The Letter

I hadn’t seen another human in four months. Not since I found my new home on Rural Hill Road. The street name pretty much summed it up: it was an old farmhouse up on a hill in the countryside. The floors creaked when you walked and dust danced in the sunlight, but best of all, whoever lived on the homestead before me had stocked the kitchen with hundreds of canned foods. So, as you can imagine, when I came across this hidden sanctuary, I didn't leave. Which was, hopefully, the only reason I hadn’t seen anyone in so long.

I did have Betty. I spoke with her through radio from time to time. I stumbled across her frequency one day when sending my daily signals out in search for help. We kept in contact. One of us would usually touch base in the morning to make sure the other had survived the night. At least we used to; I hadn’t heard from her in 5 days.

Overall, Betty was rather odd. She spoke quickly and erratically as if her words had been bottled up for so long, she just wanted to get them out. But it was nice having another person to talk to. She would tell me that people were watching her, stalking her, but, it wasn’t people we needed to worry about.

It had been almost one year since they first came to our planet. Some call them Aliens, others call them Martians. I’ve heard much more vulgar terms for them. But I call them The Creatures.

The night the Creatures came I had woken up late for work. I worked the late night shift bartending downtown. It was already pitch-black outside, but that was the start of my day. The TV w as on in the background, the news must have been covering it, but it didn’t register to me. I got dressed, grabbed a granola bar and ran out the door. I went to take the subway, but it was closed down. People were running, yelling, honking their horns, but I lived in the city, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. So, I continued on foot, pushing past people, ignoring all the obvious signs of impending doom. Until it was too late.

I thought I had slipped in someone’s vomit when I saw one of them. I don’t remember much about it, but what I do remember, what I will never forget, is its mouth. A large gaping orifice, oozing thick black mucus with rows and rows of sharp jagged teeth.

I never made it to work that day. I tried to get back to my apartment a few times after that with no luck. I spent the first few months of the invasion living in shelters, at the mercy of the kindness of strangers. I ate out of trash cans, slept on dirt and made travel companions and then watched those teeth rip though their flesh.

So, to say I was relieved to find this quaint little farmhouse on the hill, well, it’s an understatement.

I decided to try to reach Betty on my radio one more time before I hunkered down for bed. No luck. Only the familiar sound of static to bid me a safe night.

As the sun was setting, I did my nightly check to be sure all the windows and doors were locked, though I never left, but it felt wrong not to check.

When I got to the front door, a low hum caught my ear. My heart began to race. It was coming from outside. I ducked out of view of the windows, radio clenched to my heart. It sounded like a helicopter. Could it be rescue? Did my pleas for help finally find someone?

My body was trembling as I slowly inched up to look out the window. A small machine was flying towards the house. I watched as it hovered for a few moments, as if it was deciding if this was the right place. A hatch opened beneath it, and it slowly lowered a small brown box onto the sidewalk.

Then, faster than it had arrive, it zipped off towards the reddening sky.

I had to make a move, the sun was almost set, stars were creeping into the evening sky. I quickly unbolted the door, I sprinted to the box, it was surprisingly light as I scooped it up and ran back toward the door. My heart pounded in my chest. Fear began to flood my veins as I sat with my back against the locked door.

The package was addressed to me: Juliette Lewis

With trembling hands, I ripped open the tape. In the box laid a map of the city. On it someone had drawn arrows though the streets until they reached a heavily circled location on the map.

Beneath the map I found a letter, it was also addressed to me, in case I had any doubt who the package was intended for.

Juliette,

You are not alone.

Follow the map to find food, shelter, running water and safety.

Come at once.

Be safe.

The letter wasn’t signed.

I was familiar with the location on the map, it was a shopping center in one of the burrows outside the city, I’d been there dozens of times before…before.

From my place on Rural Hill Road, it had to be about forty minutes away by car. But I hadn’t seen a working car in over six months.

I didn’t get much sleep that night, though that was nothing new. Every night since the creatures arrived, the sounds that came with the night haunted me. It wasn’t till the dawn peaked over the horizon that I finally made my decision. I filled a backpack with jam, canned tomatoes and beans. I figured it would take half a day’s walk to the shopping center, so leaving as soon as possible was key.

A I walked up the country road I felt naked without the walls of my shelter to protect me. Though, it felt good to walk in the sun again.

The road was eerily quiet. I could hear my footsteps on the pavement. As I neared the city, abandoned cars littered the streets. Dried puddles of blood, and god knows what else stained the road.

Last time I had been in the city I was living in an apartment with a family I’d met one day while rooting around in a dumpster. It was an older couple and their daughter and her two children. The daughter invited me in, and I ended up staying there for almost a week. Her father was senile and would talk about the aliens as if they were sitting in the room with us.

“Get out of here,” He yelled one night. I was in my makeshift bedroom in the hall closet when he had his episode.

“We don’t want you here, get out,” he shook his fist at nothing. I could see there was nothing there, but fear still rocked me. My heart pounded in my chest and my body was frozen. I watched him limp around the living room. Lights flicked on as his wife and daughter tried to calm him down.

“Dad, no one is here, go back to bed,” she said.

I tried to speak but my voice was gone, I wanted to tell them to turn the lights off or they would find us.

“It’s all one big experiment,” he muttered.

I tried my voice again but, “Off,” was all I could manage. The lights flickered and I could feel the building vibrating, something was coming.

That was the second time I narrowly escaped death, but certainly not the last.

The sun was getting higher in the sky, my stomach churning but the thought of stopping to eat made me nauseous.

Buildings were tagged with warnings to stay away but I pushed forward, following my map. Broken glass cracked under my feet; a once bustling city street was now barren. Windows of shops had been boarded up then torn down.

As I passed a small bookshop, wedged between a cellphone repair store and a nail salon, something caught my eye. My instinct should have been to turn and run as quickly as possible, but instead I approached the building. I peeked through a small broken window of the bookshop. At first, I thought I saw nothing, a dark room. But I didn’t see a dark room, no, all I saw was black. Black slime coated the inside of the store. Floor to the ceiling, nothing else could be seen. Throughout the blackness were balls of goo that would swell up, and shrink down, swell, and shrink. They were pulsing, breathing.

“Eggs,” I whispered. At the sound of my voice the eggs inside the building suddenly froze, they were listening for me. I backed away from the store, face pale, stomach hollow. The creatures were not only destroying the planet, and devouring the people on it, but now they were breading. I turned and ran back the way I came. The only safety I wanted in that moment was on Rural Hill Road.

My chest was tight as hot tears fell down my face.

As I rounded the corner, I heard the only sound in the world that would cause me to stop.

“Hello?”

Another person.

“Hey,” a man called out. As I turned to find him, he looked almost as surprised as I was.

“I thought I heard someone,” he said, “I can’t believe it, I haven’t seen anyone else in weeks,” He jogged over to where I stood frozen in place.

“Sorry,” He must have seen the fear on my face, “I’m Chris. I’m just- I’m a little lost,” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket, I recognized it immediately.

“The letter,” My voice was quiet.

“I got this letter in the mail a week ago, it came with a map too,” he said, “But I lost the map. I was wondering if you could tell me how to get to the shopping center?”

“I got the same one,” I told him as I plucked mine from my pocket.

“Incredible,” he said, “What’s your name?”

“Juliette,” I said.

“Do you mind if I tag along? I mean, since we’re headed the same way,” he scratched the back of his head, “I’ve been walking in circles around this city all morning,”

It felt wrong to agree to traveling with a stranger, but then, everything on earth felt wrong at that point. I wasn’t far from the shopping center so I told Chris we could walk together.

“It seems too good to be true, right?” I asked

“I don’t know about you, but the last few months haven’t been easy for me,” he smiled, “I think this is a well-deserved amount of good,”

We walked through the broken city, past unburied dead and crumbling buildings. Chris told me he’d been on his own since they killed his family.

“I’m so sorry,” I meant it. I was alone before all of this started, so being alone, though not ideal, was familiar to me.

Chris forced a smile, “I wish it could have been different, but they weren’t strong enough. I’m sure we’ll meet in another life,”

In hindsight, that’s when I should have run. But I just thought, hey, people grieve in different ways, who am I to judge?

Finally, the mall appeared in the distance. Our pace quickened as we approached the building.

It seemed just as deserted as the rest of the world, but I still clung on to the hope that once inside, I would be greeted by hundreds of people who would have an answer to what we are supposed to do next so that we could get rid of the creatures go back to our old lives.

But, before I had a chance to even open the door, I was out cold.

I awoke to the sight of feet shuffling around me. “Back up, give her some space,”

I massaged a lump on the back of my head.

“You okay?” a girl asked.

Four women stood around me in the dimly lit room. There were nests of clothes throughout the room.

“Where am I?” I sat up.

“Babs Boutique,” a girl with a purple afro said, “What’s your size, love,” she let out a cackle.

“Chris locked us up,” one of the girls said as she helped me to my feet.

“Why?” My head was spinning, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted a stranger, even in these circumstances.

“Why?” purple afro spat, “Because he’s crazy,”

“You’re scaring her, Patrice,” the girl said.

“She’s right,” a girl with freckles said, “Chris is nuts, he thinks the aliens are gods-“

Another girl was in the corner mumbling to herself, she made me think of the senile old man.

“Will you shut up,” freckles said.

“Sarah, relax,” the kind girl said, “I’m Quan. This is Sarah, Patrice and Betty,”

“Betty?” I asked, “You’re not the same Betty I talked to on the radio, are you?”

Betty stopped mumbling for a moment, “Juliette?”

I ran into her and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t know her; I can’t even tell you what color her eyes were. All I knew was that she was alive, and it made me happy.

“They took you too?” she asked as she rocked in place.

I nodded. I held her shoulders, suddenly I felt the smallest spark of hope. Having a friend that was still alive in a desperate time gave me something to hold on to.

“How do we get out of here?” I asked.

“Don’t you think if we knew, we wouldn’t be here?” Sarah scoffed.

I looked around, a chain link gate was pulled down from the ceiling locking us inside.

“Can we knock it down?”

“Tried,” Quan said, “It makes too much noise and Chris and his goon come taze us,”

“How many are there?”

“Just two of them, Chris and Cross,” Patrice said, “You’ll see why we call him that soon enough,” she crossed her eyes towards her nose.

“Do they ever open the gate?”

“Once a day to give us dinner,” Quan said, “But they make us stand in the back,”

The small amount of light that came in through the skylight was fading.

I laid in the spot I had woken up a few hours earlier, eyes closed, breathing shallow.

I could hear Patrice’s laugh over the footsteps coming down the hall, “Cross, what’s for dinner tonight, baby?”

“Why is she still laying there?” a nasally voice asked

“Never woke up,” Quan said.

“I think she’s dead,” Betty mumbled.

“Get to the back wall,” Cross said.

I could hear him unlock the bottom of the gate. I waited until I was sure he’d lifted it off the floor, then I swung my foot beneath the metal gate. He was smaller than I thought so my kick knocked him to the floor.

The other girls charged the gate. I pulled a gun from his waist. Patrice pinned him down as I searched him for other weapons, disappointed to only find a pocketknife. I handed the knife off to Betty as Quan shoved Cross beneath the gate, locking him in. He started shaking the gate calling for his partner.

We sprinted down the hall, daylight was vanishing. A gun shot rang out behind us, “Ladies, please,” his voice was smug, “Can we chat?” Another gun shot.

We reached a dead end: the door to the outside. It was dark out now; those creatures would be swarming the streets. And I would choose to take on Chris over them any day.

“Take cover, girls,” I said ,as I took a step towards Chris.

I pointed the gun at him and took a shot. He laughed. I took one more, “You’ve never shot a gun before,” he laughed.

Suddenly there was a loud crash above us. The skylight rained glass down onto Chris. A dripping black tendon reached its way in followed by its oozing body. It fell, mouth first, on top of Chris, swallowing him whole.

I was frozen in place. I pointed my gun at the monster. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Betty sprinting toward the beast, “Run,” she muttered as she passed me.

Before I could stop her, she was face to face with the beast. Its milky white eyes focused down on her. It dipped it head down and she was gone. I couldn’t process what had just happened. My entire body shook with fear as the creature zeroed in on me. As it took a step forward, I watched it pause. Something in its lifeless eyes flickered. Then an arm emerged from its side, covered in black sludge, gripping Cross’s pocketknife. Betty had ripped the creature open from the inside out.

Betty saved my life that day. I can never repay her for that. But I can try to save others like her.

Since that day, Quan and I have worked tirelessly, building a refuge for survivors of the alien invasion. That is why I am writing you this letter today. To tell you that there is hope. Hope for safety, freedom and a chance at a normal life. In this box you will find a first aid kit, a UV flashlight, and a map. A map to the sanctuary that we have spent years perfecting. A place where the creatures can’t get us, a place we can live a normal life.

We hope to see you here soon.

Safe Travels,

Juliette