Ravenous

   An aching sadness began to fill me. If Bret was frozen then there was a good possibility that his light would be taken from this world. That would be one of the greatest losses this planet would ever know. Yet, if he wasn’t frozen, there was the distinct possibility that he would not emerge from this the same. That his inherent goodness would be tarnished by the evil threatening us now. If he knew about my feelings for Cade, and what had just passed between us, a part of him would be broken.

   He trusted me completely, loved me unconditionally, and with an open honesty I hadn’t been sure I deserved even before I kissed Cade. Now I was certain that I didn’t deserve it. Bret could never know; I could neverhurt him in such a way, or allow him to be hurt so badly. I had always known I was not the wonderful person Bret believed me to be, but he didn’t need to know just how awful I really was. Not yet anyway. He would find out soon enough, if he was still moving. Bret would finally see the darkness in me; he would finally acknowledge that I was not the perfect person he thought I was. I just hoped it didn’t destroy him.

   I moved away from the window. I hated the stars now, despised their mocking wonder and brilliance. The stars hadheld their own secrets, but they had been horrible secrets that they’d spewed upon us in waves of hatred and death. I wondered if the rest of the world was sharing in this horrendous experience, or if the aliens were moving slowly. Perhaps they were methodically taking over the world one town at a time until it was completely theirs. I felt that it was more than likely that it was the whole world at once. They wouldn’t want to take the chance of others finding out what was going on, and finding some way to stop them.

   If there wasany way to stop them.

   There was no way to know what was going on elsewhere though, no way for us to establish contact outside of this town, without leaving it. I had no idea how we would get our mother that far if it ended up just being Abigail and I. That was a problem I’d tackle if we came to it though.

   Moving slowly through the kitchen, I avoided the table as I made my way back to the hall. I had just stepped out of the room when a light flashed over the back door. I froze, my heart hammering, my adrenaline pulsing rapidly through my body as I stood breathless and shaking. The light moved rapidly over the backdoor, bouncing around the room. At first I thought it was the beam from a flashlight, that either the aliens or some idiot was making their way through the woods behind our home. And then I realized that it was one of their smaller spaceships, one of the ones that I had only seen twice before. They were usually docked within the larger ships, hidden away. But when they had emerged they’d darted about with an easy grace that had been mesmerizing and stu

   And now one of them was on the move again, but this time it was not whimsical and fascinating. This time it was terrifying. Nothing good could come from its sudden appearance. I slipped further into the shadow of the stairs, stu

   The lights danced around the room, flashing off the countertops, floor, and table. It seemed as if they were trying to search for us within the house. But that was crazy. There was no way that they could know we were here. They couldn’t. Or could they?

   I shuddered at the thought, my heart pounded as my throat went dry. Cade was out there somewhere, unprotected and vulnerable to the searching lights. I took another step back and then froze as I realized the lights were also bouncing across the front windows, filling the living room and hall. I couldn’t move, there was nowhere for me to go, no way to escape the increasingly frantic bounce and sway of the lights.

   The silence was u

   I remained still as stone as the lights flashed over the house and me. The ships were moving far slower than they had during their exhibitions. What the hellwere they doing?

   And then, the screaming began.

C HAPTER 6

   I bolted forward, racing down the hall as panic spurted through me. I completely forgot about the lights, completely forgot about my own safety as fear for Abby consumed me. I grasped hold of the banister and leapt up the stairs two at a time. My foot caught one of the steps wrong causing me to fall awkwardly. I scrambled to grasp hold of the banister; it was the only thing that kept me from tumbling over backwards down the stairs. Pain lanced through my knees and hands as I fell hard, but Abby’s endless screams drove me swiftly back to my feet.

   “Abby! Abby!” I raced down the hall, fighting against the blinding lights flashing rapidly over my stu

   I slammed off of a table in the hallway, knocking it over with a clattering bang. It skidded a few feet away; I had to jump over it as it tumbled down the hall. Abby’s cries abruptly broke off; the ensuing quiet was far worse than her screams had been. Light flooded my mother’s room as I burst through the doorway. I stumbled, fell, jumped back to my feet before stumbling back again and slamming into the bedroom wall.

   I flattened against the wall, I couldn’t move; my eyes were wide with horror, my heart was in my throat as I took in the awful sight before me. It wasn’t usthat the aliens were looking for, but our mother. That thing, that awful tentacle thingwas in the room. It was moving up and down in a searching pattern as it slid across the floor toward where our mother still sat upon the plywood.

   Abby was on the bed, her mouth gaping, her hands on either side of her head as she watched the thing slithering along. It had broken the window; glass littered the floor around it. “Oh,” Abby moaned.

   I didn’t know what to do, how to react. Then that thing reached our mother. Images of what had happened to the man on the street flooded my mind. There was no way I was going to allow that to happen to her. I leapt forward, falling to my knees as I grabbed a piece of glass from the floor. I ignored the pain that sliced through my palms and knees as the glass bit sharply into them. Adrenaline propelled me as I lifted the glass over my head and drove downward with the full force of my weight.

   Blood exploded over me, but I instinctively knew it was not that thingsblood. It pulsed out of the tentacle in spraying waves that coated me, and the walls. I thought it was Abby’s screams filling the room; it took me a moment to realize it was actually the thingthat was screaming. It screeched as it jerked and flopped over the floor, twisting and withering violently as it reared up high before slamming down again. I fell back, clamoring to get out of the way, awkwardly scrambling to my feet as it whipped toward me. It slammed into my back, knocking me to my hands and knees with a blow hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Choking, gasping for breath, I struggled to crawl away as it came at me again. The end of the tentacle opened wide, revealing piercing, needlelike teeth that had been crammed into a hideous, six inch wide mouth.