Intruders: The Invasion: A Post-Apocalyptic, Alien Invasion Thriller (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

was going on. Why had I slept so long? Was the world in any better shape
since I’d drifted off?
    I washed my hands and headed back into the kitchen to check
news reports on the laptop.
    Before I sat down at the laptop, I looked out the living
room window. There were shapes wandering the streets now; shambling. This wasn’t
a normal walk. It was dark, so I couldn’t make out who the people were, or if
they were really alive or dead. But by the way they were moving, a kind of
mindless shuffling, I knew that these were some of the dead that had come back.
    A cold chill danced over my spine. How could this be
happening?
    I tried the police station again on my cell. We had no home
phone, as we all had cell phones and had no need for it. Nobody was answering
at the police station. No answer from Kelly or Derek.
    I tried 911. The lines were completely jammed.
    Not a big surprise.
    I checked the laptop. The kid hadn’t returned to his live
streaming video. A view of an empty kitchen filled the screen.
    There were a lot of other pleas for help on PheedMe.
    News reports were not encouraging. The dead were growing
quickly in numbers. A scratch or a bite would kill you within an hour. Soon
after, you turn into one of them.
    The military were out in tanks and humvees, but more and
more of them were being taken down. The sheer numbers of the dead were making
the task of killing them unmanageable. The rapidness with which a person turned
was making it near impossible to keep their numbers down.
    But more interesting were the reports and videos of the
children and babies who had returned. It seemed that all of the kids who had
vanished had reappeared over night.
    All of them now had white blonde hair and strange, green
eyes.
    “Doe-doe!”
    I jumped up and ran into the living room, where Jessie was
standing on the couch looking out the window into the street. She pointed one
small finger at the glass, touching it lightly. “Oook! Oook! A boy aside!”
    As I approached the window, my breath caught in my throat. A
boy of about nine years old with a shock of white hair stood under a street
light, staring up at the window. He stared right at me as the dead wandered all
around him.
    And the strangest thing was that the dead didn’t seem to
bother with him at all.
     
    * * *
     
    My initial reaction was that the kid gave me the creeps. My
second was that I needed to get him out of the street, before the dead realized
that he was standing there and that he wasn’t one of them.
    He was still watching me. I waved him up. “Come on, kid.
Slowly.”
    He just stood there, expressionless, watching me.
    I was going to have to go out there and get him. “Damn it.”
    “Bad word, Doe-doe.” Jessie wagged a finger at me.
    “Sorry, Jess. Listen. Can you stay in here and be a good
girl while Doe-Doe goes out and gets that little boy?”
    Jessie nodded. “I a big girl.”
    “Yes, you are.” Watching the kid for a long minute, I hoped
I wasn’t being an idiot going out there. If something happened to me trying to
get that kid to safety, Jessie would be on her own.
    But I couldn’t leave him out there like that. The dead could
turn their attention to him at any moment. I frowned. Why didn’t he come up?
Why did he just stand there like that?
    He must be in shock. Must’ve lost his parents. Siblings, too
maybe.
    “Poor kid.” I bit my lip, heart pounding, trying to ready
myself for going out there.
    “Yeah. Poe kid.” Jessie’s voice was full of sympathy. “Where
his mommy? With my mommy?”
    “I don’t know, sweetie. I’ll just be a minute. Stay here,
okay?”
    She nodded her head, and then turned back to the window.
    I made my legs move and headed toward the door, listening
for any movement outside. I heard nothing. Slowly, I turned the knob and pulled
the door open about an inch.
    The smell hit me at the same time as the cold did. A
strange, sulfuric smell, with the reek of rot beneath it.
    If I breathed through my mouth, whatever