to. These things weren't going to go away, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to live in a world where I had to watch my back for fear of these things killing me. The apocalypse can be taxing on a seventeen-year-old. I tried to focus on Alex. I couldn't give up. I had to get him out of here. Sarah, too. She was the reason I was put in that mess in the first place. I used those thoughts and feelings as fuel to my legs. I had to push myself forward.

Then, the nail in the proverbial – and literal – coffin got nailed in.

The hallway dead-ended.

I turned around, and saw Alex and Sarah staring at me, their eyes filled with fear, and defeat. I looked past them and saw at least fifty Grimms running towards us. I was finally able to get a good look at them – the things that were going to kill me.

They had almost human looking bodies, but they were gray. They had two arms, and legs, but they ran like gazelles did. They lunged through the air, landing first on their balled up hands, and then once their feet hit the ground behind them, they used them to lunge again. They were really fast. They could strike fear in you, worse than you've ever felt before, in anyone. Even Chuck Norris...okay, maybe not him. But still...mostpeople.

A glint caught my eye. I looked my right. Relief and joy flooded through me. It was a door. I didn't know why I didn't see it before—probably because of the monsters charging right at me—but it didn't matter anymore. I saw it now.

I grabbed the doorknob and threw the door open. "In here!" I shouted above the screaming of the Grimms. I didn't even have to say anything. Alex and Sarah were in there before I even was. I slammed the door behind me. I looked around the room. "Grab that bed!" I shouted, pointing at the bed in the corner. Alex and Sarah grabbed it and wheeled it over the door. The doorknob was one of those doorknobs that you had to push down, and we stuck the bed right underneath it, jamming the doorknob. We locked the tires.

"Now what?" Alex said, frantic.

Crap. I hadn't thought much further than getting out of the hallway. "We're screwed."

Chapter Thirteen

The Grimms started banging on the door. I could hear them grunting, screaming, and growling. My head was spinning. What was going on? Where did these creatures come from? A couple of days before then, I was enjoying life, but now, I was fighting for it.

"Charlie!" Alex turned me around and looked at me. "Snap out of it!"

He had been shouting my name, but I didn't hear him until he turned me around.

"How are we going to get out? We're trapped!" I yelled over the sounds that the Grimms were making. There were no windows, and there was no way we could fight off so many Grimms.

We stood there, staring at each other. Comprehension showed on his face. He too realized that there was nothing we could do.

"Look!" Sarah shouted. The both of us turned to see what she was pointing at. There was an air vent in the corner of the room. It was large: three foot wide and three foot tall. "We can crawl up in there!"

Alex ran over to her and embraced her in a giant bear hug. "You. Are. A. Genius!"

A shocked look came across her face. "Uh, yeah. I guess so."

"Well, don't just stand there!" I told them. "Let's get that vent off!"

The vent wasn't on the ceiling. It was placed at the top of the wall. I grabbed a chair from one of the desks in the room and placed it underneath the vent so I could reach it better. I tried twisting the four screws that were in each corner, but they were too tight. I grunted in frustration. "They aren't coming off!" I shouted. The noise from the Grimms was growing to a deafening sound. It seemed like every Grimm in the entire hospital was trying to bang down our door. It wasn't going to last much longer.

"Shoot them off!" Alex shouted back.

"Good idea!" I pulled the gun out of the back of my pants and put it in front of the first screw. "Stand back!" I shouted. It would totally suck if Alex and/or Sarah got shot by a ricochet right now. It would reallysuck if I did. But I really had no choice.

I shot the screw. I could barely hear the gun firing over the sound of the Grimms. The bullet ricocheted, and went through the door, hitting a Grimm. Two birds with one stone! I thought, chuckling to myself.

I quickly shot the next three screws off. The grate fell to the floor. "Sarah!" I shouted as loud as I could. I pointed up to the grate. "You first!" I jumped off the chair.

She ran over, clambered up the chair, and disappeared into the vent.

"Alex! You next!" He did the same as Sarah.

I heard the sound of wood breaking. I looked behind me, and I saw that the Grimms were busting through the door. I ran up the chair – kicking it aside – and climbed into the vent as fast as I could. Right when I entered the cold, metal vent, the Grimms busted in. I sank into the vent as far as I could. I felt Alex's knee jabbing into my back.

I heard the Grimms flood the room, knocking things over, roaring as loud as they could. I even heard a fight break out. But I never gave away my position. I'm sure if they knew where we were at, they would figure out a way to get in here, and I needed a break. But I had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn't going to be getting one anytime soon.

We sat there barely breathing as the Grimms scoured the room for signs of life. I felt the urge to cover my ears, so I could block out as much noise as I could. But right as I started to do so,

the sound of the Grimms was replaced by the sound of silence. I let out a sigh of relief. At the time, I thought this was the craziest thing that would ever happen to me. I was wrong.

"I just wanna go home! I wanna send those aliens back, and I want to go home!" Alex said, his voice filled with sadness and fear.

"We will, man. We're gonna get out of here and find somewhere safe to call home," I assured him. But I was thinking the same thing as he was. I wanted things back the way they were.

"I can't go with you guys," Sarah said, looking down at her hands. "I have to get to D.C."

I looked at her with a dumbfounded look on my face. Alex's face matched mine. "You aren't serious?" I told her. "That is where the Visitors came from! It's probably where the most Grimms are!"

Alex nodded. "I mean, these probably are the Visitors!" He looked at me. "I mean, what else could they be?"

I shook my head. "I don't think these things would know how to pilot a ship." There had to be some sort of handlers for these things.

"Dude, I didn't even think these things would ever exist just a few days ago! There's no other explanation."

I shrugged. "We'll find out sooner or later."

Sarah cleared her throat, and I returned my attention to her. "My little brother is there, in D.C., and I have to get to him." She had a determined look on her face. I knew that there wasn't anything that could stand between a sister and her younger brother.

"How do you know he's even there? He could've...disappeared, or whatever, like everybody else!" Alex said.

"I just do. I'll explain it later. Right now, though, we need to find a way out of here."

"Sarah's right. We need to get out of here. Then we'll worry about what to do next," I told Alex.

"This ventilation shaft has to lead somewhere, right?" Alex said as he peered down the shaft.

"I think I saw a vent similar to this one in the lobby. I guess we can just follow the shaft, until we end up there," Sarah suggested.

"That's the only thing we can do," I said. "We need to spread apart. This shaft doesn't seem very stable, and I don't want to go crashing any of the Grimms' parties."

Alex nodded, his expression solemn at the thought of the Grimms tearing into him. He shivered. "I've got dibs on the middle!"

"All right, you can have the middle," I said. "Sarah, you take up the rear. I'll lead. Count to five slowly before following me. Sarah, you do the same to Alex. That should spread out our weight evenly enough."

"Aye, aye, captain!" Alex said, mock saluting me. Sarah rolled her eyes at him.

"Let's do this." I slowly started crawling down the shaft. There were no lights to guide me as I made my way to the lobby. The only sounds were the three of us breathing and grunting and the metal of the shaft popping in and out of place.

Every so often, I could hear the sound of a Grimm passing by underneath us or the sound of them fighting in the distance. But they couldn't hear us crawling right above them.

After a while, my head hit a wall of the shaft, making a loud banging noise.

"You okay, Charlie?" I heard Alex call out.

"Yeah," I shouted back. "I just didn't see the wall here." I felt to my left, and there was a wall. I felt to my right. Another wall. "We hit a dead end!" I called back.

"I knew we should've taken a right back there!" Alex's voice echoed off the walls.

"Thanks for telling us this now, genius!" I heard Sarah shout.

"Sarah, take the lead, and...go right, or whatever," I told her.

"If I can find the security room, I think I can get us to the lobby. I remember passing by it on my way in here!" she shouted back.

"Lead on, Sacajawea!" Alex called out.

We crawled back the way we came, my back, arms, and legs were hurting from being crouched down and crawling for so long.

"Take a right up here!" I heard Sarah's voice echo off the metal walls.

"See! Right! I told you!" Alex shouted in victory.

"Actually, if we were going the opposite way, it would've been a left," I said.

"Just let me have my moment!"

I did a mental eye roll and continued on.

I took a right where Sarah told us. I saw a faint light up ahead seeping through a grate. "Here's the security room," I heard Sarah say. "I know how to get to the lobby from here. At least, I think so. I've never taken the 'ventilation shaft' route before."

"Just try not to get us lost like Charlie back here did," Alex commented

"I heard that!" I shouted at him.

"Whatever!"

We started crawling again. We'd been wandering around for at least an hour, so it felt good to be at the final leg of this nightmare. Little did I know, the nightmare hadn't even started yet.

"Do you guys hear that?" Sarah said as she came to a stopped.

I held my breath and listened as closely as I could. In the distance, I heard Grimms fighting.

"Where's that coming from?" I whispered.

"I think..." Sarah paused to make sure. "I think it's coming from the lobby."

"Oh, you mean the lobby. As in, the one that contains the exit out of here? The place that we're trying to get to?" Alex said sarcastically.

Sarah nodded.

"Oh, great. Why don't we just start shouting, 'We're here! Come eat us!'? Might as well get it over with now! Because I can tell you right now, once we step foot in there, it'll get torn off! No, it'll get torn off in the air before our foot can even hit the ground!" Alex said so fast, I could barely understand him. He was clearly freaking out.

"Alex, dude, chill. We're gonna get out of here," I comforted him. Well, as much as one can as they're crouched down in a ventilation shaft, crawling away from these monsters that came out of nowhere and are suddenly killing everybody, but really, you're going right towards them. Okay, now I was the one who needed to chill. "We'll get out of here. Promise."

Chapter Fourteen

We finally made it to the lobby. My knees were killing me from crawling on them for so long. It felt good to finally be sitting down properly. We were huddled around one of the grates in the lobby and were looking down on the chaotic scene.

There were about fifty Grimms in the lobby tearing it apart. There were sofa cushions all over the place. The TV was broken on the floor. There were telephones yanked off the walls and the pinball machines lay in pieces on the floor. The worst thing about this was what was lying across the floor. There were dead bodies all over the place. Human bodies. They were bloodied and torn apart. Grimms were walking on them, while some were dragging them into a line. I thought I was going to puke. Bloodied, mangled bodies was something that was definitely new to me. All those lives gone thanks to the Visitors, or Grimms. Whatever they're called. I wanted to know why they didn't just leave us alone. We never did anything to them, so why would they want to do so much to us?

"What are they going to do with the bodies?" Alex asked.

I shook my head. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I was going to throw up.

"What I want to know is where these people came from," Sarah said. "I mean, I haven't seen another person in the entire time since everybody disappeared."

"Well," I said. I paused to make sure I wasn't going to throw up. Nope. I was all good. "The Grimms probably scoured the city and brought the people here. Or, there could have been some staff holed up in the hospital that the Grimms got to before they could escape. You never know." I realized that I wasn't helping their morale very much. Mine either. They probably would've stayed there, paralyzed in fear. I had to snap them out of it. "Look, all that matters is that they're dead, and we're not. Now we need to focus on getting out of here alive. We can't raise the dead. All we can do is just accept that they're gone, and move on." Same with everybody that disappeared. They're gone, and I can't do a thing about it except focus on staying alive, I thought to myself, but didn't dare say it out loud.

The two of them nodded, but I could tell that they were still freaked out.

"All right, we need to figure a way out of here." Right as I had said that, the Grimms started shouting. For a split-second, I thought that they had found out where we were at and started trying to figure out a way to get up here. I realized that wasn't the case, when I looked out the grate and saw them chase after a pack of dogs that had wandered into the hospital. The Grimms flooded out of the lobby—jumping out the windows—and started chasing after the dogs.

"Well, that was convenient," Alex said in a very proper accent.

"Yes, the timing was excellent," Sarah matched his tone.

"Cut it out guys and help me get this grate off the vent before the Grimms come back," I ordered. I put my back on the wall of the shaft facing the vent and put my feet on the grate. It was a large grate, so Alex and Sarah were able to get one of their feet on it.

"All right, on the count of three," I told them. "One...two...three!" We pushed as hard as we could. the grate started to buckle, but then stopped.

"I don't think that helped very much," Alex said.

"No duh?" I asked sarcastically. "Let's try again." We took in a deep breath. "One...two...three!" We pushed as hard as we could. It moved a little bit more. There was a gap big enough for a hand to squeeze through, but the screws weren't going to let go of the grate.

"Oh my god!" Alex screamed. He punctuated every word with a hard kick to the grate. "Why. Won't. You. Freaking. Open!" With the last word, one of the screws came off, and fell to the ground with a loud clank that sounded like a gunshot in the silence. "I did that," he said in an excited whisper. "I DID THAT!" he yelled. He was really excited about it now. He kissed his biceps. "Oh yeah. Just call me Batman." He kicked the ventilation shaft in excitement. A look of pain came across his face.

"Kicked with the hurt leg, right?" I asked in response to the look on his face.

He quickly nodded and moaned.

"Let's try kicking it, instead of just pushing," I said. "One screw coming off isn't going to help us very much." We returned to our positions and lifted our knees to out chest. "One...two...three!" The three of us kicked as hard as we could. The grate went flying off the vent, flying through the air. It landed on the tile floor. It sounded like a cannon going off.

"Sarah! You go first. And hurry! I'm sure they heard that!" I told her. She nodded and crawled to the edge of the shaft. She put her hands on the edge of the vent and climbed over the edge. She was hanging off the vent with her legs four feet from the ground. She let go and hit the ground with a thud.

"Alex, you next. Are you gonna be able to do it with your leg?" I asked him.

He nodded. "My adrenaline is taking care of most of the pain. My leg is going to be freaking sore tomorrow though."

"Well, let's get out of here, and we just might live to see it." I knew that would make his adrenaline pump even faster.

He crawled to the edge of the vent like Sarah did, and let go. He let out a grunt when his feet hit the ground, followed by an "I'm okay!"

It was my turn. I crawled to the edge and climbed down like Sarah and Alex did. I was hanging above the ground. I looked down. Wow. It looked a lot higher than I thought it was. I knew my feet were only about four feet from the ground, but my head was about eleven. Now, I know that's not very high, but I have a slight fear of heights. I tend to forget everything. Even the fact that I'm one of the only humans left on Earth, there are aliens that want to eat me, there are tons of dead bodies underneath me, and those aliens are going to be back any second.

"Just do it!" Alex yelled, bringing me back to reality.

Okay, I thought. If Alex can do it, then I definitely can. I let go, and hit the ground with a thud. That wasn't too bad.

"Let's go," I told them as I wiped dirt off my jeans.

We turned towards the exit to the hospital, and took off running. We were going to make it out alive. I just knew it. There was a feeling of euphoria as I ran out where the window used to be. The sun was low in the sky, even though it was high in the air when Alex and I entered. We had been in there longer than I thought. Oh well. We were out of there now and were never going back.

We stopped, and I turned to Sarah. "Is there anything we need to get out of your car, before we go home?"

A puzzled look came across her face. "You mean, you want me to go home with you?"

Alex laughed and slapped her on the back. "Of course! We just saved your life! We aren't going to let you just leave! We gotta stick together!"

A wide smile formed on Sarah's face. "Thank you so much!" She shouted. "Can we go by my house, so I can get a few things?"

"Of course!" I said. "Do you want to get your car, and you follow us?"

She shook her head. "It was a piece of junk. Besides, I don't want to be on my own. I'm too freaked right now."

"Oh, don't worry!" Alex hit her playfully on the arm. "We'll take care of you!"

I laughed at Alex's blatant act of flirtation. "Come on, guys. The car is straight ahead."

I heard the sound of Grimms in the distance. "Yeah, let's hurry up and get out of here!" Alex said. He took off running, leaving us behind.

Sarah chuckled. "And he's off!" she teased, as she took off after him.

I started laughing at how weird all this was, how much my life had changed in just a couple of days. I heard the Grimms getting closer and started running after Sarah and Alex.

Chapter Fifteen

The car is always a great place to have deep conversations.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?" Alex screamed from the backseat. Obviously the gravity of what just happened finally started to hit him.

"YOU'RE ASKING ME?" I yelled back from the driver's seat. We had just left Sarah's house, and were on our way to ours. We had to take back roads that were rarely used in order to get there without having to get out and push things out of the road (which, occasionally, we still did).

"Guys! Cool it!" Sarah ordered. I looked in the rearview mirror at Alex just in time to see a look that was the facial version of a dog tucking its tail between its legs and running off to a corner.

"We need to figure out what's going on, what we're going to do," I said after a few moments of silence.

"Well, I know what I'm doing," Sarah began. "I'm going to D.C."

"Right, right. Your brother, wasn't it?" Alex inquired.

"That's right." She didn't elaborate further.

I few more moments of silence passed, before Alex broke it. "So, what's your brother doing in D.C.? I mean, how do you know that he's there—alive?"

I did the biggest mental face palm ever. Alex truly was an idiot when it came to girls.

To my surprise, Sarah answered him. "Friday night, when all of this happened, I was on the phone with my little brother, Sam. He was telling me about his day at school. He lives in D.C. with my dad, while I live here with my mom. Right as he was talking, he started screaming!" Sarah's voice got louder and louder, and she started crying, obviously reliving the moment. I didn't have any siblings to take care of, but I saw how my dad treated my aunt. You don't mess with somebody's brother or sister. "He said that Dad disappeared. He was going crazy! He was crying, screaming, and searching for Dad. It took him a long time to calm down, but finally, he did. I was able to tell him to stay there, and I would be there in a few hours to get him.

"As you can see, I haven't been making much progress with all of these things that are going on." Sarah wiped the tears from her face. She looked down at her hands. "I failed him. He's probably dead—or worse—because I wasn't able to get to him."

Alex leaned from the backseat of the FJ and patted Sarah on the shoulder. "No, no, no. It's okay. I'm sure he's fine! He sounds like a strong boy. I'm sure somebody found him. D.C. is where the government is. I'm sure they've set up some sort of shelter or something there. Right, Charlie?"

I nodded. "That's exactly why we're going with you." I knew that we weren't going to leave Sarah. And Alex was right. There probably was something set up by the government in D.C. to fight the Grimms or something. Maybe that's where Jared went?

"You guys are coming with me?" Sarah asked, breaking my train of thought.

"Do we really need to go over this again?" Alex asked, smiling at Sarah. She returned the smile.

Sheesh! Turn down the flirt factor! I thought.

"I guess I owe you one, huh, Alex?" I said, teasing him about the bet that we made earlier about Alex finding a girl.

"Wha—oh, I, uh, right. No idea wha—" Alex shut up and turned to look out the window, his cheeks flushing.

We drove awhile in silence. The sun quickly disappeared with the Moon beginning to take its place. I glanced up at the Moon before quickly turning my attention back to the road. I had to make sure I was still on Earth. All these things that happened made the Earth seem alien. It didn't seem like home.

I turned the FJ down the street leading to my house. I searched the places that the headlights shined for any signs of the Grimms. I felt a chill go down my spine. "So, when are we leaving?" I asked Sarah, trying to start up a conversation, so my mind would dwell on other things. Still, I couldn't shake the strange feeling that was in the back of my mind.

"As soon as possible," she replied.

"How about first thing tomorrow morning? I'm afraid that whoever drives will fall asleep." As soon as I said that, my eyelids felt like weights. Almost dying multiple times by the hands of an alien will do that to you.

"I want to leave right now, but you're right. We'll be no help if we have a wreck and die."

"That's positive thinking right there!" Alex said.

Sarah and I ignored him.

We pulled up to my house. "What the—" Alex said.

"Who in the world—" I began.

"I'm guessing that the truck sitting in your yard, that also demolished your gate, isn't supposed to be there?" Sarah asked.

"Nope."

****

I examined the truck the best that I could in the moonlight. It was a black Chevy Silverado 3500.

"Somebody's been doing some shopping!" Alex said, referring to the fact that the truck didn't have a license plate on it. Where that was supposed to go was just a plate with the Chevrolet logo on it.

"They've also got their hands on explosives," Sarah said as she appeared at Alex's side.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The gate was blown open. Probably with some sort of small explosive. It was small enough that it didn't do too much damage, so you couldn't really tell, but large enough to blow it open."

Alex and I started at her in disbelief.

"How do you know these things?" Alex said, shocked.

Sarah blushed. "Not all girls are Barbie dolls! I love me some explosives."

"Yeah, well, you sure didn't look like GI Jane back there in a hospital!" Alex said, laughing.

"That's because I was about to be eaten by some crazy aliens. I was in shock—still kinda am—but I'm ready for them now." Sarah's tone grew serious.

"Okay! Chill! Just kidding!"

I walked over to them. I was tired of their games. This was serious. "You guys need to shut up, and focus on the guys with the guns, and bombs, who are probably in the house right now."

Their faces twisted into seriousness. Alex mumbled and apology.

"Why are we even going in there anyways?" Sarah asked.

"Because," I had to stop and think about it for a moment. Why was I risking my life for the hundredth time today? I suddenly realized it. "Because this is my home, and I'm not letting some douchebags with explosives do what they want with it. Just like I'm not letting Grimms do what they want with my home. The planet one, that is." I turned and started making my way over to the back door before either of them could protest any more.

I crouched down once I reached the backyard. I didn't look to see if Sarah and Alex were following, but I heard them. I snuck up the back porch and stopped at the back door. I was making a plan. They're probably asleep. I just need to sneak in there, and...do...something. I let out a sigh. I hadn't actually figured out what I was going to do once I got in there. Why didn't I just leave like Sarah suggested? Because I'm way overprotective. I could thank my mom for that...which I'd most likely never get to do.

I shook my head. I needed to focus.

I reached under the mat that was in front of the door. I grabbed the spare key. I inserted it into the lock on the back door, and twisted it. There was a satisfying click, and I slowly turned the doorknob, and opened the door.

I crouched down and started slowly walking inside. I looked behind me. Sarah and Alex were inside the house, too.

The door slammed shut. The lights flicked on.

"Welcome home," a strange voice from behind me said. I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head. Everything went white, and then very, very, dark.

Chapter Sixteen

I slowly became aware of everything around me. My eyes weren't open, but I was awake. The first thing I noticed was the dull throbbing pain in the back of my head. I reached up to rub the spot of the pain. That's when I noticed the second thing: my hands were tied. My head snapped up to attention (increasing the pain in my head), and I opened my eyes. I looked down, and saw that I had rope wrapped around my waist, which tied me to a chair I was sitting in. My hands were tightly bound behind me. I looked around me, and saw that I was in my living room. I was a captive in my own home.

To my left was Alex. He was also tied to a chair, except he was still asleep. I noticed that his glasses lied in a broken heap at his feet.

I was gonna kill somebody.

I started shaking in my chair, which was making no difference.

"Charlie," I heard someone whisper. I looked to my right and saw Sarah.

"Sarah! Thank god. I totally forgot about you!" I said, relief flooding my body.

She shot me a look. "Gee. Thanks."

I realized what I had said. "No, no! I didn't mean it like that!"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Try to scoot your chair in front of me, so I can untie you."

I nodded and started hopping forward. I tried to be as quiet as I could, but that's kind of hard to do when you're hopping in a wooden chair, while at the same time you're tied to it. I hopped forward a couple of times. Then, I started hopping to my right, so I could get in front of her. I grunted as I made my way over. Hopping in a chair in any direction except forward is hard to do. I tried to keep my balance, but it was no use. I lost it, and fell in the direction I was hopping with a loud crash. I started to try and get up, but I couldn't.

The sound of someone running down the stairs reached my ears. I made one last effort to get the ropes off me, but it was no use. A man who looked to be at least twenty came barging into the living room in just a pair of jeans. "And what do you think you're doing?" he shouted at me, spit flying from his mouth.

"No. The question is, what do you think you're doing?" I matched the intensity in his voice with mine. It had less effect, though, since I was tied to a chair, lying on the ground.

The man came over and grabbed me by the back of my shirt. He pulled me up as fast as he could, almost making me topple over the other way. He punched me on the face hard. I almost blacked out again. The pain shot from my cheek bone, all the way down to the soles of my feet. It also made the headache that I had the mother of all headaches. I grunted and chuckled. I tried to let him know that I wasn't afraid of him, and that it didn't hurt. It came out sounding like a dying cow, though.

"Malachi?" I heard a girl's voice say. I looked up and a girl who looked to be seventeen was standing a few feet behind the guy. She was wearing a shirt and a pair of sweat pants—my mom's—and had straight brown hair that was long and covered her face. On closer inspection, however, I saw that her hair was actually a dark red that looked almost brown.

The guy, who I assumed was Malachi, turned around as fast as he could. "What?" He shouted at the girl. "Didn't I tell you not to come down? Get back upstairs!"

She rubbed her upper arm as she was staring at the ground. "I just...I just heard..."

Malachi was by her side in a second. He raised his hand and slapped the girl across the face. She whimpered in pain and let out a sharp gasp. My stomach turned, and I wanted nothing more than to punch him out.

Sarah, who was quiet this whole time, let out a gasp. "You're sick! You're nothing but a sick low-life!" she yelled.

Malachi stopped his hand right before it hit the girl's face again. He slowly turned to Sarah. "What did you say?"

Sarah, a lot less loud and enthusiastic, said, "You're sick." Fear dripped from her voice, as she dropped her gaze.

He started making his way to Sarah.

Alex began to stir next to me. "What's going on?" he said groggily. His eyes grew wide as he saw Malachi walking over to Sarah with his hand raised.

I looked at him and then back at Malachi. This was not going to end well. I tried to do something, but before I could, Alex stood up as much as he could, and with the chair tied to him, he charged Malachi almost running me over in the process.

Malachi didn't see him coming. There was a loud crack as Alex's chair broke as he hit him. Malachi and Alex went tumbling to the ground. The girl and Sarah screamed, and I sat there in shock at what Alex just did. Only thing is, Sarah and I were tied up, so Malachi's girl was the only one who could break the fight up.

But there wasn't a fight to break up. Alex had knocked Malachi's head on the coffee table when he tackled him. Malachi lay on the floor with blood seeping out of his head.

Alex stood up, and the rope that was around his waist fell to the ground, since his chair was broken. His hands were still tied behind him, though.

"You killed him!" The girl shouted. She ran to his side and started crying next to him. She laid her head on his bare chest. "Wait, I feel a heartbeat!" Hope flashed across her face. "We need to get him to a hospital. Now." He face grew long, as the hope rushed out of it. "There are no hospitals," she whispered to herself.

"Actually, I know a good one," Alex said, smiling at his joke. Even though he had just woken up from being knocked out, attacked a man who was ten times larger than he was (and won), and probably had a massive headache, he was still cracking jokes.

"Will he survive?" The girl asked, searching each one of our faces.

I stared at him for a moment. He was a no good low life who hit girls. He was the lowest of the low. He stole my house and attacked—or rather, tried to attack—Sarah, he did hit me, and most importantly, he could've attacked Alex.

But still, he's a human, and there aren't many of those left. "If you get something to wrap around his head to stop the bleeding, he should be fine." The girl hesitated, as if she was having second thoughts. But she still jumped up to go grab one.

When Alex, Sarah, and I were alone in the room, Alex untied us. I stretched, and then patted him on the back. "Dude, that was awesome!" I told him.

"I know! That was the greatest thing ever!" He was practically jumping for joy. "That'll teach anybody to mess with us!" He said in a big voice, like he was some sort of super hero.

Sarah walked over to him and gave him a big hug. "Thank you so much," she barely whispered.

Alex flushed a bright red. He tried talking, but he kept stuttering. "I-I-I, Well, y-y-you know," he stopped and chuckled nervously. "It was nothing," he finally got out.

I started laughing. "Anyways," I started. "Alex, come with me to get our stuff from upstairs." I walked over to Malachi and turned him over. Sticking out of the back of his jeans was my pistol that I took at the hospital. I pulled it out and tossed it over to Sarah. "Keep an eye on things down here."

She nodded. She popped the magazine out of the gun and caught it with her free hand. She checked to see if there were bullets, and there were. She jammed the magazine back into the gun, and cocked it. She aimed the gun and shot the mirror that was on the wall above the couch, dead center. "It works."

Alex and I had dumbfounded looks on our face. Our jaws were on the ground, and I think Alex was drooling.

"I'm never getting on your bad side," Alex said dreamily.

She just smiled.

I closed my mouth and shook my head. "Come on, Alex. We need to hurry." I grabbed Alex's arm and drug him out of the living room.

Once we were out of the living room, Alex started acting normal. Well, normal for him. We ran up the stairs—passing by the girl as we did so. She gave Alex a look of death that only a girl can give. But underneath that look of death, was a hint of thankfulness, and forgiveness. She stopped looking at him, and continued down the stairs.

"That girl gives me the creeps," Alex said once we were at the top of the stairs. "There's something she's hiding."

"Alex, we just met her and almost killed her boyfriend. We haven't even had a conversation with her. So, yes, I'm sure there's something she's hiding," I said.

Alex shrugged, and we walked into my room. I flipped on the light, although it was bright outside, so there was really no need for it. Then, it hit me. The electricity was on. It wasn't on last time we were here. They must have brought a generator with them, along with their brand new truck. "Alex, the lights are on!"

A look of realization came across his face. "You're right!"

"Do you know what that means?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Not at all!"

"If the electricity is on, then the house phone will be working!"

"You're right!"

I ran to the bathroom, where we keep the upstairs house phone. "Who should we call?" I asked.

"Hmmm...911?"

"Uhhh...I mean, I guess. I can't think of anybody else. Although, I'm sure they're not there." Still, I entered the numbers and put the phone on speaker. There was just a ringing noise, and nobody ever picked up the phone. I hung up the phone. "Who else could we call?"

Alex thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. "Sarah's brother!"

We ran out the room, down the hallway, and downstairs, phone in hand. We slid across the wood floor and into the living room. Sarah was helping the girl wrap Malachi's head.

"Sarah!" Alex shouted. "Phone works! Call your brother!" His words were choppy in his excitement.

Sarah's face lit up, and she dropped what she was doing, and grabbed the phone from my hand. She punched the numbers as fast as she could and placed the phone to her ear.

"Put it on speaker!" Alex said.

She took the phone away from her ear, placed it on speaker.

"Hello?" A young boy said. I let out a small sigh of relief that the cell phones were still working. "Sam? Is that you? It's me, Sarah!" She said, ecstatic.

"Sarah! It's you! Where are you?" Sam said, almost in tears.

Sarah started crying. "Don't worry, little bro! I'm coming. Where are you?" She wiped a tear off her face.

"I'm at the White House, Sarah! The real live White House! It's huuuggggeeeeee!" he said excited.

"White House?" Alex said. He fist pumped the air. "Yes! We're going to the White House!"

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

"Just some friends of mine." She shot Alex a look, and he was quickly silenced. "What are you doing at the White House, sweetie?"

"Well," Sam started. "These men came to the house, and they said that they were here to help me. I know that I'm not supposed to go with strangers, but I was running out of food; I was really scared being all by myself, and so I had to. They took me to the White House, where people from all over the place are coming to. I think one of the men said that they were seeking refthuge."

"Refuge?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah! Refuge. Anyways, I've been living here. There's some scary monsters, but Liam, the man who takes care of us, says the soldiers will protect us." Sam's voice lowered to a whisper. "Don't tell anybody, but it still kind of scares me. But there's no school, so that's good."

Sarah laughed. "Stay on track, Sam. Are you in danger?"

"Ummm...Liam says we're not, so I don't think so," he replied.

Sarah went on talking to Sam, while I pulled Alex aside.

"So. D.C. I mean, I know we had to go there anyways, but it sounds like they got a good thing going," Alex said. He obviously guessed what it was I was going to ask him about.

"I was thinking the same thing. The five of us can't live by ourselves. The Grimms would eventually kill us. It sounds like they got some sort of army going on up there. Maybe we could join it or something," I said.

"Yeah, join the army. Cool." His face grew serious. "What I want to know is what's this 'the five of us' crap? There's you, me, Sarah, and once we get there, Sam, and..." He raised his hands in front of him and made a puzzled look. "Who's the fifth?"

I stared at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious! We are not going to leave that girl here. Malachi, yes. He is not coming with us. But the girl? We might as well kill her, if she isn't coming with us! She doesn't stand a chance on her own."

"Oh, and what about Malachi? Why don't we kill him, if we're going to leave him, huh?" Alex said.

"Look at him!" I waved my hand where Malachi was lying on the ground. "He has to be in his twenties. He's an adult! He has a much better chance than we do!" Alex said nothing. "Why do you even care?"

Alex shook his head. "It's just that I think we have a better chance if we travel in smaller numbers."

"Dude, look around you. Everything is in smaller number now," I said.

"I know! It's just that...whatever." He waved his hands in defeat. "You can have fun trying to convince her to leave her little boyfriend behind." Alex walked away.

I sighed. I had not thought about how I was going to convince her to leave Malachi behind. I walked over to Sarah, who was hanging up on Sam, to ask her opinion. "Hey, Sarah. What do you think about askingher?" I pointed behind my back at the girl who was doctoring Malachi. "Coming along with us?"

Sarah thought about it for a moment, before responding. "Well, we can't just leave her here. From the looks of it, Malachi was forcing her to do whatever he wanted. I'm not sure if she'll leave him, though. My mom was a psychologist—" Sarah paused. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "She told me that even though some guys abuse girls, the girls still think that they 'love' them, and don't want to let go of them. They get too attached, and its hard for them to let go—even if the guy is beating the hell out of them."

I swallowed my anger. I tried to keep it from bubbling out. Some of it escaped into my voice, as I spoke to Sarah. "How can somebody beat a girl like that? You've got to be some sicko to do that. Some guys just have no respect these days. I'd like to get him alone in a dark ally and teach him a lesson or two. If there weren't any girls around, I'd probably twist his balls off right now."

Sarah burst out laughing. "Well, I feel the same way about guys who hit girls. Don't mind me. I'd probably help you out."

"How are we going to get her to leave him?" I asked.

Sarah shrugged. "Maybe we can get her to listen to the voice of reason? I really can't think of anything else that would work."

I nodded. "That's what I was thinking. It's worth a shot." I turned to walk over to the girl, when Sarah placed her hand on my shoulder. "Charlie? Don't take too long. I have a little brother to get to."

I nodded. Even though he was safe, I knew that she wanted to hurry up and get to him. "I'll make it fast." I walked over to the girl and crouched down beside her. She was caressing Malachi's blood-matted hair. "Hi. My name is Charlie. What's your name?" Thought I'd start off with the basics.

She said nothing for an awkward amount of time—she just kept caressing him. Finally, she spoke. "My name is Rae Mage Simons, and I am seventeen-years-old." She looked up at me and flashed a smile. Her dark red hair covered one of her blue eyes, and her teeth were lined up in a perfect white row. It looked almost as if she has spent countless hours polishing them. However, her face was covered in bruises and scrapes. She quickly realized what she had said and who she was talking to. She lowered her head, and her face turned red with anger. "I mean I'm Rae." She turned her head up towards me but didn't meet my eyes. "How could you do something like this?"

I raised my hands. "Hey, it wasn't me! That was all Alex. Besides, he was going to hit Sarah. We couldn't just stand around and let that happen." Rae quickly lowered her head again—covering her face—and I realized what I had just said. "Oh, no...er...I mean, it's just that..." I had nothing. So, I popped the question. "Do you want to come with us?"

"No," she said quickly. She didn't say much, but I could definitely feel the hate in here. There was something else in her voice, though. As if she wanted to, but she wasn't going to let herself.

"Come on. Malachi'll survive. It's just a scratch. They've got a thing going on in D.C. There's loads of people there, you know, rebuilding. It'd be a fresh start," I said in the peppiest voice possible.

For a second, she looked as if she would come with us, and I was rejoicing on the inside. But the look quickly vanished. "No. I'm not leaving him."

I had to step up my game. "Listen. He's just an idiot who likes to hit girls. He doesn't love you. He just loves hitting you. Why do you love him anyways?"

"Because he was all that I had!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. She was spitting everywhere. "And he's still all that I've got," she said, much calmer and quieter.

I placed my hand on her shoulder. I didn't know what she meant by that outburst, but I knew that staying with him wasn't going to be healthy for her. She flinched a little at my touch but didn't brush me off. "You have us now. It's much safer if we travel together. Plus, there's that whole thing in D.C. All Malachi will ever do is keep you attached to his hip and hit you mercilessly. If you come with us, you'll have a chance of freedom."

Rae looked at me and then looked at Malachi. She began to open her mouth, like she had made her decision, when Alex came bursting in the room. "The Grimms are outside. And they're searching the neighbors' houses."

Shit.

Chapter Seventeen

"Are they doing what I think they're doing?" Sarah asked. Sarah, Alex, and I were pressing our foreheads against the window, watching the Grimms enter my neighbors' houses. They went in, were in there for a few minutes, and then left to go to the next house.

"They're searching," I said. I could not believe it. This has to be some sort of nightmare, I thought. First, almost everybody disappears. Then, there's these crazy zombie monster things, and on top of that, they're searching houses? Perfect. I half-expected them to break into song. It wouldn't have surprised me at all. In those past few days, so much had happened. I hadn't even fully processed it yet, so I figured anything was possible.

"I know this is just so entertaining, watching those aliens search houses," Alex sarcastically remarked, "but I think we're coming up on the list."

I removed my face from the window and looked at the backs of Sarah and Alex's heads. They turned around to look at me.

"What are we gonna do, boss?" Alex said, letting out a deep sigh.

"Get the hell outta here, for one thing. High tail it to D.C."

Sarah cleared her throat and looked out the window. "Right. Let's get going, shall we? That list is getting shorter by the second."

I pointed to Alex. "Run upstairs and grab our bags." I turned to Sarah. "In my parents' room, there's a bunch of stuff my mom got when all this stuff happened. It should all still be in the bags. Mind grabbing it?"

Sarah nodded. "Which room is your parents'?"

"The door to the bedroom is beside the back door."

"Got it."

I walked over to Rae. She was still on the ground, except instead of staring at Malachi, she was watching me with a scared look on her face.

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked her.

She looked up at me with sadness in her eyes. "I can't leave him here to die at the hands of the Grimms, but then again, I don't want him to come with us."

I smiled. "So. You're coming?"

She nodded slowly. "It's like you said: it's a new start. I love Malachi...at least, I think I do." She shook her head. "So much has changed in the past few days," she said, and I realized that she was talking to herself. She looked up at me. "You made me realize I need to leave him behind. I was so tired of me being his punching bag. He always told me he would change...but...If it weren't for you guys, I probably would've been his punching bag forever."

I reached my hand down to help her up. My heart went out to her. I felt so bad for her. Her life sucked even before all of this happened. "It's good to have you apart of our posse, Rae." I smiled.

Her smile grew large, and she nodded. "Thanks," she said under her breath. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was glad to be with a group of people that wouldn't cause harm to her.

"What about him?" she asked, pointing at Malachi.

"I have an idea," I told her. I walked out of the living room, slid across the wooden floor, and stood at the bottom of the stairs. "Alex!" I called up them to him.

I heard a scuffling noise, along with someone sniffling. "Yeah?" he called back down.

"Bring those down! I need your help!" I yelled back.

Sarah came walking out of my parents' room with the sacks of supplies. "Where do I take these?"

"Just set them by the door," I said with a hint of impatience in my voice. I was beginning to get worried that we weren't going to get out of here in time. "We need to hurry up!" I yelled, voicing my frustration.

Alex came bounding down the stairs. "In here," I told him, as I ran into the living room. I pointed to Malachi's feet. "Grab those."

"Where are we taking him?" Alex asked as he grabbed them.

"Mom's car," I said as I grabbed his arms. "One, two, three, lift!" We lifted him off the ground.

"Why the car?" Alex asked as we walked to the car.

"The Grimms most likely aren't going to open the car doors or even search in here. We'll crack the windows and cover him up with something." I nodded my head at the garage door. "Can you get that?" I asked Sarah. She ran over there and opened the door. We walked into the garage, and our noses were instantly filled with the smell of gasoline and rubber.

Rae opened my mom's car door, and Alex and I laid him across the backseat. "Somebody cover him up with something and I'll crack the windows. Make sure he's able to breathe," I told them as they covered him up. I ran over to the front seat and got in. I turned the keys that Mom always left in the ignition. The car started, and I cracked the windows.

I took in a deep breath. That was the last time I was going to smell my mom's scent. It was fresh, with a hint of lavender. That was the only thing I could describe there were tons of other smell that I could only describe as Mom's.

"Charlie!" Sarah shouted. "We need to get out of here!"

I was shocked back to reality and jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind me. "Let's go." I walked past them and started running once I was out of the garage. I poked my head out the door and saw the Grimms disappearing into my next-door neighbor's house. We were next.

I started grabbing some of the bags, and Sarah grabbed some, too. Alex got mine and his bags, while Rae didn't grab anything.

"Follow me. I'm going to make a run for it." I walked out the door, and once I saw the Grimms were nowhere in sight, I took off running. I didn't look behind me to see if the rest of them were following, I was only focusing on one thing: getting in the car. The car was safety. The Grimms couldn't get me there. If they tried, all I had to do was press the gas pedal, and they would be eating my dust. Or their own faces. It really just depended on which side of the tires they were.

I reached it and yanked open the door. I threw the bags I had around my arms in the seat behind me. Sarah jumped in the passenger's seat, and Alex and Sarah jumped in back.

Before they were able to shut the doors, I started the car, and threw it into drive. I turned the steering wheel as far as I could, and spun around in a tight circle, totally tearing up the yard. Dad would've killed me if he saw. I aimed for the destroyed gates and pushed the gas pedal down as far as I could. We were still for one second, before the engine roared, and the car flew forward, pushing us into our seats. The car went through the gates, and I turned the steering wheel as far as I could to the left, and we turned sharply. Sarah and Rae hit their heads on the windows, while Alex was thrown all over the backseat. The center console of the FJ kept me from going anywhere.

As we went flying down the street, I looked in the rearview mirror, and I saw the Grimms leave the house they were in. They saw us flying off in the car and started chasing after us. It was futile, though. We were long gone.

I glanced over at Rae. She had her forehead rested on the window. "What did I just do?" she asked herself quietly.

Chapter Eighteen

We pulled out of the gas station after filling the FJ up with gas. "Where to next?" I asked them as I turned onto the road.

"We need to get some food," Sarah said.

"Agreed." Alex nodded his head. "I'm starving."

Rae didn't say a thing.

I let out a deep sigh. "What is there to eat?"

"We can go to a gas station and get some chips, I guess," Alex suggested.

"We were just at a gas station, retard," Sarah said, turning to look at him.

He just shrugged. "I'm just throwing out suggestions here. Feel free to pitch in at any time."

"Kids, kids," I said in a joking tone. "Let's not fight. There's one of those dollar stores up here. We'll grab some chips, candy, and some other stuff."

"Sounds good to me," Alex said

A silence fell over us. Not one of those awkward silences, but the kind where we were all deep in the recesses of our minds, musing over what has happened in the past six days. I couldn't believe that it had almost been a week since the Visitors had come. Who knew that so much could change in so little time? All of my friends were gone; my normal way of living was gone; even my parents were gone. I could only think about where they, and everybody else, had gone. Were they in the Visitors' spaceship? Were they on the Visitors' planet? Where was the Visitors' planet? Did the government know about them before they were even here? What's left of the government? Who's all here, and who's all gone? Again, where did they go? Were they dead? My mind continued on a trail of questions that I was asking myself. That is what happens when I started thinking. I got lost in my own mind, asking myself questions that I didn't have the answer to. I wasn't even sure I wanted the answer to some of the questions.

However, the questions concerning where they were at kept asking itself in my mind. I broke the silence. "Where do you guys think everybody went?"

"Vacation," Alex said sarcastically. He threw his arms up in the air. "How the hell do you think we know?"

I shrugged. "I was just wondering what you guys thought about all of this."

"I think it sucks," Sarah said.

"I think that's a given," I told replied.

"I think that they were abducted to do experiments or something. Maybe they were taken as slaves," Rae said, still looking out the window.

"She speaks!" Alex shouted, lifting his hands in the air. He extended his hand towards her. "Name's Alex. What's yours?"

"Rae," she said not moving or acknowledging Alex's outstretched hand.

"I'm Sarah, Rae," Sarah told her, turning from the front seat to look at her.

Rae turned to her, and let out a weak smile, before returning to her previous position looking out the window.

"Anyways," I said, trying to break up the awkwardness. "Do you guys think that they're...you know...dead?"

I saw Alex shake his head in the rearview mirror. "No way, bro. If they wanted them dead, then they would've killed everybody and not have left us here."

"Maybe they did kill everybody and just left us behind," I countered.

Sarah then dropped the bomb. "That's what I want to know: why did they leave us behind?"

I was surprised that I hadn't asked myself that question before. An answer floated into my head. "I remember from church when I used to go when I was little, the preacher was talking about the Rapture, and how Jesus was going to come back and take all of the Christians to heaven with him."

"I'm familiar with what the Rapture is," Sarah said, "but, I don't think the Bible mentioned anything about Jesus coming back in a spaceship or him leaving behind crazy man-eating-zombie-like-aliens."

Sarah shook her head, laughing. "I think this whole conversation falls under the category of 'blasphemy'."

I glanced back at Rae. I thought I'd try and include her in the conversation. I asked her, "Why do you think they left us behind?"

She shrugged. "We'll probably never find out."

I looked back at the empty road and sighed. She was a tough nut to crack.

"If they do ever come back, I have a lot of questions to ask them," Alex mused.

"My thoughts exactly," I said.

"Same here," Sarah agreed.

Rae grunted. At least she's trying to be a part of our conversations. Still, I was getting this weird vibe that she was hiding something, some sort of secret. But who doesn't have secrets? That's what makes us human. I wonder if the Grimms have secrets, I thought, and I started off on another long trail of questions that I had no answer to.

****

I grabbed an arm full of chips. They were going to go stale soon, and I, for one, wasn't letting them go to waste.

I threw them in the basket that I had and started looking around the store. It was a small store. It only had two cash registers and a handful of aisles that held only the basic necessities. It was also devoid of Grimms, which was nice. The surrealness of it all overwhelmed me. I was driving to Washington D.C. with almost complete strangers, fighting to stay alive.

I walked over to Rae, who was looking at the candy. "So, which one's your favorite?" I asked her, trying to spark a conversation.

She took a step forward and tapped the box of Cookies & Cream Hershey's.

I was taken aback by her gesture. I mean, I knew she could talk! "Rae, what's the matter?" I asked, trying to comfort her.

She shrugged. "This is all just so weird."

I ran my hand through my hair. "You're right about that," I said as I let out a deep breath. We stood there for a few more moments in silence. The awkward kind this time. "Is anything else bothering you?" I asked.

She was quiet for a few moments, and I realized that a tear was rolling down her cheek. "I just can't believe...I mean, I..."

When I realized that she wasn't going to say anything else, I started talking. "Listen, I know that what we did with Malachi was a hard thing to do, but—"

She held up her hand. "That's not what I meant. I know I did the right thing when I did that. I couldn't be his punching bag forever, and I realize that now. But what I meant was..." She looked up at me and searched my eyes. She was trying to figure out whether she could trust me with the information she was about to share. I know this because I've done it before. She looked away. "Never mind."

She didn't trust me enough. Which I kind of understood. She had just met me a couple of hours ago, and we did take her away from her boyfriend. It's not like we forced her, though. Really, I'm her knight in shining armor if you think about it. I saved her from the hurt that was being caused by Malachi.

I grabbed one of the Cookies & Cream Hershey's bars. "Here," I said as I handed it to her. "Dinner's on me tonight." I smiled big and cheesy.

She chuckled and started biting her thumbnail. "Thanks."

Alex came walking up behind us. "Hey, Charlie, in case you haven't noticed, it's dark out," he said with a hit of sarcasm in his voice.

"Right. I guess we'll just camp out here tonight," I said, answering his implied question.

"Cool. They've got some sleeping bags and cots here. They've also got a lot of bottled water."

"Good. We'll need that. I'll come help you set up the cots."

"I guess I'll help, too," Rae said as she put one of the squares of the Hershey's bar in her mouth.

"She talks and puts up cots?" Alex teased. "Man! You better watch out, Charlie! I think she's planning to steal your position as team captain!"

I rolled my eyes. I didn't know why everybody assumed I was the "team captain" as Alex put it. I turned to Rae. "Excuse him. He's an...well...he's a not nice person."

Alex put his hand over his heart and exclaimed, "Charlie Freeman! That hurt!"

I punched him in the chest jokingly. I didn't hit him hard, but hard enough to get knocked back a couple steps, and lose his breath. "Okay, that really did hurt that time."

"Wow, Alex. You're a baby!" Sarah said as she walked up behind him.

Alex stood up straight. "Uhh," he stammered. "Trust me, that hurt Charlie's hand more than it hurt me! I barely even felt anything," he said in a failed attempt to heal his wounded ego.

I grabbed my hand as if it hurt. "Oh, yeah, Alex! I think you made a piece of dead skin fall off!"

He gave me a look. "You wanna go, Freeman?" he said, raising his fist.

"Nah, I don't want to bruise you—and your ego—any more than I already have," I said, winking at Sarah.

Sarah stepped in between us, raising her hands. "Ladies! Ladies! Let's not fight! Save it for the Grimms!"

All four of us started laughing at what just happened. It made me realize that these weren't "almost complete strangers", they were my friends, my family. They're all I had—no—we were all that each other had. They made the apocalypse a lot less depressing.

Chapter Nineteen

"Everybody ready?" I asked as I buckled my seatbelt. Next to me in the passenger seat was Rae, while Sarah and Alex sat in back.

"Let's get this show on the road!" Alex shouted.

I turned the key, and the car roared to life. The clock on the car said it was ten o'clock in the morning. I let out a yawn, as I the last bit off sleep left me. "How long did you say the drive was, Alex?" I asked.

"Uhh, eight, eight-and-a-half hours?" He said.

"Yeah, but we'll probably have to take the service roads at some point, thanks to all the wrecked cars," Sarah said.

"True. As long as we follow I-95, we'll be good."

"I doubt it'll take eight hours, though," I told them.

"Why's that?" Rae asked as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.

"I sincerely doubt there's going any police officers waiting around to pull us over, so we can speed," I explained.

"Yeah, but still be careful, Charlie," Sarah said. "There are still a lot of wrecked cars. You never know when one could be sitting right over a hill, where you can't see."

Seeing as how most cars were probably in the ditch, I highly doubted there were going to be any cars right in the middle of the road. "I will," I said, just to make her happy.

I started driving down the service road and got onto I-95 once the wreckage wasn't very bad. I did have to occasionally dodge a car, but for the most part, it wasn't that bad. I knew it was going to get bad the closer we got to D.C. because of everybody that was leaving town. If only they knew that it didn't matter where they were, their fate was the same. They would disappear to God-knows-where. I may never know where they went, and my theories got crazier and more depressing as time went on. I needed to focus on the present and stop thinking on the past.

I zoned back to reality and totally came into the wrong part of a conversation that Alex and Sarah were having. "Just grab it! I don't care. I've got plenty," Alex said.

"Really? You don't mind?" Sarah said, giggling.

"Whoa! Guys!" I shouted. "Totally came in on the wrong part of that conversation!"

It was silent for a moment, as everybody thought about what I had just said, in the context of what Alex and Sarah had just said. Once they understood, everybody busted out laughing.

"No, bro!" Alex said, as he was laughing, with his cheeks red with embarrassment. "I was talking about these chips!"

"Sure, 'chips'." I said, laughing.

"You're a jerk," Alex said under his breath, jokingly.

I rolled my eyes, and punched the gas. I let off once the speed-o-odometer hit eighty-five miles-per-hour. "I'm just so pumped! I wanna get to DC!"

"Should we be letting him drive?" Alex said.

We all laughed. "I get kind of crazy when I'm excited," I said. I really was excited for the first time in what seemed like forever. We finally knew what we were going to do, and where we were going to go.

"Clearly," Rae said sarcastically.

Alex started clapping his hands. "Baby's first sarcastic remark. Well done, Rae! Well done."

I rolled my eyes at him, and then I remembered that he couldn't see me.

"There's a first time for everything," Rae said with a serious tone.

"Uh, that was a joke," Alex said.

Rae's remark piqued my curiosity. Even though I'm sure she knew Alex's comment was a joke, she dropped a hint as to what it was she was hiding, whether she intended to or not. I was determined to find out what it was.

****

We were two hours into the drive and were making great headway. According to Alex, we were about an hour ahead of schedule, which would put us in D.C. before dark. Sarah couldn't sit still because she was so excited and anxious to be reunited with Sam.

"How come he was in D.C., and you were in Boston?" Alex asked while Sarah was telling us a story about Sam losing his first tooth. Honestly, I really couldn't care less, but I smiled and nodded my head anyways.

Sarah went from being really excited to dead quiet. "Well, my mom and dad got a divorce a few years ago," she said quietly. "My dad had an affair—"

"Ah, well, that's not so bad!" Alex interjected.

"With four different women," Sarah said flatly.

Alex mumbled an apology.

"Anyways," she continued, "Sam was visiting my dad, in D.C. Normally, he lives in Boston with Mom and me. Mom is a nurse at the hospital, which is why I was there that day. I had to bring her cell phone that she forgot. Once everybody disappeared, I locked myself in the hospital room, thinking it was a nightmare, and I would wake up soon. I knew it wasn't, though. I guess I thought that somebody would come and find me, so I had to stay in one spot. Once the Grimms showed up though, it really was a nightmare." Her voice cracked, like she was going to cry. It was strange seeing her break down like that. In the past few days I had known her, she seemed really tough. The Grimms were her weakness, though. But then again, they were everybody's.

"Well, my dad's never around either," Alex said, trying to comfort her. "He is always away on business, thanks to the war. Well," he paused for a moment, "always was away."

I thought about that for a moment. I had only met my uncle a handful of times, but he seemed really cool. It must've been hard on Alex to not have a dad around. Even though my dad was really protective of me—to the point that it got unbearable—I still missed him. You never know how much you love someone until they're gone, and all you have left is some memories of them. I wished I could make those memories come alive, so I could speak to him again.

I snapped out of my train of thought, and focused on the road. Just don't think about the past, I told myself over and over again. Focus on the future.

Everybody kept talking about random crap. After a while, Rae asked "What's that?" She pointed to something to the right.

I looked at where she was pointing. "People!" I shouted. I never thought I would be so happy to see complete strangers in my entire life. It was a little strange to see people huddled around the side of the road, but I didn't care.

"What are they doing there?" Alex said, leaning into the front seat so he could get a better view.

"I don't know," I said. "But let's find out!" I slowly applied the brakes, as I pulled up to where five people were huddled around a fire.

"Why are they around a fire?" Sarah asked. "It's like eighty degrees outside."

I shrugged. I opened the door to the FJ and got out. I was hit by a blistering wind. It had to have been in the thirties or forties. "What the hell?" I shouted above the wind. It was blowing at around fifteen miles per hour. It was so weird that it all of the sudden was cold again, after it being really hot for the past few months.

"I don't know!" Alex yelled back. "But let's see if they need any help and then get the hell out of here! It's so cold!"

I nodded, and ran over to where the people where at. There were three guys and two girls. They turned around to look at us once they heard us walking up behind them. They were all wearing business-type clothes. Once of the guys was even wearing a tuxedo. Another one was wearing a button-up shirt from Calvin Kline that was two sizes too small. The last guy was much shorter than everybody else and was wearing a black sweater, with shorts and sandals. Totally something my dad would wear. The ladies were wearing identical white dresses, with diamond necklaces.

They looked so strange—out of place. It was almost comical.

"What's with the fancy outfits?" Alex shouted, trying to break the ice.

All five of them let out a creepy chuckle, which grew into a crazed laugh. That's when I noticed it: they had the same crazy look in their eyes that the police officer had in her eyes back in the hospital. All five of them took one step towards us, while we took two steps back.

"Fancy outfits?" the short guy said, laughing. "You're a fancy boy!"

Wow. That was really creepy and would've been slightly homosexual, if it wasn't for the fact that he was totally out of his head, and probably had no idea what he was saying.

I felt a chill go down my spine, and it wasn't because of the cold weather.

One of girls took a step towards us. "Come here," she said to me. "I want to show you something."

Now, normally, most seventeen-year-olds would love it if a girl said that to them. However, in this situation, I wanted to run and scream. I stood my ground though. "What happened to you guys?" I asked them.

The short man who wore the sweater spoke. "The Grimms." His voice sounded less crazed than the others, but his eyes were still crazy.

Then, he lunged at me. It all happened so fast, I barely had time to react. The man grabbed my arm and dug his teeth into it. I screamed in pain and in shock. The man shook his head, and my arm, like a dog would a chew toy. I was barely able to notice the other people attacking Alex, Sarah, and Rae. We were outnumbered and outmuscled because these dudes were really strong. I saw tuxedo-man grab Alex and throw him a few yards.

We had to get out of there.

I fell to the ground, and the short man fell over a little bit, but not completely. He had my left arm, so I took my right hand, and started punching him in the face. It was doing little to no damage, though. I knew had to get out of there, and help everybody else, though. I turned my desperation into adrenaline, and slugged Shortie as hard as I could. His grip faltered, and I reared back, and hit him as hard as I could again. He let go of me, and I jumped on top of his chest, and started punching him in the face again. I punched him over and over again with my right hand, since I was unable to use my left, thanks to his bite. He tried pushing me off him a couple of times, but I just kept punching him. My rage at him attack us took over. Finally, he stopped struggling, and I knew he was out cold. Maybe even worse.

I didn't even turn to look to see what everybody else was doing. I just ran to the car, threw the door open, and leaned over the passenger's seat to grab my pistol from under the driver's seat.

I turned around and saw Sarah and Rae fighting off three of the maniacs with giant sticks. They were swinging them at the crazy people, smacking them in the head as hard as they could. If I were the maniacs, I would've given up by now. But man, those people could take some hits!

I looked for Alex and saw the tuxedo-man making his way over to where Alex was picking himself up off the ground. I ran over to the crazy guy and jumped in front of him. He pushed me out of the way, and I was thrown to the ground. Man, that guy was strong. I jumped off the ground and cocked the pistol. I planted it in the man's back. "Stop!" I yelled.

He kept walking towards Alex.

"I will shoot you!" I yelled. I wanted to give him as many chances as possible, you know, since the human race was now endangered.

The man turned around and placed his arms on mine. Once our skin touched, I heard him screaming incoherently. I also heard lots of other screams piercing my ears. It was just like when the Grimm touched me in the hospital. I fell to the ground, holding my ears. The screaming was too much. "Stop it!" I yelled. I looked up at the man who had his hands on me.

The screaming changed to incoherent shrieks, to every single one of them yelling the same thing: "Kill me!" It was one of the scariest things of my life. If I wouldn't have already been through so much, it probably would have been traumatizing.

Then I realized that his mouth wasn't moving. The screaming was all in my head. I stared into his eyes. They seemed so human. "What happened to you?" I whispered.

"Kill me!" the voices continued screaming. This time, the man yelled it out of his mouth, his voice filled with pain. "Kill me!"

"Kill me!" I heard again. I looked around and all of the other crazy adults were yelling the same thing. "Kill me!"

The screaming in my head got even louder. I crumbled into a ball and clutched my ears. My head felt like it was going to explode. "Kill them!" I shouted as loud as I could. "Kill them!" The screaming got even louder. I could barely think in order to try and figure out what was going on. I just wanted them dead.

There was a loud gunshot and the screaming in my head stopped. There were three more gunshots, and the other adults stopped screaming.

I became lightheaded and numb. The wound on my arm started to throb, and I started to get drowsy. My eyes slowly closed. My arm began throbbing even harder, and pain began to shoot through my body.

"Charlie!" I heard somebody say. I couldn't tell who it was yelling my name. Everything sounded so distant and far away.

I felt myself being picked up off the ground, and the sound of commotion and panic swarming around me. But all I wanted to do was fall asleep. Darkness took over me, and I did just that.

****

My eyes flew open. Everything around me was a blur. I could make out certain shapes but nothing else. My sight seemed like it had a black filter over it, making everything seem dark. My sense of smell and hearing, however, were heightened. I could smell gasoline, junk food, rubber, the snake slithering through the grass, everything. I could hear the soft, slow wind blowing on the outside of the car. I could hear a sign creaking way off in the distance.

Footsteps. I could hear them. I could smell the feet as they walked across the ground. They were outside of the car, coming from inside of a building.

Blood. I smelled it and heard it dripping on the ground

I needed it. I couldn't survive without it.

I started shaking in my seat. I had to get to the blood, and the human it came from. I reached for the doorknob, and in my excitement, I pulled it too hard and yanked it off. I roared in rage.

Roared? What had I just done? I coughed and spit up blood. Memories rushed into my brain. My parents, Alex, Sarah, Rae, what happened, why I was here. My vision started to revert back to the way it was. I could see clearly. I looked down, and all I saw was blood. All over me and the seat.

Blood.

My vision went back to the way it was, virtually nonexistent. I could smell the blood and hear the human. I punched the window as hard as I could, and it shattered. I climbed out of it—tearing the seatbelt—and started running towards the human. Only thing was, I was on all fours. I was taking strides like a cheetah: my hands and feet coming together and then pushing forward, stretching out in front and behind me.

What was I doing? I stopped quickly, rolling across the ground. I grabbed my head because it was throbbing. My mind was swirling with two different personalities. One was mine, the other was...something. I couldn't figure out what. It was like two people were fighting for control of my mind or like a virus that I was trying to overcome.

I looked around me, and saw I was at a gas station. I grabbed onto that thought and didn't let go. I am Charlie Freeman. I am at a gas station. I am human. I kept repeating that to myself. I started coughing again. Blood was pouring out of my mouth.

I sniffed. Blood. The other thing took control of my mind. My vision went black, again. I looked into the gas station and saw something.

There was a bright white light, shining like a lighthouse on the coast on a dark night. It pierced the darkness. I crawled closer to it. It was a little girl. I could make out her every detail perfectly. She was bald and had strange markings on her head where her hair should've been. She was wearing a white gown with one of her small arms behind her back.

"Don't worry, Charlie," she said. Her voice was like a warm blanket on my mind. It was so soothing and made me feel safe. I stopped fighting the different personality. "I'll make you better."

All of the alarms in my head started sounding off, but before I could do anything, she moved the hand that was behind her back in front of her. I could make out the silhouette of a syringe on her hand. She raised it above her head and drove it into my neck. I barely felt a thing as I fell asleep.

Book Two, The Enemy, is out now! Click HERE to buy!

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The following is an excerpt from book two in The Visitors Saga, The Enemy:

My mind swirled. I couldn't grasp hold of a single coherent thought that was dangling in front of me. Every time I felt myself grabbing one, it slipped through my fingers, being sucked up into the tornado of thought swirling around me.

"Charlie," I heard. The voice was clear enough for me to hear. Right as it reached my ears, it was whisked away. "Charlie," I heard again, much stronger this time. "Wake him up."

Everything came to a screeching halt. My mind fell into place. I remembered everything that happened: the girl, the transformation I was going through. Everything.

I sat up as quickly as I could. I scratched at my arms, checking to make sure they were human—that I felt pain. That I wasn't one of them. I started screaming in pain as I dug my fingernails deeper into my arms. I bit down on my tongue until I could taste a warm copper liquid on it. I looked around as fast as I could to make sure my vision was normal, when I realized where I was at.

I was at a hospital. I looked beside my arms and saw a bloody IV needle next to my right arm. I had ripped it out while I was scratching. I looked down at my body, and I was wearing a hospital gown.

I felt somebody pushing on my shoulders, trying to get me to lie back down. My fight or flight instincts kicked in, and I started kicking and punching the man. He was an African-American man, who had huge muscles, and was really tall. I didn't care how big he was, though. I had to get out of there. I lifted my arms up and punched him as hard as I could in the throat. He released me and started grabbing his throat, gasping for air.

I jumped out of the hospital bed and looked around me for a weapon. I looked in the corner and saw a nurse standing with her back to it, fear plastered into her eyes.

"Charlie, just calm down," a man said. I turned around and saw a doctor backing up into a corner. He was wearing a white coat and stethoscope around his neck. He had one of those headbands on that had a large light on it, with a small bowl looking thing around it. Basically, he didn't look like a real doctor. Well, at least not one from this century. "We're trying to help you. You're not well."

"No!" I screamed. I knew something was wrong. Why were all of these people here? Everybody was gone. They were taken by the Visitors. I knew it. I remembered it. What was this place, though? Where had that girl taken me? What was happening to me before then?

I needed answers, and I needed them fast. I ran up to the doctor and grabbed him by the collar of the shirt under his lab coat. I lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the wall as hard as I could. The nurse in the corner let out a whimper. I turned to her and screamed, "I swear to God, if you move, or make a sound, I will kill you with my bare hands!" Rage rushed through me. But at the same time, shock and confusion did. What had I just said? Did I really just threaten that woman's life?

I shook it off, and turned my attention to the doctor, the shock and confusion turning into even more rage. "You better tell me where the hell I am right now, or I will hurt you very badly," I said in a quiet voice. I let the emotions in my voice do all the shouting for me. I knew from the look on the doctor's face, he knew I was telling the truth.

"You're at the Martin's Hospital for the Insane," he said, struggling to get the words out because he was afraid at how I would react.

"You're lying to me!" I screamed as loud as I could. There's no way. I knew the Grimms were real. I wasn't insane! "Alex, Rae, all of them! The Grimms! The Visitors! Everybody disappearing! It's. All. Real! What are you even doing here? You should be gone!" I was inches from his face, letting the spit fly.

"They aren't real! You created them in your mind!" The doctor screamed the words at me, hoping they would get the point across faster. "We're trying to save you, Charlie! Help you!"

For the first time, doubt crept its way into my mind. What if I was insane? What if I did create all of those things in my mind?

"You're realizing it, Charlie," the doctor said in a much calmer tone. "You know it's all fake."

I shook my head. Those things were real. "No!" I grabbed the man by the throat and threw him across the room. He slammed into a counter that had all sorts of surgical supplies on it. He fell to the ground, knocking stuff off the counter with him. I threw him so hard, he was out cold. I had no idea I had that in me.

I ran to the door. I had to get out of there and find Alex, Sarah, and Rae. But as I was reaching for the door, somebody on the other side opened it before me. It was a man who looked like security guard. Behind him were a few more. He raised his gun and pointed it right at me. He pulled the trigger, and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I looked down and saw a syringe on my chest, the needle sticking deep inside me. I fell to the ground hard, but I was out cold before I hit.

****

My eyes were closed, but I was awake, and could hear everything around me. Well, if there was any noise around me, I'm sure I would've been able to hear it. I couldn't open my eyes—I couldn't move anything, actually—but I could still think, and feel. And I could tell that I was tied down. There were straps around my hands, feet, chest, and forehead. They were all tightened way too tight—the fabric of the straps were making me itch like a mad man—but I tried my best to ignore it.

What's going on? I asked myself. Who kidnapped me? What was happening at the gas station? Or better yet, before then, with those people who attacked us? This was all so crazy. First aliens come; second, just about everybody disappears; third, the Grimms start killing everybody; fourth, people started going crazy; and now I'm being told I'm going crazy and that all of this was all in my mind? It was too much for me to handle. Doubt crept from the deep recesses of my mind and propelled itself to the very top coating every thought I had with it. What if I was crazy? What is all that happened took place in my mind? But it all felt so real! The running, the fighting...the fear, sadness, even a tiny bit of happiness. Right when I was adjusting to a life that should be impossible to adjust to, I'm being told that it was all fake, that I'm crazy.

To continue the story, buy The Enemy today!

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