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The Pretenders
by E. T. Brother
A Novella Coming February 2013
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Prologue
I only have a little while to write before they close in on me. The pretenders have found me again and they will be closing in. I am ready for them and I will take out as many of them as I can before I die. I have known for sometime that they would be coming.
My name is Ryan Driscoll and this is my story, if it matters to you, and Im quite sure it doesn`t, because there probable aren`t really that many of you left anyway, not real humans. Oh sure there are still a lot of things that look like humans around but not that many actual humans though. Mostly the only things left are what I call the pretenders.
The pretenders look almost human, man they are good I got to tell you, they fool almost everyone, hell they even fooled me for a long time, Im sure. The pretenders are really hard to spot, you miss them unless you know what to look for, but they don`t fool me anymore because I know exactly what to look for.
I guess Im getting ahead of myself though, because I need to start this at the beginning, or you will begin to think Im a raving lunatic that needs to be locked up, Im sure some of you will still think Im a lunatic, even after you read my story. Hell, I would think I was a lunatic, if I hadn`t been living through this for the last year myself.
As I said earlier, my name is Ryan Driscoll, I was born on February the thirteenth 1965, Im 45 years old. Relax, Im not going to tell you about my boring childhood, I don`t have the time and it isn`t part of the story anyway, Im just telling you who I am and when I was born.
This story began about a year ago and up until then, I had lived a normal, most would probable say boring, life. I was a History Professor at a little college in Jackson, Virginia. The first time I saw one of the pretenders I almost missed it, I saw it on April the fifth last year.
I had finished teaching for the day and I was walking out to my car. A young blonde, she was very pretty an she was probable in her early twenties, was walking toward me from the parking lot. While I was looking at her, her face morphed into something that wasn`t human, for a split second, less time than the blink of an eye if you want to get technical about it, then it changed back to normal. Her face morphed into the face of a monster, a fiend, it scared me pretty bad, you could say it almost scared the shit out of me. Think about it for a minute and you will see why it scared me so bad, I see a pretty young woman and then her face morphs into the face of a monster, I think it would have scared anyone seeing that.
Let me tell you what that face looked like and maybe you will understand, the face was gray and decaying, the mouth was full of sharp fangs, the eyes were reptilian or snake eyes, and there were two horns coming out of the top of the head. Now maybe you can see why it scared me so bad even though it only lasted for a split second.
I blinked my eyes and her face had changed back to normal. I stopped walking and she walked past me. I turned around, looked at her, the woman turned her head, and looked back at me. She smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of fangs, and she winked at me. I turned around and hurried to my car. I looked back once but the woman was gone.
I tried to convince myself that I had not seen her face change, I had not seen the monster face, but the wink convinced me I had seen it. That wink also showed me the way to spot The Pretenders.
When she winked at me, her eyes changed to snake eyes, then changed back to normal eyes.
The eyes are what give the pretenders away, they flicker back and forth between normal eyes and snake eyes. Even if their face doesn`t change you can always spot one of the pretenders by looking at their eyes.
The pretenders can control the face well enough but they can`t keep their eyes from changing back and forth though. Some of The Pretenders have figured this out and they wear sunglasses to hide their eyes. It doesn`t fool me though, because I can still see their eyes change, if I watch them closely.
The young woman, or the thing that appeared to be a young woman, was the first of the pretenders that I saw, but it definitely wasn`t the last one. If it had of been the only one I ever saw, I probable could have convinced myself, that it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
I better get on with telling this story though because I don`t think I have much time left. I believe the pretenders will be here very soon so time is growing short for me to tell you everything.
I didn`t see another of the pretenders for five days, I had pretty well convinced myself, that my mind had played a trick on me that day. The second time I saw one of the pretenders was on April the tenth, I saw three of them walking together. I was leaving school for the day and I was walking out to my car, I looked up and saw a male and two females walking toward me, their faces looked normal, then they morphed into monster faces for a moment, before changing back to normal. It of course scared me, my heart stopped for a beat, then began to gallop in my chest, I got goosebumps, the hair on my arms and neck stood up, and a chill ran through me.
I stopped walking, looked at their eyes, and I saw that the eyes of all three of them kept flickering back and forth between normal and snake eyes. They walked past me, the male winked at me, then said, "take a picture it will last longer." All three of them laughed and kept walking.
I stood where I was for a moment, calming down, then I walked to my car. I kept trying to convince myself that I had not seen their faces change, but I kept coming back to the eyes, I couldn`t convince myself that I had not seen their eyes changing.
Over the course of the next week I spotted over 50 of the pretenders on campus. I came to realize that no one else seemed to be able to see them, I say this because when I would see one of the pretenders, I would look around and watch everyone else, no one ever reacted as if anything out of the ordinary was going on.
I saw a whole lot of them over the next week, over 150 of them, I realized the pretenders were beginning to spread, because I began to see them everywhere on campus. I went into town, the college is actually a few miles outside of Jackson, and I didn`t see one of the pretenders in town. I went all over Jackson and I couldn`t find even one.
I began to wonder if maybe the pretenders were working their way through the college first, before they spread out further, I began to think maybe I could stop it before it really spread, if I acted quickly enough. I knew someone had to do something before they took the whole college over and then began to spread.
I didn`t know if I could stop them or not, for one thing Im not a killer, and for another, I didn`t even know if they could be killed. I thought about it long and hard and decided the monsters had to be stopped before they spread. No one else seemed to even see the pretenders, so I realized it was up to me to try to stop them, before they took over the entire college and then began to spread further.
I began to work on a plan to stop these monsters, if they could be stopped. I thought up a number of things, then would reject them, when I realized they wouldn`t work.
What I finally came up with was, I would do it during the final assembly of the year, right before the final exams. The assembly would be on the Friday just before finals began on Monday. I knew everyone would be there because it is mandatory for all faculty, staff, and the students to attend. I knew if I was going to be able to stop it, then I would have to do it, when everyone was in the same place.
I began to devise a plan on how I could do it. The assembly was going to be held in the gym, the gym is made of wood mostly, so I knew with a little help it would burn nicely.
I came up with a plan to steal gas from the motor pool, then use it around the gym, I would chain the three doors locked once everyone was inside, and start a fire.
After I decided what I was going to do, I got a number of chains for the doors, stole gas everyday after the motor pool closed, and I watched the pretenders continue to spread.
By Thursday, the day before the assembly, there were over 500 of them on campus. The pretenders were everywhere I looked, over 500 of 990 that where a part of the college, were no longer human.
I went back into town numerous times over several weeks, and never found one of these monsters in town, so I was pretty sure they had not moved out any further than the college.
I made my final preparations the night before the assembly, by moving the gas into place all around the gym and camouflaging it., then I went home to wait.
I didn`t sleep a wink that night, I kept going back and forth in my mind, whether I should do it or not, I kept coming back to the fact that quite a few of the people in that gym would be human. I went back and forth on it all night, and didn`t decide what I was going to do, until I walked out of my house that morning.
When I walked out of the house, I decided to run. I know if I had of went through with it and set the gym on fire, I would have ended it right there, the pretenders would not have spread and taken over as they have, but Im not a killer Im a history professor, or I was anyway. Think about it for a minute, could you have killed almost 500 people that you knew were still human, you might have been able to do it, but I couldn`t.
I got in the car, drove off campus, and headed to town. I stopped by my bank and closed my account. I got them to give me 500 dollars in cash and write a cashiers check for the rest of it.
I didn`t know where I was going when I left the bank, other than the fact that I was going to go a long ways away from Jackson, I started going west. I drove all the way to Texas before I finally stopped running, I ended up in a little spot in the road called Jonesville, it is so small it isn`t even on the map.
I thought maybe I had escaped the pretenders, I thought maybe they would stay in Jackson, but about three months after I got to Jonesville, I saw one of the pretenders in the corner store.
I walked into the store, looked at the clerk, he looked normal, and I began to turn my head. His face morphed into a monsters face, I spun toward him, and the clerks face was normal . I looked at him for a long time, I began to think that maybe I had imagined it, I got ready to turn, and his eyes changed to snake eyes. I turned and ran out of the store.
I ran into a little out lady, as I was running out of the store, I was able to catch her before she fell down. I got ready to apologize to her, when her eyes changed, I shoved her away, and she fell to the ground. The monster screamed, "what the hell is the matter with you, have you gone crazy," I didn`t answer it. I ran to my car, got in, and drove away as fast as I could.
I drove northwest and went into the wilderness. I got away from civilization and went into the wilderness, I went as far into the wilderness as I could get.
I couldn`t tell you where I am, because I don`t know, that is how far away from everything that I have gone. Im holed up in a little remote cabin.
I thought I had gotten away from the pretenders, I even began to let myself believe it, but two hours ago I saw the first of the pretenders out here. I walked out onto the front porch, saw a deer standing about 50 feet away, the deer turned toward me, and its head morphed into a monsters head. The deer stood there a moment, then it ran off, I knew the pretenders had found me. I knew the deer, the pretender was going off to let the others know I was in the cabin.
I looked around, spotted a squirrel up in a tree, the squirrels head morphed into a monsters head for a moment, then it changed back to normal. I thought about running then I decided against it. I told you I thought I had escaped the pretender, what I didn`t tell you, is that I made preparation just in case they ever found me. I will get to the preparation shortly but I have a few more things I want to tell you about first.
I began to see more animals walking up out of the woods. I saw bears, deers, birds, squirrels, bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. I began to realize they had known where I was at all along, because all the animals heads morphed to show me they were the pretenders, then their heads changed back to normal. Within an hour, the number of animals had grown to over a thousand, I call them animals, but they are no longer animals, they are monsters, they are the pretenders. I came back in the cabin and began to write this.
The pretenders are outside right now, surrounding the cabin, I just went out on the roof a moment ago, as far as I can see in all direction, I see the pretenders everywhere. There must be thousands of them in every direction, I didn`t see any that look like a human yet, but Im sure they are on the way.
I believe the pretenders that are outside, are waiting for the ones that appear to be human to get here, then they will all move in. I told you I made preparation just in case this happened, well Im going to tell you about the preparations.
I have enough dynamite wired up around this place to kill everything within a mile radius in all directions. When I hit the button, there wont be anything left of this mountain but a gigantic smoking crater. I wont let them get me and Im going to take as many of them with me as I can take.
I hear vehicles coming now, Im going to go up on the roof and have a look around.
I just went on the roof and had a look around, the reason I can hear vehicles is, because there must be hundreds of them coming this way. The pretenders, the ones that look like humans, are on their way. I don`t have long now, but I will wait until they get here, before I blow this place.
I did make one other preparation since I have been here, it might save me, but I sort of doubt it. I can hope it will save me, anyway, I built a bomb shelter under the cabin, it isn`t much but it might just be enough. Maybe I will live, maybe I wont, but I think this story will make it, even if I don`t. I will put this story in a separate safe box to protect it, Im going to go down into the bomb shelter now, because The Pretenders are arriving. If I survive I`ll be back.
To be continued in The Pretenders coming February 2013
The Pretenders
by E. T. Brother
A Novella Coming February 2013
****
Prologue
I only have a little while to write before they close in on me. The pretenders have found me again and they will be closing in. I am ready for them and I will take out as many of them as I can before I die. I have known for sometime that they would be coming.
My name is Ryan Driscoll and this is my story, if it matters to you, and Im quite sure it doesn`t, because there probable aren`t really that many of you left anyway, not real humans. Oh sure there are still a lot of things that look like humans around but not that many actual humans though. Mostly the only things left are what I call the pretenders.
The pretenders look almost human, man they are good I got to tell you, they fool almost everyone, hell they even fooled me for a long time, Im sure. The pretenders are really hard to spot, you miss them unless you know what to look for, but they don`t fool me anymore because I know exactly what to look for.
I guess Im getting ahead of myself though, because I need to start this at the beginning, or you will begin to think Im a raving lunatic that needs to be locked up, Im sure some of you will still think Im a lunatic, even after you read my story. Hell, I would think I was a lunatic, if I hadn`t been living through this for the last year myself.
As I said earlier, my name is Ryan Driscoll, I was born on February the thirteenth 1965, Im 45 years old. Relax, Im not going to tell you about my boring childhood, I don`t have the time and it isn`t part of the story anyway, Im just telling you who I am and when I was born.
This story began about a year ago and up until then, I had lived a normal, most would probable say boring, life. I was a History Professor at a little college in Jackson, Virginia. The first time I saw one of the pretenders I almost missed it, I saw it on April the fifth last year.
I had finished teaching for the day and I was walking out to my car. A young blonde, she was very pretty an she was probable in her early twenties, was walking toward me from the parking lot. While I was looking at her, her face morphed into something that wasn`t human, for a split second, less time than the blink of an eye if you want to get technical about it, then it changed back to normal. Her face morphed into the face of a monster, a fiend, it scared me pretty bad, you could say it almost scared the shit out of me. Think about it for a minute and you will see why it scared me so bad, I see a pretty young woman and then her face morphs into the face of a monster, I think it would have scared anyone seeing that.
Let me tell you what that face looked like and maybe you will understand, the face was gray and decaying, the mouth was full of sharp fangs, the eyes were reptilian or snake eyes, and there were two horns coming out of the top of the head. Now maybe you can see why it scared me so bad even though it only lasted for a split second.
I blinked my eyes and her face had changed back to normal. I stopped walking and she walked past me. I turned around, looked at her, the woman turned her head, and looked back at me. She smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of fangs, and she winked at me. I turned around and hurried to my car. I looked back once but the woman was gone.
I tried to convince myself that I had not seen her face change, I had not seen the monster face, but the wink convinced me I had seen it. That wink also showed me the way to spot The Pretenders.
When she winked at me, her eyes changed to snake eyes, then changed back to normal eyes.
The eyes are what give the pretenders away, they flicker back and forth between normal eyes and snake eyes. Even if their face doesn`t change you can always spot one of the pretenders by looking at their eyes.
The pretenders can control the face well enough but they can`t keep their eyes from changing back and forth though. Some of The Pretenders have figured this out and they wear sunglasses to hide their eyes. It doesn`t fool me though, because I can still see their eyes change, if I watch them closely.
The young woman, or the thing that appeared to be a young woman, was the first of the pretenders that I saw, but it definitely wasn`t the last one. If it had of been the only one I ever saw, I probable could have convinced myself, that it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
I better get on with telling this story though because I don`t think I have much time left. I believe the pretenders will be here very soon so time is growing short for me to tell you everything.
I didn`t see another of the pretenders for five days, I had pretty well convinced myself, that my mind had played a trick on me that day. The second time I saw one of the pretenders was on April the tenth, I saw three of them walking together. I was leaving school for the day and I was walking out to my car, I looked up and saw a male and two females walking toward me, their faces looked normal, then they morphed into monster faces for a moment, before changing back to normal. It of course scared me, my heart stopped for a beat, then began to gallop in my chest, I got goosebumps, the hair on my arms and neck stood up, and a chill ran through me.
I stopped walking, looked at their eyes, and I saw that the eyes of all three of them kept flickering back and forth between normal and snake eyes. They walked past me, the male winked at me, then said, "take a picture it will last longer." All three of them laughed and kept walking.
I stood where I was for a moment, calming down, then I walked to my car. I kept trying to convince myself that I had not seen their faces change, but I kept coming back to the eyes, I couldn`t convince myself that I had not seen their eyes changing.
Over the course of the next week I spotted over 50 of the pretenders on campus. I came to realize that no one else seemed to be able to see them, I say this because when I would see one of the pretenders, I would look around and watch everyone else, no one ever reacted as if anything out of the ordinary was going on.
I saw a whole lot of them over the next week, over 150 of them, I realized the pretenders were beginning to spread, because I began to see them everywhere on campus. I went into town, the college is actually a few miles outside of Jackson, and I didn`t see one of the pretenders in town. I went all over Jackson and I couldn`t find even one.
I began to wonder if maybe the pretenders were working their way through the college first, before they spread out further, I began to think maybe I could stop it before it really spread, if I acted quickly enough. I knew someone had to do something before they took the whole college over and then began to spread.
I didn`t know if I could stop them or not, for one thing Im not a killer, and for another, I didn`t even know if they could be killed. I thought about it long and hard and decided the monsters had to be stopped before they spread. No one else seemed to even see the pretenders, so I realized it was up to me to try to stop them, before they took over the entire college and then began to spread further.
I began to work on a plan to stop these monsters, if they could be stopped. I thought up a number of things, then would reject them, when I realized they wouldn`t work.
What I finally came up with was, I would do it during the final assembly of the year, right before the final exams. The assembly would be on the Friday just before finals began on Monday. I knew everyone would be there because it is mandatory for all faculty, staff, and the students to attend. I knew if I was going to be able to stop it, then I would have to do it, when everyone was in the same place.
I began to devise a plan on how I could do it. The assembly was going to be held in the gym, the gym is made of wood mostly, so I knew with a little help it would burn nicely.
I came up with a plan to steal gas from the motor pool, then use it around the gym, I would chain the three doors locked once everyone was inside, and start a fire.
After I decided what I was going to do, I got a number of chains for the doors, stole gas everyday after the motor pool closed, and I watched the pretenders continue to spread.
By Thursday, the day before the assembly, there were over 500 of them on campus. The pretenders were everywhere I looked, over 500 of 990 that where a part of the college, were no longer human.
I went back into town numerous times over several weeks, and never found one of these monsters in town, so I was pretty sure they had not moved out any further than the college.
I made my final preparations the night before the assembly, by moving the gas into place all around the gym and camouflaging it., then I went home to wait.
I didn`t sleep a wink that night, I kept going back and forth in my mind, whether I should do it or not, I kept coming back to the fact that quite a few of the people in that gym would be human. I went back and forth on it all night, and didn`t decide what I was going to do, until I walked out of my house that morning.
When I walked out of the house, I decided to run. I know if I had of went through with it and set the gym on fire, I would have ended it right there, the pretenders would not have spread and taken over as they have, but Im not a killer Im a history professor, or I was anyway. Think about it for a minute, could you have killed almost 500 people that you knew were still human, you might have been able to do it, but I couldn`t.
I got in the car, drove off campus, and headed to town. I stopped by my bank and closed my account. I got them to give me 500 dollars in cash and write a cashiers check for the rest of it.
I didn`t know where I was going when I left the bank, other than the fact that I was going to go a long ways away from Jackson, I started going west. I drove all the way to Texas before I finally stopped running, I ended up in a little spot in the road called Jonesville, it is so small it isn`t even on the map.
I thought maybe I had escaped the pretenders, I thought maybe they would stay in Jackson, but about three months after I got to Jonesville, I saw one of the pretenders in the corner store.
I walked into the store, looked at the clerk, he looked normal, and I began to turn my head. His face morphed into a monsters face, I spun toward him, and the clerks face was normal . I looked at him for a long time, I began to think that maybe I had imagined it, I got ready to turn, and his eyes changed to snake eyes. I turned and ran out of the store.
I ran into a little out lady, as I was running out of the store, I was able to catch her before she fell down. I got ready to apologize to her, when her eyes changed, I shoved her away, and she fell to the ground. The monster screamed, "what the hell is the matter with you, have you gone crazy," I didn`t answer it. I ran to my car, got in, and drove away as fast as I could.
I drove northwest and went into the wilderness. I got away from civilization and went into the wilderness, I went as far into the wilderness as I could get.
I couldn`t tell you where I am, because I don`t know, that is how far away from everything that I have gone. Im holed up in a little remote cabin.
I thought I had gotten away from the pretenders, I even began to let myself believe it, but two hours ago I saw the first of the pretenders out here. I walked out onto the front porch, saw a deer standing about 50 feet away, the deer turned toward me, and its head morphed into a monsters head. The deer stood there a moment, then it ran off, I knew the pretenders had found me. I knew the deer, the pretender was going off to let the others know I was in the cabin.
I looked around, spotted a squirrel up in a tree, the squirrels head morphed into a monsters head for a moment, then it changed back to normal. I thought about running then I decided against it. I told you I thought I had escaped the pretender, what I didn`t tell you, is that I made preparation just in case they ever found me. I will get to the preparation shortly but I have a few more things I want to tell you about first.
I began to see more animals walking up out of the woods. I saw bears, deers, birds, squirrels, bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. I began to realize they had known where I was at all along, because all the animals heads morphed to show me they were the pretenders, then their heads changed back to normal. Within an hour, the number of animals had grown to over a thousand, I call them animals, but they are no longer animals, they are monsters, they are the pretenders. I came back in the cabin and began to write this.
The pretenders are outside right now, surrounding the cabin, I just went out on the roof a moment ago, as far as I can see in all direction, I see the pretenders everywhere. There must be thousands of them in every direction, I didn`t see any that look like a human yet, but Im sure they are on the way.
I believe the pretenders that are outside, are waiting for the ones that appear to be human to get here, then they will all move in. I told you I made preparation just in case this happened, well Im going to tell you about the preparations.
I have enough dynamite wired up around this place to kill everything within a mile radius in all directions. When I hit the button, there wont be anything left of this mountain but a gigantic smoking crater. I wont let them get me and Im going to take as many of them with me as I can take.
I hear vehicles coming now, Im going to go up on the roof and have a look around.
I just went on the roof and had a look around, the reason I can hear vehicles is, because there must be hundreds of them coming this way. The pretenders, the ones that look like humans, are on their way. I don`t have long now, but I will wait until they get here, before I blow this place.
I did make one other preparation since I have been here, it might save me, but I sort of doubt it. I can hope it will save me, anyway, I built a bomb shelter under the cabin, it isn`t much but it might just be enough. Maybe I will live, maybe I wont, but I think this story will make it, even if I don`t. I will put this story in a separate safe box to protect it, Im going to go down into the bomb shelter now, because The Pretenders are arriving. If I survive I`ll be back.
To be continued in The Pretenders coming February 2013