As they entered the vault, Raine was amazed to find how much Lucas had managed to gather.
“He even emptied the refrigerator.” Raine gave a pain-filled laugh, trying not to become hysterical, like a couple of the women in the vault.
Emma helped her to sit down on the concrete floor before sitting down next to her.
“He raided the vending machines, too. I saw him steal Hoyt’s private stash, too.”
“I don’t know which is going to be worse for him to deal with if he survives—the Federal Reserve or Hoyt.”
“Definitely Hoyt.” Emma snagged one of the cushions Lucas had brought down from his office to place it behind her back. “Here, try sitting on this.”
Raine gave her a thankful smile. “You’re always so concerned with how everyone is doing. If you weren’t shaking as bad as me, I’d never know you’re as scared as I am.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say scared. More like terrified,” she countered, smiling nervously before letting her gaze slide away to take in what Lucas had managed to do in the brief time he’d had. “I never thought I’d be grateful for not taking the new position the bank offered me at another branch office.”
“The new branch wouldn’t have the vault in the basement that’s over a hundred years old, that’s for sure,” Raine agreed.
“I was thinking more about how Lucas has set us for the time we’d have to stay in here. I wouldn’t been able to bring myself to take the cash bags out.”
“Me neither,” Raine admitted. “How long do you think we’ll have to stay in here?”
“I have no idea …” Emma broke off to listen to the radio that Dobbs had brought from Lucas’ home.
Raine felt Emma take her hand as they listened to the world they knew come to a crashing end. In that one moment of shocked silence, everyone in the vault stared at each other in stunned dismay as they listened to the Earth being destroyed by grown men using nuclear bombs as if they were Styrofoam darts.
As everyone’s worst nightmare played out, horrifying accounts of the total devastation were being broadcast over the wind-up radio. Descriptions erupted in the aftermath—chaos, radiation, millions of fatalities. And if that wasn’t bad enough, other reports slowly began trickling in from the survivors having to contend with unbelievable objects appearing in sky and creatures hunting down and killing survivors still coping with a scorched Earth. The nightmare they had been living in had transcending into a true terror. A threshold had been breached from the manmade war, leaving Earth easy prey from a greater threat.
Aliens had arrived.
Chapter 1
Raine
The sounds of a vicious fight taking place just feet from where she hid had Raine scooting over the debris of the building she was hiding behind to get a better viewpoint.
Scrupulously raising her head, Raine watched as a type of alien she had never seen before was being violently beaten. She bit her lip and lowered her head back down, unable to watch.
Why did she care it was six against one? If he died, it was one less alien she had to hide from.
Curling into a ball, she covered her ears to mask the sounds of the attack. She had lost all hope of the world ever going back to normal three days after the nuclear warheads had been sent from the heads of different nations without mercy for the human lives that would be lost or how those who did would survive.
When other civilizations, watching from other planets, had made their own strike on Earth, taking advantage of the devastation left behind to attack those who had managed to survive, the different nations had used all their bombs on each other. Therefore, when the aliens had attacked, they had been met with little to no resistance, conquering Earth within twenty-four hours. Survivors from the nuclear war were now running for their lives, trying to stay out of the aliens’ reach.
Raine didn’t want to know what happened to those who were taken. Not for the first time, she regretted living through the bombing.
Playing back that fateful day still had her second-guessing the decision she had made. She should have gone home. If you had, Raine told herself, you would be just another rotting corpse filling the air with the stench of death. On the other hand, she wouldn’t be out here, terrified and hungry, on the search for food to bring back to the nine others.
There had been eleven, but they had lost Dobbs on the first day the aliens had arrived. Unaware of the threat waiting for them, Lucas and Dobbs had gone out to check the damage. Lucas was the only one who had made it back.
After that, Lucas had ventured out alone, scavenging what he could find for them to eat, until a week ago when he had been hurt fighting off a couple of aliens who had sighted him. After that, each day, the rest of them took turns going out. Unfortunately, today was hers.