Darr: Earth Resistance, #3

By Theresa Beachman

A man on the run. A woman afraid of nothing.

 

Violet was one of the British army's top snipers when the insectoid Chittrix invaded Earth. She almost died in the first wave. 

Traumatized, she takes refuge with survivors in an underground bunker near London, struggling to find a reason to live beyond waging guerilla warfare against the hated insects. Vengeance is not enough to make up for her losses, but it's all she has.

 

Darr, always a lone wolf even before the invasion, lives with a secret that threatens to destroy him both mentally and physically. For the safety of everyone around him, he leaves the survivor's community and avoids all human contact. Living with the threat of death hanging over his head takes its toll. But going back is not an option. 

 

When a Chittrix ambush traps Darr in close quarters with Violet, they band together to survive. With his abilities and her accuracy, they make a formidable team as bullets and sparks fly. 

 

But the secret between them is a constant threat and soon, it will explode.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theresa Beachman
• Release date: Jan 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223879763

Book preview

1

Violet was having a bad day. She reasoned it was pretty unfair they still crept up on her after she’d survived the alien apocalypse that had ended civilization, but shitty days still happened. Today had started medium-bad and spiraled downhill from there. She was, she decided, pretty much at the apex of bad day-ness right now.

It couldn’t get any worse.

Charles Bailey snorted loudly next to her and wiped the back of his hand across his perpetually running, too large nose. Violet gritted her teeth and focused in the opposite direction, out the van window to the ice-frosted landscape of derelict buildings rushing past. Despite the fresh air blasting through her window, a stir-crazy fever pulsed through her blood.

Violet had volunteered to scout for medical supplies. The windowless rooms of the underground Command Base had become oppressive lately, and the lure of the open road was irresistible. The ex-government bunker where she and other survivors of the alien invasion lived was safe but claustrophobic. Before the invasion, Violet had spent several years traveling to military hotspots as an army sniper—she was accustomed to fresh air and freedom.

Deep down, she nurtured a hope the CB wasn’t going to be their long-term home, that they would find somewhere safe above ground where they could grow fresh food and live their lives. The thought of spending the rest of her life hiding underground was, frankly, depressing, but so far any alternative was proving to be an unsubstantial pipe dream. The insectoid alien Chittrix had ruled the skies for the past year with no sign their grip on the planet was easing.

After spending the last hour toting medication from the hospital pharmacy into the back of their beaten jeep, Violet was sweating under all her winter layers. More boxes of antibiotics waited to be picked up on the third floor of the hospital. She ticked off the last of the diabetes medication on her list and slammed the notepad shut. It was important to keep a record of what supplies they had, but it also reminded Violet of how little they actually had and the limits of what they controlled now. She suppressed a sigh, not wanting to trigger a question of how she was feeling from Bailey.

The radio on the dashboard crackled, and she picked up the receiver, hoping Foster would say something to alleviate her bad day-ness. Bailey coughed and spluttered, a loud, phlegmy rattle emanating from low in his chest.

Violet winced and flicked the speak button. Go ahead, Foster.

White noise hissed in the airspace between them before he replied. Snow’s moving in. We’re going to call it a day now and head directly back to Command Base.

What about Warminster?

Not happening. Take the direct route down the A345 and get home ASAP.

Violet squinted out the window at the relentlessly gray sky. From the west, ominous dark shadows pregnant with even more snow were heading their way. She bit down on the petulant tone that wanted to creep into her voice. The plan had been to meet at Warminster and drive back to the CB in a mini convoy—greater numbers were safer against Chittrix attacks. She’d fully planned to ditch Bailey and hitch a ride with Foster for the remainder of the journey, even if his verbal diarrhea made her ears melt.

Violet lowered her voice, attempting to infuse her tone with some gravitas—for what it was worth. Foster, the plan was to reconnect at Warminster.

More fizzing and spitting from the radio. Violet peered at the clouds again. Perhaps the weather was interfering with reception.

A deep voice cut through the hissing. Violet, you complaining? Garrick, her older brother. Violet rolled her eyes.

No. Observing. She took a breath. We’ve just loaded up. Everything being okay, we should be back at the Command Base by four this afternoon. She released the speak button and looked at Bailey. She could make this work. She rammed the radio back into the receiver a little harder than was necessary, but Bailey remained oblivious.

He nudged her with his elbow. He was way too close, invading her body space with his thick torso as wide as two normal men. Just you and me, honey.

Violet briefly closed her eyes. "I am not your honey."

He grinned and ignored her, pointing to the road sign on their left. One hundred and twenty miles to Salisbury. The van whipped past, and the sign disappeared in her wing mirror.

Bailey winked, his wide face cracking into a grin jumbled with too many teeth. We’re on the home straight now. Got our medical supplies, so let’s relax, get to know one another a little better.

Violet’s teeth ached from the tension in her jaw as she paused before saying anything she might regret. Her day was teetering on the pinnacle of new heights of god-awfulness, and for a moment she wondered if Garrick had planned this as some kind of brotherly character-building exercise in practicing restraint and being less outspoken. Um. I have to check…something. Shit. She couldn’t even think up an excuse. She unclipped her seat belt and shifted around so she could climb into the rear of the van. My water bottle is in the back.

She scooted over the seat and opened her backpack. With grubby hands, she pulled out her water bottle. As she drank, she eyed the Sweeper strapped to the van roof. Julia, one of their weapons scientists at the base, had developed the acoustic rifle and even though it was awesome at detonating Chittrix at a molecular level, Violet was grateful there’d been no cause to use it on this excursion. After swigging a last mouthful of water she straightened and checked the leather buckles were secure.

Light flickered in the van’s rear window, drawing her attention. The road was rubble-strewn behind them, tufts of long grass sprouting where snow and ice had damaged the surface.

The light flickered again. Violet leaned closer to the window, her breath fogging the glass. In a habit now ingrained, she glanced skyward then checked the overgrown verges, motley in the winter light. Turgid red and purple alien plants jostled for space with straggly Earth ones.

A familiar angular shape darted between two buildings.

Violet dropped her water bottle and lunged toward the front cab. Chittrix!

Where? Bailey yanked the wheel, sending the van careening into the pavement with an earsplitting thump.

Bailey, keep your eyes on the road! Violet unholstered her handgun and threw herself back into the passenger seat.

Beside her, Bailey white-knuckled the wheel as the van swerved sideways before crashing back down onto the frozen, pot-holed road. The vehicle careened wildly, barely missing a wide split in the concrete, forcing Violet to grab the door handle to stop herself tumbling into his lap.

Bailey, what the hell—

His face was pasty white, the stubble on his chin standing out in sharp relief against the bloodless pallor of his skin. Something’s knocked the wheels…doesn’t feel right. As he accelerated, the van lurched violently as if on square wheels making it impossible for Violet to clip her seat belt in.

The road ahead was still clear. It was possible to outrun an adult Chittrix in a vehicle, but only if you had a good head start and floored it. Put your foot down, she ordered as her awareness automatically flicked between her wing mirror and the broken road ahead.

The Chittrix shot out between two abandoned trucks, a sleek bolt of coal-black lethality. It crashed straight into the side of the van at breakneck speed, colliding with the force of a biological juggernaut.

The van lurched, propelled onto the front and rear wheels of the passenger side in a stomach-churning wheelie. Bailey unleashed a string of expletives as he hung onto the steering wheel with bloodless hands. The van balanced in the air for a few terrifying seconds before the relentless momentum of the Chittrix forced it upside down.

The roof struck the road in a roar of screaming metal as the driver’s side imploded under the unstoppable weight of the Chittrix’s body. Violet fell hard against the roof, narrowly missing the open maw of snapping Chittrix jaws that ripped Bailey’s right arm from his body. Searing pain fired through her left thigh and hip as she hit the unpadded roof as the van ground sideways across the road.

Momentum drove the van onward, shattering the glass on the passenger side. Stones fired into the cab with the velocity of bullets, battering Violet as she tried to brace herself against her seat.

Too late, her forehead connected with the solid door frame, and she was out.

2

Darr froze on the doorstep of the industrial unit as the Chittrix scream sliced through the bitter January air. He dropped his crowbar onto the shattered glass at his feet before retrieving his crossbow from where it was propped on the doorjamb. As he scanned the street for signs of life, he shifted into ready alertness, ears straining. But apart from the labored rasp of his breathing, the world was silent again.

A light flutter of snow swirled around his head. He sucked in a breath, willing his scattered thoughts into something resembling coherence, a mental task he found more and more difficult to achieve lately.

Slowly, he lowered the crossbow. The sky above him was an empty, unrelenting steel-gray, the light already dying as night advanced on another raw day. He remained motionless, the air metallic in his nostrils as he sniffed, still searching for clues to the source of the noise.

Chippenham loomed heavy and silent around him. No Chittrix. No people. Nothing.

Just the way he liked it.

As a matter of survival, he kept himself separate from the scraggy communities of humans scratching out an existence in the south of England but as time passed he was seeing fewer survivors. He wasn’t sure if this was because people were finally becoming smarter at remaining unseen or if the brutal reality of remaining alive was winnowing out the rest.

Silence smothered his ears and he willed the single scream to be the end of it, for him to not have to get involved. His presence alone was a risk to anyone’s life. Snow swirled as he exhaled a soft breath of relief. Whatever it was, it was over. He lowered the crossbow and turned back to the broken door of the pharmacy, pushing open the splintered wood.

A clatter of metal on concrete. Another scream, a human female yelling in anguish. Damn it. He jerked as Chittrix shrieks erupted, scratching down his spine like rusty nails.

Darr stepped out onto the empty road, dodging a rare shaft of sunlight. He jogged silently down the road, ears pricked and crossbow ready. He had his reasons for living alone but he wasn’t about to leave another human to die at the mercy of the Chittrix if he could help it. He hadn’t stooped that low.

Yet.

A gunshot and a holler of pain hurried him on. The voice sounded young, chastising his conscience to get a move on. Darr accelerated, dismissing the dull ache forming between his eyes and focusing instead on getting to the source of the scream.

He ran to the end of the road, then hooked a right. His boots hammered on the concrete, his long legs quickly eating up the distance. As he rounded the corner and skidded to a halt, the reason for all the commotion was laid out before him.

A Chittrix lay wedged under an upturned, white Ford transit van. Judging by its size and the mottled appearance of its exoskeleton, the alien wasn’t fully-grown. A section of insectoid abdomen and spasming, jointed legs were visible under the crushing weight of the vehicle. The Chittrix’s neck and head were rammed through the driver’s window while one forelimb, lethal with a vicious fighting claw, raked at the shattered windscreen. A liquid gurgle filled the air, and pungent fuel spilled from the damaged engine.

A man was wedged in the broken windscreen, his solid body blocking sight of any other passengers. Darr pressed his fingers to the man’s wet and bloody neck. No pulse, but the face? Darr tilted his head to get a better view. Recognition flooded his brain. The dead man was Bailey. They’d fought together against the Chittrix in the sewers of London only a few months ago.

Before everything had changed.

Darr stepped backward, a band of foreboding constricting his chest. Weapon aimed, he skirted the vehicle and its pinned prey, taking a route around to the rear where he’d be hidden from the thrashing Chittrix. He side-stepped the burst back doors. Inside was a mess of ripped styrofoam trays, glass vials, and white paper-sealed medical instruments. Bottles of antibiotics were smashed and scattered in disarray.

Darr noted the medication but forced himself to track along the ridge of the roof, pushing aside the throb of pain in his skull from the close proximity of the eight-foot alien. Its violent motion rocked the van dangerously as it tried to free itself from the cab.

Sweat trickled down his spine, pooling in the small of his back. His breathing slowed to imperceptible inhalations as he held his weapon steady. The windscreen on the passenger side was cracked but intact and smeared with blood. The glass shuddered but didn’t break as a frustrated boot pounded from the inside.

A female shout exploded from the cab. Fuck!

Darr took another step closer, maintaining his distance from the agitated alien. It had stopped banging its head. All that remained of one eye was a gouged black hole, but the other tracked Darr with unblinking intensity.

He lunged and smashed the window with his crossbow until the impact created an opaque flower in the glass. With his final strike the windscreen fragmented. Darr paused, gasping for breath as a black boot thrust through the spider-webbed glass into the cold air.

Darr dodged to his left, shouting to distract the Chittrix from the van’s escapee. The Chittrix lashed its elongated, barbed tongue at him, the lethal organ hissing across the dirt millimeters from his heels.

A leg followed the boot, slender, most likely a kid—a girl with an impressive knowledge of profanities going by the racket emanating from the cab. Then there was a soft groan, and the leg stopped moving.

Darr sidestepped the fuel spilling out of the trashed engine. His heart rate accelerated. Everything was going to go boom very soon, and no one else was coming. For a second, he hesitated, scanned the street, concerned he might be walking into a trap. While it had once been civilized, the south of England passed for a wilderness these days.

But the street was empty save for him, the girl, and the Chittrix.

Darr risked getting closer to the alien. It was dying, a thick, viscous pool of yellow fluid seeping out from under its body, swelling in a pregnant puddle toward the toes of his boots.

He took a few faltering steps. The pain between his eyes was intense and more excruciating the closer he drew to the beast. Its lower body was immobile. Thick armored plates drew back from its mouth as it roared at him, its black tongue lashing across razor-like shards that passed for teeth.

Darr narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. He exhaled slowly, doing his best to release the pain from his head and steady his hands. He primed the crossbow with a bolt then fired at point-blank range, directly into the faceted alien eye, the steel tip lancing it dead instantly. Its thick thorax juddered, then its lower jaw dropped, lax and silent. Darr swore in relief as its head rocked backward, out of his line of sight behind the impressive expanse of alien abdomen.

Drained, he dropped to his knees and sucked in a breath, wiping his hand across his face to compose himself. Being this close to the Chittrix drained him, a brutal reminder of why he’d kept himself locked away for the past three months. Slowly, the pain between his eyes eased, the burning needles of agony retracting and allowing him to breathe again.

A soft grunt came from the other side of the Chittrix, unmistakably female. Bailey?

He’s dead. Give me a second. Darr rested on the butt of his crossbow, before hauling himself up to standing. His head swam, and for a moment he thought he was going to black out. Nausea swooped through his brain in gagging waves.

He tugged his scarf from his neck and wrapped it around his fingers before carefully picking the shattered safety glass free of the metal frame. As he cleared the glass the girl was visible, one leg half out of the windscreen, the other caught in a loop of thick seatbelt canvas. She wore an oversized men’s green army jacket with a black scarf wrapped around her neck and across her mouth. A worn navy wool hat covered her head.

As he knelt and extended a hand toward her, she aimed her pulse rifle at him. Stop right there.

Darr grinned and did his best to suppress a chuckle. Fuck. Spunky, even while stuck in a van with a dead Chittrix. I like that. No worries, lady. He rocked back on his heels, ready to stand up and leave the crazy kid to sort herself out.

The rifle wavered as Darr straightened but her voice was steady. Wait. I’m stuck.

Yup. Fuel’s leaking too. He sniffed loudly to make his point and coughed as the fumes burned his lungs. Shit.

The battle over whether to trust him flickered across vaguely familiar green eyes.

Fuel touched the edge of his boot.

Shit, he didn’t have time for this. Darkness was fast approaching, and he still had his stuff to collect before he headed home to safety. Throbbing in his temples hurried the decision along. Drop the gun.

She kept the weapon high. Touch me, and I’ll kill you.

You want help or not?

The pulse rifle lowered in a wobbly arc, finally dropping into her blood-soaked lap. I’ll still kill you.

Yeah, you do that. He blinked stinging sweat from his eyes then crawled into the cab. Brushing broken glass from her lap, he cut the seatbelt trapping her thigh. As he grabbed her forearm and pulled her free, the engine exploded, blasting them across the concrete in a tangle of limbs and scorching air.

Darr landed heavily, his arm caught under the girl as heat roasted his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he was facing a dirty, pale face