The Arrival of the Invaders

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It's time to turn off the light and turn on the dark Tales for Dark N Hello listeners And welcome to another episode of Chilling Tales for Dark Kights I'm your host, Steve Taylor And tonight, we're taking a quiet drive far from crowded streets and glowing skylines to a place where the stars still shine bright enough to make a person wonder what's really out there For one man, those questions begin with something missing D Sky Turn down the lights, settle in I get cozy. The show is about to begin. Tonight's featured tale of Terror comes to us courtesy of author Micah Edwards pererformed by Malcolm Blackwood. Production by Eron So Wiki present to you. Venomous I imagine that the folks in the city didn't see anything at all Out here, we've got fewer lights. The sky' a lot clearer at night gives a man something to think about Looking up at all that space I know it's no deep philosophy, but still Every one of those stars is a sun Maybe everyone has a life Of course. I suppose now I know at least one other one does They must have come from somewhere notot that there was any They at first I know I said that the city people must not have seen anything But honestly, that's all I saw too Nothing where there should have been something I was out on the porch rocker, enjoying the night breeze and thinking my little philosophies When I noticed that a patch of the stars just wasn't? There was a hole in the sky may be the size of my outstretched fist where there should have been a scattering of stars. I figured it was a cloud at first, but then I saw it was moving faster than any I'd ever seen. Aside from tornadoes, I suppose, but this was nothing like a tornado It was just a black spot where the stars weren't somethingomething so dark that it didn't reflect a speck of light It was moving in a straight line across the sky, blocking out bits of stars as it went. Fast and accurate as an arrow I didn't know where it was going But it sure looked like it did Th then I noticed there were more. All told, I counted six, and I couldn't make out a single detail on any of them They were all identical Fist size absences zipping by overhead I decided maybe there were drones Plenty of the neighbors had seen them these days, after all be some sort of contest or game The thing is the drones I'd seen before or had lights And I could usually hear them wharing by. though I was on my oxygen that night, and the sound from the mask could have been hiding any noise they made So, I told myself it was drones. But I went to bed, troubled I asked my neighbor Jimmy about it the next day My boy's been buzzing your property, he said I warn them about that. I'll give them a talking to tonight. It won't happen again Don't go too hard on them, Jimmy, I said. We got up to a fair bit of mischief ourselves as boys. Jimy laughed That's why I know I've got to nip this in the bud I know what I would have been like if I'd had a drone at their age. A bit of fear will do them good I didn't hear anymore about it after that When I went out stargazing that night There was nothing but uninterrupted sky with no more odd black patches to disturb it I figured that Jimmy's talking to must have had the desired effect One of the boys Pawson knocked on my door the next day Sir Pa told us you got buzzed by a drone I just wanted to say it wasn't us. He was an earnest looking lad. twenty oldld enough to be offended if he knew I thought of him as a boy Young enough to call me sir which kind of offended me in turn I didn't like to think of myself as being that old yet. I still remembered being a boy myself The oxygen tank I had to drag around these days said maybe I was older than I like to believe But that was still no reason to go around calling me Sir I took it in stride though Well, whoever it was got your pa's message, I said No more flybys last night. It wasn't us though, honest. I believe you, son I replied, and I suppose I did. Caorson had no reason to lie about it, and especially none to come over just to tell me There was no point in telling Jimmy that though. I knew what he'd say Well, if they didn't deserve to be yelled at for this, they deserved it for something else I didn't know about. It all works out H boys were turning out strong, independent and respectful, so there must have been something to his parenting method It was good to see someone raising a new generation to be proud of The news these days was all about the degeneracy of society and the way things were falling apart If I hadn't been able to look out my window and see the folks around me thriving I might have been in danger of believing it As it was, I tended to just keep the television off and get the news I needed from the people around me. That said When I went into town, two days later, I started to think maybe the TV news folks had a point after all Gidgetging the weekly groceries was usually a social affair I'd say hello to whoever I ran into in the store chat for a bit with William as he scanned my groceries, and maybe bump into a few more of my neighbours as I was loading up the truck or filling the tank It turned a half hour trip into a half day outing, but that was part of the point Usually, This time it was all I could do to get folks to nod hello atttempts to start conversations were met with shrugs and grunts One person might have been having a bad day, but this happened with six or seven in a row I remarked on it to William as I wheeled my cart up to the register, but even he seemed hostile. Everyone's busy these days, he said shortly Don't have all day to chat I'm just saying Hello, I said. Yeah Would you let it in there if they said hello back William's eyes flashed with a suppressed fury Surprised by his vehemence, I said nothing. He grunted with muted satisfaction and swiped my food aggressively across the scanner Thot night You'd ramble and get in their business That's hardly fair, William So Since when has life been fair winced as William baged the groceries with violence I could see him practically daring me to say something about it I didn't know why he was angling for a fight, but I knew I wasn't going to give him one. No one stopped to exchange pleasantries in the parking lot either Everyone just hurried by with mean, furtive expressions on their faces. The whole town looked like a pack of feral dogs, scared they were about to get kicked The air was charged and dangerous Jimmy's boy Corson was at the gas pump when I pulled up I tried to avoid eye contact, but he spotted me and called out Morning He sounded as cheerful and open as ever Got out of the car and approached him tentatively. Morning, Caorsson, you and your family doing well No complaints, you portable oxygen tank and shrugged. Better than some, I suppose At this Corson leaned in and dropped his voice. Especially around here, am I right Seems like everybody had second helpings of mean last night, and it's coming back up today I grinned You though, I guess not you either It seems we are special Looks that way, I agreed Odd that it should be two neighbourors who weren't affected, I thought We were way on the outskirts though, so it made sense that if something had happened in town last night, it wouldn't have impacted us. Maybe there had been a storm that kept folks up all night. But something so close have missed us entirely posossible, I supposeed, I've seen weather do stranger things. I didn't find out the truth of the matter for another week, on my next trip into town The grocery store's lo was packed full, and before I even got through the door I could hear a crowd yelling inside I couldn't make out what they were saying until I opened the door and William's voice rolled out over the din, strident and angry You can each get two cases of water. I don't want to hear any excuses or pleas or whiny stories about how you're buying two for your friend If you're here, you can buy up to two cases. If you're not, you get nothing Don't like it Leave The crowd was jammed into the drink aisle They eyed the bottled water greedily, each person trying to figure out how to escape the crowd past William's interposing body and make off with as much water as they could The cash register had a letter tape to it Printed on official government letterheads It read Warning Tainted tap water Your tap water is not safe for bathing or drinking Boiling is insufficient to remove the contamination Do not allow prolonged contact with any tap water Accidental ingestion of the tainted water may cause symptoms including irrational anger, paranoia claustrophobia and hallucinations Sverity increases with larger doses. Symptoms will fade after one to two weeks without exposure to the contamination. Government' supplies of bottled water will be delivered shortly. In the meantime, remain calm. seek alternate water sources. report anyone acting irrationally to the non emergency police line Remember that those affected may not understand their behavior to be irrational Do not confront Do not engage I looked at the furious crowd currently surging toward William as he used a full plastic bottle of water to swat at the people in front That's it, he shouted If you can't play Iice, you're all banned from my store. Ha Now none of you get any water. Get out Out, I say crowd startarled with one voice With one mind, they surgeed forward, slamming through William and toppling the rack behind Bottles in jars flew everywhere, shattering and spilling on the ground. The crowd slithered, slipped and fell. Suddenly it was no longer a cohesive unit, but rather fifty individuals all scratching and clawing for bottles of water. I knew William was somewhere under that mass lying on his back From the shrieks and screams, more than one person was being trampled thoseose on top didn't seem to care. They grabbed the blood spattered cases of water and ran for the door I hurried to get out of the way before they crushed me as well As the victors streamed past me I thought about going into to help A sign had said not to though Do not confront, it read Do not engage. I stayed against the brick wall of the store as the enraged Watler thieves raced to exit the parking lot. denting and scraping each other's cars as they went I dowed the local police to report what had happened. They just trampled him? asked the sheriff Un unbelievable Absolute animals Who was there All of those vererminal to be rounded up and shot. It all happened so fast. I didn't recognize anyone. I lied They were all locals, people who I'd known for decades. William had known them too hadn't stopped them from stomping him into the shelves of his own store Wait there. I'm going to want to talk to you when I get to the store said the shheriff I will lie The sheriff had drunk just as much tap water as anyone else in town He could help William But I wasn't going to be here to find out My groceries are going to have to wait They wouldn't do me any good if I wasn't alive to eat them I waited another minute for the demolition derby in the parking lot to die down, then hurried to my truck and got back on the road out of town never locked the doors to my house before It never seemed worth it But when I got home I secured both the front and back and checked all of the windows too It was only a matter of time before the folks in town thought about those of us out on the outskirts, still using well water came knocking I didn't mind sharing, but the mob I'd seen had been a lot more interested in just taking I turned on the television to see what the news had to say If folks had gotten a letter from the government, this was bigger than our little town maybe they'd have more information about what had happened O at least the timeline to fix it The news anchor seemed to be barely holding it together His hair was mustked and his makeup blotchily applied He had an angry grimace on his face instead of the neutral expression he used for everything from pageant winners to industrial accidents He spat the words from the teleprompter staring into the camera as if daring the viewer to come up and fight him Just listening to his voice was enough to raise my heart rate and make me go check the doors and windows a second time The worst part was that he had no information that I hadn't already learned or figured out This was happening everywhere not just nationwide Gobally. Every single municipal water supply had been tainted simultaneously Groundwater was fine. No one could explain what had happened. Governments everywhere were scrambling to distribute emergency supplies A knock at the door sent me scrambling for my shotgun And that exertion in turn left me gasping for air and grabbing for my oxygen. I was in a sorry state to face any sort of angry crowd And so it was fortunate for me that the only person at the door was Jimmy. He waited politely for me to make my way over. You're in no shape to stop them if they come for your water He said without preamble If they'll just ask Jimmy wave that ridiculous idea away? I'm sending Corson over to Stand Watch News says they're acting like animals Hopefully, a bigger animal will be enough to chase them off if they come Is he okay Are you all okay We're on the same well system as you We'll be all right his head Right now, we can help the most by keeping ourselves safe He gestured back toward town. Sell that smoke through my oxygen mask. I could see a faint gray smudge rising up in the distance though. I didn't know what was burning, but it was a fair bet that whatever it was wasn't supposed to be on fire Jimmy nodded as if I'd agreed to a plan Corsson's coming over here, and hopefully him being here means neither of you will need to use those guns I didn't like the idea of pointing firearms at my friends and neighbors It was a sight better than having them point them at me though I'll make up the guest's bed, I said You let me know when you need him back For the next couple of weeks, Corson and I took turns keeping a quiet guard inside the house I figure there was no sense in advertising our presence any more than necessary So we watched from behind closed curtains and hoped no one would even come to look at an empty house. The power went out at some point which didn't really change much for us. We hadn't been turning the lights on regardless Even before the power went out The news hadn't said anything substantive, and the anchors weren't always on when they should have been. We made our own guesses about how things were going based on the smoke smudging the sky There were a lot of fires at first, but by the end of the second week, they had all died out And there weren't any new ones On the first night after the skies were fully clear of smoke I went outside to look at the stars They were still there calm and majestic and totally unaffected by the chaos around us And then a patch of them disappeared And I realized that what I thought were drones were backags. be what they were though There was no one to fly them. to be something else I looked up at the empty sky the things I couldn't see that were blocking out the stars It occurred to me that maybe what I had thought was something fairly close and fairly small was in fact, quite a long way away, up near the top of Earth's atmosphere or even beyond. patch of stars the size of my fist from up there though. It would have to be truly Titanic I thought about the way every man made water facility on Eth had been infected at once I wondered just what I was looking at There M and the stars What it wanted with Earth? The next morning When I went to wake coar en up for breakfast in the watch He swatted irritably at me from the bed off off old man, he muttered to watch Screw your watch too. He suddenly leapt out of bed and swung a fist at me. I staggered back, dodging his fist but tripping over my oxygen tank. I stumbled two awkward steps before my feet tangled in each other and I fell heavily to the floor Porson stood over me, his face torn between rage and pity. He held this mismatched look for a long, uncomfortable second before his mouth twisted into a sneer, And he turned away from me I don't know why I wasted two weeks here anyway, he said You're useless. I say let the townies have you He snatched up his gun and stormed out of the house, leaving the front door open. Cimb it back to my feet headed after him but stopped in the doorway, uncertain somethingomething had changed Was he even safe to have around Maybe it was better to just let him go I watched him enter his own house and I was still standing in the doorway when the shouting started The argument going on at Jimmy's house was loud enough to be heard across the small field separating us couldouldn't make out the words H tone was vicious Suddenly Gunshot I slammed and locked my door without even thinking about it It was another blast in another pause When I listen to my heart hammering Then, two shots almost at the same time followed by three in a row Final one I could almost put the scene together Porsson and Jimmy had been arguing Carsson had the gun in his hands already The first shot was for his father The second and third for his mother, Carrie Maybe as she ran to a husband. Or maybe to protect the three littler ones pause as he reloaded and went on the hunt for the rest of his family. Twin shots as he entered a room where the children were hiding And he and his brother Darren fired at one another Darren missed Cawon did not Three shots for his younger siblings as they coward, and one final shot from Darren his dying act endnding Corsant's rampage too late to save any of his family I didn't know if I was right about any of this, of course. But I watched from the window for a very long time No one ever came out of Jimmy's house again didnn't understand what it changed We have been fine and safe altered the well water too I drunk a glass just an hour ago. I felt no different As my heart calmed and my breathing eased I almost took off my oxygen mask I was loosening the straps when I suddenly realized that That was the difference between Corson and me why his behavior had suddenly shifted while mind stayed the same. The last time the dark shapes had come by poison the water facilities Apparently that hadn't done a good enough job. They'd come back pooison the air I abandoned the upstairs and moved to the cellar ut the edges of the door with quilts I sat there in the dark for almost two days, listening to the hiss of air through my mask staring at nothing breathed as shallowly as possible. I used each tank until it was completely empty They still imped too quickly, lasting no more than a few hours each When my meager store of tanks was gone Close my eyes Move my mask Breath I waited It felt no different The air smelled faintly of smoke, but otherwise seemed perfectly normal Slowly Reluctantly I made my way back upstairs. The fires were back worse this time The skies were gray with ash clouds They were almost a blessing, though partially hid from view the horrifying inhuman architecture of the invaders' ships Things walked below the ships Organic masses that rolled and writhed They stood tall as green silos. But I saw them squeeeze through spaces no bigger than the doorway of a house I thought at first they were hunting for survivors, but I soon realized that there was no pattern to their movements They were not hunting They were exploring They were moving in. I have a barn on my property, it hides mice in it I know this They are small and distant I don't think about them much I even know that some get into the house, and although I don't like it, it's rarely worth my time to worry about But if I find evidence of many, poison to solve the problem Does it get all of the mice? Almost certainly not But a few that are left are out of sight and out of mind. I am here. I am forgotten desperately hope to remain that way, As long as I can just heard iss Written by Micah Edwards, performed by Malcolm Blackwood Produced by Eron Swki One of the most unsettling qualities of Great cosmic horror is its refusal to treat humanity as the center of the universe Venimous embraces that idea from its opening pages, beginning not with spectacle, but with a single impossible absence in the night sky The narrator's peaceful evening spent beneath the stars gradually give way to the horrifying realization that something unimaginably vast has already arrived appears at first to be an isolated mystery is merely the opening move in an invasion unfolding on a planetary scale What makes the story especially disturbing is how quietly civilization falls apart There are no triumphant speeches or dramatic last stands. Instead, neighbors become strangers. Ordinary conversations turn hostile Trust dissolves into paranoia poisoned water and later the poisoned air transform entire communities into frightened, violent shadows of themselves, while those fortunate enough to remain untouched discover that survival often means isolation. rather than heroism. Micah Edwards masterfully shifts the perspective of an alien invasion away from soldiers and governments, placing us beside an aging man whose greatest strengths are patience, observation, and simple decency. as the world burns around him He witnesses humanity's place in creation Terrifying speed Until in the story's unforgettable closing moments, we are forced to confront a devastating possibility Perhaps we were never the dominant species at all On another infestation waiting to be noticed Sometimes, the most frightening monsters aren't the ones that chase us. They're the ones that barely acknowledge we exist Before we wrap things up, I'd also like to recognize tonight's talented narrator, Malcolm Blackwood. If you enjoyed Malcolm's performance, be sure to check out his long running podcast, Scary Stories Told In the Dark, where he serves as host. Now in its nineteenth season, the series features some of the finest horror fiction from today's talented authors brought to life with outstanding narration and immersive production You can find scary stories told in the dark on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts, as well as on YouTube and Rumble If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and give Malcolm a listen We think you'll be glad you did If you enjoyed tonight's story, be sure to explore more of Micah Edward's outstanding work in the chilling Tes for Dark Knight's Archives. His stories consistently blend compelling characters, unsettling concepts, and unforgettable twists Don't forget to check him out on amazon. com as well, where you'll find several of his collections available for purchase You won't be sorry you picked up a copy Oh, and tell him Steve and Chilling Tales sent you when you leave a nice review. Before we close tonight's episode, I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone supporting Chilling Tes for Dark Kights through our exclusive Patrons area to sevenllars ninety nine cents a month. You'll receive ad free versions of every episode, early access to new releases, exclusive bonus content, and complete access to our growing archive of premium material. Annual memberships are also available at a discounted rate, making it an even better way to support the creators, performers, producers, artists, and everyone working behind the scenes to bring these stories to life. Your support allows us to continue producing the immersive horror experiences you've come to expect while helping us compensate the talented writers, narrators, composers and production staff whose work makes this show possible To learn more or to become a patron today, visit chilling Tales for darknights. com On behalf of everyone here at Chilling Tales for Dark Knights Thank you for spending part of your evening with us I'm Steve Taylor And it's been my pleasure to be your host. If you enjoyed tonight's episode, we'd love to hear your thoughts on it Leave us a comment