Alien Blood

By Chris Archer

In the second book of this middle grade sci-fi series, a teen survives a near-death experience and gains alien powers that make her a killer’s target.
 
Ashley Rose might be the world’s biggest movie buff, but when her life becomes a supernatural thriller, she’d do anything to go to back to being an ordinary teenager at Metier Junior High. Only Ashley is anything but ordinary. On the night of her thirteenth birthday, she falls through the ice into the town’s reservoir, the one where UFO sightings allegedly happen. Not only does Ashley survive the frigid water against all odds, but she suddenly has powers beyond her wildest imaginings. Her supersonic hearing comes in handy at school, and the fact that she can now breathe underwater makes her the new star of the swim team. But her powers come with a price, because now that Ashley has alien blood, she also has extraterrestrial enemies who will stop at nothing to kill her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504089012

Chris Archer

Chris Archer is an American author known for his contributions to the world of fantasy and science fiction literature. He is best known for the Mindwarp series, which explores a future where technology allows for the manipulation of consciousness, and delves into the moral and ethical implications of these advancements. Archer’s other work includes the Pyrates series, the Fright Club series, and the Haute Tension series.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

My name is Ashley Rose. I died on my thirteenth birthday.

That’s me—sitting all by myself in the very last row of Mr. Holland’s eighth-period biology class. I’m the brown-haired girl dressed all in black—black sweater, black jeans, black combat boots, black nail polish—doodling in her notebook. I was in my all-black phase. I guess I thought I was being different.

I had no idea what being different meant back then.

The reason I was sitting by myself was that Drew Molinari, my lab partner, was sick that week.

Well, not exactly sick. Injured.

It was nothing new. Drew was always getting into fights—he was the star member of the wrestling team, in fact—but last week he was beaten up pretty badly. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, but I really can’t say that I missed him.

For one thing, Drew’s idea of partnership was to sit back while I did all the work, then copy my lab reports.

For another thing, Drew was a jerk. Last week, Mr. Holland sent him to the principal’s office for stuffing a dead frog down Ethan Rogers’s shirt. The week before that, it was for mashing a dead grasshopper in Ethan’s hair.

I’ll say one thing for Drew: At least he was a consistent jerk.

By the way, that’s Ethan over there—the skinny kid wearing the X-Men T-shirt. Ethan may look like a serious student, sitting with his notebook open, studying his notes. In fact, he’s reading a comic book. He’s got a stack of a dozen more inside his backpack. Pretty much all he’ll do for the next forty minutes is read them.

I can’t say that I blame him.

You see, Mr. Holland is without a doubt the most boring teacher at Metier Junior High School.

Metier, in case you didn’t know, is French. It’s supposed to be pronounced met-ee-ay. Everybody around here pronounces it like meteor, though. As in the space rocks.

Our school is even nicknamed The Meteor. The school team is the Metier Meteorites. The school mascot is Floyd, the Metier-oid. The school newspaper is called the Metier Shower.

It gets pretty tired, if you ask me.

Speaking of tired, see that kid in the third row? The Asian girl struggling to stay awake? That’s Jenny Kim. She’s yawning because she was up really late last night watching Conan O’Brien. Jenny loves Conan O’Brien—she has a thing for guys with red hair. How do I know this? Simple. Jenny’s my best friend. We tell each other everything, do everything together.

In fact, that night Jenny and I were going out to celebrate my birthday. Dinner and a movie at the Metier Mall. I was really looking forward to it. Especially the movie.

I’m really into movies.

Only two things stood in the way: this class and swim practice. Biology I could handle.

Swimming practice … well, that was another story.

The bell rang.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Holland gathered up his index cards and cleared his throat.

The subject of today’s lecture, he began reading, is one of nature’s truly miraculous creations.

Someone who can stay awake through this class, I felt like adding.

Mr. Holland pointed to the words on the blackboard. The planarian worm. You will each find a specimen in the petri dish in front of you.

I looked in my dish.

At first I didn’t see it—it was so small. A flat little worm—maybe an inch long, with a triangular-shaped head—frantically squirming around in a puddle of water at the bottom of the dish.

At the front of the classroom, Mr. Holland walked out from behind his desk and started down the centre aisle of the class, still reading off his index cards.

This creature is at once a far simpler and a far more exciting organism than its more well-known cousin, the earthworm, he recited. Certainly one of its more noteworthy characteristics is its regenerative ability. We will now vividly demonstrate that unique characteristic. Have one of your students—oh. He stopped reading.

He was standing directly behind me.

Ms. Rose, he said. Take the scalpel—that’s the little knife on your dissecting tray—and cut the worm in half.

Cut the worm in half? I said. Mr. Holland, that’s like animal cruelty, or something.

Mr. Holland picked up the scalpel off the dissecting tray and handed it to me.

In half, please, he said.

The knife was cold in my hand. The worm was wriggling in the petri dish.

I don’t know if I can do it, I said.

There’s no cause for alarm, Ms. Rose, Mr. Holland said. The worm will experience no discomfort.

Yeah, I thought. But I might lose my lunch.

Come on, Ashley, a voice sneered. We’re all waiting.

I looked up and saw Sharon Flood staring at me.

Let me tell you some things about Sharon Flood. First there’s the obvious stuff: blue eyes, shoulder-length blond hair, perfect features, and pearly white teeth. She’s the most popular girl in the seventh grade. A straight-A student. Vice president of the student council. Star of the swimming team. And, let us not forget—

Hater of my guts.

Don’t ask me why.

If this were a movie, there would probably be some real good reason for Sharon to despise me. I’d have kidnapped her dog, for instance. Or dropped a house on her sister. Or—

Ms. Rose?

I looked up. Mr. Holland was still standing over me.

We’re waiting.

Right, I said. I looked down at the worm, took a deep breath, and raised the scalpel. Right in half?

Mr. Holland nodded.

I cut the worm.

I expected to see worm blood. I expected to see worm guts. I was wrong.

The worm’s head wriggled around as if nothing was the matter with it at all.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I guess I hadn’t killed it after all.

Then the other half of the worm started wriggling around, too.

I jumped back. Whoa.

For those of you who couldn’t see that, Mr. Holland continued, a planarian worm, cut in half, becomes in effect two separate creatures. And each half of the worm eventually regenerates its lost tissue.

Wow, I said, despite myself. So why does it do that?

A good question, Ms. Rose, Mr. Holland said. "And the answer is survival. Larger animals defend themselves either by attacking their enemies or by eluding them—by ‘fight’ or by ‘flight.’ But because a tiny, defenseless creature like the planarian worm can’t fight, and isn’t very fast, it relies on regeneration as its defense against predators. If half of it gets eaten, the other half still lives."

The rest of the period, Mr. Holland droned on about planarian worms, survival skills, and cell regeneration in amphibians. My thoughts kept returning to swimming practice.

I was wondering if I could just skip it.

I don’t like sports too much. Well, that’s not exactly true. I like sports just fine. It’s the idea of competition that bothers me. For every winner, there’s like a dozen losers. And I don’t think it’s right for some kid to be tagged a loser in junior high school.

But try telling that to my dad.

The only reason I even joined the team was because my dad made me. He’s always trying to get me to be more outgoing, to join some after-school activities, whatever. He says it will help me fit in better. I tell him he doesn’t understand. That I don’t want to fit in. That I want to stand out, to be my own person, to run my own races.

And he stares at me as if I’m from another planet.

It’s at times like those that I think he really wishes he had a son.

It’s times like those that I wish I had a mother.

The bell rang, interrupting that unhappy train of thought. And prompting another.

It was time for swimming practice.

What I liked about being on the swimming team was hanging out with Jenny.

What I didn’t like about it was pretty much everything else.

Doing the laps during practice—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The team spirit thing—gathering together in a little circle before each meeting, spelling out the team name, doing our little cheer. Queer with a capital Q. Especially when Sharon was leading the cheers.

On top of all that, you had to take a shower before diving into the water. Go figure.

I finished taking my shower, wrapped a towel around myself, and headed for my locker.

My bathing suit was gone.

Looking for something?

Sharon was sitting on the far end of the bench, trying to look innocent.

I glared at her. Yeah, I said. Something to swim in.

How about a bathing suit? Monica Myers peeked her head around the corner and giggled. That’s what I use.

Sharon laughed. I didn’t.

Very funny, I said. Where is it?

Sharon shrugged her shoulders. I have no idea.

I decided to be reasonable. Come on, you guys. Where did you put it?

Sharon and Monica smiled at each other. Is it that ratty old blue bathing suit? Monica asked. That same one you always wear?

She was talking about the only suit I happened to own. Maybe it was a little worn,