The Aftermath (The Alien Invasion Book 2), page 14
I wrapped my arm around her neck. I tried to yank her back using all my weight, but she barely budged. “Ugh, I can’t move her.”
The Jane-creep made a noise that reminded me of a laugh. I couldn’t see her face, but it didn’t matter. I hit her in the back of the head with a closed fist.
She hissed and twisted her body, taking a swipe at me with her long, sharp fingernails. As the Jane-creep reached back, Ben was able to maneuver the blade out from between them. He couldn’t put much behind his movement but he shouted as he stuck the blade into her body and pulled it back out.
She reached for the wound and slumped over slightly. Ben was able to pull himself back enough so that he could stab her again. This time he aimed for the side of her neck. And he landed the blow.
As he pulled out the blade and attempted to thrust it into her again, the Jane-creep wailed. A glowing, pink liquid drizzled out of the wound and down her neck coating her skin and covering the black fluid.
“What is happening?” I said with a sharp gasp as I watched the liquid work to repair the deep cut in her chest.
“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Ben shouted as he noticed what was happening.
I kicked the Jane-creep in the side and she toppled backwards. Even though the pink liquid from her neck was trying to repair the chest wound, she was still weak from her injuries. It looked as though she was using additional energy just to try to repair her wounds.
“Try her neck again,” I said glancing at Ben for a second before returning my gaze to Jane. I was afraid to take my eyes off of her for too long.
Ben stood up, looking as though his leg was hurt. He put all his weight on his left leg as he looked down at her. She reached up, trying to grab his leg, but she was too weak.
He got down on one knee and put his hand over her forehead. Ben pressed down as he dragged the blade across her neck.
A look of sheer panic filled her eyes, and I knew the repair fluid wouldn’t be able to save her. The Jane-creep looked as though she knew it too.
“Again,” I said softly, feeling my stomach turn.
“Don’t watch,” Ben said glancing at me, and then at Dillon. But I didn’t listen. What he was doing was saving our lives. This wasn’t Jane. This was a creep, and after what they had done to our families, friends and our world… well, she deserved what was coming.
Dillon turned around and Ben plunged the blade into her forehead just above the spot between her eyes. Her arms flopped down to her sides. She blinked a couple times as her thin, black lip quivered.
I was about to tell him to do it again when her eyes stopped blinking. She coughed and then her body was still. Ben pushed the Jane-creep’s body, but it didn’t move. She was dead. I was sure of it. It was as though I could feel the change in the air.
The pink liquid started to reverse and travel back up her body and into the corpse. The neck wound sealed up leaving behind no trace that the pink repairing liquid had ever been there.
After a few seconds, a black, thicker liquid oozed out from her wounds, coating her and the floor that surrounded her. It reminded me of how the black goop that had rained down from the sky had covered the earth. If she would have died on soil, I have no doubt pink flowers would have grown from her remains.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ben said standing up and waving at Dillon to follow. I grabbed the backpack and opened the front door. Ben didn’t hesitate to grab the other backpack and follow me. As he stepped over the Jane-creep’s corpse, he snatched up the sheath that was laying on the ground nearby.
Dillon was right behind Ben, stumbling out of the door as though he couldn’t get out fast enough. He walked across the yard slowly like he was in shock.
Ben bent down and wiped the bloody knife off on the ground as best as he could. He clipped the sheath to his jeans and slid the blade inside.
I looked around the area as though I expected to see one of the creep’s ships landing to come to the Jane-creeps rescue, but there was nothing there. Dillon was staring at me and Ben with his hands balled up into tight fists.
Ben squinted at him and raised his hand to block out the sun, “Are you OK?”
Dillon locked his wide eyes with Ben’s and laughed, “Are you kidding? Of course I’m not OK! Didn’t you just see what happened in there? No one should be OK!”
I took a careful step towards Dillon with my arms slightly outstretched to the sides. He flinched away from me and my heart sank. The look in his eyes was saddening. He looked at me as though he thought I was just as dangerous as Jane had been.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said swallowing hard. The way he had recoiled from me had actually stung my heart.
“No! Don’t come any closer to me. Just… just leave me alone! I don’t want to be part of any of this!” Dillon said inching further and further away from us.
Ben held out his palms, “Dillon, wait.”
“No! Just go away! You guys are murderers! Murderers!” he shouted and started moving backwards faster.
“Dillon, please! Just let me explain,” I begged, but he ignored my plea. He turned around and started running away from us as fast as he could. “Dillon, no! Stop!”
Ben started to chase after him, but Dillon was running with every ounce of energy he had left. His arms pumped so hard they looked as though they were propelling him forward.
There was no way we could catch him. Both Ben and I were completely worn out from fighting off Jane. There wasn’t anything we could do but stand there and watch him run away.
“Come back!” I screamed so loudly it scratched my throat. But he didn’t look back. If anything, he seemed to run faster. “Ahhh!”
I unclenched my fists and pushed my palm into my cheek and down over my mouth. Ben lightly placed his hand on my shoulder, “He’s gone.”
“But, we should—”
“There isn’t anything we can do. He made his choice, now we have to make ours,” Ben said gripping the backpack tighter. He checked to make sure the blade was still in place, even though he knew it was. “Ready?”
I turned to Ben, unable to hide the sadness and frustration in my eyes. He stroked his thumb against my cheek. There was a tear threatening to leak out from the corner of my eye, but I fought against it. I refused to let it fall.
Ben was right. Dillon made his choice. But he wouldn’t make it very far without food and water. It was almost as if seeing him run from us was the same as watching him run to his grave.
I nodded as Dillon disappeared from view. It was just me and Ben. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
When I opened my eyes, Ben took my hand, and we started heading west. Away from the camp, away from Dillon and away from whatever was left of Jane’s corpse inside the trailer.
[ 23 ]
As we headed west, I wondered how far we’d go, or where we’d stop, and of course, neither of us knew. Would we find supplies? If we found help, would we even recognize it? I had to hope that we would, but what if there were others like Jane out there?
If we came upon others, we knew they couldn’t be trusted. After what we went through with Jane, we knew there wasn’t any way, at least none that we had figured out yet, that would reveal if someone was truly human or one of the super-creeps that could easily pass for human.
There hadn’t been any visible difference between Jane and us. She was a little awkward and a little strange, but for the most part she passed the human test. There could easily be others like Jane out there and I didn’t know how we’d be able to figure out their true identity.
Maybe if someone had a natural affinity for the flowers, or really encouraged reproduction, but those were things that the flowers could induce in humans if ingested or inhaled. For now, the only person I could trust and know was safe, was Ben.
The creeps wanted humans to make more humans, which was something that would happen without the flowers. But the flowers would encourage and speed up the process. It would take years, but the creeps would come back one day for another harvest. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop them, although we could be ready for them when they came back. But what could we do?
“I hate these things,” I said kicking at one of the flowers. A pink plume of dust billowed up into the surrounding air. The flowers were a drug. To me, they were a poison. And the stupid things were everywhere.
“Me too,” Ben said, but he kept his eyes on the horizon. I could tell he had been affected by what had happened with Jane. We both had. We’d need to be far more careful and far more prepared, but how would we be able to accomplish that?
Jane hadn’t needed to suck the life out of humans, as the phasers had to stay in their human form, but she did do something to Dillon. How many types of creeps were there? Did they create Jane specifically for the purpose of protecting the flowers and encouraging reproduction? Could there really be others like her?
Jane told us they’d be back. She told us they wanted us to increase the population. There had to be more creeps like Jane on Earth. All of them scattered around, working to keep their flowers safe.
As we walked, a house popped up on the horizon. We decided to check it out, in case we could restock our supplies, or rest. Ben had his blade, but even still, we approached with extreme caution.
There was a man working outside, looking as though he was trying to clean up his property. He was raking at the flowers on his front lawn, trying to remove them. It seemed as though, to him, they were as pesky as dandelions.
A woman, who was sweeping on the porch, stopped and watched us as we drew closer. Off to the side of the house there was a girl kneeling on the ground with her back to us. She seemed to be working on something on the lawn.
“Hello,” the man called out with a friendly wave, but a cautious look on his face.
Ben and I stayed back at the edge of their property. “Hi.”
“Where ya headed?”
“We’re just passing through,” Ben said, gesturing to the road in front of their house.
“Alright. Just we don’t see many others out this way now… not since everything that happened, you know?” the man said taking his baseball cap off and wiping at his forehead. “Everything OK with you two? You look a little… tired.”
“We’re fine. Thanks,” Ben said, unwilling to give up any more information than was necessary.
“Want to come in for a drink? We have a well… plenty of water to go around. Looks like the two of you could really use a rest,” he said narrowing his eyes at us. I couldn’t tell if he was suspicious or if the sun was too bright.
Ben looked at me for a second as though he was considering it and then back towards the man, “Much appreciated, sir, but we’ll have to pass on your kind offer.”
The man looked around and nodded, “Understood. You might find others down that way. Heard rumors about folks setting up a safety zone in a small town out that way.”
“Is that right?” Ben said looking in the direction the man indicated. “Know anything about it?”
“No, sorry… not really. Might just be a rumor, you know. Times are tough.”
“Why aren’t you and your family checking it out?”
“We’re quite happy here in the home we lived in for more than half of our lives. We have everything we could possibly need… at least for the time being,” the man said hitting one of the flowers with his rake. “These weeds will be the death of me. I swear, I yank one out and two more pop up.”
The man’s wife slowly walked down the porch steps and came to stand next to the man. He put his arm around her and she flashed us a small, polite smile.
“You sure you don’t want to stay here? You’re more than welcome,” the man said and his wife nodded.
“We have the space,” the woman said in a tiny voice.
Even though we both wanted a rest, we couldn’t accept their offer. We couldn’t risk it. For all we knew they were all creeps.
They looked at us as though they thought we were in need of help. And maybe we were. We were trapped in a living hell, who didn’t need a break?
“Hey! Come on over here… meet these nice folks,” the man shouted towards the girl. It was as though he wanted us to meet his family. That he thought meeting them would help ease our minds.
The girl stood up and straightened her clothing as she made her way over to us. She wore a big hat that covered her face, but was protecting her from the bright sun.
“This is Lauren,” the man said and nudged at the girl. She removed her hat and looked at me and Ben. “She was passing by a while back and decided to stay.”
I swallowed hard when I saw her face. My breath was ragged and my legs felt so heavy I wasn’t sure I’d be able to move them.
I stood there unable to move or say anything to the girl, who was an identical duplicate of Jane. She smiled as she moved her hand from behind her back and lifted one of the pink flowers towards me. I jumped back away from the flower.
“Hello,” she said with the same eyes that Jane had.
The girl didn’t know us. She had an apprehensive look on her face, though it was probably fake.
This girl wasn’t our Jane, she only looked like her. Our Jane-creep was dead inside the trailer we had left behind only a short time ago, but this girl was definitely a Jane.
Could they communicate with each other somehow? Did this girl know that we had just killed her copy? If she did she didn’t let it show.
Neither of us could speak. I wanted to take the blade from Ben and get rid of her. I knew what she was, and if this man and woman were human, they were completely clueless. She blinked her eyes innocently at me.
“I don’t know why she likes those silly weeds,” the man said pulling the girl into his arm and lightly shaking her. She looked at him with a sparkle in her eye. “Go on now… go back to your garden.”
The Jane-girl walked away and knelt down in front of a little flower bed filled with perfect rows of the pink flowers. She adjusted her hat and got back to work.
“Thanks for the offer but we best be on our way,” Ben said waving and pulling me away from the house. All I could think about was how we needed to get rid of the Jane-girl. We couldn’t leave her here knowing what she was.
If there were two, I was certain there would be more. What would we do if we came across another one? We couldn’t just walk away every time we saw one. As long as they were here, we would never be safe from the creeps.
“Safe travels to you,” the man shouted after us with a confused look on his face. I turned around to look back at them, expecting the Jane-girl to come charging at us to finish off what the Jane-creep hadn’t been able to, but she didn’t. She just sat there working on her garden. The woman waved at me and I turned away.
If we couldn’t kill her, we needed to get away from her. We needed to get safe… if there even was anywhere we could be safe.
Maybe we could find the camp the man mentioned, or maybe we’d be better off on our own. I didn’t know what we should do.
A chill ran through my entire body. I looked up at Ben and he kissed me on the forehead. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t have the answers either.
At least we were together.
He reached down and picked up a long branch off of the ground. He broke it into two and started swinging at the pink flowers at the side of the road. Then he handed me the other stick, and I joined in.
For now, we could take out as many of the pink flowers as we could. It wouldn’t even make a dent in the amount of flowers on Earth, but at least it was better than doing nothing.
I wasn’t sure what we were going to do to survive in this new world. We could look for the safe camp, or find a place of our own. One day the creeps would come back. We’d have to be ready for them. And until that day came, we’d have to work together to save the Earth from the Janes.
Maybe we could develop a new way to test for creeps. Maybe we could convince others to help us on our mission. It would be nearly impossible to do it alone, but if that was all we could manage, we would have to try.
***
Other Books
By Kellee L. Greene
THE ISLAND SERIES
The Island
Book 2 Coming soon!
THE RAVAGED LAND SERIES (Complete)
Ravaged Land
Finding HOME
Crashing Down
Running Away
Escaping Fear
Fighting Back
THE ALIEN INVASION SERIES
The Landing
The Aftermath
DESTINED REALMS
Destined
About the Author
Kellee L. Greene is a stay-at-home-mom to two super awesome and wonderfully sassy children. She loves to read, draw and spend time with her family when she’s not writing. Writing and having people read her books has been a long time dream of hers and she’s excited to write more. Her favorites genres are Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Kellee lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two kids and two cats.
For more information…
@kelleelgreene
kelleelgreene
www.kelleelgreene.com
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