The Invasion

They came in their thousands. We fought them as one.

It started during a winter storm on the North Eastern Seaboard which brought with it a strange green rain. Where it fell, everything withered, died, and was consumed. The residents of remote outposts in Maritime Canada escaped the worst of the early damage, but that was a blessing in disguise, for they were left to watch as first North America, then the world, was subsumed in the creeping green carpet of terror.

And that was just the beginning.

Praise for The Invasion

If you love apocalyptic stories that bring out the best in the human beings we root for, then you are going to love this story. - Clayton Bye, horror.thedeepening.com

The Invasion

Copyright 2013 by William Meikle

Published at Smashwords by Gryphonwood Press

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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Part 1- The Arrival

The winter storm that blew through the Maritimes on 23rd February saved the lives of thousands of people. At the time most of them were too busy surviving to be grateful.

It had started quietly enough, with a cold breeze from the Northwest blowing a few lazy snowflakes around in the early evening. Thereafter the velocity and the volume ramped up like an accelerating truck until, by the time Alice Noble went to check on the boat-shed, it was blowing a gale and she knew it would be piling up drifts that were already several feet deep.

She had been listening to the steady rise of the storm with some trepidation as the winter had already proved to be a hard one, and the boat house roof was showing signs of wear. She was relieved to find everything still intact when she opened the door from the kitchen and walked into the large barn-like space.

The Zodiac sat snugly under its winter tarpaulin, looking strangely sad in its deflated state. It seemed like a long time since the hot summer days out on the Bay with the tourists, but that was the price you paid for being here – the summers were magical, but the winters were there merely to be endured. It was no surprise to her that many of the island’s inhabitants left in December for more clement places, but she couldn’t afford that luxury, and stayed behind with a few hardy others, hunkered down in solitude against anything Nature could throw at them.

And tonight it’s throwing plenty.

The main door of the shed rattled violently. It was taking the full force of the wind and the old hinges creaked and complained with each gust. But Alice had put a new set of locks on just this fall and she was confident it would hold. Before going back to the relative warmth of the kitchen she ran a hand over the tarpaulin covering the rigid-hull Zodiac. This construction of fiberglass and rubber had eaten most of her life’s savings – but it also allowed her to pursue her life’s dreams. For the last two summers she’d made a living bringing tourists over from Grand Manan to spend days at a time out on the Bay of Fundy with the local whale population. If truth was told, she’d have been out on the water anyway, but the tourists provided much needed income – more than enough to see her through the winter.

She patted the tarpaulin.

Soon.

She went back to her kitchen and closed the door behind her. A mug of coffee quickly dispelled any chill that had settled into her during her visit to the shed, and she settled down in her recliner with the coffee and a fresh beer just in time for the second period of the game.

She was to be disappointed. Just as the players came back out onto the ice the broadcast cut to a news-flash – and that was when she realized it was important. Anything that disrupted a big hockey night had to be important.

At first she thought the color had gone on the television. They showed the scene of a snowstorm in a city – but everything was tinged a deep green. The presenter sounded serious though, so she paid attention.

An unusual phenomenon is being reported all along the East Coast tonight. It is snowing in a zone stretching from New England all the way up to Labrador – nothing unusual for this time of the year. But what has the scientists baffled is the color. Across wide swathes of the storm-hit area the snow is falling green. As you can see from our pictures, this is no joke.

The screen indeed showed what appeared to be green snow falling heavily on city streets.

Reports are also coming in that this snowfall is having strange effects on plant life in some areas, but these reports are as-yet unconfirmed, as many rural areas are completely cut off in the storm. We will, of course keep you fully up to date with this breaking story, but in the meantime, we return you to the big game.

The teams were already playing, but Alice’s curiosity was piqued. She took her mug with her and went through to the sunroom. In the summer she’d have been taking her coffee here, with the windows open and cool evening breezes washing away the heat of the day. At this time of year the room was mostly unused. Frost ran in spider-web patterns across the windows, but she could see enough.

The snow is green!

The game still blared in the front room, but she wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass her by. She went to the main door and started the process of inuring herself against the weather – snow boots, coat, hat, scarf and gloves.

She opened the door thinking she was prepared. She’d left her right glove off to turn the handle. As she opened the door some green-tinged snowflakes landed on the back of her hand.

They immediately started to burn, like cinders from a fire that had been poked too vigorously. She withdrew her hand quickly and pushed the door shut. Her hand stung and she had to grit her teeth against the pain. She ran to the kitchen and ran cold water over the affected areas – five small holes bubbled as if acid had fallen there.

The water didn’t erase the burning. Looking closely she saw points of green deep down in the small wounds. They seemed to be burrowing deeper, the green areas spreading as if it was actually eating her flesh—and growing as it did so.

What is this shit?

There was only one thought in her mind – to get rid of the pain. She scrambled in the kitchen drawers until she found what she was looking for.

She managed to light a series of matches and, while the heads still burned, poked them deep into the wounds. Each burning brought a fresh scream from her, but five matches later she was able to study the back of her hand. There was a ruined mess of burned tissue, and the pain was almost unbearable.

But there were no more green spots.

John Hiscock only just got to safety in time, but he had already spent most of his adult life preparing for this moment, and was not surprised it had finally come.

Bloody terrorists!

When he was younger he’d thought it would be a nuclear event that he’d have to hide from. But in recent years it had become more obvious that it would be either a biological or chemical attack – that was the sneaky thing to do.

He’d bought this cabin high in the hills above Saint John nearly fifteen years ago, and had spent most of his spare time building his defenses and ensuring that he would be fully stocked in the event that his fears came to pass.

They’d laughed at him long and hard for years down at the garage. Jake Forbes in particular had ridden him constantly, calling him a paranoid freak, and taking every opportunity to ask what he was wasting his paycheck on this week.

But who is laughing now?

He almost hadn’t been given enough warning. It was only by luck that the storm didn’t start until he’d got home from his shift. The first green flake had fallen as he walked from his truck to the front door. Old Ben loped over to welcome him home and a flake landed on his nose. The old dog yelped and started to run in circles. It was only by sternly ordering him to stand still that Hiscock was able to get his training to overrule his pain. He examined the dog’s nose closely. Something green and bubbling festered in a weeping sore.

A second flake landed next to the dog’s left eye and immediately started to boil.

That had been enough for Hiscock. Less than five seconds later he was inside the house with the door securely shut, locking the poor dog outside.

Two minutes after that he climbed down into a basement that had been turned into the equivalent of a nuclear bunker. He locked it down and set the air filters going. He spent several minutes checking for any signs of the green spots on exposed skin and let out a sigh when he found that he was clear. It was only then that his breathing started to return to something near normal.

He fired up his satellite and CCTV links and tried to make sense of what was going on.

The first thing he did was check on the dog. Old Ben had been a companion for ten years now—a good gun dog and a faithful friend. It had pained him greatly to leave him outside.

But I couldn’t take the risk.

He had control of several cameras from a joystick and keypad on his main desk. The one in the yard showed green snow coming down – thicker now, coating the drive. A bundle lay in front of the door, a seething mass that bore no resemblance at all to a dog – the only sign that it was indeed Old Ben was the remnants of a tail that had, so far, escaped the terror. The dog’s body looked like green acid had been poured all over it. Flesh boiled and ran.

Yet the dog was amazingly still alive, still struggling to stand, mouth open in a howl of pain and fear. Hiscock was glad that he had not got round to installing microphones.

He watched for several minutes until the sight got too much. He switched to look at the rear view, where green snow fell on the forest that butted up