Return to Eden Read Online Free Page B

telltale rattling, she crawled just inside and curled
into a ball.
    It was uncomfortable but at least dry
and she felt safer as soon as she thought about the fact that it
was made of reinforced concrete and buried under asphalt and dirt.
Surely, even if the thing blew up, she was far enough away by now
and had enough protection to be relatively safe?
    She was still working on convincing
herself when she heard a sound similar to the sound she’d heard
before the obelisk landed. The world outside her cramped hiding
place brightened. A fireball shot through the trees within view and
then disappeared.
    Anya tensed. Another one of those
things? Or something else?
    She heard an impact, like distant
thunder. Faint vibrations traveled through the culvert.
    A shiver ran along Anya’s
spine.
    What was going on?
    Were they at war, she
wondered?
    If they were, she realized in a few
moments, it wasn’t with some other country.
    They were being invaded by
aliens!
    As soon as the thought occurred to her
she tried to dismiss it. The conference had gone to her head! She’d
spent days watching people stroll around the hotels and Atlanta
streets dressed as aliens and galactic warriors and ‘acclimated’ to
the idea of intergalactic travel and alien
civilizations.
    There was no such thing,
though!
    There had to be another
explanation!
    She couldn’t think of one. That thing,
unless it was just some kind of advertising gimmick she hadn’t
noticed before—like a billboard built to look like a space
ship—couldn’t be something from earth. She knew she hadn’t just
missed it, been too preoccupied with getting gas, finding a snack,
and bathroom to notice it.
    But what kind of invasion could it be
when the thing hadn’t blown up?
    But she thought she’d seen smoke coming
from it.
    Maybe it was a dud?
    It wasn’t the lightening of the world
outside that presaged morning that woke Anya some time later. It
was the clods of dirt sifting down on her and the sense that she
was sitting in an ant bed. Waking with a start, Anya brushed
frantically at herself, trying to beat the stinging insects off and
then abruptly pitched herself out of the culvert and into the
ditch. It was as well she did because even as she rolled over to
look for the ant bed she’d apparently fallen to sleep on top of,
chunks of the culvert began to fall.
    Her eyes, burning as if she had dirt in
them, Anya blinked several times and rubbed them, trying to
comprehend what she was seeing, trying to convince herself that it
was nothing but her imagination.
    The culvert collapsed. At
about that same moment, Anya’s brain assimilated the fact that she
still felt like something was crawling all over her. Looking down
to find the culprits, she discovered to her absolute horror that
her clothing seemed to be disintegrating. She could see … something
crawling over her. If not for the movement, she didn’t think she
would’ve been able to discern even that much, though. Whatever it
was was smaller than a gnat and moving in mass and eating her
clothing!
    Sucking in a sharp breath,
Anya swatted at the dark patches several times and then abruptly
leapt to her feet and began to strip frantically. It didn’t take
much effort. Her clothes seemed to fall off of her even as she
tugged at them. She saw dark patches attach themselves to her bra
and panties. The momentary reluctance she felt about
discarding those vanished as soon as she saw bare patches of skin.
    She pitched them, beating frantically
at her hair, brushing at her arms and legs and dashed off a few
feet to examine her skin. Somewhat relieved when she discovered she
seemed to have rid herself of whatever it was, she looked back to
the spot where she’d discarded her clothing just in time to see the
last scraps vanish.
    “ What the f?” she gasped
and then glanced around uneasily to see if anyone was around to see
her standing stark naked by the side of the road.
    She didn’t see anyone. She
did see the dark clouds of