Chapter 1 Zoey

“Oh crap!” Riley exclaimed as she loaded a bin into the back of our electric SUV. “I left my knife back in the house.”

“Where?” I asked, turning back toward the townhome I’d just vacated. “I’ll grab it.”

“The living room, I think. Maybe upstairs in the master bedroom.”

“Gotcha.”

“Make it quick,” Diego said. “I think I see our first scorpion asshole of the day.”

I looked up, and sure enough, unmistakable scorpion-like shapes marred the perfection of a clear, blue sky. They always came out early on sunny, cloudless days.

The giant alien bugs weren’t really flying scorpions, though; they just reminded us of them, especially the flexible articulated tails that arched over their bodies. Except instead of a stinger, they had long spikes meant for impaling their foes.

Ugh! I hated them. I hated every single one of these wretched creatures. I’d even take dealing with soaring rent prices and ridiculous grocery bills again if it meant I’d never have to see them.

Who would’ve thought that the world as we knew it would be destroyed by alien bugs from outer space? But here we were, six years since the shit hit the proverbial fan.

I ran through the foyer, passed the ransacked kitchen, and went into the living room, where we’d packed up everything we’d thought would be valuable for trade. My eyes scanned for Riley’s knife. Nothing. I ran up the stairs to check the master bedroom.

Bingo! I grabbed the pink duct tape-wrapped hilt and tucked it safely into my pack, then started down the stairs again, only to find myself running headlong into the big purple chest of a Xarc’n warrior.

What the— He wasn’t there just a moment before.

I’d seen these “hunters” from afar but never this close. He was even bigger than I’d thought. Like many of the Xarc’n warriors I’d seen since society collapsed, he wore nothing but a loincloth and a harness that held his weapons. They did nothing to hide his giant bulging muscles. And this guy had all the muscles. Even his muscles had muscles.

One thing made this warrior visually different from the others: the lighter patches of purple on him. There was a large patch across one side of his face and another over the same shoulder, reminding me of a calico cat. I hadn’t known they came in patterns. Most of the ones I’d seen had been solid purple or mauve.

The hilts of two swords stuck up from behind his massive shoulders, but he wouldn’t need those weapons to attack me. His hands were the size of Christmas hams and looked like they could pulverize stone. His entire body was a walking arsenal, from the massive ram-like horns sprouting from his temples to the giant claws on his feet.

I froze, not knowing what to do. The frigid winter air blew in from the back door, and I realized he’d come in through there; he probably landed his shuttle in the backyard. And all while my foraging partners were just outside. If this deadly alien warrior decided to steal me away now, I’d be locked up in his shuttle long before Riley and Diego could get to me.

He patted his chest and growled, his golden eyes meeting mine.

I’d heard that these aliens wore translators on their bodies. But no translations came, and he frowned, looking down at his belt, which only drew my eyes to his loincloth and how little it covered.

When the Xarc’n warriors had shown up shortly after the bugs did, claiming they were here to help destroy the deadly invertebrates, the world had split into two camps—those who believed them and wanted to work with them, and those who thought they were lying and were using the bugs to conquer our world.

Most of Earth’s governments, and therefore, militaries, had been firmly in the latter group. The nomadic survivor group I’d been living with for the past few years had been neutral on the subject. Unlike some other nomads, we didn’t believe the Xarc’n hunters were the enemies—how could we when we’d watched them put their lives in danger day after day to fight the bugs?—but we didn’t work with them either.

While I didn’t believe that these aliens were here to conquer Earth with their supposed buggy partners, I also didn’t fully trust them. Especially since one of them had just recently crashed his shuttle into one of Sanctuary’s buildings and made off with one of the women.

I doubted he would hurt me; these hunters had a soft spot for human women, but I didn’t want to chance it. Just as I reached behind me for my rifle, Diego’s voice called out from outside.

“We gotta go, Zoey! We’ve got bugs.”

The Xarc’n warrior frowned, then stepped to the side, making a gesture as if letting me through.

Well, okay then.

I girded my loins and made a run for it, dashing through the tight space between him and the wall and hoping it wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t. I made it through, but not without brushing up against him so close I could smell him.

I didn’t know what I was expecting; maybe an alien locker room. But no. He reminded me of walking over freshly fallen autumn leaves.

But I didn’t stay to analyze his scent, just in case he changed his mind. I stepped outside and ran to the SUV.

“There you are.” Riley looked relieved. “Get my knife?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking back toward the house, still a little confused about what had just happened.

“Come on, get in. We’ve got company.” Diego adjusted the mirror.

I craned my neck to look behind me, and there was a group of bugs we called scuttlers turning onto the street.

While it was generally accepted that flyers were scorpions with wings, descriptions of scuttlers varied depending on who you asked.

Some people thought the rottweiler-sized creatures were closer to spiders; some thought they were more like ants but with extra legs. I was of the latter camp, especially since they usually traveled in groups. There was never just one. The one thing everyone agreed on was that their forelimbs looked like those of mantises. And like mantises, they were predators.

Diego gunned it, putting distance between us and the killer invertebrates.

“Phew! That was a close one.” Riley leaned against me. “But this was a good haul. Plenty of electronic parts to trade with Sanctuary and Vegas.”

“And baby supplies, too,” Diego added. “Lots of pregnant women last time we were at Sanctuary. Everyone’s getting busy.”

“Being trapped behind settlement walls all winter would do that,” I said, hiding the fact that I was just a bit envious of these people who were able to live an almost normal life in this not-so-normal bugpocalypse.

We made it back to our hideout, keeping one step ahead of the bugs. Diego’s brother, Tomas, greeted us at the door. It was still mentally jarring to see the teenager, barely even old enough to grow a scraggly beard, holding an AR-15, but that was life now. Tomas held down the fort while we went out foraging, though he’d recently gone out on his first foraging trip with us. Diego clapped his brother on the back and tossed him a chocolate bar we’d found on our trip.

“Any news on Corey?” I asked.

“No. He never came back.”

“And good riddance!” Riley said what we all were thinking. She peeked around the corner into the main room, probably looking for Connor, our unofficial leader.

Corey was Connor’s brother. Up until very recently, he’d traveled with another group of nomads. Their group was the type that gave nomads everywhere a bad name. They were just as likely to rob the living as they were to liberate unused goods from the dead. No one in our group liked him, but we understood Connor’s need to keep in touch with the only family he had left.

Corey had shown up one evening several months ago, claiming that some crazy Xarc’n warrior had massacred everyone in his group for no reason. We were sure that wasn’t the entire story. That just wasn’t how the Xarc’n warriors worked. We also knew his group had messed with the hunters, stealing their shuttles.

But still, because he was family, Connor let him in. That had been a mistake. He’d been nothing but trouble.

According to Corey, their group still had one more shuttle, and since everyone was dead, it belonged to him. But, surprise surprise, he needed help getting to it. Connor wasn’t interested, and neither were any of us. So we ignored him.

He also kept trying to get us to join this thing called the New Earth Militia. It was a new coalition of many smaller groups, and their main goal was to take Earth back from the aliens. And by aliens, they meant the purple kind. We’d heard of them and weren’t interested. Their priorities were screwed up. The bugs were the problem, not the hunters.

Things started to get really uncomfortable after Connor told him that if he mentioned the NEM or the shuttle one more time, he’d be out of the group. Then, two days ago, we had a group meeting and decided that after our next trade run with Sanctuary, we were going to give that New Franklin place we kept hearing about a visit. It was quite a bit out of the way, but the rumor that they’d managed to destroy their bug nest and reclaim the town was worthy of the travel.

Corey had flipped out. He’d called us monster lovers, human haters, and traitors. That was because it was generally known that the human settlement at New Franklin had achieved the unachievable by working with Xarc’n hunters.

Hunters, just like the one from today who smelled of autumn leaves.

Corey had stomped out, but not before he’d wished us all dead. It had been tough on Connor, though I’d mentally cheered the asshat’s departure.

Tomas helped me carry our new foraged goodies into our hideout. This was just one safe house out of many. Living as nomads meant we had dozens of hideouts dotting the usual routes we took, as we served as much-needed connections between settlements.

“How you doing, Connor?” I punched my longtime friend in the arm.

“Same old, same old.” He looked like hell warmed over. Looking at the rest of the group, he said, “We’re just waiting on Dean and Jenny to get back. Then we’re heading out tomorrow. We’ll hit up Sanctuary next.”

“Didn’t Corey say they won’t let him back in there?” Diego asked.

Corey hadn’t been forthright about that until after we let him in. Apparently, his group had been banned from Sanctuary for life. After a lot of probing, we finally got the full story.

Corey’s group had withheld vital medicines from Sanctuary and forced the settlement to take in a Xarc’n alien as a prisoner. That had resulted in the alien’s friend crashing a shuttle into one of their buildings to rescue him, then stealing one of the settlement women in the process.

We’d heard about the event—who hadn’t? It was all every nomad group had talked about for months—but we hadn’t realized it was Corey’s group that had started it.

I thought of the giant alien warrior I’d nearly bulldozed over earlier on my way down the stairs.

He hadn’t tried to steal me away in his shuttle. I mean, with muscles like that, I wouldn’t be completely against visiting his shuttle, but not if it meant giving up my freedom. Maybe he already had a woman. I wondered if he knew the warrior who stole the woman from Sanctuary.

“We’re not waiting for Corey,” Connor said. “It has become very clear that he doesn’t belong here with us. I won’t let the family I was born with endanger the family I’ve chosen.”

That must have been a hard decision for him. It was what made him a good leader.

“Aww, shucks, Connor.” Riley gave the stoic older man a hug.

“Does that mean I can call you Pops?” Tomas asked.

“Hell, no!”