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

I’m going to take a quick shower. Hold down the fort.”
    I knew I didn’t have to talk to Hank like he was a person,
but it made me feel a lot better to talk to him. It made me feel like I wasn’t
all alone in the world. It helped staunch the fear, just a little.
    There was still hot water. I kept the spray low, but cranked
the heat of it as hot as I could stand it. The water felt like a massage on my
sore muscles. Keeping my ears strained for any unusual sounds, I took my time
sudsing up my entire body twice, a luxury I knew I couldn’t continue, but one I
felt I badly needed. Call it a morale booster. I washed my hair slowly, using
more shampoo than needed. Rinsed, and washed it again.
    I didn’t know when I’d have a shower again. Anything could
happen at any time. The soap smelled like cocoa butter, and the shampoo and
conditioner like oranges, and by the time I stepped out of the bathtub I felt
almost human again.
    It was a strange thing to live in someone else’s house. I
kept feeling like Larry and Megan would come home and find Hank and I here, and
wonder what the hell we were doing in their house.
    Then I wished it were true, and that I’d just had a break
down and that the world hadn’t ended. We hadn’t been invaded and the dead
weren’t rising and eating the living.
    But this was how the world was now. There was no changing
it, not any time soon. The best Hank and I could hope for was to avoid getting
killed.
    It seemed a tall order. But there it was.
    The big, fluffy white towels felt incredible on my skin, and
when I finished drying my body, I wrapped one around my head.
    My clothes smelled funky, having been worn in for days. I
searched the drawers and found fresh panties that were size small, and a sports
bra that fit. The walk-in closet was taken up mostly by Megan’s clothes. And as
I looked through her stuff, I quickly realized that her size six jeans would be
too big. Her shirts and sweaters, although a size small, would be roomy but
fine.
    I looked on top of the closet and found several pairs of
older jeans folded up there. Size four. These must’ve been Megan’s Jeans of
Doom. Many women kept jeans from their high school and college years in hopes
that they’d fit into them again. Or because they just couldn’t bear to throw
them away or donate them, because it meant that their bodies had matured. It’s
nostalgia. I understood, though I hadn’t reached that stage yet.
    The likelihood of being lucky enough to live another day was
iffy at best, never mind another year or two.
    Two pair of Levi’s 505s. Two pair of 515s. Three pair of
Levi’s skinny jeans. I liked Levi’s. The skinny jeans fit me perfectly. I put
on a plain black t-shirt that was also folded on the upper shelf, and a
sweatshirt from Megan’s chest of drawers.
    The fact Megan’s clothes from earlier years were here led me
to the assumption that this cabin had belonged to Megan’s family. Perhaps it
was given to her by her parents. Or she and Larry had taken it over.
    I felt a pang of sorrow that she’d likely been dragged from
her home, like so many others.
    Maybe I’d find her.
    If I lived long enough.
     
    * * *
     
    I took the gun I’d chosen last night with spare ammo in my
jacket pocket, my boot knife, tucked into the Uggs, and the hammer in my
jacket. I pulled my mother’s winter hat over my head. I pulled the windbreaker
pants over the skinny jeans to cut the winter wind, and give just a little
extra protection against the chill. I put on the ski gloves in the jacket
pocket and flexed my fingers a few times, trying to get the blood moving in
them. My hands felt cold and my fingers sluggish. I was still tired. The fear
and shock of the last few days had wrecked me.
    But I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.
    Suck it up . “Let’s go, Hank. We’re
burning daylight.”
    We wandered through the woods, staying at the periphery of
the trees. I didn’t want to travel too deeply into the forest yet.