The Alien Invasion Apocalypse Warriors Read online

  The Alien Invasion Apocalypse Warriors

  Taylor Ellwood

  Eugene, Oregon

  The Alien Invasion Apocalypse Warriors

  by Taylor Ellwood

  © 2023 first edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  The right of Taylor Ellwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Cover Art: Mark Reid

  Editor: Taylor Ellwood

  IYR013

  Imagine Your Reality Publications

  http://www.imagineyourreality.com

  Other Fiction by Taylor Ellwood

  Learning How to be a Hero Trilogy

  Learning How to Fly

  Learning How to be Free

  Learning How to be a Hero

  The Zombie Apocalypse Call Center Series

  The Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  Secret Missions of the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  Rebels of the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  Heroes of the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  Tales of the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  Outlaws of the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center

  The Zombie Apocalypse Militia

  The Zombie Apocalypse Farmers

  The Alien Invasion Apocalypse Prophet

  Coming Soon

  The Alien Invasion Apocalypse Marauders

  Dedication

  I choose myself!

  Acknowledgements

  I wrote this book during a rough time in my life. The following people, in one form or another, provided support and love which helped me write this book: Cat Gina Cole, Brand Clayton, Clover Fois, JD Terrapin, Kelli Carner, Victoria Pike, Jim Drews, Erik Roth, Mark Reid, Marilyn Kent. If I missed someone know I appreciate you so much.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Conclusion

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Bonus

  Chapter 1: Day 1 of the Alien Invasion - Sidney

  I hit CTRL ALT DELETE on the keyboard and the monitor lights up and requests a password. I type in my password @lienbaby! and the computer unlocks. Time to clock in and start another week at the Alien Invasion Call Center. I know what you’re thinking. There’s a call center for aliens? Hey there was a call center for the zombie apocalypse a couple of years ago and we actually ended up having zombies. I remember because my sister became a zombie. I imagine by now she’s dead, because there hasn’t been a zombie sighting in over a year and a half. One day they were there and the next day they disappeared faster than you could say poof and cross your arms. I know the military was working on a cure, because I got the vaccine to prevent the infection, but if they found a cure they kept it mum.

  Now we have an alien invasion call center and the official reason is because apparently there really might be an alien invasion. I’ll admit I’m skeptical, but it’s a job with training available after you’ve been there half a year, if you want to go into another position and with three meals and a room to sleep in, why not? I’ve got nothing better to look forward to anyway.

  I lost my entire family to the zombie apocalypse. My sister was infected and my parents were eaten. I got lucky I guess because I wasn’t home when it happened. I was out partying with my friends after having wrapped up my last final for the semester. So I didn’t get bitten or eaten.

  I pull up the web browser and open a tab for Space Force, the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) we use for our cases and where we log our calls. I hate Space Force. It’s a CRM that’s meant to be customizable for the company and it has this little guy in a space helmet in the background that I think they tried to make cute, but is really just obnoxious.

  The problem is most companies that use this software customize it too much, making it needlessly complicated because of whatever metrics they think they need to collect. Typical corporate thinking that the more complicated you make something the better off it is. I wish they realized the simpler and easier you make something to use, the easier it is to get the job done, but that thought likely never crosses the mind of the higher ups because they’ve likely never done a customer support job in their lives.

  I pull up a notepad file, open up a couple other tools and turn my phone on, indicating I’m ready to make outbound phone calls. Another exciting week of customer support here I come!

  I look at the queue. Here’s a case 30129007 with a title of “Possible alien sighting” at 3am this morning. Great another person staying up too late partying who thinks they’ve seen an alien. I’ll call them up and have to take down the relevant details of that person’s experience. Thankfully all calls are outbound. Initially when the call center was set up it was inbound and within the first month management realized that wasn’t a good idea because of the insane amount of calls that came in. They switched to outbound, with a requirement for people to create a case and it immediately decreased the amount of cases we have in the queue.

  I take the case and dial the number. The phone rings three times and then I hear a click as a person picks up the phone.

  “Hello this is Sidney with the AICC and I’m calling for Joel. Is this Joel?”

  “Uh hi. Yes this is Joel.”

  “Hi Joel. You reported an alien sighting at 3 AM central time this morning. Can you tell me about what you saw?”

  “Uh sure. I had let me dog out so she could do her business and was keeping an eye on her, when I saw this blue glow in the sky. I had never seen anything like it before, but I couldn’t quite tell where the glow was coming from.”

  “Uh hunh,” I absently reply as I take notes: Joel let dog out to pee and spotted blue glow.

  Joel clears his throat and says, “The next thing I did was go out and investigate. I determined the glow was to the south of my house. I put on my shoes and walked down my driveway to the street. I didn’t see anything there, other than that same glow.

  “Go on,” I encourage Joel and note: Joel noticed the glow was coming from the south and walked to the street to investigate but couldn’t determine the source.

  “That’s it. I couldn’t find the source of the glow and decided to head back inside. I just had never seen anything like it before and thought I would report in.”

  “Alright, thank you Joel. The AICC appreciates you for filing the sighting with us.”

  “Thank you. Good bye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  I really try to sound sincere. It’s hard to do that when you’re dealing with a case like this. He noticed a blue glow, kind of looked around, but couldn’t determine the source. That’s essentially what I’m filing. It doesn’t even qualify as a sighting, but I still have to file it, because we file everything.

  I finish typing up my notes and then categorize the call. With call categorization we’re determining if an alien sighting was likely, unlikely, or a hoax. In this case, I decide to label it unlikely. He didn’t exactly strike me as being a hoaxster, but he also didn’t see anything beyond a blue glow, which could be any number of things. I categorize the call and pick another case 30129111.

  30129111 has the title of little green men. I already know its going to be a hoax and I roll my eyes. I still have to call the customer because a case was created. I wish our call coordinators would screen these ones out, but they never do. It ends up being a waste of time. I sigh and make the call. The phone rings several times and then someone picks up.

  “Hello this is Sidney with the AICC and I’m calling for Jenna. Is this Jenna?”

  “Yeah this is her. You’re calling about my case, right?”

  “Yeah you mentioned seeing little green men. Can you provide details please?”

  Jenna giggles and I grit my teeth. The bitch knows she’s wasting my time and doesn’t care.

  “Sure. So last night my friends and I were at a club and in came these little green men. They hit on us and they offered to take us to their alien space craft and probe us. We turned them down and they disappeared in a flash of light.”

  “Anything else?” I tersely ask.

  “No that’s it.”

  Then she hangs up.

  Stupid, entitled bitch wasting our time. But it’s also the call coordinators fault. I type up my notes and sternly add a sentence: Please stop sending us these cases. Then I categorize it as a hoax. I know this probably won’t stop the call coordinators from sending these cases. I know it’s their job. I also know it’s a pain in the ass.

  2 cases in and the day is already starting to drag. I wish the job wasn’t like this, but the fact is call center work isn’t all that glamourous. You do the work because it pays the bills, but I don’t know anyone who really feels like support is their calling in life.

  I pick another case 30129121. This one looks a bit more promising. Sighting of an unidentified flying object at night. I scan the case notes and note they mention a blu
e glow. I wonder if Joel spotted the same thing. I dial the number associated with the case.

  “Hello this is Sidney with the AICC and I’m calling for Sue. Is this Sue?”

  “Nope this is Jared, her husband. Sue’s doing some chores, but I can see if I can get her. I can also give you the details if you want, because I was at the sighting as well.”

  “I’d appreciate that. As long as I speak to one person who was at the sighting then I can get the relevant details.”

  “Sue and I were enjoying a late night stroll around our property when we saw the UFO. There was this blue light emanating from it and it hovered in the air for a bit and then it abruptly moved right and then upward at a steep angle. We had to cover our ears because of the high pitched noise that was emitted by it. After it was gone we hiked over to the site where it had been. It was close enough to do that and we saw a crop circle, but all the crops were desiccated as if all the nutrients had been absorbed. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “That’s really detailed. Is there anything else you can recall, any sightings of actual aliens?”

  “We didn’t see any aliens as far as I could tell. We saw the ship. It wasn’t quite like a flying saucer. It had a base shape that was rectangular, with fins for wings and some type of rocket. I think the blue glow was emanating from the rocket.”

  This is actually refreshing. He’s giving me some details and he is sincere about what he’s describing. I occasionally get calls like these and I appreciate when I get them because it’s clear he’s not bullshitting me. Or if he is, he’s clearly bought into it and that’s much better than dealing with ten Jennas who think its ok to prank us.

  “Thank you. I really appreciate the level of detail you’ve provided.”

  “Your welcome. If you have a few moments, let me get my wife Sue, because she might recall details I didn’t think of.”

  “Sure I can wait while you get her.”

  “I’ll be right back with her.”

  I spend the next few minutes doodling in a notebook. No one else has come in yet. I work the early shift, but pretty soon I’ll see other co-workers coming to make phone calls. It’s not a huge call center. We probably have about fifty people total, and forty of us are call center workers, while the rest do activities to support us, including tech repair and management. It’s not quite like a corporate environment. It’s run by the military, but we’re civilians. Anymore though civilians are expected to have some knowledge of how to use guns and as well as how to survive. The zombie apocalypse taught us the necessity of having those skills and even though a zombie hasn’t been sighted for quite some time people are still paranoid.

  I do wonder why we have an alien invasion call center, but no one has told any of us why. We got the jobs and we were told to call people, get details and pass the information to our handlers who decide if anything we’ve shared is worthwhile. I wonder what they’ll make of this call. Will they listen to it as well as look at my notes?

  I hear someone on the other end of the line and turn back to my keyboard.

  “Sidney, I have Sue with me.”

  “Thank you Jared. Please put her on.”

  I hear the phone being handed to Sue.

  “Hello Sidney, I’m Sue. Thank you for giving us a call. I know my husband shared the details of our experience, but he likes to be thorough so do you have any other questions?”

  “In your own words, can you share what you saw?”

  “Ahem, yes. Jared and I were out taking a late night walk. We happened to notice a blue glow in the sky and decided to investigate. It reminded us of something that happened during the zombie apocalypse and we were worried it might be zombies. Turns out it wasn’t. Instead what we saw was this alien spacecraft that was emitting the blue glow. The blue light was quite bright, but not so bright that it blinded us.”

  “You mentioned a glow you saw during the zombie apocalypse?”

  “Yeah we killed a bunch of zombies and dumped their bodies and one night we noticed they glowed. It was a green glow, but for all we knew they could have had other glowing colors. Anyway we watched the spaceship leave and then we walked over to where it had been and we saw a crop circle, but everything in that crop circle was dead.”

  “Thank you for sharing those details with me. Is there anything else you can think of?”

  “Not off the top of my head, but we’ll update the case if we think of anything and you can give us a call back in such an event,” Sue says.

  “Thank you Sue and please thank Jared for me as well. I hope you both have a great day.”

  “You as well. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  I click the red button to end the call and take my headset off. I never like to have it on longer than I need it to be on, because having that weight on my head feels oppressive. I type up what Sue shared in the call, noting that its two eyewitnesses and categorize the case as a likely sighting. They seemed to believe what they saw and they weren’t pulling a hoax. Then I save and close the case and get ready to take the next one.

  The next case is 30129145. I’m about to take it when my co-worker Chas comes in. He waves at me and logins to his computer.

  “Hey Chas, how was your weekend?”

  “Oh you’re not on a call? It was okay. I took my girlfriend to a zombie themed park and we rode on some of the rides and ‘killed’ zombies. Not even remotely what it was really like, but she really enjoyed it. I didn’t as much.”

  “I can’t believe there’s something out there like that. You’d think it would piss more people off,” I reply.

  “You’d think so, but I think for some people it becomes this weird kind of way to work through their trauma. I don’t really know what to think about it, to be honest. I just know it’s kind of crazy. But my girlfriend likes it so I went with her. I wish I hadn’t. It brought back too many bad memories.”

  “Does she know that?”

  “I didn’t say anything to her,” Chas uncomfortably admits.

  “That’s so co-dependent Chas. You’ve got to speak up for yourself more! If you don’t, no one else is going to.”

  “I know. I just don’t want to make her unhappy.”

  “So instead you’re making yourself unhappy. That doesn’t sound healthy. If you love each other, you have to be willing to have these uncomfortable conversations. Otherwise you’re just cheating yourself.”

  Chas nods, and I leave it at that. I’m not here to play therapist and I can’t solve his problems for him. The only person I’m qualified to solve problems for is myself. I even have a post-it note on my workstation and my home computer reminding me of that because in the past I have tried to be a problem solver and yet here I am giving Chas advice when he hasn’t necessarily asked for it.

  I turn back to my computer and look at case 30129145. It’s got a title of a blue glowing alien sighting. The words ‘blue’ and ‘glowing’ catches my attention. This is becoming a prominent theme of the cases. I quickly take a look at a few more cases and see that two of them also feature that same theme.

  “Hey Chas?”

  “Yeah, Sidney?”

  “When you’re looking at cases today, pay attention to the words ‘blue’ and ‘glowing’. There’s definitely something going on here with those words in particular.”

  “Ok. I’ll do that.”

  I turn back to my case and dial the customer.

  “Hello this is Sidney with the AICC and I’m calling for Chrissy. Is this Chrissy?”

  “Hi there. Yes this is Chrissy.”

  “Hey Chrissy I have your case open and you mentioned sighting an actual alien. Can you tell me more about that?”

  “Uhm sure. This is real, ok? I need you to know that.”

  “There is no judgment here. We have this call center for a reason.”

  “O-ok. I was walking my dog today. It was early in the morning and I was in the park. I was halfway through it when I saw this blue glow. I’d never seen anything quite like it. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”

  “Go on,” I encouragingly say. I can tell she’s pretty shaken up about what she’s sharing with me.

  “I go to investigate the glow. I wish I hadn’t. I w-walk my dog over to the glow and I-I see this tall blue skinned alien with four arms and two legs. It’s standing in the park, just l-looking around and my dog snarls at it and then runs over before I can pull her back.”