Invasive Species Part Three Read online

  INVASIVE SPECIES PART O3 (#6-7)

  BY DANIEL J. KIRK

  © Copyright 2014 Bride of Chaos/ All Rights Reserved to the Author.

  First electronic edition 2014

  Edited by A.R. Jesse

  Cover by Turtle&Noise

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes) prior written permission must be obtained from the author and publisher.

  READ Part One of INVASIVE SPECIES

  READ Part Two of INVASIVE SPECIES

  For more information on this series please visit www.brideofchaos.com

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  INVASIVE SPECIES

  PART 03

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  6. OVER THE HILL AND THROUGH THE WOODS

  “Stay Away from me!” It was the fifth time Melinda said that. Derek Vogt tried to explain everything that had happened. Not too long ago, he awoke on this alien space ship and was instructed by a little bald and friendly alien to try and stop the invasion of earth. Meanwhile, on earth there was an alien clone of Derek pretending to be Derek, and making Melinda’s life hell.

  “You’re disgusting, what the hell are you?”

  “I’m me! Derek, your fiancé!”

  “You think you can mess with my head again?” Melinda had arrived on the alien space ship as a prisoner. Derek didn’t witness how his doppelganger revealed its alien nature to Melinda. But the look of disgust on her face was going to require effort to prove that Derek was normal intestines and brains, and liver and lungs inside, like a normal person. Only he wasn’t so normal anymore. He was stronger than any human alive. He had smashed through the walls of Melinda’s cell with his bare hands.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Melinda promptly vomited. Curses bubbled and chunked on the prison cell floor. Two men were also brought in with Melinda. They had stayed back against the far wall to lay witness to Derek’s pitiful attempts to get Melinda to believe he was the real one.

  “Guys, a little help here? What did that imposter do to her? How can I prove I’m me?”

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. Derek recognized them now. They were in the interrogation room with Melinda when she found out the doppelgänger wasn’t the sweet Derek she had been engaged to. But Derek had wanted to believe that it was a scene put on by the aliens to make Derek give up his attempt at stopping the invasion. The scene had revealed something about Melinda that Derek had not known. She was a secret government agent, their relationship was a fraud, and she hated Derek.

  “You’re not a secret agent right? You’re just a normal person?”

  Melinda didn’t lift her hair out of her puke. She crouched over it and refused to make eye contact.

  “Is this some kind of trick?” one of the men asked.

  No, thought Derek, maybe this was still the aliens’ way of trying to trick him. Maybe this still wasn’t Melinda. Maybe it was a clone. But if she welcomed him back with open arms, if she was so happy to see him, then Derek would be distracted. He would’ve fallen into the perfect trap.

  No!

  Everything in his mind knew it was true. He hadn’t witnessed a clone of Melinda interrogating the doppelganger. It was the real Melinda.

  “Look, I can stop the alien invasion. But I could use your help. If you trust me I can show you how you can get stronger. Okay, that’s how I did the Kool-Aid Man thing and came in through this wall. I was never a spy, or an alien. That wasn’t me. I don’t know how long I’ve been up here on this spaceship, but I do know that the real me, met and proposed to you, Melinda.”

  “Why don’t you just back off, man?” the other man chimed in.

  “Look, we can’t stay here. Please follow me. I don’t know how strong I am. I don’t know if I can fight off the aliens.”

  Melinda stood up. Wiped upchuck from her lips. She flung her hand and chunks splattered against the electrical force field. It snapped and popped.

  “Alright, douche bag. Get us out of here.”

  Derek didn’t like Melinda’s tone, but maybe it was a start. He would take it.

  ***

  Elsewhere, Beth Bailey felt trapped. It was déjà vu. She was without Derek or Bub, their little alien friend. She had run herself to exhaustion the moment Derek decided to trigger the alarm and face all the aliens with his new super strength. But she couldn’t hear the alarm. Never would’ve. It was something only the aliens would notice. She might’ve set one or two off herself and never known. But she needed a break. A moment to catch her breath.

  She smiled at the sight of a vent in the wall. She had seen Bub take refuge in those quite often, and Beth was of a small enough build that she could lodge herself in there for a few moments.

  She gripped the grate and yanked it off. She imagined it would’ve been harder had she not gained strength from beating up all the beasts she had. But she also knew it was the last bit of strength she had. Her effort to pull herself up and into the duct was the kind of scene that would end up on a funny security video footage. It was nonathletic, desperate, and clumsy. It took two minutes. But part of the reason for that was that it was sixteen feet in the air, and she was carrying the grate back up to conceal her presence.

  Once settled, she rested.

  Maybe time was of the essence. But Beth thought it was all up to Derek and his superhuman strength. Perhaps, he would simply punch a hole into the ship and it everyone inside was sucked out into the outer space. Perhaps, he would fail.

  She hoped he was right though. Derek didn’t believe that his fiancé was a secret agent, and he thought that the disembowelment of Beth’s love was just a trick by the aliens to get them to give up. She couldn’t go on if the love of her life was murdered, and thought Beth had done it. Is there a heaven, where they explain everything? Or will his soul hate me forever? No, I mustn’t think like this.

  She wondered if it would matter if she never made it back to earth.

  Then she heard voices. English speaking voices.

  “If we take out the engine they won’t be able to hide from your planet’s satellites and astronomers.”

  “Yeah, but what good would that do? We don’t have space combat ready ships, do we?”

  “I suppose you don’t. No wonder their plan is so passive. Your planet is a sitting goose.”

  “Duck. The saying is duck.”

  It didn’t sound like Derek, but it did sound like Bub. Beth wondered how he had escaped capture again. She peered out the grate, and sure enough Bub was walking with another human male. Clearly not Derek. She opened the grate and called out to them.

  “Bub! It’s me!”

  The alien and the human froze.

  Energy returned to Beth and she dropped out of the duct. She hit the ground and rose with excitement.

  “How did you get free? And who is this dude?”

  “Do you know her?” the human asked the alien.

  “No.”

  “It’s me, Beth Bailey. You broke me out so that I could help your thwart the invasion. Who’s this guy? The new recruit?”

  “I did not break you out.”

  “Sure you did, Bub.”

  “I am not Bub.”

  “Well that’s what we call you…” Beth started to feel like she was mistaken. The bald little alien looked exactly like Bub. But she’d never seen another of his kind. “Do you all look the same?”

  “Huh?”

  “I think another
one of you helped me then. Are there more of you trying to help us earthlings get out and stop the invasion.”

  The alien made a connection and grunted something obviously not in English, then clarified for the humans in his presence. “Your Bub is a moron, a stupid and selfish moron. You must be the one causing the ruckus. We’ve had to spend the last hour hiding because you tore up the prison, freeing humans who are not important to the plan.”

  “I didn’t tear up a prison.” Beth said, “but maybe I know who did.”

  The human introduced himself. “Stephen Norris.”

  Beth took a couple steps forward to shake his hand. It was obvious he wasn’t going to move more than the outstretching of his hand. “Beth Bailey.”

  “Was Bub’s plan for you to seduce the invaders?” the alien asked.

  “What? No.”

  “Odd. A beauty like you would surely have been able to distract them.”

  “Relax, he said the same thing about me,” Stephen said. Beth blushed. Stephen was very attractive. He had hair like a tropical beach, a strong jaw like a bank safe and steely blue eyes, like those blue eyes everyone is always gushing over, like Cal Ripken Jr.’s.

  “Is that your plan?”

  “It was until your Bub made all loose humans a threat. They plan to exterminate you all now that the connection with the imposters on earth has been broken.”

  “That we did do,” Beth sighed.

  “You’ve rendered the whole plan useless.”

  Stephen offered a sympathetic smile. “We’re trying to come up with plan B now. Still, I’m glad not to be watching myself in the shower anymore. So I appreciate it.”

  “Well, there’s one more like me. He defeated a very high level beast and he’s probably powerful enough to break through the prison walls.”

  “You’ve been fighting the beasts?”

  Beth stuttered, “Sh…Should we not have been doing that?”

  The alien threw its hands in front of its face and stared at them. “Is this how they do it? Or do I stick my palm all the way in my face.”

  “All the way,” Stephen said.

  The alien complied, with a little more force than it should have. It jerked back in pain. “Why would you stupid humans do that when someone else is being stupid?”

  Stephen almost corrected the alien, but decided it was useless. “I call him Hawking, by the way. Cause he’s so smart.” Stephen winked to let Beth know he was joking the alien, just as they had Bub.

  “Okay, but what was wrong about fighting the beasts? They were making us stronger.”

  “Precisely.

  That was Hawking’s only response. Beth waited for more, she really did, but it just kept staring at her like she was a moron.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Remember that connection the invaders made between you and the imposter they placed in your stead? That strength you say you are gaining comes at a cost. It is a genetic reprogramming. They are creating an unbreakable link. So go ahead, keep beating up those grotesque beasts of theirs, and you’ll end up their puppet, without a thought of your own, but perhaps you’ll still have that distant aw shucks in the back of you head as you murder your people.”

  ***

  Derek held out his hand, but Melinda refused it.

  “You have to trust me,” he said. He knew it would be hard to convince her of everything he said, but at the very least she had to believe he could throw her and her two co-workers across the dark chasm. Perhaps, he would’ve been easier to trust had he led them to something other than a dead end.

  “There must be a better way,” Agent Brown said. He and Agent White had introduced themselves during the long awkward silence that followed their escape from the prison cell. Derek checked for Bub before they left the cellblock, but the little alien was not being held captive, not there anyway. And that was only person Derek was willing to take instruction from at this moment, so for now he was winging it as best he could. He hoped Melinda wouldn’t notice.

  Jumping the chasm was probably better than running them around in circles, breaking things. At least they might stumble upon the command center or something likewise as important. And then, Derek could impress with his fisticuffs.

  “Throw Brown first.”

  Derek turned to the ‘why me’ expression on Agent Brown’s face. But Brown obeyed Melinda, and Derek flung him like a rag doll over to the other side.

  “And you’re going get across how?”

  “I can jump real good.”

  “Because you’re not human.”

  Agent White stepped forward for his turn, but Melinda brushed him back.

  “Okay, now throw me.”

  Derek tried to throw her a bit softer, but her landing on the other side was less than graceful.

  “Sorry!”

  “Now White,” Melinda ordered as she stood back up.

  Derek obliged.

  As soon as White landed, all three moved to the edge as if to block Derek’s landing.

  “Now you run along. We don’t need your help. You clearly don’t have an agenda other than to keep us busy wandering around this damned space ship.”

  “No, Melinda. I can protect you. You need me.”

  “I mean it Derek. If you really are who you say you are then you’ll screw off. That’s the only way I can prove that you’re not another alien thing.”

  “He’s really strong though,” White tried to protest Melinda’s order, but was silenced.

  “Go on, leave us alone. Get. Get!”

  Derek’s mind went to the film Old Yeller. His heart broke. Twenty other heartbreaking films filled his mind, and he found himself weakened by it. Derek sunk his head and turned away as they tacked on one more insult.

  “Go away, Derek. No one needs you!”

  Derek could barely lift his head. He felt like someone was going to throw sticks or acorns at him, like they had when he was a child. He heard Melinda say one more thing.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s alien,” Agent White said.

  “You’re right, leave him. We’re better off without him.”

  It was like someone pulled the floor out from Derek. He collapsed. Curled into a ball and remembered high school again.

  ***

  Beth Bailey was five years old. Her father pulled her out of bed. Her pajamas stuck to her arms and legs. It had been a hot summer night and normally the window was left open to help cool her down. Only it was much warmer outside.

  Her father said, “Come on, we have to go.”

  Beth responded in confused grunts. It was still night out. She drifted back to sleep as soon as the car left their driveway. She woke to a speed limit sign, briefly illuminated as they sped past. She woke later to the high beams of a tractor-trailer. Then again when she bounced in her seat. This time she stayed awake as her father came to a stop. For the moment his headlights were still on, and dust swirled around the car like a heavy fog.

  “Are you awake?”

  Beth grunted again. Her father smiled and looked at his watch, then unbuckled Beth’s car seat. A moment later he was putting on her shoes, and then they walked through the humid air. The grass was wet beneath their feet. Her father set out two chairs. There was a sliver of light on the horizon, cutting out the shapes of the treetops.

  “Watch,” her father said.

  A second later light burst from behind the trees. The ground in front of them sparkled like it was made of a million diamonds. It was the lake. The sun rose slowly, it was too bright to stare at directly, but the lake reflected its beauty.

  “Beautiful isn’t it?”

  It felt like a fairy tale. Birds sung and swooped through the sun’s rays. Something splashed into the water, a frog. The sun continued to rise, and Beth and her father continued to watch.

  “This is a sunrise,” her father said. “Did you want to stay?”

  “Forever.”

  Her father laughed. “But if we stay it won’t be as
pretty. It’s going to get hot and buggy, the sun won’t shine the same.”

  “No, I want to stay.”

  “There’s a place and moment for everything, Beth, a moment when it is perfect, a moment where it is everything that you ever wanted. Remember that this moment doesn’t last.”

  Beth’s cheek stung. Hawking had smacked her with his little alien hand. He wound up for another one and just barely stopped his follow through.

  “You zonked out,” Stephen said.

  “What?” Beth couldn’t remember much. She had been very tired before she had heard Hawking and Stephen coming and mistook them for Bub and Derek. “I’m weak.”

  “That’s the other reason not to fight those beasts. You must be strong, but not nearly as strong as they are. The invaders are trained in so many forms of combat that it is just best altogether to approach defeating them from an alternative method.” Hawking grumbled, “Is this really what your Bub wanted you to do?”

  Beth wanted to pass out. She wanted Hawking to stop berating her. She just kept thinking about how nice things used to be. She remembered that day with her father on Lake Anna. She had made him stay at the lake long after the sunrise.

  “No, I want to stay.”

  “There’s a place and moment for everything, Beth, a moment when it is perfect, a moment where it is everything that you ever wanted. Remember that this moment doesn’t last.”

  Beth didn’t understand at the time.

  They stayed and soon the sun’s reflection was gone from the lake. It was too high in the sky to reflect diamonds. Soon, a bug bit her and it was just the first. She tried swatting them away, but that was useless.

  “We have to stay. You chose to stay,” Her father said. He had brought a picnic for them, but it was almost impossible to eat. All Beth wanted to do was go home.

  “It’s not pretty anymore.”

  “It’s the same day that you didn’t want to leave. Remember that, how you want things to be never lasts.”

  Her father’s words rang through her mind. She stumbled, even with her arm around Stephen’s shoulders. He was trying to carry her and keep up with Hawking’s breakneck gait. She didn’t care that she wasn’t making it easier. Her life had been so good up until now. It wasn’t the most beautiful sunrise, but it was a good life, and now, it was over. She remembered when she faced the plus 100-level beast. When she had knelt down and prepared for her death.