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

was in the air
would be on my tongue. I kept my mouth closed and dealt with the stench.
    I peeked through the small opening I’d made. No one was out
there.
    Carefully, I closed the door behind me and walked quietly
across the wooden porch and down the steps.
    Nothing paid attention to me, yet. Just the little boy.
    Again, I tried to wave him up. He remained still, gazing at
me with those weird, expressionless eyes. With his coloring, I knew he had been
one of the vanished. He had probably just come back from where he’d been, like
Jessie had.
    A dead woman shuffled past him, and now she was close enough
for me to see that she’d been the woman who lived next door. She’d had a son.
    Realization slammed into me. This had been the dark-haired
kid who lived next door with her. She was a single mother. It had been just the
two of them. But they’d been gone, visiting her parents in another state ---
Connecticut --- maybe Vermont. I couldn’t remember.
    They were back, now.
    She continued past him, moving slowly under the street
light, and I could see that her eyes were milky white, her skin shot through
with dark veins. She made strange gurgling noises deep in her throat.
    Fear clawed at my belly and my heart slammed in my chest as
I watched her move past him, not even looking at him.
    He had to be in shock.
    Was that why all these kids had white hair now? Shock? What
had they seen while they were gone? Had it been that terrible?
    I waited until she had walked several feet away, looked all
around to make sure there weren’t any dead near us, and moved as quickly and
quietly as I could toward him.
    “Hey, Danny. Are you okay?” I took his hand. It felt cold in
mine.
    He looked up at me, nodding slowly. His voice came out as a
whisper. “Yes.”
    “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you in the house. It’s not safe
out here.” I gently tugged on his hand, starting to walk back toward the house,
looking all around us. On the news I’d seen how fast these things could move
when they had motivation to. Motivation being food --- the closest thing to eat
being the living.
    It seemed that the dead didn’t like eating things that
weren’t moving and screaming while they tore into them, preferring instead the
taste of hot blood, and the feeling of it spraying their faces.
    My breaths came out in little pants, and my body broke out
in a cold sweat. Just a few more feet and we’d be at the stairs to the porch.
    A knock sounded above and I looked up, startled. Jessie was
knocking on the window, giggling and yelling. She was thrilled that Danny was
coming with me.
    I turned and looked toward the street. Several of the dead
were now walking toward the house, inhuman moans and grunts coming from their
dead throats.
    Hot fear shot through my chest. My mouth went dry. “Come on,
Danny. Better move a little faster.”
    Then his hand was gone from mine and he was like a blur,
moving toward the door.
    I’d never seen a person move so fast.
    He looked at me, and a slow smirk lifted the corners of his
lips.
     
    * * *
     
    This definitely wasn’t like the polite kid who lived next
door and sometimes came over to the porch when Jessie and I came out here to
play. These kids were different. I hadn’t had a chance to look up what people
were posting about their kids. But I sure as hell would now, the minute I got
Danny settled in.
    The kid gave me the creeps, but I couldn’t just leave him
outside. He was still a kid. Wasn’t he?
    I opened the door for him, and the second he walked in the
apartment, Jessie was laughing and clapping. Her personality hadn’t changed.
She was still the bright and cheerful little girl she’d been before she’d
vanished. Thank God.
    “Danny! Yo hair aw white!” Jessie apparently didn’t know
that her hair had changed color, too.
    But now looking at it, I realized that the eyebrows and
eyelashes of both kids were also white. It wasn’t so much that their hair had
changed color as that the color had