Taken by an Alien Shifter: A sci-fi alien romance (Scouts of Somtach Book 2) Read online

  Taken by an Alien Shifter

  by

  Pascia Thrall

  Taken by an Alien Shifter

  First Published 8 June 2020

  Copyright © Pascia Thrall 2020

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue:

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I shift the pack on my back as I peer up at the road sign.

  “Deloraine 15k.”

  I glance up at the sun. It’s not quite at full height, so there’s a good amount of afternoon left, but it’s going to take me at least three hours to get to this town, and what am I going to find when I get there?

  My feet scuff the bitumen as I keep on walking.

  There’ll be houses for sure. Shops, if it’s big enough. Tinned food, and overgrown gardens, and maybe even a home whose solar is still running, keeping that frozen meat frozen.

  Will there be survivors? If it’s anything like the last handful of small towns I’ve passed through that’ll be a no, but I can’t completely banish the hope that rises in my chest with every new building I come across.

  I swallow back against the aching emptiness in my chest.

  I just want someone to talk to, to joke with, to laugh about the craziness of this whole situation. Laughing would be good. And hugs. I miss hugs. I miss hugs, and kisses... and touch. Touch of any sort. Elbows bumped against each other, a high-five, a pat on the back. Full body contact would be some sort of mind-blowing experience, and sex… it’s been so long since I’ve experienced intimacy I’m pretty certain I must have reverted to being a virgin.

  I grimace at the thought.

  I hope my next sexual experience, if I ever get one, is way better than my first.

  A wallaby bounds across the paddock to my right, startling me, and my sideways jolt startles it in return. It stops in an instant, sitting up straight as they do when they’re on alert, ears flicking. My mouth waters at the memory of the wallaby patties my grandfather used to make. I wish I’d learned how to hunt, before all this. My grandfather tried to teach me when I was younger. Said the most important thing in the world was knowing how to feed yourself when all else was lost. But I actively shied away from hunting, like most people. We all relied on others to grow our meat, and kill it, and slice it up into managable portions.

  Now the wallabies thrive in the overgrown paddocks, bigger than any I’ve seen before, and I have no idea how to catch one.

  I shake my head and keep moving. No point dwelling on that. Better to arrive in town with a bit of light, so I can assess the situation and get back out before dark if I need to.

  Because that’s the trouble with the larger towns.

  They might have shops and houses, and the remains of other people’s stockpiles, but they have something else, too.

  They have zombies.

  Chapter 2

  The first thing I pass as I near the town is the cemetery.

  Like every other graveyard I’ve come across, this one has great gouges in the ground, every headstone marking an empty space, clumps of dirt and grass clinging precariously to the edges.

  Past experience has taught me the zombies don’t tend to loiter where they were buried, but I still cross the road to move away from it.

  I don’t want to take any chances.

  The gravel on the side of the road has scuff marks where they’ve stumbled, and I can’t help but shudder at the thought of walking in their footsteps.

  At least they can’t turn around and come back.

  A little further down the road the houses start to appear, a handful scattered on either side of the dark stretch of bitumen. I approach cautiously.

  It’s the houses further out that usually have the best supplies.

  I don’t know if it’s the draw of company, or the need for news, but something pulls people from their houses before they genuinely need to leave. So many of the houses distant from town have good supplies, and no survivors. It’s the places in town where the supplies are dwindled, and there are signs of looting and violence. Fear and greed does strange things to people, and it’s a bit scary exactly how fast things tip from nicety-nice to all out brawls, and even, my stomach churns at the thought, murder.

  There’s one good thing that can be said about the zombies. They soon clear up any dead bodies.

  I shudder at the thought, and turn my focus to nicer things. Like how beautiful the day is, and the sweet scent of aromatic flowers along the driveway. It’s a beautiful day to be alive, as long as I ignore the state of the world, and I need to remind myself of that. I don’t want to tip over into pessimism and end up taken alive by zombies myself.

  Like I expected, the first house still has at least a week’s worth of supplies. There’s tins of baked beans and spaghetti, a few of soup and stew. There’s packets of dehydrated food; stews and pasta and all sorts of delicious sounding things, and I pack these dehydrated meals into my bag for later. I open a can of stew to eat now.

  Once I thought these canned meals bland and tasteless, but now the flavours are delicious.

  I guess my mother was right. You’ll eat anything when you’re hungry enough.

  I refill my water bottle from the tap on the water tank outside, and investigate the garden. A few tomatoes and cucumbers, some peas on a vine. I use my shirt like a basket, holding up the bottom and filling it with fresh produce.

  I turn a corner and scare a chicken, which races across the yard, squawking.

  Chickens mean eggs, and it’s been so long since I’ve had an egg.

  A bit of scrounging around finds the nest, weeks old, piled high with eggs.

  I take the top few and carry my haul inside to find a container, and check to make sure the eggs are okay.

  All three eggs sink when I drop them in water, a sure sign they’ll be good to eat.

  I set my camp cooker on the dusty kitchen table to boil them as I scrounge through the cupboards for a container to carry my salad. It’s been a while since I’ve had a fresh tomato, and I bite into one, closing my eyes to savour the sharp tang of the juices as they run over my tongue.

  Damn that’s good.

  The next house has more of the same, and once again I snack on whatever bits and pieces I find while I scavenge the long life food to take with me in my pack. Who knows when and where I’ll find food next, so I take what I can carry, and eat to build up my energy so I can carry more. I intend to search every inch of this state.

  I need to
find other survivors, and they could be anywhere.

  Chapter 3

  The town, when I get there, is quiet.

  Too quiet.

  There should be a faint grumbling and groaning from the zombies, and the scrape of their feet on the ground as they shuffle around.

  There’s nothing.

  I walk down the centre of the main street, too scared to venture into any of the buildings.

  A curtain shifts in a window and I turn, my heart leaping in my chest at the possibility of people, but when I look closer the window is smashed, the curtain moved by the breeze.

  I continue down the road.

  I don’t dare call out for survivors. It didn’t take long to learn that zombies are attracted to sound, and even though I can’t see or hear any, I have no doubt they’ll be lurking somewhere around.

  It would be too strange for them not to be.

  I never liked coming to town, even before the dead woke up and clawed their way from their graves. I could never quite manage all the people, and the general busy-ness of it all.

  No people at all is worse.

  Out in the country areas, on farming properties and quiet little bush retreats, it’s possible to imagine that life is still going on as it was, that the family have just all ducked out for a moment, and will be back in time for tea, crowding around the dinner table with stories of their day.

  Here there’s no chance of that.

  No way to pretend life is carrying on like normal when towns are deserted, windows smashed and shops looted of anything of value.

  I increase my pace.

  There’s no sign of people here.

  The road crosses a river, and I pause briefly on the bridge to watch the flow.

  The water is so clear I can see straight through to the rocky bed below, where several old tyres and a rusty old bike rest. Trout hover in the water a little further upstream, and a family of platypuses dive beneath the surface in search a food.

  I want to freeze this moment forever, to just live in a perfect instant where I can pretend all is well, but the sun is already low in the sky, and I need to find a place to sleep for the night.

  I adjust my pack again and keep moving.

  Across the bridge there’s another strip of shops. A pub, a petrol station, a fast food shop.

  They’ve all been raided; windows smashed, rejected items scattered across the floor and out the door. A movement in the fast food shop catches my eye. It looks like a narrow strip of screen, something playing out on it. I glance up at the roof to confirm the presence of solar panels, and make sure I’m not imagining the screen.

  I move closer. The store is one large area, most of the shelving knocked down.

  On the back wall there is a door, slightly ajar, and through it I can see a television. A functioning television, showing people dancing, a swirl of colour. My breath catches. Where there’s a technology, surely there’s got to be people?

  There’s no where in the room for a zombie, or anyone else for that matter, to hide, and I ignore my instinct to avoid the buildings and step inside for a closer look.

  It’s been a good couple of months since the zombies took Dirk, and I’d only been travelling with him a few days. Two weeks prior to that I’d lost my boyfriend, Clay. We’d been shacked up, like the introverts we were, hiding from the apocalypse. We’d not dared to turn on the radio for fear of what we’d hear. We lived on sheep Clay butchered himself, on vegetables we grew together, and the huge box of preserves his mother brought us when the shit first hit the fan.

  She told us to stay in hiding, and so we did.

  And when we were brave enough to turn on the radio, and met silence, we finally decided to venture out into the world and find other people.

  Turns out, we left that far too late.

  I reach the doorway, the movie finally audible. It’s so soft, I could almost mistake it for the sounds that sometimes play in my own head, snippets of songs that repeat, like I’m picking up a radio station somewhere and the program’s had a glitch.

  “Hello?” I call softly, I don’t want to alert a zombie to my presence.

  I push on the door. It takes a bit of effort, the bottom of the door catching on the thick wool carpeting the floor. The room is empty of people, and just as messy as the trashed shop behind me. Food packages litter the floor, a wine glass on it’s side, a huge red stain on the beige carpet.

  It’s dry, so that didn’t happen recently. But surely if someone was here they would’ve picked up the glass?

  “Hello!” I call again, entering the room. The movie credits roll. There’s another door opposite, and I pick my way through the mess, but when I turn the handle, the door doesn’t budge. I knock softly, and when there’s no response I knock harder. Still nothing. Do I wait here, and hope someone comes?

  But then the credits come to an end and as I watch the movie starts all over again. It’s on autoplay. Stuck on a loop, powered by the solar panels.

  There’s no one here after all.

  I sink against the door and I close my eyes.

  I’ve got to stop hoping for other people. The pain in my chest gets worse every time I’m disappointed, which has been daily over these past few weeks.

  A bright light glows behind me and I turn to see the sun resting just above the horizon, shining directly in the shop window.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  I scurry back through the shop and down to the road. I need to find a safe place to sleep for the night, and I’m damn sure it won’t be here.

  Chapter 4

  My safe place turns out to be in some kid’s long-abandoned tree house

  It’s cosy, but high, and zombies can’t climb, so I know I’m safe.

  I boil some water, pouring it directly into one of the packets of dehydrated pasta before rolling down the top and putting it aside to rehydrate. While I’m waiting for that I pull out the fresh food I found earlier in the day, slicing up the egg and cucumber and tomatoes to make a basic salad.

  The meal is delicious, and more than enough for one person. I roll the top of the pasta packet back down, and replace the lid of the salad container, and put them in my pack. That’s breakfast sorted, right there.

  I lay down, using my rolled up spare jumper as a pillow, and pull my jacket tighter around me, gazing up at the few stars visible between the branches.

  The sky is amazing. And I can’t help but wonder about all those planets up there. If zombies are real, why not aliens? Not that they’d be here, on Earth, because if they were they would’ve taken out all these damn zombies, I’m sure of it.

  Sleep comes easily, as it always does.

  In the morning, waking comes easily too.

  I roll over as the warble of a magpie reaches my ears, stretching out my arms and legs, waking my body up.

  I feel slightly better than I did yesterday, the flat floor of the tree house a better surface to sleep on than the cramped curve of the tree branch of the night before. I eat my cold breakfast, which is even tastier this morning, and climb back down from the tree.

  I don’t know what extra weirdness is happening in this town, but the sooner I leave it behind, the better.

  As I follow the main road out of town the wind picks up, and a strange metallic clanging echoes across the town.

  It seems to be coming from the direction I’m headed.

  I push on, even though I know zombies are attracted to sound.

  A short distance later I hear them, that grumbling, groaning sound that’s become all too familiar. It swells as I approach, though I don’t see anything until I round a corner and there they are, dozens of them, hundreds, all pressed around a large pole that has an old tin can hanging from the top of it.

  Deliberate? It must be. I can’t see how a tin can could get to be hanging off a tall pole on it’s own. I watch the zombies for a while. They press against the pole, and even from here I see them grabbing at each other, tearing at each other.

  My st
omach jolts and I look away. I can’t afford to lose the nutrients from this morning’s breakfast, and I won’t let myself bring it back up if I can help it.

  Instead I scan the surroundings.

  Whoever attached the tin to the pole could’ve come up with a better location.

  The zombies mill about, spilling across the main road out of town.

  My only choice is to take a side street and hope it doubles back to the main road further along.

  I wander back a little way and take the first street I come across. The wind is getting stronger, and that tin-can alarm system is working marvellously, the sound getting louder as the wind increases in strength. The street is straight for about half a dozen houses, and then curves sharply left, and after another dozen houses ends in a cul-de-sac.

  Right.

  I sigh and turn around, venturing back to the main road to find the next street.

  This one is on the opposite side of the road and when I follow that, does exactly the same thing.

  I go further back along the road, but the streets I find either wind back onto the main street, or join with other streets that lead back towards the main part of town.

  By mid-afternoon I’ve had enough. I’m tired from the maze and I just want to get out of here.

  Do I head back the way I’ve come? Or try and find another road out of town?

  How long would that take?

  I head back to the clamouring zombies. There seem to be more of them now than there were earlier, if that’s possible.

  I could sneak around the edge of them, if I’m careful. There’s a tall hedge along that side of the road that the zombies occasionally brush against, but if I’m slow and careful, I might be able to get through.

  That’s the other thing about zombies. They aren’t aware, in the same way living creatures are. They’re attracted to sound, of course, and they can smell blood. Poor old Dirk learnt that the hard way. The first scratch sent them all in a frenzy, their speed increasing, their movements more focused. But if I’m slow, and careful, and don’t draw attention to myself, I should be right. Right?