Free Intruders: The Invasion: A Post-Apocalyptic, Alien Invasion Thriller (Book 1) by Tracy Sharp Page A

and I was looking at the sky, hanging upside
down, caught by the seatbelt.
    “Oh, shit.” My head hurt, and blood had leaked into one of
my eyes. I was able to move my arms, and wiped a hand over the eye. It came
back slippery, and slightly congealed. It looked like the bleeding had stopped.
    It was dark in the truck, and the engine was dead. Other
than Hank’s quiet whimpering, there was no sound.
    My head throbbed fiercely, and I was sure that I had a fair
sized goose egg at the very least, a concussion possibly. I didn’t want to
waste any more time assessing my injuries.
    Hank seemed fine. He might be a little banged up, but he was
hopping around the front of the car frantically.
    His way of telling me to move my ass. We needed to get out
of there.
    “Are there any more of those things out there, Hank?” I
whispered to him.
    As if he understood me, he looked out the cracked
windshield. He whimpered as he looked up at my window, which was now above us.
    What the hell were we going to do? The truck was toast. How
far would we get before more of those things came after us? It wasn’t dawn yet,
and they’d hear our footsteps in the snow.
    “We need to wait until daylight, Hank.”
    He licked my face.
    I found the button to disengage the seatbelt and it let go,
dropping me downward.
    The movement sent an unpleasant jab through my head.
    How did those things not hear the car accident?
    The simple answer was that they had. I didn’t think I’d been
out for more than a few minutes. They were likely right outside the window,
investigating.
    Barely whispering, I said, “Hank, be quiet. Don’t bark.
Shhhh.”
    He lay down next to me, watching me with scared eyes which
flicked toward the window every second or so.
    I closed my eyes and strained my ears to hear if there were
any sounds near the car.
    There . I heard a shifting,
scuttling sound in the snow right outside, to the left of the truck.
    Hank lifted his head.
    “Ssssshhhhh.” I whispered lightly, barely making any sound.
Hardly touching him at all, I patted his back, barely moving, to let him know
to be still and quiet.
    But he couldn’t stop. The whimpering was hardly audible,
almost silent, but it was there, way back in his throat.
    I prayed that the things couldn’t hear him.
    They sniffed at the driver’s window, then moved to the
cracked windshield, making sniffing sounds at the cracks.
    I pressed as far back against the Pilot’s roof as I could
move, keeping my face out of the moonlight.
    They climbed all over the Pilot, scratching and sniffing.
    I held my breath, keeping my fingers in Hank’s fur. He
sensed what I was feeling, or what I was thinking. Whatever it was, he got it,
and the almost silent whimpering stopped.
    We were both as silent as the dead.
    I was sure his heart was slamming as hard as mine was, but
both of us hardly breathed.
    The reptilians continued sniffing and scratching. Through my
fear, I was getting the distinct impression that their vision wasn’t all that
good. It seemed that they relied heavily on smell, sound and vibrations.
    Hank and I remained still and silent, and we waited.
    Finally, they moved away, scuttling off the pilot and
skittering away in the snow.
    We listened to their strange scratching sounds fade.
    Then we stayed still and quiet for a while longer.
    And then dawn seeped into the sky.
     
    * * *
     
    I was able to open the driver’s side door, and I crawled out
onto the snow. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d raided Luka’s closet for the
jacket and boots. There were warm ski gloves in her pockets, and as I pushed
myself painfully to my feet, I dug them out and put them on. I hadn’t needed
them in the warmth of the Pilot before I crashed it, but now I did.
    Hank followed me out, and we trudged through the snowy field
and made our way back to the country road. He seemed no worse for the wear, and
I thanked God for that. If he were hurt, I’d have to leave him. He was too
heavy for me to even dream of