The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,202

of the atmosphere. Just as the ship - it had to be a ship - passed, the screams of the crowd took over. People began panicking, some running toward the parking lot, others to the marsh islands further out, but most simply tried to get away from what could only be an alien spaceship.

Hailey just watched, shock and fascination rooting her feet to the ground. Before her eyes, the thing sailed gracefully toward the earth like a diver aiming for the sea, except it missed. With a flare of light, the leading point slammed into the ground, gouging a wound across the national park to the southeast. What looked like splinters had to be trees, and what looked like a scuff was probably a trench deep enough to drive a semi through.

She gasped and pressed a hand over her mouth, pushing forward for a better look, but didn't make it. One pace before the guard rail, the ground shook, heaving hard enough to make her stagger to one knee. Then it rumbled violently enough to tilt the axis of the world, or so it felt. Aftershocks boomed through the air, sounding like Seneca guns. Glancing to her left, she saw the older couple clutching each other, their bottle of wine spilling across the quaint picnic blanket.

"Are you ok?" she yelled.

The white-haired woman looked at her blankly, but the man nodded, waving one finger toward the craft. "It's burning," was all he said.

She glanced at the nerd to her right. He seemed fine, rushing to focus his cameras on the spectacle. Then, on impulse, she grabbed the elderly couple's toy-store telescope. Turning it toward the crash site, Hailey tried to focus, spinning the knobs until the side of the vessel became row upon row of windows, divots turned into massive bays, and insanity became visible.

"Can you see?" the old man asked.

"Yeah." Hailey tore her eye away and looked at him, but he just pointed back at the ship.

"Go on, girl. Your eyes are better than mine. What is it?"

She didn't have to look to answer that. "It's a ship. It's a spaceship."

The woman gasped. "Aliens?"

"I don't know," Hailey admitted, her voice shaking. "But what else could it be?"

She looked again. In the distance, sirens were loud, audible even over the cacophony of the crowd. In the eyepiece of the telescope, something moved. Swiveling the device on the stand, she watched bodies pour from the hatches. Some staggered, some were carried, but all of them walked on two legs. Silhouetted against the flames of the crash, she could only make out basic forms, but she tried to relay everything to those around her.

"They look kinda like humans, and a lot of them seem hurt. I see at least thirty, and more are still coming out. I think some are dead. They have long arms and legs, willowy like supermodels or something, but they look like humans!"

From the other side, the nerd spoke up. "Well, they definitely aren't greys. You think it could be us? Like, a Soviet test that failed, or something?"

"I don't know," Hailey breathed, focused on the wreckage. "That ship is huge. It's like," she fell silent as she counted, her lips moving with the numbers. "I think around twenty stories tall, if those are windows."

"That's almost the size of a town," the nerd gasped.

That was when the emergency vehicles began to arrive. Not at the crash site, but at the beach. Paramedics moved through the remaining people, checking for injuries, and police secured the area. The public area was quickly cordoned off to keep the civilians away from the military vehicles driving out toward the ship. It was at least a mile away, maybe more.

Hailey kept her eyes on the people moving around the ship, shocked to see them acting just like she'd expect. They gathered in clumps, a few tending the wounded. The dead were moved to the side, and more were escorted through the hatches. Over and over, the process repeated, the strangers looking as confused as the viewers on the beach.

When the military arrived, they did so with guns aimed. Everyone down there had guns - except the people on the ship. Hailey kept a running monologue for those around her, trying to put what she saw into words. The survivors of the crash were forced to kneel on the ground, a few groups - mostly males - got pressed face down in the dirt and zip-cuffed. In truth, it looked just like some news report