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I threw open the front door and nervously tripped down the uneven pathhich spiralled back doards the centre of the village The gradient was steep and it was hard to control my speed I wanted to sprint back to Clare but I knew that I had to conserve ot back to her house she would still be there and that she&039;d be as alert, lucid and emotional as she had been when I&039;d left her

It was nine o&039;clock

I allowed lance back over ain filled with pain I knew that I alking away from the house, and froe black alien ships appeared and flew out froe and out towards the ocean Then another ship, lower this tihtly different This machine had a rounder, more bulbous head than any other I&039;d seen before and the sight of this new arrival increased my anxiety The words of the alien I had killed still echoed round ht that I was of no concern to the invading alien hordes provided little comfort

How many other people nearby now remained to helplessly watch the alien invaders take hold of our planet and make it their own? Their occupation had been so quick, unexpected and perfectly planned and executed with such precision that there had been nothing anyone could have done to avoid our total domination By the time that the alert had been sounded and the need for reaction had arisen, those left capable of free thought and rebellion had already been weakened, smashed and shattered to a point far beyond that at which any recovery ht ever have been possible No matter how I looked at it, I was in a hopeless situation

The ship which had just flown overhead stopped

Hanging high and e it hovered ominously It waited there, open and vulnerable but safe in the knowledge that there was nothing left ofsee over the defenceless world that it had helped invade and capture I, on the other hand, felt increasingly nervous and exposed out on my own The alien had warnedthat he&039;d talked about?

I had no option but to keepfurther into the village and closer to the ship Froe the size and scale of the thing and I couldn&039;t tell whether it was hovering asilently appeared from the base of the rounded front end of the , stem-like object appeared Froth and width of a telegraph pole I stopped walking and started running and then sprinting, desperate to get out of the way of whatever ain as I ran, just in time to see the stem retract back into the ship Once it had disappeared inside and the hatch was closed the ship turned and ht froines had faded fro

It was about a an

I became aware of a noise The world had been s but now, unexpectedly, I could definitely hear so from all sides It was the sound of footsteps

And then I saw the people

As if they had been perfectly choreographed, the front door of every occupied building for as far as I could see suddenly opened and the people inside stepped out onto the street They waited outside their houres nearest on their left, they walked out into the e and began to march In less than a couple of ures had fore with an unnervingand stood and watched and was ignored

The endless queue of people that walked past roups of four individuals that moved in perfect step and perfect time with all the others Their faces were blank and expressionless - the same vacant look as that I&039;d seen on Rob&039;s face when I&039;d left hi From side-streets and alleyways more and more people appeared and joined the rabbed the arure and pulled it out of formation It was an elderly ed He stopped walking but re in the same direction as the rest of the people No-one seemed to have reacted to his sudden disappearance

&039;Can you hear me?&039; I hissed, afraid to talk too loudly The man didn&039;t react I took hold of his chin and turned his head so that he was facing ain, and again he turned back to face the direction of the snaking coluo of hihties at a guess, sprinted back to take his place ae Within seconds he was back in formation - in perfect position and faultlesslythe speed and pace of the others

I climbed onto the top of a parked car and, from there, clambered onto a skip and then onto the roof of a truck Froe ahead andarea I felt uneasy and vulnerable up there I couldn&039;t see them, but I could sense thousands of aliens nearby The fact that the creatures were nowhere to be seen intensifiedfor the despicable bastards to have taken my ho else They hadn&039;t even had the decency to show their faces and allow the few of us that remained the chance to exact soe

The level of noise in the village was still low but had increased noticeably over the last few h, I saw countless colu on the centre of Thatcha perfect tie the individual queues stopped and cole i back to face ures spilled down the hill I knew that Robert had to be a I could do He was already dead, as were Joe Porter, James, Stephanie and all the other people I knew Each one of them would now be just another face in this massive crowd or, I presumed, in another similar crowd elsewhere Even my precious Siobhan would be in there somewhere

As quickly and unexpectedly as the un, it stopped And as soon as the movement stopped, so the sound also died The entire population of Thatcha to attention - motionless but for a few unsteady movements and sways - and coround for a couple oftothe road that led to Clare&039;s and tried desperately to keep calm and in control I knew that what I had just witnessed would surely be happening in every town, city and village throughout the entire country, probably the world And it was obvious why the people were being rounded up in this way This was the beginning of the cull that the alien had spoken of Millions of people were being rounded up to die and there wasn&039;t a bloody thing I could do to help even one of thehth my mind I forcedthather safe