Olivia wedged her fingers underneath the bedroom window and caught the pane on the heel of her hand. Sneaking back into the house was far more difficult than getting out. With enough jimmying the window squeaked up the frame inch by inch. Finally she managed to get an arm in, then the rest of her body, ungraceful as it may be.

The Carter family, Olivia's current foster family, hadn't done a lot of updating to the home which was why the windows were practically rusted shut. Still they were certainly nice people and they kept the home tidy, though they had made it abundantly clear they expected the same for her. That wasn't too difficult when one didn't have many permanent possessions to start out with. She was still new to this family, but they had yet to notice that she only had three outfits that she kept wearing and washing multiple times a week.

Those days will be gone, Olivia told herself.

A regular person might have put her new possible weapon in a hiding place first, but frankly Olivia needed the reminder of the money she'd made tonight first. She removed the wad of cash and crossed the room, falling to her knees to drag the shoebox out from beneath her bed. Tampons exploded from within, deterrent to keep her money safe from nosey foster families, and she let them loose so that she could remove the false cardboard bottom and lay the money down with her other crinkled bills.

"There," she breathed and smiled at the pile of mismatched bills.

Ten thousand dollars.

She was going to be ready when she turned eighteen. She would not be a foster kid statistic. This criminal life she'd been living the past four years was going to be a distant memory one day. Maybe when no one was home she would allow herself the luxury of counting her money and look up apartment rentals in New Orleans on her phone.

A strange sound caught her attention.

She frowned at the door, at the low humming sound seemed to resonate. It sounded like something vibrating in the next room. Was it a cell phone?

The sound died down and then instead she could hear sloppy, crunching sounds.

Every hair on her neck stood at attention. She didn't move, even as curiosity goaded her to see what it was before she did anything rash. Olivia had seen enough of life to know that ignoring an initial instinct could result in disaster.

She split the difference by opening that box of tampons again and dumping them to get to the false bottom of the shoebox. The tampon wrappers rustled gently to the carpet, the thin plastic crackling was quiet. When the sounds from the living room stopped suddenly. She stilled. Someone had heard

Crap.

Olivia snatched all the money in her pocket messily between her fingers and shoved in unceremoniously into her back pocket. Pockets. She hadn't gotten to finding a place to hide the gun just yet, had she?

Her stomach dropped. Should she hold on to it? Was she being paranoid? Should she put it away now before either foster parent found her armed with a gun AND the dagger they still didn't know she carried around?

Her hesitation was interrupted by a horrible sound that nearly brought her to her knees at once. Her skull vibrated like someone had just turned on a subwoofer in her brain. The droning was a low, angry sound like a swarm of bees or the hum of a machine pushed to its limit and about to break apart.

She slapped her hands over her ears and stumbled to her feet. The backs of her knees hit the bed, almost forcing her to sit on the edge. She caught herself and looked up. Her eyes went wide. Peeking in her bedroom door was a head. Not a human head, but a blown up insect's head with an exoskeleton shining in the moonlight.

The sound's volume raised. She could feel her the vibration of its resonating pitch rattling the bedpost.

Move. Now, commanded her gut instincts.

She regained enough composure to scramble over the bed for the window she'd (thank god) hadn't closed behind her just yet. She dove outside head first, accepting the hard fall into the dying rosebush without a scrambled, scratched to her feet to run for the street, the quiet neighborhood that was just outside of Franklinton's meager downtown area.

As she did she saw other things, shadows moving under the trees in the planters along the sidewalk. Someone screamed and the sirens blared to life in the distance.

What was going on?

She tensed at the sound of glass shattering behind her. She whirled around just in time to see the hellish wasp thing stick one spindly leg through the window and then another picking apart the surrounding stucco and window sill. The drone sound exploded out again and she just barely resisted the urge to cover her ears.

Now, with nothing obstructing the moonlight and the dim lights of the street lamps, she could see the dark patches of blood around its maw. The legs left bloody tracks on the white exterior paint.

It had been eating something. Not something. Someone in her house.

The Carter's were good people. They were arguably the nicest family she'd ever lived with. Had it gotten the young seven year old? Mrs. Carter?

The drone sound stopped just long enough to let out a frustrated screech when the monster couldn't get its engorged body through the window. A still target.

If there was ever a time to learn to use a weapon...

She plucked the doggie bag from her hoodie's pocket and ripped through the plastic. Confirmed, it was indeed a gun. She wielded it in hand, suddenly hoping that the safety was off and firing really was as simple as aiming and squeezing the trigger.

"Fuck off ugly mother fucker!"

BANG! A hole appeared in the stucco of the house and the gun jumped at the kickback. She gripped the gun harder, arms straighter. BANG! BANG! Another hole in the side out the house on the first shot and the screaming monster threw its head back on the second, splatter appearing on the exterior of the house behind it.

The creature looked down again, missing a corner of its own skull and somehow it seemed little more than mildly inconvenienced. Enraged,the monster's strength was renewed. Hair covered stick-like legs pushed at the exit it was making for itself. The framing around the window crumbled and stucco started to shatter.

It was going to get through.

"Crap," she swore between ragged breaths and turned the run toward the street. She stopped suddenly when a van tore down the asphalt a highway speeds, nearly clipping her the second she stepped foot off the curb.

She skid to a halt just in time, only just catching a glimpse of the driver swatting at something fluttering around his head like a bat and trying to steer at the same time. It scraped a parked truck, spun and landed on its side in an explosion of broken glass and screeching metal.

Panic seized her, urging her through hesitation.

Other way! Move!

She did a one-eighty, reacquainted with the sight of the monster hoisting itself through her bedroom window. Her eyes went straight past it it, her mind landing on an idea. Behind the house was a bit of wood that ventured out beyond the property line where she knew Mr. Carter had built a deer stand.

When Olivia had first arrived she learned about it from another one of their foster kids. Mr. Carter was still looking for one of the kids to be interested in hunting so that they could use it. Olivia had briefly considered it, thinking maybe if she showed some interest she could get to know Mr. Carter well enough for him to take pity on her, maybe help her with college. But being cozy with adult men as a teenage girl could be a dicey thing and she'd decided not to risk it.

Olivia was regretting that now. At the very least he probably could have showed her how to aim a gun properly.

Olivia watched the canopy, looking for the structure in the branches. She found it, an unnatural lump of two by fours nailed together and blocking out the full moon's light. She skidded to the base of the tree where Mr. Carter had left a large metal chest, not unlike ones that were probably used by the military. She knelt down, surprised when she opened it and saw what could only be described a crap load of empty Jack Daniels bottles.

She jerked back, startled by the smell of stale whiskey rolling out of the chest.

"Holy… hell…"

Olivia swore again and looked back the way she came. She saw nothing coming after her, not that this meant anything. She could barely even make out anything between the silhouettes of the trees.

Still shaking, she doubled over with her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. She'd been hoping there was something like a rifle or some other kind of useful hunting gear in the huge chest. Apparently all she found was that Mr. Carter had been a closet drunk.

She looked up at the deer stand. Panicked as she was she didn't think about calling 911. How would she explain that there was a monster in her room? Not to mention there was a sensation in the air that she couldn't explain. Like nowhere was safe.

She paused at the sound of pounding footsteps.

Then she reached down and started to grab bottles one by one.

She tossed one bottle aside and another and another, pausing only when she heard an anonymous roar from town and then doubling her efforts. Crap, crap, crap. Aha! All clear. She pulled herself into the army chest thing, took the gun and then laid down to wait out the night.

Almost immediately upon feeling safe she felt a rush of embarrassment. What had she really seen tonight? Why hadn't she run back and searched for help? Or car keys? She'd only driven a handful of times, but she was certain she could figure it out if she had to.

She pulled up her phone, grimacing. Getting a signal was almost impossible in towns like Franklinton, but in the short time she'd connected to the wifi when she'd gotten home she had gotten a string of text messages:

Where are you?

Something is wrong. We're calling the police.

Can't contact the police. They're stuck downstairs. Something is trying to get in the house

Where are you? Answer now. You're voicemail is full.

I'm so sorry. We had to leave. Don't come home.

Olivia frowned.

Maybe she wasn't being paranoid.

Hours passed where all the awful noises were muffled. Somewhere in the distance there was another explosion and what sounded like rapid gun fire, spitting out bullets and then stopping suddenly. Footsteps ran past her hiding place and she held the gun to her chest, ready to shoot up at anything that might open the lid to her hiding place.

She laid there for a long time, the cold of night waning to morning sunlight. She was breathing stale, whiskey laden air, but she didn't dare do more than crack the lid for a few moments at time, hoping that she wouldn't hear or see anything from the random surge of monsters that seemed to have suddenly invaded the world overnight.

Maybe when she woke up she would find this to be a horrible scenario. She would open the lid only to find her city was exactly the way it should be and she'd spent the night a homemade, oversized gun chest holding in the urge to pee for no other reason than that she had had a minor, and hopefully temporary, psychotic break.