Chapter 1: Them
It was quiet, a little too quiet. Earth was always noisy. Towns and cities would be bustling with noise and music. You would certainly smell the aroma of delicious, mouth watering food from nearby bakeries. If you were lucky, you’d find people smiling and greeting one another. I saw, heard, nor smelled any of that. There were no people in sight. Buildings seemed to be falling apart. No lights were on, signs were hanging, and not a single sound came to my ears except wind blowing and doors being pushed by it.
What happened here? I thought to myself as I looked around. I walked for about an hour through the town searching for a sign of life. I flinched as I heard a noise coming from a nearby building. I quickly walked, almost running, up to the door of that building and grabbed the knob. I turned it and opened it slowly. I unpacked my flashlight and clicked it on. It seemed the building was once a church, before who knows what happened to it. I stepped inside the once was church and looked for what had caused the noise I heard just moments before. Then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I quickly spun around and shone my flashlight in the area I saw movement. It was an old man, about seventy years old. He was shaking.
“You must leave! If you don’t, they will get you!” the old man warned.
“What happened here? Who are they?” I was confused. The old man glanced left to right.
“Come with me. There is another man who survived besides me.” He dragged himself over to a part of the wall and glanced around once more. Then he leaned on it and it slid open. “Follow me.” He walked in and I was right behind him. In the room were a few pillows and boxes. When I stepped deeper in, I saw another man. He had some body armor and was way younger than the old man, a couple of years older than me probably. The old man slid the door, or rather the open part of the wall, shut.
“This room is a bit small,” I said.
“So, we have human company, eh?” the younger man turned around to look at me. “What’s your name?”
“Caligo, or Cat whichever you prefer,” I looked around the small space called a ‘room.’
“Well nice to meet you, Caligo. I’m Chris, and the old man is Ron,” he smiled.
“What are in these boxes?” I asked curiously.
“Food,” Chris chuckled, “and guns and ammunition.”
I looked over at Ron. I noticed he wasn’t shaking anymore. He must get cold easily, I thought.
“So where’re you from?” Chris asked while cleaning a pistol. “I know you can’t be from here. You’d be dead already.”
“I’m from Mars,” my eyes finally quit wondering around the tiny room and met with Chris’s.
“I thought women came from Venus,” He taunted. “What made you come to earth?”
“We got a distress call from here,” My eyes wondered again. “I was sent to check things out. So what’s so special about this room?”
“They can’t come in here,” Ron grinned, “We are protected by magical crosses.” He pointed to the ceiling. There were crosses all over and they were glowing.
“How come I couldn’t see those earlier?”
“Because they weren’t trying to get in when you looked at the ceiling,” Ron watched the crosses slowly disappear.
“That’s a bit freaky,” I felt goose bumps run along my arms. “By the way, who arethey?”
“They, as the old man calls them, are monsters, the kind that people used to call zombies and ghosts and such. Not sure how they all came to be.” Chris turned around and that’s when I noticed there were T.V. screens in front of him.
“What’re those for?” I asked walking towards them and squeezed myself next to Chris.
He looked at me, “You have pretty, red eyes.” I gave him a ‘not now’ look and he looked back at the T.V. screens. “They’re here so we can monitor the status of the monsters. This way we know if it’s clear or if there are many of them roaming around.” He gave me a sideways glance, “That’s how Ron knew you were outside.”
“Why did you come here?” I kept staring at the screens but they all seemed empty.
“Because it’s a church, a holy place,” Ron spoke excitedly.
“Or it was a church,” Chris added. I bet it looks like a bunch of rubble now, look.” He pointed to one of the screens. I looked quickly to find an object pass by the screen. “Looks like they’re haunting the dance floor. I’m gunna get some sleep. Haven’t gotten any in a while.” He walked over to a blanket, threw it on the floor, and lay on top of it. He seemed to drift to sleep right as his back touched the softness of it. I glanced around and noticed Ron was already asleep. I decided to join them and found a blanket. I put it as far away from both of them as I could. I laid on it and slept.
When I awoke, I found out Ron wasn’t in the room. I looked in Chris’s direction, he was still asleep. I felt a shiver come over me and that’s when I noticed the door was open. Did Ron go outside? If he did, then why did he? I sat up and stared at the open door. I stared until I heard a faint groan. It sounded like Ron. I stood up and slowly walked to the door way, which wasn’t too far away from where I was laying. When I looked to my right, the first thing I saw was Ron on the floor. He was drenched with blood. It took me a coupled of seconds to realize he was dead. I quickly went back into the room and slammed the door shut, walking away from it, and waking Chris up in the process.
“What’s going on?” he said in a groggy voice.
“Dead,” I gasped. I was trying to recover from shock. “He’s dead. Ron is dead.”
“Dead?” Chris seemed to wake up at that moment. “How?”
“I’m guessing they got him,” I walked over to the T.V. screens.
“Great. He must have heard them calling and he went to see what it was. That’s how they try to trick us to leave this room. I can’t believe he fell for it this time,” Chris shook his head.
“Well we can’t stay here forever.” I scanned the screens.
“Where would we go?” Chris thought for a second. “Oh yeah, you have a ship, duh.”
“Yeah, but hopefully they don’t know that.” I turned to look at him. “We’re going to need a lot of ammo. I’m sure they won’t let us go that easily.”
“Not just that,” He walked over to a box. He tore it open and took at an object that looked exactly like the ones on the ceiling, only visible. “This is the only weapon we have against the so called ghosts. Better take a lot with us. Here are some that you can put in your gun if you don’t want to get close to them.” He threw a clip of them to me along with two regular ones. He squeezed himself next to me to study the screens. “Hopefully we can just run down the middle to get to your ship. If we can’t we’ll have to take cover every now and then.” He looked at me and I nodded.
Once we were ready, Chris walked up to the door and stared at the ceiling. Our plan was to leave the room right after one of them tried to get in. That way we don’t go out and have one of them in our face. The crosses finally glittered their golden light and then slowly retreated into the darkness. Chris then opened the door and we were on our way. What we didn’t know was that they knew we were coming, leaving our shield, the shield that kept them from getting to us. They were waiting for us and we were coming to them.
To Chapter 2
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