Wasssssup? It's me! Stevenspielbergwriter03! And I'm back with another chapter of my first fanfic. We're getting close to the end (there's only going to be 12 chapters), so stay tight cause it's going to get pretty intense from here on out.

Oh and BTW redneckgod, sarahdee, and LiveForTheMoment72 are all my fav reviewers. You guys rock, thanks for the support!

Chapter 10: Hiding Place

Simon's POV

My blood froze as the miniature tripod crawled at an alarmingly fast pace towards the house. Alvin got up from his crouching position and darted across the room and into the hall way, disappearing.

I finally managed to snap myself out of my paralyzed trance. As the little robot - I think it was just a little bigger than us - approached the front deck, I picked myself up and sprinted behind a table that had been overturned by the shaking from the tripods.

The drone needn't open the door, as it was already open from Otto rushing out and forgetting to close it. By the time it was inside, we had all found a neat hiding spot. Brittany had dug herself under her blanket, and Theodore and Jeanette were huddled under the top of the "Clue" box. I could see their faces if i tried hard enough.

The miniature tripod entered the room with some pretty impressive speed. It stopped in front of one of the food shelves, stood there for a few minutes, and suddenly a bright light flashed in that direction. I jumped, thinking it was a heat ray blast, but when I looked the shelf was completely unharmed. I realized that it was scanning the shelf for life.

Obviously not finding any, the tripod darted towards the closest wall and somehow - don't ask me how, as it defies every law of physics that I know - but it began to climb. The strain of going against gravity didn't even have an effect on it, as it had reached the ceiling and had begun sprinting towards the fan in the center within no more that one split second.

As soon as it had reached the fan, another bright flash lit up the room.

I realized that this thing was going to keep this up until it found something.

Alvin's POV

I hid behind a door. That was the best I could do in as empty a house as Aunt Jackie's. It was open just enough so that I could peek down the deep hallway, and on the other side of that hallway was the living room. I could hear the mini tripod on the roof, I could see the flashes.

I did my best to hold my breath, daring not give the robot any reason to go any deeper into the house. I froze when I heard it begin to move again. It sounded like it was getting closer.

I gulped down my nerves and slowly and calmly began to back up. As I did so, I watched the door like a hawk.

Suddenly I felt myself being grabbed. I thrashed out with my claws, but it was no use. I was lifted into the air with seemingly no effort. Just when I was about to scream for help, I realized that I was being held by a human hand.

"Alvin! I got the guns!" Otto's voice somehow managed to sound like a whisper yet be very loud at the same time.

I waved my arms to shush him and listened for the tripod. I didn't hear it at all.

I turned back to Otto and whispered, "there's a Martian robot in here. Keep quiet. Please."

Otto's eyes widened in shock. "A Martian? I'll blow its brains out!"

My muscles tightened as I continued to listen intently for any noise from the tripod. Otto was getting too loud, and I needed to calm him down somehow. "No. The tripods outside will hear the shot. We need to keep quiet and hide."

He ignored me. He instead gently placed the bag of guns he had had slung over his shoulder down on the ground.

I pursed my lips. The sound coming from this room was bound to attract that tripod any minute. Kneeling down, Otto unzipped his bag and pulled out a large shotgun.

I tip-toed over to him and put my hand on his knees. "Otto, I'm begging you. If you fire that gun, you'll kill us all. Please listen."

Without answering, Otto got to his feet. "Dave put me in charge, Alvin. I know how to take care of you. Don't you trust me?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He tip-toed over to the door, opened it slowly, and pushed the end of his gun through the opening. Taking aim, he muttered, "just wait until that Martian bastard comes this way."

Jeanette's POV

The tile floor was cold, hard, and dusty. I needed to sneeze. Bad. Though we couldn't see it from under our box, both Theodore and I could tell that the miniature tripod was on the ceiling, strolling around.

I looked in only direction I could without really moving: at Simon. He was still behind that table. Though the tripod had ventured directly above him a couple times, he had managed to remain undetected by pressing himself as hard as possible against the table and remaining completely motionless.

Suddenly, I felt a huge sneeze build up inside me. I didn't know if I could hold this one in, I honestly didn't. It was coming up now… I braced myself for a sudden break in silence… but it never came as my system managed to shut it down just before it came out. I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"A-CHOO!" Theodore's sneeze echoed throughout the room. I shut my eyes and pushed out a tear, as I knew then that it was all over.

I could hear the mini tripod scramble off the ceiling and down the walls. I couldn't see it as it was on the other side of Theodore, but I could tell by the way that the chubby green-clad chipmunk was clutching my hand that he knew this was the end.

I spun my head in the direction of Simon, just to maybe get one last glimpse at him, to possible say in that on final look that I was sorry.

But he was already gone.

The tripod had stopped advancing towards us and had turned its attention to something else: a blue-clad chipmunk which had jogged his way onto the middle of the room. I crawled forward just enough to see him waving his arms wildly as the tripod sprinted towards him. "HEY! OVER HERE!" He yelled.

As the tripod was almost upon him, he looked over it to see me. For a split second I stared into his eyes and he stared into mine.

Then in a split second he vanished. The tripod's heat ray ended his life so quickly I almost didn't see it happen.

The tripod must have figured its work here was done, because as soon as it was confirmed Simon dead, it left the room and left the house. Just in time, too, because as soon as he was gone, Otto was poking his head from the hallway.

"What the flying fuck just happened?" he asked me. His eyes suddenly caught Simon's dusty remains blowing in the wind. "Oh shit!" He dropped his gun and ran over to the spot where Simon had been blasted.

Fell to the ground and began corralling Simon's ashes into his hands. Once he had a good handful he watched it intently as if hoping they would come back to life.

After I finally had time to convince myself that that had really happened, that Simon was really dead, I began to cry.

One week later…

Alvin's POV

The tripods were still outside our house, all 38 of them. Ever since Simon's death, they had not moved from their positions. All the meanwhile we were forced to sit tight and not make a peep. For a whole week.

Otto had managed to keep quiet, though to be honest we barely saw him during that seven day span. When we did see him, he never spoke. I swear to God I hand't heard him say a word. All we could tell for sure was that he was depressed, perhaps too depressed to talk. Thank God.

Until the eighth day, the tripods had been as silent as us. On the eighth day, there was life outside our house once again.

I wan on the only real bed in the house, reading the Bible which I had found on Aunt Jackie's bed side table drawer. It wasn't as boring as I had found it earlier in my life, though to be fair it had been a long time since I had seen anything that could entertain me.

When the tripods finally were heard moving again, I raced to the nearest window as quickly as I could without making any noise, and peered out hopefully. Maybe they were finally leaving!

But they weren't. They seemed basically just to be strolling around aimlessly. But the important thing was that they were still there.

I decided to stick around, just because I had nothing better to do. I watched them as closely as I could, as I could tell that they were doing something out the ordinary, but I couldn't tell what. They were moving, but they were also using their tentacle arms for something. I could see the reaching into themselves, and pulling something out, and lowering them to the ground.

"Oh shit," I cursed under my breath. "Are those more mini-tripods?"

The sudden arrival of I huge tripod right in front of my window snapped me out of my trance and sent me scrambling backwards. I darted behind a nearby door and poked my head back around to see if it had seen me.

I breathed a sigh of relief as it made no motion to attack me, instead I got a front row view of what the others had been doing.

The tentacle arm reached into a giant hole in the tripods side. It dug around for a little while, before pulling out a screaming man desperately slamming his fists into the arm to get free. It had no effect on the tripod as the man was lowered down to the red weed-ridden ground.

Suddenly three more tentacle arms appeared from the under side of the tripod. Each arm had at the end a foot long razor sharp needle. Each one was slowly brought towards the man as the other arm held him down screaming. As the three arms finally stopped just a few inches from the man's neck, chest, and leg, I heard him beg for mercy one last time.

The three needles were shoved into the man as he struggled for a few seconds until a red liquid began to flow up the tentacle arms and the man became silent and motionless. Once there was no more blood to suck out, the three needles were retracted from the man's lifeless body and brought back inside the tripod, which preceded to walk off afterwards.

Once it had moved on from the window, I was able to see all of the tripods behind it, spraying a thick red liquid on the ground with hoses. Some of the mist found its way into the room through the window, getting me wet and staining my fur with blood. But I barely noticed, as I was still in shock with what I just had seen and what I was seeing in front of me.

I didn't realize at first when my little brother trudged into the room and sat down right next to me. I just continued to stare out the window as I let the mist of blood drench my clothes and mop up on my parched and cracked lips. I watched as the body fluid of thousands of dead people were dumped onto the Earth.

When he cautiously put his hand on my shoulder, I jumped. I realized it was him and I snapped out of it.

He looked back out the window, just like me in not caring about the mist. "This is how Eleanor died," he said finally.

I shook my head at him. "You can't be thinking about that, Theo."

"This whole world has gone to shit," he said. "And besides I don't have much else to think about."

"There has to be something."

He sighed. "Alvin, we're almost out of food. We can't stay here much longer."

"How much longer?"

"Not long, we have maybe another day's worth left."

I nodded. "We stay here as long as we need to. Until these fuckers leave."

"And if they don't?" He turned to me with sincerity in his eyes. He stared at me, waiting for a response which I was hesitant to give.

Suddenly, Otto's voice boomed out through the house, "DON'T WORRY… ABOUT A THING! 'CAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING'S… GONNA BE ALRIGHT!" He was singing, if you could call it that. More like yelling to a tune. And it was loud.

Before the tripods suddenly halted their spraying, I was out of the room and sprinting to where the noise was coming from.

"SINGIN'… DON'T WORRY ABOUT A THING!"

I searched frantically for Otto, as the tripods outside had by then gone dead silent. Just before Otto was going to continue his verse, I found him: on the ground, his back resting up on a stack of beer bottle boxes. A half empty beer bottle was in his hands, and several more empty ones were scattered across the floor.

"HEY ALVIN! MY BRO! WASSUP?"

"Shhh!" I desperately scolded him.

At least it got him to lower his voice a little. "Hey, do you wanna beer, Alvin? I found 'em under a porch seat."

"No. I don't want any."

He took a long slurp of the stuff already in his hand, upending it and draining it of its contents. He moaned in obvious stomach pain.

"You need to stop drinking," I warned him.

"Just a little more?" he whimpered.

"No! You've had enough!"

"You're not the babysitter, Alvin!" he growled at me. "I am."

"Otto, this is not a babysitting gig any more. It hasn't been for a long time."

"Who the hell are you to tell me what I can or cannot do? You're not my fucking mother!"

"Otto, you need to calm down! They'll hear you!" I pleaded with him.

He stopped and stared down at me with half open eyes for a good ten seconds. "Is that such a bad thing?"

I swallowed down my anger and all my other emotions. Without any response, he stood up uneasily and limped out of the room. I followed close behind him, curious.

We came to Aunt Jackie's old bedroom, the Bible on her bed where Otto's bag of heavy-duty gun rested. Otto touched the Bible gently, picked it up and studied it, flipped through the pages.

"Do you believe in God, Alvin?" he murmured.

The others, Jeanette, Theodore, Brittany, entered the room.

Otto continued, "I do… I have to imagine he's very comfortable right now."

"What are you saying?" Brittany gasped.

Otto pulled a small revolver out of his bag, flicked it open, and filled it with a single bullet. "I think heaven has to be very nice right now. Everyone up there… doesn't have to worry about things like we do." He stared at his gun for a few seconds before putting it to his brain.

"Otto wait!" I exclaimed. "If you want to end this… then that's your choice. No one will stop you. But please not like this. The shot will bring every tripod in miles down upon us!"

He looked down at me apologetically. "I am sorry, guys. I'm sorry I failed you, sorry I failed Dave. I failed."

And I knew then that there was nothing I could do.

He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. A booming gun shot echoed through the neighborhood and scrambled the seventeen year old's brains across the room.

The tripods outside broke their silence with the blasting of their earth shattering horns; a dooming cry of war. All 38 of them.

WOAH! What's going to happen? Are you excited for the next chapter? Let me know in a review!

Oh, and to redneckgod: the fact that Simon died in this chapter didn't necessarily have anything to do with your review. I have been planning all of these deaths since before I started writing the story, all the way back in 2011.

Stay tuned for the last two chapters!