When Aliens Weep Read Online Free

his head. “Yes, Hud. The others were warned by Baby and Echo in time to save themselves. We have no idea how many were saved. You’re the only one we’ve seen emerge from a portal since Cobby arrived with Chloe, Kenya, Kane, Dezi and Bonnie. And the babies.” He pointed to the now closed portal in their dome. “The Kreyven sealed this portal off a while ago. We thought we were the last ones. How did you wind up in the portal over there?” He pointed to the other dome in the distance.
    “I . . . I don’t know,” he said haltingly. “We were in the storage room and heading back to the settlement with a few things when the Kreyven burst through the wall and grabbed us.”
    “Us? Who is us, Hud? Tell me . . . tell me,” Bonnie beseeched.
    His fingers to the bridge of his nose, Hud massaged slowly. “Ah . . . well . . . Ginger Mae of course. And Peter.”
    Grateful tears slid down Bonnie’s face. She threw herself at Hud, clasping him in a desperate embrace. “Oh Lord. Thank you, Hud. Thank you . . .”
    Hud extricated himself from her grasp. “But where are they?” he demanded.
    Bonnie sat up with a startled blink. “You don’t know? ” she asked.
    Wil shook his head, his wings drooping in sympathy. “They aren’t here, Hud.”
    Silence hung over the crowd. The only sounds were the fluttering of wings, the restless milling of elephants, and the collective sobbing heartbreak of the survivors as they realized their unrelenting pain had no limits.
    ***
    It wasn’t the pain that woke Ginger Mae. It was the cold and the smell. Even though she could feel herself shiver, her nose told her something burned nearby.
    She had no idea how long she’d been out, but the hot-poker pain and swelling from her wrist told her it was broken.
    Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she was confronted with a filmy image of an empty room. How can this be? She shook her head to clear her eyes, setting off a firestorm in her head. Her eyes squinted and blinked but she was unable to clear her vision. A burning sensation in her eyes told her something was wrong.
    “Ugh.” Ginger Mae stopped moving to assess her situation and relieve her headache. Even if she couldn’t see clearly, she knew she lay on her back on a hard floor. She slowly scrunched her body together into a fetal position as her stomach boiled, threatening to erupt. “Ugh.” Her mouth tasted like metal and a sensation of grease clung to the air, further exacerbating her rebelling stomach.
    A new sound pierced her consciousness. A buzzing. Like a thousand crickets firing over one another.
    Vomiting onto the floor, she heard a different sound. A prickling gave her hope she wasn’t alone.
    Choking through the vomit she called out, “Hello? Hello? Anybody there? ”
    Suddenly, the burning smell intensified. Wiping her hand across her mouth, she shrank back as two shapes materialized and weaved their way toward her. Ginger Mae blinked hard, her vision stubbornly refusing to clear.
    “Hello? Who are you? Where am I?” The figures hovered over her. She felt something on her neck and all went black.
    ***
    Ginger Mae awoke strapped to a hard surface. No matter how hard she twisted, she felt trapped. She could feel her metal burden had been removed, but her broken wrist felt weighed down with a brick. At least the pain had abated.
    Blinking furiously, she tried desperately to clear her sight. As she gave up, her eyes were finally able to make out a shadowy object that appeared to be throwing off sparks, the tiny lights rising and falling like a delicate waterfall . . . disappearing with the limitations of her vision. She had no way to gauge how close it was; her vision was now almost useless.
    She sniffed the air, redolent of the same hot burning smell from her room. Rocking her head back and forth, she felt obstacles on each side of her head. Softly rubbing her head against one, she discovered hard metal with only a tiny clearance between it and her body. Her fight or