Lion Man's Captive, Kaitlyn O'Connor [top fiction books of all time .txt] 📗

was smaller than a gnat and moving in mass andeating herclothing!

Sucking in a sharp breath,Anya swatted at the dark patches several times and then abruptlyleapt to her feet and began to strip frantically. It didn’t takemuch effort. Her clothes seemed to fall off of her even as shetugged at them. She saw dark patches attach themselves to her braand panties. The momentary reluctance she felt aboutdiscarding those vanished as soon as she saw bare patches of skin.

She pitched them, beating franticallyat her hair, brushing at her arms and legs and dashed off a fewfeet to examine her skin. Somewhat relieved when she discovered sheseemed to have rid herself of whatever it was, she looked back tothe spot where she’d discarded her clothing just in time to see thelast scraps vanish.

“What the f?” she gaspedand then glanced around uneasily to see if anyone was around to seeher standing stark naked by the side of the road.

She didn’t see anyone. Shedid see the dark clouds of whateverthehell those things were, andwherever they settled … dust. The parking lot of cars was half gonealready. The asphalt was turning to powder. She stared at the phenomenadisbelievingly for a few moments and then glanced up and down whatremained of the highway. To the south, she could still see cars andtrucks that seemed intact, at least in the sense that they werethere. To the north, where that thing had landed, even the overpassshe remembered from the night before was gone.

“Oh my god!” She couldn’tentirely comprehend what seemed to be happening, but the worldseemed to be vanishing.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she whippedaround and began jogging south. She had no destination in mind—notin the forefront of her mind anyway—but running away from what washappening seemed imperative.

She quickly discovered that no amountof fear was sufficient to make her completely unaware of hernakedness. Everything on her body seemed to jiggle when she’d nevernoticed it before—when she was wearing clothes! Her breasts feltlike f’ing yoyos! Clamping one arm over her breasts, more for thesake of minimizing discomfort than due to any sense of modesty,Anya struggled with the imbalance that created in her stride andkept going.

That thing, she realized after a while,might not be a bomb like anything she’d ever seen or heard of, butit was a bomb.They’d been invaded by aliens!

It wasn’t until Anya was so breathlessfrom running that she thought she would pass out if she didn’t stopand catch her breath that she realized that she wasn’t outrunningwhaterverthehell was eating everything in sight. At some pointwhile she was frantically trying to save herself, the voracioushoard had swept past her.

A whimper of sheer terror escaped herwhen she glanced around to see how much headway she was making andsaw that the dark swarm was well on its way to devouring the carsand the highway beside and in front of her. Gasping hoarsely,trying to gather enough spit into her mouth to swallow, she veeredsharply away from the highway, sprawled out in the ditch and thenclawed her way up the other side. Thankfully the fence, designed tokeep wildlife off the highway, was just wire, not barbed wire. Shestill scraped her hide going over it. Ignoring the sting, sheplunged into the woods.

She became instantly aware of the lackof protective clothing and shoes. Branches slapped at her, stingingher skin. Briars caught at her and left claw marks as she pushedthrough them, and the pine cones, rotting leaves and branches,rocks, and tree roots nearly crippled her as they dug into the softsoles of her feet.

She began to feel a lot better onceshe’d gone far enough into the woods that she could no longer seethe destruction behind her, however. The metal, clothing, andasphalt eating insects, or whatever they were, didn’t seeminterested in her or the woods around her.

That was odd, she realized. Why wouldthey eat things like that and not flesh orvegetation—apparently?

She frowned, uneasy with herassessment, but there was no getting around the fact that thethings had been on her bare skin and hadn’t eaten holes in her orthat the trees and plants didn’t seem effected.

Did that mean she was safe ornot?

She didn’t feel safe. She just feltless in danger—for the moment—more able to notice her misery. Shewas so dehydrated she felt like she was going to dry up to a husk.Her stomach felt like it was going to gnaw a hole in her backboneand she hurt everywhere. Her skin was stinging all over the placefrom scratches. Her feet were killing her and she felt every bruisefrom the falls she’d taken, every sore muscle she hadn’t worked outin effing forever!

It occurred to her that she was goingto be a hell of a lot worse off if she got lost in the woods butthe alternative of turning around and testing her theory that thealien bugs wouldn’t eat her didn’t appeal.

She could see the glint of the risingsun through the trees and knew if she put that to her left shouldershe would be heading south—toward home—but would she be any saferthere? If she was right, and she was afraid she was, those thingshad landed all over the place. Was there any place on earth thatwould be safe?

Unfortunately, nothing came to mind,but she realized she needed to get water, at least, or she wasgoing to die whether those things got to her or not.

God! She was so sorry she’d droppedthat damned twinky and coke! Why hadn’t she had the presence ofmind to hang on to them?

She’d been trudging south for a coupleof hours, by her stomach’s reckoning, when she heard a thrashingnoise that made her freeze. It leapt instantly to mind, althoughshe’d spared no thought for it before, that the woods belonged to alot of animals she didn’t want a close encounter with. After tryingto determine the direction the noise was coming from, she peereduneasily through the foliage, trying to see what it was and decidewhether to run the other way or try to climb a tree or scream herhead off.

She didn’t actually make adecision. The moment her gaze finally focused on the brightlycolored, insect-like thing that was the size