Nightstalkers: The Extinction Event

Book 1: Nightstalkers

by Jasper T. Scott, Christian Bentulan

Genres: Alien Contact; Alien Invasion

Synopsis

FROM MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER JASPER T. SCOTT
They come out to hunt us at night…
Adam and Kimberly Hall are enjoying a quiet suburban life with their daughter, Crystal, and their dog, Bowser, when an emergency message flashes up on their phones—meteor impact imminent, seek immediate shelter.

Minutes later, the shock wave rages through South Austin like a hurricane, and they’re left to pick up the pieces. But as dusk begins to fall and horrific creatures come crawling out of the impact craters, they realize that they’re under attack, and the attackers are not from Earth.

After the initial encounters turn deadly for his neighbors, Adam realizes that they can’t stay in the city. He has an old Army buddy with a ranch in Texas Hill Country. They have to get there before it’s too late.

Nightstalkers is a post-apocalyptic invasion story for fans of The Last of Us and A Quiet Place.

 

Read more

Release date: July 18, 2023

Publisher: Anthem Press

Print pages: 464

Sample

Part One: Extinction Event

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 3

Chapter One
Saturday, May 13, 2024
Austin, Texas

The twenty-year-old cedar elm tree beside Adam Hall
shivered in the wind. Its leaves rustled and sent knitted
patterns of shadows across his lap and the deck where he sat.
The sun beamed down from a high angle, warming his
exposed skin despite the intermittent shade from the elm tree.
A fragrant smell wafted over from the two sixteen-ounce
T-Bone steaks sizzling quietly on the grill. Neighbors’
lawnmowers droned, and kids shouted as they threw footballs
around in their yards. Adam’s weary mind flooded with a rare
sense of calm and ease. Summer vacation was right around
the corner, and that meant no more dragging himself out of
bed at 6:00 AM to teach English to a surly group of
teenagers.
It had been a long couple of years. No sooner had the
pandemic ended than the war in Europe and inflation and
rising interest rates took over. Now banks were failing, and
Korea was test-firing missiles, and it all just seemed like the
world was careening from one crisis to the next. In Adam’s
experience, Americans felt that chaos more keenly than the
rest of the world, simply because when you’re on top, there’s
only one place left for you to go.
Added to that concern were all of his personal worries.
When would he and Kimberly ever get out of debt? Old
credit card debt and student loans burned like poison in his
veins.
And then there was the ever-present fear that there’d be
another school shooting, and that this time it would be his

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 4

school, or worse, his daughter’s.
Working as a high school English teacher with a seven-
year-old daughter at Menchaca Elementary not five miles
away gave Adam a unique perspective. He was afraid for his
daughter, afraid for his students, and afraid for himself.
Every now and then, that quiet loner in the back of the
class would look up from their desk, and for a fleeting
second, Adam would catch a glimpse of a familiar look
nestled in the shadows of a hoodie. It was the exact same
look he’d seen in the Army, on soldiers’ faces just before they
pulled the trigger. And he’d wonder: is my school next? Will I
miss the moment when those simmering waves of resentment
and teenage angst boil over into something deadly?
Adam had thought he was getting away from war when
he’d been honorably discharged in 2014, but now he was
facing down a whole new brand of terrorists, innocuously
disguised as good old American children and wearing the
brittle masks of social outcasts.
God save us, Adam thought to himself.
The elm tree shivered again, jarring him out of his
thoughts. He breathed out a shaky sigh and cracked his eyes
open to stare meaningfully at the can of Budweiser in his
hand, confidently wearing its Dallas Cowboys beer
koozie—blue and white, emblazoned with a football helmet
and a Texas lone star. Maybe next year they’d finally make it
to the Superbowl. The cowboys hadn’t been there since 1995.
Adam lifted his beer for a long gulp and let the cool,
fizzing liquid send a spreading wave of warmth through his
veins, clearing away his worries like cobwebs. Focus on the
positive, he thought to himself.
Three months ago, Kimberly had finally gotten that
promotion to regional sales manager at Masco, and now
actual savings were piling up in their accounts. Their debts
were shrinking steadily, and they’d doubled their monthly

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 5
contributions to Crystal’s college fund. They were even
starting to put aside money for that kitchen reno that they’d
been planning ever since they’d bought this home seven years
ago.
The back door slid open, and Adam twisted around to see
Kim standing in the opening. Her blonde hair was tucked
into a ponytail and shone like gold in the sun. Pink lips
curved into a smile. Even after nine years of marriage, his
heart still skipped a beat at the sight of her. He’d popped the
question just as soon as he got out of the Army. She’d
tearfully accepted, and they’d had a quiet backyard ceremony
at her parents’ place just three months later. In some ways,
getting his tibia shattered by a bullet was the best thing that
had ever happened to him. He had a steel plate in his leg and
pain that made him limp if he walked too much, but
whenever his leg started acting up, he’d just smile, knowing
that it was worth every minute of the life that he and Kim
had built together.
“How are those steaks coming along?” Kim asked. “The
salad and potatoes are ready.” Her smile faded to a look of
mild concern with some commotion behind her. The frantic
skittering of claws on laminate floors was her only warning.
She half-turned—
And a big golden blur crashed between her and the open
door, almost knocking her over.
“Bowser!” Kim shouted indignantly after him.
The dog flew across the deck, launching himself from the
top of the stairs, almost in time to catch the small red Nerf
dart that landed in the grass ahead of him. The six-month-old
Golden Retriever gobbled it up and went dashing back up the
steps to the sound of Crystal’s giggling from the shadows of
the living room.
Kim turned her ire in their daughter’s direction as the dog
bounded back inside to deliver his prize. “Crystal! What did I

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 6
tell you about shooting that damn Nerf gun in the house?”
“But I shot it outside!” Crystal objected.
“From the inside!”
Adam fought to contain a growing smile before Kim
could see it. He failed. She crossed her arms over her chest
and glared. “Talk to your daughter, would you, Adam?”
“Sure thing, baby,” he said, nodding agreeably. “Crystal,
would you come out here, please?”
“Okay…” Crystal mumbled.
“Thank you,” Kim replied as she retreated from the open
doorway. “And let me know about those steaks!”
“I figure we’ve got about ten minutes left.” With that,
Adam heaved himself out of his folding lawn chair and went
to check on the grill. He opened the lid to a sudden blaze of
flames, smoke, and the sizzling roar of dripping fat which
only fanned the blaze higher. Adam snatched up the tongs to
flip the meat. Waves of smoke stung his eyes, and he realized
that Kim’s order of medium-well was going to be more like
burnt-to-hell. At least no one’s getting E. coli on my watch, Adam
thought as he shut the lid.
A soft creak from the wooden boards of the back deck
signaled Crystal’s arrival. Adam turned to face her with a
stern look.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at her feet. Bowser was
standing beside her with a goofy grin, wagging his tail and
glancing periodically at the toy gun. That dog was Crystal’s
best friend. She’d even given him his name. “Bowser” was a
side-effect of Crystal’s obsession with Mario Kart on her
Nintendo Switch, an obsession that had only grown worse
after the movie had come out.
Bowser caught a whiff of the barbecue, and he abruptly
stopped grinning. He looked to the source of the smell, his
eyes widening, nostrils twitching, then he smacked his lips
and looked pointedly at Adam.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 7
“Sit down, Bowie,” Adam said. Almost as an afterthought,
he nodded to Crystal and added, “You too, young lady.” He
gestured vaguely with his beer to the lawn chair beside his.
Both Crystal and Bowser did as they were told. Adam sat
back down beside Crystal and took another sip of his beer,
looking out over the lawn and the distant line of his peeling
wooden fence. He’d been dragging his feet for a couple of
years about sanding it down and repainting it, but this
summer he just knew Kim was going to be on his case about
it.
“Daddy, can I tell you something?”
“Shoot, kiddo.”
“Can we go to the pool today?”
Adam glanced at his daughter with one eyebrow raised.
The community pool was about a mile away. A two-minute
drive, but twenty minutes if you accounted for loading and
unloading all the gear they would need. And it was already
almost four in the afternoon. By the time dinner was done
and the table was cleared it would be five-thirty. The pool
would only be open for another hour after that.
“Not today, Crystal.”
“Please! I really want to go.”
Adam shook his head. “Not enough time.”
“Can we go tomorrow?”
Tomorrow. Sunday. He had a stack of essays to grade, and
then he had to prepare for class on Monday.
“Maybe,” Adam said, hoping to end the conversation
there. “But only if you help your mother with the dishes
tonight.”
“But!”
“No buts.”
“I hate dishes.”
“Don’t we all,” Adam said, lifting his beer for another sip.
“I’m bored,” Crystal declared. “There’s nothing to do.”

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 8
Sometimes Adam debated the wisdom of only having one
kid, but having come from a family of four siblings—two
boys, and two girls—he knew that they’d probably fight as
much as they kept each other company.
“You can play with Bowie out here if you want. Just don’t
be getting under your mother’s feet inside the house.”
“Okay,” Crystal said, her tone brightening suddenly. But
she made no move to get up from the chair, instead, she
stared over the lawn with him.
Bowser padded over and sat right in front of Adam to
make a more insistent plea.
“What’s up, Bowie?” Adam asked, playing dumb.
The dog’s head turned to look meaningfully at the big
stainless steel barbecue, then back to stare at Adam.
“Smells good, right? But that’s expensive meat, and you
still gotta prove to me that you’re gonna earn your keep
around here. I was promised a highly trainable dog, but
you’ve been peeing on my rugs and carpets ever since you
arrived. Do you know how much it costs to clean a rug? And
don’t even get me started with replacing the carpets.” Adam
shook his head ruefully and took a final sip to drain his beer.
Bowser gave the grill another mournful look and licked his
lips.
“He doesn’t know any better, Dad,” Crystal said.
“Why, because he’s just a dog?” Adam asked.
“Well, yesterday you forgot to put the seat up and you peed
on it.”
Adam raised an eyebrow and lifted an index finger from
his beer to wag it at his daughter. “That was Connor,
remember?”
The next-door neighbors were good friends of theirs.
Yesterday the Cooper family had come over for a friendly
game of poker. Connor, their eight-year-old boy, had a bad
habit of leaving the seat down when he peed.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 9

“Prove it,” Crystal said.
“You watch how you speak to me, young lady.”
“Sorry, Dad,” she mumbled.
Adam had to look away to hide another smile. Kids.
Sometimes he had to pretend to be mean when all he really
wanted to do was laugh. Can’t let my guard down, though, he
thought. Or before I know it she’s going to turn into one of those
smart-mouthed kids in my class.
Adam’s phone began vibrating in his pocket and a long,
high-pitched beep issued from the phone’s speaker, followed
by a pause and then another beep. Frowning to himself,
Adam shifted in his seat to pull the phone out of his shorts.
He expected to see an amber alert for some missing kid, but
what he actually saw made his eyes bulge and his blood run
cold.
Pop. Crystal fired the Nerf gun.
Bowser barked and tore down the steps to retrieve the
dart.
Emergency Alert
ASTEROID IMPACT IMMINENT ALONG GULF
COAST. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER ON HIGH
GROUND. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Bowser bounded up the steps and dropped a slobbered
Nerf dart at Crystal’s feet. Something glass shattered inside
the kitchen, followed by the muffled sound of Kim’s
exclamations. She must have looked at her phone.
Crystal began calmly loading another dart into the Nerf
gun.
Adam sat there like a lawn ornament, frozen and staring at
his phone.
Kim ripped the door open. “Adam!” she shouted.
Crystal twisted around to look, the alarm in her mother’s

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 10

voice catching her attention.
Lawnmowers suddenly stopped their droning, engines
dying into silence. Wives and husbands were shouting at each
other, and kids’ laughter cut off sharply. Brittle silence fell but
for the buzzing of cicadas and grasshoppers in the
background.
Adam’s heart was pounding loud and slow with big, heavy
beats that made each breath feel like it might be his last.
“What’s wrong?” Crystal asked.
“Adam, what are we going to do?” Kim asked, her voice
cracking with fear. She took a long step onto the deck,
reaching for their daughter and curling herself protectively
around Crystal.
“What is it?” Crystal asked again, sounding on the verge of
tears.
Adam saw that Kim’s body was actually shaking.
Bowser tossed his head and barked once, suddenly, as if
he’d just detected the source of the threat.
Adam’s mind raced, still drawing a blank as he stared at
the message on his phone, reading it yet again.
ASTEROID IMPACT IMMINENT ALONG GULF
COAST. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER ON HIGH
GROUND. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
How far is Austin from the coast? he wondered. A couple of
hundred miles, maybe? Is that enough? What’s the elevation of Austin?
Would it be enough?
His musings were interrupted by more barking from
Bowser, and this time the dog refused to shut up.
Kim took the Lord’s name in vain, and clapped a hand
over her mouth, straightening to point in the direction that
Bowser was barking. Adam heard and then saw some of the
neighbors also looking up at the sky and pointing. He

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 11

followed the commotion to its source—
And had to shade his eyes from the glare as a big, brightly-
glowing streak flashed across the sky, headed due south.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 12

Chapter Two

Bowser went on barking like a maniac. Austin’s tornado
sirens started up, whooping to a terrifying crescendo. The
meteor was already gone, leaving nothing but a fat, greasy
contrail to mark its passing.
Moments later, there came a blinding flash of light over
the horizon. Adam rocked back on his heels. Kim and Crystal
both screamed, sounds that were echoed by neighbors on all
sides of them.
Adam blinked furiously to clear his eyes. He knew they
didn’t have much time. “Get inside!” he shouted, spinning
around and stuffing his phone back into his pocket.
Kim yelped with fright and stumbled toward the open
door, half-carrying and half-dragging Crystal as she went.
Adam scooped their daughter into his arms and yelled,
“Go!” to his wife. Bowser darted between their legs, nearly
tripping them.
Kim vanished through the open door. Adam was right
behind her.
“Over there!” he ran for the kitchen island and landed
hard between it and the refrigerator. He planted his back
against the dishwasher and curled his body around Crystal. A
pile of broken glass and leafy greens from a garden salad
caught the corner of his eye.
Kim landed beside him a split second later. “What’s going
to happen?” she asked.
“Daddy, I’m scared!” Crystal cried.
“Shhh,” Adam soothed, whispering against the top of her

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 13

head, “It’s going to be okay.”
Kimberly’s blue eyes burned into his, quietly asking if that
was true. He averted his gaze, wondering how long they had
before the shock wave hit. It would all depend on how far
away the impact had been, and how large the asteroid was.
Was Austin safe? He desperately wanted to turn on the news
and see what was happening.
But that would mean leaving the shelter of the kitchen and
passing into range of the back windows and doors. There was
a chance that they could explode in a deadly hail of jagged
glass. What kind of velocity would the shock wave have when
it reached them? Would it be hot enough to cause burns, or
hotter still—enough to melt the flesh off their bones? Was
sheltering in the kitchen good enough?
Adam’s mind jumped to the Sorianos’ house across the
street. They had a pool in their backyard. What if that was
their only chance? To duck underwater just before the shock
wave hit.
Adam was frozen with indecision, his heart hammering in
his chest. He forced himself to calm down, using a trick he’d
learned in the army. Box breathing. Inhale for four seconds.
Hold for four. Exhale for four. Hold for four. In for four…
His heart rate slowed and his thoughts began to clear. The
emergency message had said to take shelter on high ground.
Why even bother saying that if the shock wave was going to
fry everyone anyway? There had to be at least a chance of
survival. Telling us to shelter on high ground means that it was a
water impact, and they’re expecting a tsunami.
“Maybe it’s over?” Kim suggested, looking up from her
knees.
He laid his cheek against Crystal’s head and tightened his
embrace, forcing her into an even smaller ball between his
legs. “It must still be coming. It takes time for shock waves to
travel.”

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 14
“How much time?” Kim asked. “Should we find a better
place to hide?” She began looking around frantically.
Adam hesitated before replying, feeling uncertain again.
Was there time to move somewhere else? “We’ll be safe
here,” he decided. He glanced around quickly as if to make
sure of that. No windows in sight. No clear angles for debris
to hit them. “We’re good,” he insisted, meeting his wife’s
gaze. “Keep your head down and close your eyes.” Kim
nodded and dropped her head to her knees, but Crystal did
the opposite, trying to look up. “You too, Christie.”
She tucked her chin, and Adam laid his cheek against her
head once more, squeezing his eyes shut, and waiting for the
end.
He heard a few sirens screaming, and fire engines honking.
Probably racing to the scenes of the car accidents caused by that
emergency alert. Bowser started barking again, sounding like he
was in the primary bedroom. Plates and glasses began to
rattle in the cupboards, and then the whole house began to
shake.
“Here it comes!” Adam shouted.
The pendant lights above the island winked out, and then
everything exploded. Glass shattered and whipped through
the air. Doors banged open, splintering their frames. Adam’s
ears popped and a vortex of hot air roared through the house
making his exposed skin tingle and sting with bits of dust and
rock that dug into him. Crystal screamed at the top of her
lungs. He couldn’t hear her, but he could feel the vibrations
humming through her body.
Adam’s ears popped again and the air grew still. It smelled
sharp and astringent, like the odor in the air after a
thunderstorm. The house creaked ominously, as if still
deciding whether or not it should remain standing. Dust
sifted down from the ceiling, and Crystal coughed.
“Is anyone hurt?” Adam asked.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 15
Neither Kim nor Crystal replied. He grabbed Crystal by
the shoulders, turning her to face him. She reached for him
with both arms, sobbing and shaking her head. She looked
terrified, her face ashen with dust.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
Crystal shook her head against his shoulder. “No,” she
mumbled.
Relief burst like a dam inside of him. He felt his eyes
burning, but he pushed the wave of emotion down and
twisted toward his wife. Kim stared at him, her jaw agape and
blue eyes wide. The air inside the house was sour and gray,
shifting with thick swirling clouds of dust.
“Is it over?” Kim croaked.
Adam nodded, and his wife blinked. Then her expression
crumbled, and she started to cry. He reached for her and she
fell against him. The three of them sat there, hugging it out at
the end of the world.
But it was over. It had to be. There was no way a tsunami
would make it this far. And his family was uninjured. It was
the best possible outcome. His house, on the other hand—
Adam looked up. He couldn’t see much from here—just a
slice of the living room to his right: the furniture was all piled
against the seventy-five-inch flatscreen that Kim had bought
him for his birthday in March. Now it hung askew on the
wall, and the screen was shattered and pierced in a hundred
different places by jutting shards of glass.
The house was trashed, and something told him that his
insurance wouldn’t cover meteor impacts.
“Bowser?” Crystal shouted suddenly.
No answer came but for the ongoing chorus of car alarms
and emergency sirens.
A sharp spike of dread lanced through Adam. Like the
cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, Bowser had finally found
his courage. But it was shit timing. They’d heard him barking

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 16
just before that shock wave hit. He’d probably been standing
at a window, watching as the trees flattened and neighbors’
roofs flew off.
Adam gently extricated himself from his girls and stood up
to survey the chaos. It was even worse than he’d imagined.
The back windows and doors were gaping open. Curtains and
curtain rods hung askew. The big cedar elm tree had fallen
across the back deck. The sliding door had been blasted free
of its rails and lay in a puddle of shattered glass beside the
kitchen table. A d bird lay twitching in the center of the
twisted metal frame, like some morbid painting on the floor.
Adam turned to face the hallway to the bedrooms, cupped
his hands to his mouth, and shouted, “Bowser!”
He waited, willing himself to see a dusty golden streak of
fur come boiling down the hall.
Nothing happened.
“He’s dead!” Crystal screamed.
“No, he’s not,” Kim soothed.
“Yes, he is!” Crystal insisted. “I know he is!”
Adam frowned and started down the hall. Broken glass
crunched underfoot. His leg began to tickle below the knee,
his old bullet wound acting up. He ignored it.
Then he realized that it wasn’t his left leg where he’d had a
metal plate inserted to put his shattered tibia back together.
This time it was his right leg.
Adam stopped and reached down to scratch the itch. His
hand brushed a sticky smear of blood and grazed a jutting
spear of glass.
Adam stopped and bent down to assess the injury. One
piece of glass, sticking out from the side of his right leg, just
below the knee joint. Blood had run in rivulets down his leg,
but it wasn’t bubbling or gushing out, so the fragment hadn’t
struck an artery. He gently probed the spear of glass and felt a
hot wave of pain go spreading up and down his leg. He still

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 17
had full sensation so the nerves were okay, and he could tell it
hadn’t gone in too deep. The best thing to do would be to
just pull it out.
“Adam? Is everything okay?” Kim asked.
He nodded, plucked the glass out, and tossed it aside.
“Just peachy,” he said.
“Your leg!” Kim cried.
“Yeah,” he grunted, watching as a fresh river of blood
bubbled from a one-and-a-half-inch gash in the top right side
of his calf. He would need stitches, maybe four or five, but it
could wait.
“Let me help you,” Kim said.
Glass crunched and jingled, scattering with her approach.
Adam grabbed another jagged shard of it, pulled out the
bottom of his shirt, and cut off a strip of fabric to bind his
leg.
“Let me do that!” Kim insisted, reaching for the glass
knife.
“You’ll cut your hand,” he replied. His hands had been
toughened and hardened by years of soldiering in the desert,
and even before that, from working summers up on his
grandfather’s ranch in Montana. He endured his wife’s glaring
disapproval as he tied off his own leg.
“I’ve never met a more stubborn man in my entire life,”
she muttered.
He arched an eyebrow and smirked. “Good thing I am.
Took a stubborn man to win your heart. What was it, five
times that I had to ask you to go out with me?”
Kimberly’s mouth twitched with a hint of a smile. “Six.”
“The sixth one doesn’t count. Your mother never passed
on the message.” Maddie Lawson had never liked him. God
rest her soul.
Kim’s eyes sagged and the horror of their present moment
came clawing back in. Not a good time to mention her

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 18
mother. Mrs. Lawson had passed away a little less than two
years ago and the pain was still fresh.
“We need to find Bowser,” Kim mumbled.
Before he could say anything to that, a distant boom roared,
followed by steady echoes of the same explosion.
“What was that?” Kim asked, looking terrified.
Adam slowly shook his head. There should have been one
shock wave, not a couple of dozen. “I don’t know,” he said.
He caught a glimpse of Crystal as he turned away. She was
still safely sheltered behind the island, watching them with a
blank, tear-streaked face. His first impulse was to keep her
close, but he had a bad feeling that they were about to find
her best friend crushed to a bloody pulp under a pile of
bedroom furniture, and he didn’t want that memory to be
seared into his daughter’s brain for the rest of her life.
“Come on,” he whispered to Kim and began creeping
down the hall toward the primary bedroom. The floorboards
creaked and bits of debris popped and crunched under his
Crocs. Kim was right behind him, adding echoes to his
footsteps. The walls and ceiling were furrowed and pocked
with impacts. It was a miracle that their bodies didn’t bear
similar wounds.
Faded golden bars of sunlight flickered through swirling
clouds of dust at the open door of the primary bedroom. The
door itself had been blown off its hinges and was leaning
crosswise against the linen closet, blocking the way into the
room.
Adam lifted the door and set it aside. The bedroom was in
the same state as the living room. The TV had fallen off the
wall and was lying in a shattered ruin at the foot of the bed.
The bed itself was scattered with bits of glass and other
debris. The old rocking chair beside the window where Kim
had nursed Crystal had been knocked over and buried under
a pile of twisted window frames. A tattered curtain fluttered

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 19

in a light breeze.
The view across the street was utter chaos. The air was
choked with dust, the sun a dim, bloody red orb. The
neighbors’ homes looked like they’d been hit by a tornado.
Roofs had flown clean off. Structures were sagging and
collapsing like tents with broken poles. Was that how his
home looked like from the outside? Power lines and trees had
fallen, crisscrossing each other like giant stacks of kindling.
Cars parked on the street had been crushed beneath the
weight, their roofs caving in, tires blown, and windows
rimmed with glittering pebbles of safety glass.
“Bowser?” Kimberly asked in a shaky voice.
Adam listened keenly for a reply, hoping Crystal’s beloved
companion had made it under the bed before that shock
wave hit.
Adam sucked in a breath to call for him in a louder voice,
but before he could, he heard the high-pitched whine of a
dog in pain, and his heart sank like a stone.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 20

Chapter Three

The sound of Bowser’s cries led Adam and Kimberly to
look under the bed. Sure enough, two bright eyes pricked
through the darkness, followed by another whistling cry.
“Hey, come here, buddy,” Adam called.
Bowser struggled to respond, his front paws inching
forward, but he gave up with another agonized cry and began
panting heavily.
Adam straightened and nodded to his wife. “Help me
move the bed off him.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if we hurt him?”
Adam shook his head, grabbing the metal frame and the
edge of the box spring. “The bed isn’t collapsing. Just push.
We don’t need to lift it.”
“Okay…” She grabbed the edge of the bed and together
they shoved the bed toward the closet on the opposite wall.
Shattered glass tinkled as it dragged across the floor. Bowser
yelped and whimpered.
Kim stopped pushing. “I told you it would hurt him!”
“He’s fine!” Adam said more sharply than he’d intended.
His old bullet wound was acting up from the extra weight he
was putting on his leg.
“Bowser?” Crystal suddenly asked from the open
doorway.
Adam looked at her with a grimace, breathing hard. He
wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “Stay there,
Christie,” he said.
She didn’t listen, running over and dropping to her hands

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 21
and knees beside the bed, heedless of the broken glass that
was everywhere.
“Crystal!” Kim chided. “Be careful of the glass.”
“Come here, boy!” Crystal said, ignoring her mother.
Bowser whimpered and made another feeble attempt to
get out from under the bed.
“He’s hurt! We have to help him!” Crystal cried.
Adam put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and pushed
her gently back onto her haunches. “That’s what we’re doing,
sweetheart. Give us some space, please. Kim?” He nodded to
her. “One more push should do it.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
They heaved once more. The bed shivered and creaked in
protest as it ground across the floor, and a furry golden paw
emerged.
Adam stopped pushing and got down on his hands and
knees for a better look. No signs of blood or matted fur.
Maybe he was just scared?
“Grab his back leg,” Adam said, speaking to Kim. He
grabbed the front paw, and together they dragged Bowser
out. He yelped.
“You’re hurting him!” Crystal cried.
As soon as the dog slid out into the light, Kim gasped and
Crystal started crying.
Bowser had a big chunk of glass from the bedroom
window embedded in his upper left side. No wonder pushing
the bed had made him yelp. They’d probably been moving
the glass around. Besides that, he had a few other little cuts
on his snout and one just above his right eye.
Adam told both his girls to back away and let him deal
with it. From his time in the Army, he was the most qualified
to assess and treat injuries. A quick look revealed Bowser’s
worst injury was the glass in his side. Assuming it hadn’t gone
in too deep, it would be fine to remove it and then simply

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 22
bandage the dog’s side. Adam sent Kimberly for the first aid
kit and the sewing kit from the linen closet in the hall. She
returned with both items after a minute.
“Now hold him still,” Adam said. Kim grabbed Bowser’s
head, holding it down, but the dog seemed to know the score,
and he immediately began to struggle. “Get his back legs!”
Adam added.
Kim struggled to grab his churning legs and his bucking
head at the same time. Meanwhile, Bowser was yelping and
struggling, looking terrified.
“You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him!” Crystal
screamed with her hands over her ears and tears gushing
from her eyes.
It took them a few more seconds to figure out how to
hold Bowser down. Adam grabbed both of his hind legs in
one hand while Kim seized Bowser’s head in both of hers. He
yanked out the glass in the dog’s side, screwed off the cap of
a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and sprinkled it liberally over the
wound. The dog yelped and whimpered, struggling harder
and forcing blood to bubble from his side.
Adam seized a big white bandage and pressed it hard
against the wound. After about a minute of that, Bowser
began to calm down, but he was panting hard, his eyes
darting for an escape.
“If you hadn’t struggled like an idiot, this would have been
a lot easier,” Adam muttered.
Bowser growled and bared his teeth.
Crystal came scooting over and began gently stroking the
dog’s back. “Shhh, it’s okay, boy. I’m here. It’s okay…”
And miraculously, the dog calmed right down. Adam
grunted, thinking to himself that he should have had Crystal
hold him down.
He gently lifted his hand away from the gash in Bowser’s
side. It was still bleeding, but much slower now. The dog

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 23
would also need stitches, but it looked like they could leave it
for now. The trick would be finding a way to make a bandage
stick through all that fur. Adam cast about for a solution. He
could shave away the fur, but that would be another battle.
Finding a roll of compression wrap in the first aid kit, he
rolled it out and wrapped it several times around the bandage.
Kim and Crystal went to the kitchen and came back with a
big bowl of water and a treat for Bowser. He refused to eat,
but he took a few licks of the water. Then they flicked the
glass and other debris off the bedsheets, and Adam lifted
Bowser, worried that he’d get glass stuck in his paws if they
left him to wander around the house right now.
“Keep him there, Christie,” Adam instructed.
She sat on the bed beside him, stroking his fur and
whispering more reassurances.
Kim looked away with a tight smile, regarding Adam with
eyebrows raised in the gathering gloom. The sun hadn’t set
yet, but all of the dust in the air was making it much darker
than it should have been.
Adam could read his wife’s mind. She was looking to him
for a plan. He considered it for a moment. Should they stay
here or venture out and go look for a better shelter
somewhere else? The streets might not even be clear enough
to get anywhere.
Outside, the grasshoppers and crickets were buzzing and
chirping, louder than ever with all of the windows shattered.
In the distance, people were shouting. He pictured the
neighbors out and helping each other dig through the rubble.
There could be people trapped or buried. Should he be out
helping them? A sense of social responsibility began creeping
in now that he’d attended to his family’s immediate needs.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Adam decided.
“Is it safe?” Kim asked.
Adam nodded. “The worst is over.” But even as he said

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 24
that a tickle of apprehension swirled and a little whisper of
doubt stirred, warning him that the worst was yet to come.
She pulled out her phone and snapped on the flashlight.
He did the same.
Kim frowned at her screen. “There’s no signal.”
“The tower is probably out. Power must be down for the
whole area.”
“Don’t they have the cell towers on generators or battery
backups?” Kim asked.
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll go get the
flashlights and emergency supplies from the garage. Stay here
with Crystal.”
“Okay,” Kim said. “Be careful.”
He went striding for the door, his whole body shaking
from spent adrenaline. His wife’s words echoed blandly
through his mind: be careful. Of what?
Adam frowned, wondering what dangers could still be out
there. It was over. At least for them. Maybe down in Houston
they had to worry about a tsunami, but Austin was too far
inland for that.
A minute later, he was in the garage, sweating and grunting
to move big boxes of Christmas decorations and old sports
equipment. Finally, he uncovered their 20-gallon plastic tub
of emergency supplies. He dragged it out, ignoring the sharp,
pulsing pangs from the gash in his right leg and the old ache
from the metal plate in his left.
Limping slightly, he set his phone on top of the supplies
with the flashlight aiming down. It was too dark to see, but at
least he could illuminate what was directly in front of his feet.
Moving slowly, he carried the box of supplies around the
tailgate of his Ram 1500, and up the plywood steps into their
house.
On his way out, the gun safe caught his eye, gleaming
darkly with reflected light from his phone. Adam hesitated,

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 25
staring at it. In there, he had a Nosler M21 hunting rifle, a
Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, and a Sig Sauer P320-M17 pistol.
He rarely brought those guns out. Just twice a year to oil and
clean them. Kim hated guns, and hunting in particular. She’d
grown up in New Jersey, and when she was fifteen a close
childhood friend of hers had died in a hunting accident, so
when they’d gotten married, she’d made him buy that safe
and promise never to bring his guns out unless it was a
legitimate emergency, A.K.A. the end of the world.
Adam snorted. Well, if this didn’t qualify, he didn’t know
what the hell did. Setting the box of supplies down in the hall
and using it to prop the door open, he walked back down
into the garage and spun the combination lock to open the
safe. He had to use his phone to illuminate the lock. His hand
was shaking pretty badly as he worked the lock. He’d have to
go rustle up some sugary snacks after this. Between his injury
and all the spent adrenaline, his blood sugar had to be
plunging through the floor.
As soon as he completed the combination, Adam yanked
the heavy door open. Reaching in, he pulled out the pump-
action Mossberg and a box of twenty-five shells. Pinning the
gun under his arm, he grabbed a wearable LED headlamp
that he’d used a couple of times on hunting trips. He flicked
it on and slipped it over his forehead. Then he turned off his
phone’s flashlight and pocketed it. With his hands now free,
he pulled back on the pump action of the shotgun to see if it
was loaded. He already knew that it wasn’t, but it was better
to be sure.
Seeing an empty chamber gleaming beneath the headlamp,
he began loading shells into the magazine through the bottom
of the receiver. After loading eight, he pumped the action to
load one into the chamber so he could slot in a 9th and final
shell. Now fully loaded, he checked the safety on the top of
the weapon to be sure it was on.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 26
He was just about to put the remainder of the 25-shell box
back into the safe and close it up, but on a whim he decided
to take it with him.
He dropped the box of shells on top of the emergency
supplies, then pushed it away from the door and swung the
door shut with his leg. Laying the shotgun carefully on top of
the plastic crate, he picked it up with a grunt of effort.
A flicker of movement caught his eye through the
splintered front door to his left. He stood staring at the
opening, peering intently through the dusty gloom to figure
out what he’d seen.
No more movement caught his eye. He set the box down
and picked up the shotgun. Walking to the door, he peered
out to the street and the ruined homes on the other side,
searching for signs of movement.
One of the neighbors was out there, engaged in a futile
attempt to remove a fallen tree from the hood of his car. That
must have been what had caught his eye. There was no sign
of an organized effort from the rest of his neighbors to move
debris, which made him think that no one had been buried
alive.
Adam’s sense of social responsibility retreated a few steps,
allowing him to focus on his own family.
Letting out a shaky breath, he turned and pushed the front
door shut. It was dragging on the floor, having pulled free of
the top hinge. And the frame was splintered, anyway, making
it impossible to close.
Giving up with a sigh, Adam walked back over to the box
of supplies. He listened to the relative silence inside his
house, his footsteps dragging across the debris and making
the floorboards creak.
It took a moment for him to figure out what was wrong,
but then he got it.
The tornado sirens weren’t whooping anymore. Neither

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 27
were the sirens from police, ambulances, and fire engines.
Adam froze. That was impossible, wasn’t it? His mind
flashed back to his cell phone. No bars. No signal.
Everything electrical was dead, whether it had a battery
backup or not.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 28

Chapter Four

Could an electromagnetic pulse be caused by a meteor
impact? Adam wondered. As an English teacher, he felt
woefully out of his depth on that topic. Without the aid of
Google or Alexa to answer the question for him, he decided
that it had to be possible.
Carrying the supplies back to the bedroom, he greeted
Kim and Crystal with the glare of his headlamp and drew a
lackluster woof from Bowser. Kim threw up a hand to shield
her eyes.
“Sorry,” Adam said, dropping his chin to get the light out
of her eyes.
He set the box down, and the shotgun and the box of
shells rattled.
“What is that?” Kim demanded.
“Just in case,” he explained.
“In case of what?” she all but exploded. “You know how I
feel about guns, Adam.”
“Look, it’s going to take a while for FEMA to sort
through all of this. It could be weeks before we get the power
back, or any kind of real assistance from the government. In
that time, looters are going to be busy.”
“And your solution is to shoot them?”
“Would you rather they shoot one of us?” Adam
challenged.
Kim visibly swallowed her objections. This wasn’t New
Jersey. In Texas, practically everyone had their own private
arsenal. Anyone roaming around out there looking for trouble

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 29

would be armed to the teeth.
“Besides,” he added. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but
not even the emergency sirens are working right now. That
means that there’s been some kind of electromagnetic pulse
on top of everything else.”
“But that’s impossible,” Kim said.
“Is it?” Adam looked up to regard his wife.
Kim squinted and turned her head to avoid the lamp.
“Yes,” she insisted. “There is no way for an asteroid to
unleash an EMP. A nuclear explosion would do it, but that’s
about it.”
“Are you sure?” Adam asked.
Kim nodded. “Positive.”
Early on in their marriage, he’d made his peace with the
fact that Kim was a lot smarter than he was, so she probably
knew what she was talking about.
Adam sighed and went to work pulling supplies out of the
box. “Well, then I don’t know what’s up, but you can hear it
for yourself—it’s dead silent out there.”
Adam passed out flashlights and then flicked off his
headlamp to avoid blinding Kim again. They set the
flashlights around the room, balancing them carefully on the
wardrobe at the foot of the bed and on top of the headboard,
aiming them up at the ceiling to provide some ambient
illumination. The sun was sinking fast now.
Finding some old indestructible energy bars in their
supplies, Adam pulled them out and tore one open with his
teeth before biting into it. He offered the box to Kim and she
hesitantly took one.
Crystal made a face and shook her head. “I’m not
hungry.”
Adam knew that was a lie. Like most kids, she was just a
picky eater, but there was no point in forcing the issue right
now.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 30
“What about water?” Kim asked through a mouthful of
her energy bar.
There were a couple of empty canteens and iodine tablets
in with the emergency supplies, but as far as Adam knew, the
water from the tap was still drinkable, and they had plenty of
juice boxes in the fridge.
“I’ll go get something from the kitchen,” Adam decided.
“Get the broom and dustpan, too!” Kim called after him.
“We need to sweep up all this glass.”
“Sure,” Adam replied, flicking his headlamp back on.
He was back a minute later with a stack of juice boxes and
the broom that Kim had asked for. She raised an eyebrow
when he handed her one of the sugary drinks.
“I think you can break your diet for a day, don’t you?”
She grudgingly accepted the juice box and passed a second
one to Crystal.
Adam popped a straw into his—an apple juice that was
mostly sugar water—and quickly drained it, slurping from the
straw to get the final drops. Kim and Crystal did the same,
and then Kim got up and started sweeping.
Adam went to work gathering the splintered window
frames on the rocking chair and the floor and dumping them
out the window. Bowser watched curiously from the bed.
“I’m hot,” Crystal said. A breeze was gushing in through
the window, drying the sweat on the back of Adam’s neck,
but it wasn’t nearly enough to ease the stuffy heat inside the
room.
“I know, sweetie,” Kim replied. “But I’m sure the power
will be back soon.”
It wouldn’t, but Crystal didn’t need to know that. Adam
dusted off his hands when he was done clearing all the larger
debris, and then he stood looking around the room, searching
for something else to do.
“Can you move this thing before it blows off my foot?”

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 31
Kim asked, having paused in her sweeping to glare at the
shotgun and the box of shells that he’d laid beside their
emergency supplies.
“Right. Sorry.” He lurched toward the weapon and the
box of ammo, sweeping both of them up. Heading over to
the rocking chair, he dragged it away from the wall and leaned
the shotgun against the wall. He set the box of extra shells on
the window sill.
Kim was done sweeping a moment later, and she handed
the dustpan to him. He went back to the kitchen to empty it.
While he was there, he opened the fridge and pulled out a
couple of pudding cups for Crystal. Hardly dinner, but it
would have to do.
Catching a whiff of smoke from the back deck, Adam’s
nose twitched. Then he remembered the steaks on the
barbecue.
Seeing the thick clouds of smoke pouring in from the back
deck and the fallen elm tree, Adam dropped the pudding cups
and ran, skidding through broken glass.
It was a challenge to squeeze between the thick branches
of the fallen tree to get to the barbecue. It was pinned and
busily turning the tree’s leaves to ashes. Waves of heat and
smoke poured off the barbecue, stinging Adam’s eyes and
prickling his skin. Luckily, the tree hadn’t burst into flames
yet, but that wouldn’t last much longer.
Adam thrust an arm through the branches to reach the
controls for the burners. Unable to get to all of them, he
settled for disconnecting the gas tank, then stepped back to
regard the smoking tree. Was it already close to its flash-
point, or still too green to burn?
Better not risk it.
Battling around the tree, he climbed over the side railing
of the deck, reeled out the garden hose, and then climbed
back over to spray the tree. The smoke quickly thickened,

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 32

choking him and burning his eyes to tears.
“Adam?” Kim called from inside the house.
“Outside!” he said.
“Harry is here!”
“Cooper?” Adam asked, releasing the nozzle.
“Who else?”
“Hey, Adam,” Harrison added. Adam turned to see his
friend from three houses down standing in the gaping
threshold to his living room.
Harrison had thick, wavy black hair to Adam’s short,
thinning blond. His warm brown eyes were blank and glassy,
bushy eyebrows raised. The laugh lines around his eyes and
mouth were slack with shock.
“You have any idea what we should do?” Harrison asked.
“Are we safe here, or should we…” He glanced over his
shoulder, and Adam spotted Harrison’s wife, Carla, hanging
back with Kim and Crystal. Their son, Cooper, was also
there.
Carla smiled and waved to him. “Hola, Adam!” she called
in a shaky voice.
He waved and smiled tightly back. Carla was a young
Latina woman from Costa Rica with wavy brown hair, a
golden complexion, and bright green eyes. She was ten years
Harrison’s junior at just twenty-eight years old.
Everyone who met her and Harrison just assumed that she
was Mexican and that Harrison had baited her across the
border with a Green Card. Maybe he had, but Harrison was a
handsome man for his age, and even more so eight years ago
when they’d met. But more importantly, he and Carla seemed
happy together.
Adam dropped the hose and nodded to Harrison. “We
should be okay here for now. Besides, the streets will be a
mess. Probably not even cleared yet.”
A whistling roar punctuated that thought, and Adam spun

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 33
toward the sound, his whole body electrified with adrenaline.
It sounded like a mortar round. Maybe it was another
asteroid?
“Cover!” Adam shouted, without even knowing why. He
lunged through the open doorway, and Harrison backpedaled
frantically. “Everybody down!” Adam shouted as he skidded
inside.
Everyone screamed, and then an explosion shattered the
night, along with a bright flash that briefly painted glowing
outlines around their huddled shadows. More whistling
sounds followed, along with rumbling booms of more distant
impacts.
Adam’s heart hammered inside his chest, his mind
spinning with a million different questions at once.
Were they at war? Had that asteroid somehow been part
of an attack? Who could even pull something like that off?
China? Russia?
Another boom and flash of light thumped through the
floorboards and made the walls creak. Drywall dust sifted
down from the ceiling, and then silence gathered and
thickened like wads of cotton in his ears.
Harrison stared hard at him, blinking furiously into the
glare of Adam’s headlamp. “What the fuck was that?” he
asked.
“Language!” Carla hissed.
Harrison ignored her.
“Could it be more asteroids?” Kim suggested. “Maybe
pieces of the big one that broke off?”
Adam nodded. That had been his first thought as well.
“Maybe someone’s dropping bombs?” Harrison suggested.
“That would explain the EMP strike, wouldn’t it? If we’re at
war…”
“Una guerra?” Carla echoed. “With who?”
“Oh, like Russia and China wouldn’t obliterate us in a

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 34
heartbeat if they could get away with it,” Harrison scoffed.
“Knocking an asteroid into us sounds like a great way to stay
anonymous!”
“But they don’t have those capabilities, do they?” Kim
objected.
“That we know of,” Harrison intoned darkly.
Adam considered the idea, terrified that one of those
projectiles, whatever they were, might slam into his house
next and put an abrupt end to their speculation.
Suddenly sheltering in place felt like a really bad idea. If
this was war, then being close to a big city, especially a state
capital like Austin, was the last place that any of them should
be. He was just about to suggest that they pack their gear into
the truck and bug out, when another whistling sound split the
silence. It quickly rose to a deafening crescendo—
“Everybody get down!” Adam screamed.
A bright flash erupted, and the wooden fence between
them and the neighbor burst. Splintered boards hammered
the side of the house. The shock wave sent him and Harrison
stumbling into each other, pummeled with bits of rock and
clods of dirt. The women and kids were safe, huddled behind
the piles of furniture in the living room.
Adam stood swaying on his feet, coughing into his sleeve
as even thicker clouds of dust rolled through the room.
“Is everyone okay?” he croaked.
No answer.
“Kim!” he snapped.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 35

Chapter Five

“We’re fine!” Kim said. “What about you two?”
Adam looked to Harrison, who quickly patted himself
down and nodded. “All good,” he said.
Bowser came skittering into the living room, yelping and
whining and turning in circles.
“Bowie?” Crystal asked. “What’s wrong, boy?”
Adam stumbled over. Both of his legs were throbbing
from the mad dash to get inside. He dropped to his haunches
beside the dog and laid a hand on his back. He was panting
hard, his eyes darting and head turning every which way.
“Shhh,” Adam tried to soothe the panicked animal.
Bowser barked again, sharply, and looked straight out the
nearest window.
“El escucha algo,” Carla said.
He hears something, Adam translated, drawing on his limited
knowledge of Spanish.
“Like what?” Harrison grunted.
“Shut up,” Adam said, thinking he’d just heard something.
He strained to listen…
A woman was screaming, somewhere nearby. Adam
recognized the sound of utter despair. Someone had died.
The woman’s child or maybe her husband.
Her screams pitched up sharply and cut off, leaving him to
wonder what had just silenced her. It was too soon for
looters, wasn’t it?
What the fuck? Harrison mouthed.
Adam shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 36

“Adam?” Kim whispered.
“We can’t stay here,” Carla said shakily. “It’s not safe.
That woman. Someone…”
“I told you,” Harrison whispered. “We’re under attack.”
“I didn’t hear any gunshots, did you?” Adam countered.
“So what?” Harrison demanded. “They could have
silencers.”
Adam frowned. “So this is a covert op? In the middle of
suburbia?”
“Maybe she silenced herself?” Kim suggested. “She might
have seen something that scared her.”
Adam nodded slowly. That was possible. Certainly more
likely than a foreign power landing troops or activating
sleeper cells in suburban Texas.
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t far away,” Adam said. “If we’re
going to stay here for the night, we need to know what’s
going on. I’m going to check it out.”
“Alone?” Kim asked.
“I’ll go with him for backup,” Harrison said.
Adam frowned. Harry was also a high school teacher.
Math instead of English. But unlike Adam, he didn’t have any
military training. He’d be a liability if there was any real
danger out there.
“Ummm,” Adam hesitated.
“Come on,” Harrison insisted. “We’re wasting time.”
Adam gave in with a sigh. “Let me get the shotgun first.”
He hurried down the hall to the primary bedroom, his
headlamp bobbing and flashing off the walls. Curtains
fluttered around the gaping window as he walked around the
foot of the bed. A flicker of movement caught his eye from
the neighbor’s ruined yard.
The fence had been flattened, making it easy to see the
smoking crater where their lawn used to be. Adam could have
sworn he saw two glinting yellow pinpricks glaring back at

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 37
him from the shadows of that crater—eyes catching the light
from his headlamp.
Probably a rabbit. He was too far away to get a good look,
but his headlamp illuminated the briefest outline of a
glistening black body. He moved toward the window for a
closer look, but whatever it was darted down into the crater
and vanished.
Adam stood rooted to the spot, staring stupidly at the spot
where the creature had been. It was too big to be a rabbit.
More like a bear. Or a big dog, at least. He’d heard of bears’
eyes shining orange in the night. Maybe that was what this
was? But black bears were almost unheard of in Texas.
Especially in the middle of a city like Austin.
Adam tore his eyes away and stepped over to the rocking
chair to retrieve the shotgun. On his way out, he grabbed the
box of extra shells and one of the flashlights.
Making sure to keep the shotgun pointed at the floor, he
hurried back to the living room where the others were
gathered.
“Let’s go, Harry,” he said.
“Wait, don’t I get a gun?” he asked.
Adam hesitated. His friend knew how to shoot, but was it
really necessary for both of them to be armed? Adam
remembered that woman’s screams and how they’d suddenly
cut off. Had that bear attacked her, or just scared her into
silence? It could have been Juliet Thompson, their next-door
neighbor. Maybe she was terrified of wild animals. Or like
him, she didn’t get a good look at it, and all she saw were
those yellow eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Well?” Harrison prompted. “Are we getting a gun for me,
or what?”
“More guns?” Kimberly asked disgustedly.
“No,” Adam decided. “You get this.” He held out the
flashlight. “And these,” he added, slapping the box of spare

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 38

shotgun shells into Harry’s other hand.
“What am I, your squire?”
“We’ll check out the neighbor’s place first.” He nodded to
the gaping window in the living room and the smoking crater
in the Thompsons’ backyard. No sign of the bear. Hopefully,
it had moved on.
“Fine,” Harrison grunted.
“We’ll go out the back.” Adam turned to lead the way,
sweeping the shotgun up in a two-handed grip. He squeezed
past the fallen elm to the railing and then clambered over the
railing and jumped down.
Harrison was slower to follow, grunting and cursing
before landing with a thump beside him.
“Keep it down,” Adam hissed. “There’s something out
here.”
“Like what?” Harrison whispered.
“I don’t know. It looked like a black bear.”
“What?” Harrison scoffed. “You’re joking, right?”
A big black blur darted from the crater to what was left of
the azalea bushes behind the Thompsons’ fence. The bushes
rustled, then grew still. Adam’s headlamp illuminated a wall
of white and red flowers, but not much else. He held his
shotgun steady, aiming straight at the bushes. The shot would
cut through the vegetation in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t going
to pull the trigger unless he had to.
“You saw that, right?” Adam whispered.
“Yeah…” Harrison muttered. “But… it didn’t look like a
bear to me. The legs were too long and lanky.”
“So what was it then? A mountain lion?”
“The hell if I know. We should go back inside.”
Adam shook his head. “I’m not going to sleep with all the
windows and doors busted wide open, and a wild animal
skulking in the neighbor’s yard. We need to see what it is first.
Chase it off at least. It’s probably more scare of us than we

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 39

are of it.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Harrison muttered.
“Keep that light shined on the bushes in case it comes out
this way. “I’m going to walk around and see what we’re
dealing with.”
“And leave me alone over here? Hell no.”
“Get back up on the deck,” Adam suggested. “It’s not
going to vault over the railing.”
Not waiting to be told twice, Harrison scrambled up the
railing. Adam kept half an eye on the bushes as his friend
retreated. So much for backup. He smirked.
A soft growl erupted from the azaleas. Growing impatient,
Adam crept toward the line of flattened wooden boards from
the fence.
Holding the shotgun at the ready, he angled around the
bushes. The hairless black hide of the creature blended
almost perfectly with the charred crater in the Thompsons’
yard. Scaly plates shone dully in the light of his lamp,
reminding Adam of a crocodile’s skin. His frown deepened,
and he froze. That wasn’t a bear or a mountain lion. So what
the hell was it?
Sighting down the top of the shotgun’s barrel, he cleared
his throat and said, “Hey!”
The creature shifted slightly, and its skin seemed to ripple,
somehow darkening to become an even closer match to its
surroundings. What the hell? Adam’s pulse quickened. Surely
that was just a trick of the light.
Feeling a rock under the toe of his Crocs, he switched to a
one-handed grip on the shotgun and bent down, his eyes
never leaving the bushes. He grabbed the rock and took
careful aim with his left hand before hurling the projectile at
the creature.
It gave a deep, guttural roar that reverberated like thunder.
Then it drew itself up on its hind legs until it was towering

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 40

over Adam, standing at least ten feet tall.
Big, glassy yellow eyes squinted at him, slitted like a cat’s
and reflecting brightly in the light of his headlamp.
Translucent membranes flicked over them, leaving no doubt
that this creature was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It
had a big head with a sharply angled face. The top was round
and shiny, with a cluster of long spikes flattened against its
skull. The bottom half of its face was dominated by puckered
black lips the size of Adam’s fist. Fangs protruded,
overlapping the lips in a glinting circle, and a pair of flaring
black slits for nostrils came together in a V between its eyes.
Adam watched in horror and disbelief as the mouth flayed
open from four sides, seeming to crack its own skull apart.
Four independent mandibles lined with vicious fangs thrust
out, protruding from the monster’s head like the petals of
some carnivorous flower. Its bright pink throat was ringed
with concentric circles of hooked fangs that looked like they
were designed to trap its prey and suck it in deeper with each
spasm of the throat. The creature gave another thunderous
roar, its jaws shivering with the sheer force of the vibrations.
A blast of fetid breath washed over Adam from the pit of the
monster’s stomach.
“What the fuck is that?!” Harrison shouted.
Subsequent screams echoed from within the house as the
women and kids noticed what he’d found lurking in the
Thompsons’ yard.
Adam flicked off the shotgun’s safety with his thumb and
raised it high, aiming for the gaping mouth. Just before he
could pull the trigger, a thin, whip-like tail flicked up from the
ground, sweeping toward his head. Adam ducked, narrowly
escaping the blow.
Long black arms snapped out and massive hands wrapped
around his body, pinning his arms to his sides. The pressure
on his chest was so intense that Adam felt like his ribs were

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 41

about to break. His lungs burned for air.
The creature lifted him high, drawing him toward its
gaping mouth. Adam struggled to bring the shotgun barrel
into line.
And then a primal human scream split the night. Suddenly
Harrison was standing beside him, wielding a rustling elm
branch, and thrusting it like a spear.
The creature abruptly retracted and shut its jaws, its lips
puckering into a clenched fist once more. Giant eyes flicked
to Harrison.
He screamed even louder, cursing and shouting like a
maniac while he jabbed at the creature with his branch as if it
was just a black bear, and making a lot of noise might be
enough to scare it off.
The crushing pressure around Adam’s chest vanished as
one of those long arms whipped toward Harrison. It hit him
in the head and he went sprawling. Harry groaned and
struggled to rise.
A long, whiplike tail with a glistening tip snapped around
and speared him to the ground. Harrison screamed, and his
whole body went limp.
Adam let out a strangled roar. Gritting his teeth and
straining as hard as he could, he just managed to get the
shotgun into line with the monster’s chest. He pulled the
trigger.
Boom!
The monster shrieked as a cluster of ragged, dime-sized
holes opened up in its chest. It dropped him, and Adam fell
four feet, straight down. A sharp pain erupted from his old
gunshot wound, and his legs folded up like overcooked
spaghetti. He landed hard; his teeth cracked together
painfully; and the shotgun bounced out of his hands.
With another shriek, the monster became a blur, leaping
straight over the bushes with shocking quickness. It landed

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 42
on top of Harrison, drawing his body up into its long arms
like a kangaroo stuffing a joey into its pouch.
Adam lunged for the shotgun, bringing it back up. He
pumped the action and pulled the trigger again. Boom!
The monster shivered and screeched, drawing itself up and
whirling around to face him. Its jaws gaped open once more,
and spittle flew.
Chuk-chuk. Boom!
Another shriek, but somehow it was still standing.
The monster thrashed and spared a hand from Harrison to
swipe blindly at his head. Adam ducked and stumbled to his
feet, backpedaling, and firing again, careful to mind
Harrison’s body, just in case he was somehow still alive.
The monster wheeled away, becoming a blur of lanky
limbs as it leaped back over the bushes and disappeared into
the crater in the Thompsons’ yard.
Adam stood staring after it in shock, his palms slick with
sweat, his heart slamming in his ears.
“Adam!” Kim screamed to him from the living room
window. “Look out!”
His gaze snapped up, the headlamp reflecting darkly off a
big, sleek black blur, long legs churning as it leaped from the
Thompson’s back deck and sprinted across the odd thirty feet
of yard between them. The one that had taken Harrison
reemerged from the crater, its giant head cresting above the
bushes. The moon was just now rising above the trees, a
blurry red orb hazy with dust. It painted an alien silhouette
against the sky. Spikes on the crest of the creature’s head and
spine rose straight up like the hackles on a dog as it threw its
head back and unleashed an otherworldly shriek.
“Adam!” Kim shouted to him again. “Run!”
He pumped the shotgun, turned, and fired at the one
sprinting toward him. It tripped over its legs and skidded
through the ruined lawn, sending clods of grass and dirt

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 43

flying.
Adam spun away and dashed back to the deck. After just a
moment, those heavy footfalls returned, hammering the grass
with dull thuds. Then came the rattling of the wooden boards
as the creature ran across the flattened fence. It couldn’t have
been more than a dozen feet away now.
Adrenaline carried Adam swiftly over the railing and down
on the other side. He landed painfully and spun around.
Chuk-chuk. It was standing right there on the other side of the
railings. His headlamp forced the creature to shut its eyes
with those milk-white membranes. It hissed angrily at him,
and Adam aimed for one of its sickly-white eyes.
Puckered black lips dilated open and four opposing fang-
lined jaws thrust out, seeming to pry open the monster’s face.
It blasted him with a piercing shriek that sprayed his face with
foul-smelling spittle. Four long pink tongues fluttered inside
of its glistening mouth like tentacles. The creature took a
swipe for him, splintering the railing. Adam aimed straight for
its fang-lined throat and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The creature shrieked again and dropped out of sight.
Hopefully dead this time.
Adam dashed through the shattered doors to his living
room. Breathless, his whole body singing with adrenaline and
terror, he screamed at Kim. “Get to the garage!”
Not sticking around to argue, she grabbed Crystal’s hand
and ran for the entry hall, dragging their daughter as she
went. Bowser scurried away behind them, but Carla lingered
with her son, Connor, her arms wrapped protectively around
his chest.
“Where is Harry?” she demanded as Adam crossed the
room to her. “You just left him!” Her voice was cracking with
grief. “He saved your life!”
“And now I’m going to save yours!” Adam snapped.

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 44
“Go!” He spared a hand from the shotgun to grab Carla by
the arm and turn her in the direction that Kim had gone. He
gave her a shove for good measure, and Carla burst into tears
as she went stumbling after Kim.
Adam turned to face the shattered doors and pumped the
shotgun, backing steadily down the hall to cover their retreat.
Nothing came clambering in after them.
Yet.
Maybe he’d wounded those two creatures badly enough
that they wouldn’t or couldn’t give chase.
Flickers and flashes of the action reverberated through his
mind’s eye: he saw a big, pear-shaped head with large yellow
eyes and jaws splaying open to reveal a throat lined with rings
of hooked teeth.
Adam shivered. Remembering the asteroid impact that
had started it all, and then the whistling explosions that they’d
heard in the aftermath, he suddenly realized what was going
on. Harrison had been right. They were under attack by a
foreign power, but it wasn’t Russia or China.
Their attackers weren’t even from Earth.
Kim called for him, and Adam ran to join them in the
garage.
A minute later he was belted into the driver’s seat of his
black Ram 1500 pickup truck, hammering the ignition button
in frustration. The engine wouldn’t even turn over.
Adam cursed and hammered the steering wheel with the
heel of one hand.
“What’s wrong?” Kim asked.
He muttered a curse and popped the hood. If the truck
wouldn’t start, they would have to stay here for the night, and
with those things out there…
A muffled alien howl split the stuffy silence of the garage,
and this time it was echoed by at least a dozen more. Adam’s
heart leaped into his throat as he dashed around the front of

JASPER SCOTT / NIGHTSTALKERS / 45
the truck to look under the hood. He had to get it started now. ...