Shalia's Diary Omnibus Read online

  I am so sorry.

  Shalia Monroe

  August 21

  Well, here I am again. That old saw about ‘confession is good for the soul’ apparently does contain some truth. The night I finished my letter, I slept better than I have since we all went ‘poof’. I had a lot less nightmares. So, I’m back.

  And I’m still alive. Imagine that. I’m hungry and scared, but alive. How long that lasts, I can’t imagine. I thought as long as I’m here, I will report on what’s going on around me. Maybe in the distant future Earth will become habitable again, and someone will find this. I can give you future folks a glimpse into what happened here on the ground.

  A little note here: while I’m no scientist and haven’t heard a thing about how bad the situation truly is, I imagine massive parts of the Earth will die after all those detonations. You don’t send up nearly 1000 cities in a nuclear holocaust and not do major damage to our environment, especially when there is no one left alive to contain it. Surely the oceans, air, and land have been poisoned where the explosions happened and that poison will spread out.

  On that warm and fuzzy note, let’s move to current events. It’s August and hot as hell here in Georgia. Mom and I are hiding in the house I had planned to buy. I hadn’t signed all the paperwork yet when Armageddon hit, but the rightful owners had already moved out. They went to Los Angeles, which of course is a big hole in our Swiss cheese planet now. I figured I could go ahead and put my claim in on Casa Shalia.

  We keep the blinds down and stay as quiet as mice during the day. Okay, let me rephrase that. I stay as quiet as a mouse. Sometimes Mom has a spell and starts yelling for my father, who died seven years ago of a heart attack. He left us even farther back than that, so she’s really reaching into the past to believe he’s around. When she starts that up, I go all crazy, trying to make her shut up before the gangs or Kalquorians hear and come get us. As awful as this sounds, there have been moments when I have imagined shoving a pillow over her face and holding it there until she passes out. I know it could kill her, but I am scared out of my wits here. I don’t want to be raped by any man, whether he’s my species or not. I sure as hell don’t want my mother raped either. I might actually do her a favor if she did lose consciousness and never woke up. She wouldn’t wake up crying about how hungry she is anymore or how hot and miserable she feels. I could release her from her misery, grab a knife, and release myself too.

  I’m a horrible person to think such things. Harming my mother is out of the question. I love her despite all that's happened in the past. But how do I protect her from those who would hurt us? This is so fucked up.

  Anyway, enough of my mommy issues. We’re in this house in a subdivision about five miles from the government training facility where I would have been working if the world hadn’t ended. The facility was a law enforcement academy, simply known as the Academy to most locals. From what I’ve seen of the flight patterns of alien shuttle traffic, the Academy is where a bunch of Kalquorians have camped out. While this town is relatively small, it is located between Atlanta (in ruins), Athens, and Savannah. It’s a good central location, and the training facility has plenty to offer an invading species: dorms, gyms, weapons, vehicles, and a movie theater. Well, it would have had plenty to offer, but I have a feeling a lot of the weapons and vehicles were snagged by the gangs before the Kalquorians took it over last week. They still have the movie theater. Maybe they’re all eating popcorn and watching a nice propaganda war flick that shows them how high and mighty we Earthers thought we were. It would be a comedy farce now. The Kalquorians are probably laughing in the aisles.

  The Academy resembled a tiny city in the middle of nowhere. The trainees didn’t have to leave it for any reason, though they did on occasion for a change of view. After Armageddon, they left to get back to the many places they’d all come from, hoping to find loved ones alive. Too bad. They might have kept some semblance of order around here if they’d stayed. Or maybe not. Who the hell knows?

  Being this close to Alien Enemy Central has had one good outcome. Their presence has scared most of the gangs out of the immediate area … well, that and the fact most of the grocery stores have been emptied of every speck of food. I’ve concentrated my shopping efforts to the houses I knew were abandoned as everyone ran for higher ground. Which makes me laugh. Where the hell do you run to when the whole world collapses? Where do you go when there’s no help to be found because the entire infrastructure has disappeared? When every person you meet is as likely to kill you for what few supplies you have as they are to help?

  Yesterday, the Kalquorians took a page from Dantovon’s playbook and began broadcasting messages from their shuttles as they slowly flew overhead. Their English wasn’t too shabby either. “Attention, Earthers. We have no intention of harming you. The loss of your cities was a terrible, tragic accident, for which we accept full blame. Let us help you. Come to the area designated Law Enforcement Academy. We have established a refugee center there with food and shelter.”

  They’re right in that it was an accident that they set off Armageddon. My faith in their truthfulness ceases to exist after that point. Refugee center my big, fluffy ass.

  Unfortunately, Mom got all excited over the announcement. “Food, Shalia,” she marveled. Gray hair notwithstanding, she reminded me of a kid on Christmas morning. “Water. Maybe air conditioning too!”

  “And all the alien cock you can eat,” I muttered, low so she wouldn’t hear me. She was having a moment when she’s really childlike and doesn’t seem to remember how ugly the world really is. It beats when she’s crying or in full rage, so I try not to snap her out of those spells.

  I patiently explained, “Mom, we were at war with the Kalquorians. They have no reason to be nice to us, except to con us into turning ourselves in so they can take us prisoner.”

  She pouted. “Maybe they are nice, though. They said they didn’t mean to hurt us.”

  I said, “Look, we have plenty of food for at least a month if we keep rationing it. We have tons of canned stuff. Potato chips. Cereal. I brought home Funcakes last night with chocolate icing, made with the finest of preservatives so you know they’ll last forever. You love Funcakes. Do you want me to get you one?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s so hot in this house, Shalia. I’m tired of sweating and feeling icky. I want a bath. I want air conditioning.”

  I sighed. “I know. I want it too, but it’s too dangerous. After dark, if you’ve been good all day, we’ll open some windows and let the breeze in, okay?”

  “Fine.” She stomped to my purse and pawed through it in retaliation. She smeared half-melted lipstick on her mouth. I was too hot to argue with her, so I made a face so she’d feel as if she’d gotten to me. That seemed to make her happy, as it always has.

  So that’s life, post-Armageddon. Tonight, after Mom has gone to sleep, I’ll sneak out with a couple of pails to the river. It’s beyond stupid of me to chance being caught just so she can bathe a little, but the poor old gal is miserable. If she's miserable, then I'm more miserable. Besides, I owe her after all the horrible things I’ve thought. I’m not about to waste the tiny bit of drinking water we have on primping, so I’m going to scare myself silly and go out.

  Still August 21, I think. So late, maybe it's the 22nd. I can't find my watch, so I'm not sure.

  I fetched the pails of water for Mom’s bath, and it was every bit as scary as I knew it would be. More so, because I’m worried someone might have seen me. I made it to the river okay, but while I was there, I got the creepiest feeling. I didn't hear anything strange. I didn't see anything either. But you know that feeling you get when someone is watching you? I swear, while I was filling up my pails, every hair on my body stood straight up. Some part of me from primitive days knew something was up. (Ha-ha, lost and unlamented Church. I entertained the idea of evolution. Nobody’s left to punish me for it!)

  Damn it, but someone could. There aren't only rape gangs out there.
There are those who continue to hold to the religion despite the fact it's what killed us. They’re out there, running around, passing judgment, killing ‘sinners’. Of course, not many realize fanatical adherence to the old ways is to blame. I'm one of the few who realizes exactly what happened.

  I've seen the continuation of the old belief regime. Early on after the blasts, while we still had some semblance of a police force and I felt I could walk about without fear, a couple of women were found hanging from an oak tree. Their sexual parts had been mutilated. Signs were nailed to their chests that read 'Whore'. So the old guard is out there, looking to keep us blasphemers in line.

  Getting back to the subject after my seriously freaked-out brain has gone off on another tangent, it felt like someone was in the stand of trees that surrounds the river. I’m almost positive there were eyes watching me. Boy, I moved fast despite those damned pails being so heavy to carry. I was ready to drop them in an instant if I saw anyone, and I took a circuitous route to return to the house. It took me a good twenty minutes to return home though the river is only a block away and separated from the housing development by a stand of trees barely the width of a football field.

  If someone was out there and he tried to follow me, I either lost him or he decided I wasn't worth the effort. I made it back home okay, the pails managed to remain half-full after being sloshed all over the place, and Mom is still asleep. I might stay awake for awhile, just to watch and make sure. I've got my baseball bat and a butcher knife. I’m wishing I had a blaster or one of those old bullet guns, though I don't have a clue how to use either. You'd think someone who has worked with law enforcement all these years would know a thing or two about firearms. Since I could never legally carry, I never bothered to pay attention. My loss. I hope it doesn't end up being the difference between life and death.

  August 22

  Shit, I think the Kalquorians suspect we're here. We’ll have to be extra careful for a while. Maybe that's who I felt watching me at the river last night?

  Right off the bat this morning, three of the damned things were prowling around the street this house sits on. Mom was splashing away in the tub, which contained all of an inch of water on the drain side. Yet being able to wash a little made her happy. I was in the living room peeking out from behind the drawn shade, wondering if it was going to rain. The clouds were becoming pretty gray and heavy in the sky. I thought a couple more buckets of water, which would allow me to get cleaned up too, sounded like a fine idea. That's when I saw them.

  I've seen some still vids of real Kalquorians, not the bullshit fake ones I made movies of. They came from shots taken during the war, which were given to me to use in propaganda films. Most were of Kalquorians fighting, all of them too blurred to be seen properly even using a high-speed recorder. Apparently, they can move really fast. The only decent shots were of the ones that we'd killed. Black hair. Dark brown skin. Lips pulled back in snarls to show long, thin fangs behind normal human-squared teeth. Glazed blue-purple eyes with slitted cat pupils. Even in death, they appeared nightmarishly fierce and scary. Seeing those shots, it was easy to imagine Kalquorians really were demons sent from some pit of Hell to destroy God's chosen race.

  So I was surprised when I saw the three walking down the street. I mean, they seemed so similar to us once I got past how big they were. They were huge men. The smallest couldn't have been less than six and half feet tall. They were muscled beyond anyone I'd ever seen, meatier than our steroid-fed ground troops.

  From the distance between me and this patrol or whatever it was, I couldn't see their strange eyes. Though they spoke to each other, I didn't see fangs either. Just incredibly large, dark men. As weird as it feels to say it, they were actually attractive. Two had long, wavy hair past their wide shoulders. The third's was straight and held off his face in a ponytail that reached to the middle of his back. I decided he must be the leader because he would point at something and the other two would look, or he would speak and they would lean in closer, as if to not miss a word.

  They all pointed their noses upward from time to time, wolves trying to catch a scent. I stayed absolutely still as I peeked at them, a frightened rabbit hoping to not be seen. I prayed Mom would keep quiet as she bathed. Rumor said the Kalquorians had super-sensitive hearing. If she called for me as they neared...I didn't want to think about it.

  I should have gone to her and taken her to a part of the house where we could hide. Yet it was as if I stood hypnotized, watching those three aliens coming closer and closer to my house. Then they stopped, right in front of it. They gazed straight at the window from where I spied on them.

  I was sure they couldn't see me. I had only the barest sliver of window shade open to watch. Still, I didn't dare to breathe while they stared in my direction. I suddenly had to pee so bad I thought my bladder would let go.

  One of the wavy hairs, the biggest of this bunch, jerked his head towards the house as he spoke. The leader did his wolfie-sniff move. He stared at my window. Then he shook his head and said something.

  I knew they were about to come in, that they would force their way into our shelter. They would rape me and kill Mom, who is well beyond childbearing age and of no use to them. Then they would take me away to be their breeding slave. You cannot imagine how relieved I was when they started away, continuing their patrol down the street.

  I watched until I couldn't see them anymore. I swore up and down if we never bathed again it would be perfectly fine. I am not going back to the river. I didn't put the pails outside when it started to rain. I don't care if I never leave this house again, even if it means starving.

  August 23

  I am so freaked out. The Kalquorians know we’re here. I just can’t figure out why they haven’t forced me to go with them since I’m childbearing age.

  Mom and I woke this morning to discover a container full of food and a vid message recorder on the dining room table. I nearly shit myself when I saw that stuff. I didn’t want to touch any of it. Someone had found us. Someone had come in the house while we were asleep.

  I stood there, shaking all over, staring at this stuff like it was a sack full of rattlesnakes. Mom was herself for a change, which meant she was pissy. “Stop being such a baby, Shalia. We need to find out what’s happening.” She marched over and switched the recorder to play.

  A vid appeared in front of us. It was a full-size recording of that Kalquorian I’d marked as the squad leader who’d been roaming the street yesterday. The one with the straight hair in the ponytail? Yep, there he stood, freaking looming over me and Mom. Damn, that bastard is tall. I come up about chest high to him. Most shocking of all, his image wore a gentle smile. He was handsome with that expression on his face. His face was smooth, appearing in his early to mid 20’s. From what I understand, Kalquorians live past the two-century mark. I have no idea how old he actually might be. He had an innocence about him, as if life hadn’t had the opportunity to mark him yet.

  I won’t discuss how his body made me feel. Seeing him from a distance in that skintight bodysuit hadn’t prepared me for what he looked like up close. Muscles, muscles, muscles. His groin was more impressive than I’d initially noticed. Yes, I peeped at that. How could I miss it? The guy could have been smuggling an anaconda. Good grief. Despite not having the best of experiences with men and sex, I couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like naked. Maybe it was that boyish expression on his face, the total lack of guile. I’m not sure. I don’t even know why I’m writing all this down. What a freak I am.

  Anyway, the recording plays. Mr. Alien says, “Greetings, Mataras. I am Dramok Dusa, a scout with the Kalquorian rescue mission based out of the nearby law enforcement training facility. We have established a rescue-and-aid center within the boundaries of the training academy.”

  “It is with great sadness that I report all Earthers must evacuate your planet. You are no doubt aware of the destruction of your cities, referred to by many Earthers as Armageddon. These were caused
by nuclear devices stored underground and triggered by the Kalquorian entrance into your atmosphere. Because of this event, Earth will be uninhabitable in approximately two years. It is vital we get you onto an Earther colony of your choice, or to Kalquor to save your lives.”

  “We realize you may be hesitant to accept our offer of rescue. I will visit you again in five days to discuss any concerns you may have. In the meanwhile, please accept the food and clean water I have left for you. You should not be drinking water from the nearby river as our tests have shown it contains harmful bacteria. I have made a scan of you as you slept, and you appear to be healthy at this time.”

  “Should you prefer to seek shelter and assistance before the five days are up, you are more than welcome to come to the Academy. There we will register you so that any family members who are searching for you can be reunited. We will also explain your new home options and schedule a transport to take you where you wish to live.”

  “I look forward to seeing you soon.”