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Chapter One
Allison
I careen across the grass, stumbling over a hole in the ground, and stagger sideways while my boots bump into things I refuse to look at, things that might be human bodies. I can't stop. Not now. Maybe never. Anyone on the ground is beyond saving, anyway. Overlapping screams pierce the air behind me, but I cannot look back. Green sparks ignite in the unnatural twilight, sizzling and snapping, nipping at my skin. My foot slips in the mud, and my ankle twists sideways, but I keep running.Don't look down, don't look down. I can't help them.No one can.
Ahead of me, a hulking figure seizes a smaller one around the neck and jerk its hand. The crack of bones snapping resonates in the air.
The smaller figure crumples to the ground.
Bile surges into my throat. All I can do is gulp it down and keep moving even while my muscles burn.
The ground falls away. I sail through the green-sparked air to smack down hip first. Clawing for a handhold, I lose the remnants of my balance and tumble down a hillside, spinning and spinning as I hurtle sideways down the slope toward where I'd sat to eat my lunch earlier today. The slope that's now drenched in blood. The warm liquid clings to my skin and infiltrates my mouth, its taste tangy and salty with a hint of sweetness that makes me gag. I slam into a barrier. Though I've stopped moving, my head keeps whirling, trapped in an illusion that the world is spinning. I choke back my gorge, but it tastes of blood.Oh God, no.I heave myself up onto my hands and knees. There beside me lies the object that halted my fall.
The headless remains of a human being.
I can't focus on anything else, my gaze riveted to the gruesome sight. Pain still throbs inside me from my tumble down the hill. But I just slump here, immobile, my heart pounding so hard my chest hurts while the pressure of nausea thrusts up into my throat. I slant sideways and retch, over and over, until my abdominal muscles ache and my throat burns. When at last the heaving subsides, I struggle to catch my breath.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse the dead man.
So many lifeless bodies litter the area, but I'd managed to avoid looking directly at them until now. This one… Christ, it's impossible to avoid seeing that.
I must keep moving. The beast chasing me will catch up any second.
With an effort that screams agony through my muscles, I hoist myself up and run.
~~~~~
The apocalypse began at two o'clock on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, but no one in this city noticed anything unusual at first. We kept going about our business, even when the sky turned a darker, more intense shade of blue like nothing seen on earth before today. I was in the public library shelving books near the front windows when I realized something had changed, something more than the color of the sky. I felt the change deep inside me, and I heard it too. A silence deeper than the void of outer space enveloped the world while an irresistible impulse seized me, luring me outside.
I pushed through the doors and shambled across the portico, past the tall pillars, and out onto the street.
People poured out of vehicles and other buildings, all of us mindlessly drawn down North Main Street toward the viaduct. We crossed the bridge to gather on the grassy hill just past the trail that skirted the river, as if waiting for something to rise up from the water below and land in front of us. We glanced at each other in confusion. Why had we come to this place? Why was the sky a deeper blue than ever before? We didn't speak to each other, but somehow, I knew we were all thinking the same thing.
What on earth is happening?
High above us, the eerie sound of music started up, softly at first, then escalating into the strains of a string symphony like none ever heard in this world. The music surrounded and infiltrated me, the melody beautiful and terrible and mesmerizing, its purpose and meaning beyond comprehension. It vibrated through my soul, wringing tears from my eyes. All around me, people sobbed and dropped to their knees, their gazes glued to the cobalt sky, as hypnotized by the music as I was. I fell to my knees too, helpless to understand what was unfolding around me. Deep inside, though, I sensed the horror hidden beneath the beauty.
If only I had understood a few seconds earlier…
No, nothing would have changed. A power beyond imagining had unleashed itself on the world.
The music froze on a single, discordant note that stretched on and on, making my ears ache and pulsating through my flesh. Then the music stopped—and an unearthly roar erupted, impregnating every molecule of air with its cacophony. I slapped my hands over my ears, but the roar penetrated into me so deeply that I couldn't breathe. And then…
The sky split open.
A rupture in the fabric of the world distended across half the horizon, from high above down to ground level, while a shredding noise grated on my eardrums and reverberated off buildings throughout the city. The hole in the sky disgorged a river of writhing shapes that spilled onto the earth, spreading outward as the amorphous shadows became creatures with arms and legs and heads. They growled and screeched like demons sent up from hell itself.
And then they came for us.
The demons grabbed human beings and tore them to shreds. Screams of agony and terror echoed around me, mingling with the wet sounds of flesh ripping and the cracking of bones. I stood frozen, unable to even blink, witnessing events in mute horror as the creatures ripped men, women, and children asunder. My heart pounded so hard and fast that it robbed me of breath.
A creature raised the severed head of a human being, hoisting it high, and roared in triumph.
Run. Do it now, before those things come for you.
I bolted back down the hill, clinging to the only coherent thought in my mind.This can't be happening.But it was. While I fled toward the bridge, fireballs shot out of the rip in the sky and slammed into the earth. The green sparks had snuffed out, and the only light emanated from the meteorites crashing down on the city. But they weren't objects from outer space. They came from another world, from the place on the other side of the rupture in the heavens.
Buildings exploded. Trees burst into flames. Pavement melted. I scrambled up the hill and onto the bridge, heading for…I didn't know where. Anyplace but here.
