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Charade
Seventy four

Seventy four

It was a bedroom, less the furniture.

Rolling to a stop on his stomach with his eyes searching every corner of the room, there were no aliens to Cooper’s disappointment. Where the hell had the thing gone?

The soldier rose to his feet and prowled the room, crouched low over the gun. This was one slick little alien and Casey could not help but admire the creature. Still, he was certain he would eventually kill the little shit.

Moving to the closet, he opened the door and found only dust and an old shirt hanging from a hook. He closed the door and leaned against the wall as he thought. Where could the alien have hidden? There was no time for the thing to run to the first floor and he would have heard a commotion from the actors if that had happened.

It had to be on the second floor.

There had been no time for the alien to force the door to the computer room. It was not hanging from the ceiling; he smiled to himself and the frustration lessened.

Oddly, the sight of the lights destroying the exterior cameras came to his mind. He had thought the aliens had destroyed the cameras to cover their activities outside the house. What if they were trying to hide something more? Unless he physically searched the roof... Cooper shook his head in disgust.

On the roof.

He crossed the room and ripped aside a curtain, exposing the window. The yard, streaks of light from the first-floor windows reaching into the dark, lay below. Leaning close, Cooper checked for an edge the alien could have climbed on to escape notice.

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When he saw nothing, Cooper checked the window latch, found it open, then turned the simple device closed. The alien would not be coming in through this window.

He walked to the next set of curtains and pulled them aside. Cooper jerked back in shock. The alien was standing outside the window looking at him. It held something in its hand; the object flaring as he raised his gun to bear on the creature.

The window disintegrated with shards of razor-sharp glass fanning into the bedroom with virtually no sound. Cooper felt the glass stab into his exposed flesh and more shards dig into his clothing. His glasses saved his eyes, and he fired a shot before his arm fell to his side of its own accord.

The alien was still outside the window, one hand clutching the combing for support.

Cooper spun away from the window once again, placing his back to a wall and fumbling with his left hand to claim the gun from his useless right hand. Looking down, he saw silver slivers jutting out from the skin of his hand and wrist. One or more of the shards must have cut a tendon. Dark blood was dripping from his fingers and splattering on the wood floor.

His breathing was louder than the noise of the battle. Thank God for silencers or the whole family would have been up here by now. Holding the gun with his left hand, he aimed towards the window, then moved away from the wall and fire a couple shots. Immediately, he risked a quick peek out the window.

The alien was gone.

He risked a longer look out the window and saw no sign the alien had ever been standing on the false roof below the exterior level of the window. Half expecting to get his head blown off, he craned out the window and looked along the wall. The creature had disappeared.

“Son of a bitch,” Cooper muttered darkly the pulled back into the room and regained his balance.

He froze, acutely aware of how fast the alien could move when motivated.

Standing only a few feet away, at the other window, the alien regarded Cooper as it held the tube weapon aimed at his head. The sight of fluid seeping from a wound in the alien’s shoulder was no consolation to Cooper.