The hazy clouds above shifted, allowing a spear of direct sunlight to pierce the shadows below. The creatures were revealed.
Dozens of large, reptilian beasts. They were stocky and thick, resembling giant Gila monsters—thick powerful bodies and knobby, scaled, orange and black skin. Most stood about two feet high at the shoulder. The largest of them was easily twelve feet from its nose to the tip of its fat, stubby tail. They circled around the woman, their tongues flicking in and out of their wide, toothy mouths. Perhaps more disturbing than the flicking tongues, however, was the fact that no two of the creatures looked exactly alike.
Several of them sported long horns on their heads. Some had three horns, while others had only one or two. Others had no horns at all. The largest of the creatures had three eyes; one on either side of its head and a third in the middle of its face. Another was cyclopean, a single eye right in the middle of its forehead. Two of them had no eyes at all, but turned their heads this way and that, in response to miniscule sounds. One of the creatures that stood farthest from Jillian actually had seven eyes, all scattered around its head, in no particular order.
Some of the creatures had fat feet, while others had thin, birdlike claws. One of them had two tails, while several had no tails to speak of and still others had only thick, stunted nubs. One of the beasts had a spiny membrane along the center of its back that reminded Frost of a dimetrodon, while another bore a foursome of bony spikes on the end of its tail a-la stegosaurus. None of the beasts walked upright, but a few had front legs that were significantly longer than their rear legs, giving them an almost upright posture. Frost even spotted one of the beasts with six legs instead of four.
It was a freak show.
Yet for all their physical differences, the creatures were similar in two ways: their overall reptilian appearance, and the fact that every single one of them was facing Jillian.
The creatures surrounded the woman, sniffing the air and making muted chuffing sounds. They reminded Frost of a pack of friendly dogs, moving in to sniff the newcomer. Jillian spun in slow, dazed circles, breathing heavily, like she’d just run a marathon. From Frost’s position on the rocky ledge, she could hear Jillian mumbling something, but she couldn’t make it out.
“What should we do?” Loomis whispered.
“We’ve got to go down there and get her,” Dodge said. “They don’t seem violent.”
Frost had to agree. The creatures didn’t appear very aggressive. They shuffled and chuffed, sniffing the air and watching Jillian, but they made no move toward her. They’re like big, scaly cows, she thought. She continued to watch them for a few more heartbeats, then made her decision.
“Okay,” she said. “Loomis, Dodge, you guys come with me. The rest of you, cover us from up here. If things go sideways, start shooting.”
Brent nodded. “Fish in a barrel.”
“And if you hear the church bell, do me a favor and shout a warning before you bolt.”
Brent paled a bit, but nodded.
She turned to look at Loomis and Dodge. “Let’s move.”
Looking for a way down, she found a ledge to the right that worked its way upward while thinning away to nothing about thirty feet up the slope. No help there. To the left, the ledge continued on for another twenty feet before ending abruptly in a pile of rocks. They might be able to climb down the rocks, but could they do it while holding on to their rifles? She had two options. Slide down with the weapon over her shoulder. Out of easy reach. Maybe get eaten. Or, slide down off balance and maybe sprain an ankle. She had her handgun, but she wasn’t sure how useful it would be against a mob of otherworldly lizard things. Either option would leave her unable to sprint back to town if the bell began ringing, but only one of them involved being eaten alive.
Cows, she told herself. They’re just reptilian—
“Holy shit!” Silver’s voice.
Frost turned around just in time to see one of the creatures—the biggest one—leap closer to Jillian and open its mouth.
A gurgling sound rose from its throat.
The gurgle became a hiss, as compressed, misty air sprayed out...and caught fire.
The next few seconds were the stuff of an Arthurian nightmare. While Jillian screamed, a thin jet of white flame shot from the creature’s mouth and engulfed her legs. Then a second jet of flame shot from the mouth of another of the creatures, which was joined by yet another. In a matter of seconds, no less than half a dozen of them were spitting fire.
Even thirty or so feet above the scene, half concealed by the rocky ledge, the scalding heat rose up and washed over the group, forcing them back and preventing them from helping the woman.
Jillian wasn’t dead. Not yet. Her screams echoed from beneath. Frost peeked over the edge, cringing as the heat prickled her skin. Jillian, now engulfed, writhed below, her movements slowing, but the creatures kept the flames on her, as the sickening smell of burning flesh rose through the air, mixing with the smells of heat and dust.
Frost heard one of the men throw up behind her.
Dodge tried to leap over the ledge. Loomis and Silver grabbed him and held him back. Frost stared, frozen in place, as the woman they had come to rescue slowly turned into a lump of charred flesh.
“Let me go!” Dodge was screaming. “I have to help her!”
“You can’t help her,” Loomis said. “It’s too late.”
“But I told her,” Dodge said, struggling. “I promised I would help her!”
But Jillian, the mysterious ‘Sally Field,’ was dead and gone.
Dodge fell to his knees, weeping in anguish.
The attack had taken less than thirty seconds, during which time Jillian’s body had gone from mostly healthy and whole, to charred and blackened. Still, the creatures kept the flames going.
“What are they doing?” Silver asked. “She’s dead, already.”
They had their answer thirty seconds later, as Jillian’s left leg crumbled into a pile of ashes. The biggest creature closed its mouth, cutting off its fire, and approached the corpse. The other creatures did likewise. Once they reached Jillian’s body, which was now nothing but a pile of oily ashes and charred bones, they began to eat.
“Ashes?” Loomis whispered. “These fucking things eat ashes?”
Could have used them in the dark world, Frost thought, as she watched the creatures devour the pile of dark gray ash that had once been a woman who meant...something to Dodge. She looked around at the bleak landscape, remembering the piles of scorched bones.
Now she knew what had killed this world.
Dodge shouted in anger, breaking free of Loomis and Silver. He grabbed one of the rifles, took aim and fired a shot, hitting the largest creature just behind one of its three eyes.
The creature dropped like a stone, with a puff of flame from the wound, but dozens of others turned their faces upward, looking at the rocky ledge. Dodge fired again and again, hitting several of the creatures and killing two more, before the rifle’s breech locked open on an empty chamber. He looked blankly at the rifle, screamed something unintelligible, and threw it hard, down at one of the monsters.
Below, several of the monsters squealed long and loudly, as blood poured from small bullet wounds. Those that didn’t die rolled around in the dirt, raising clouds of dust while they shrieked in pain. The ones who died were set upon almost immediately by their brethren, who all seemed to have no qualms about cooking and eating their own kin.
A few of the group joined in the shooting, filling the crevasse with deadly rounds. Several more of the creatures dropped. But many more were there to take their places.
“Stop!” Frost shouted. They were wasting ammunition. Jillian was dead. They could just leave, not waste bullets on revenge. “Hold your fire!”
Movement to her left turned her attention away from the action.
All across the barren landscape, the earth itself seemed to come to life. But it wasn’t the ground. The orange and black mass was alive. The gunf
ire had drawn even more of the creatures out from their hiding places among the rocky terrain. They began to pour forth from large holes and shadowy alcoves, looking like a nest of ants defending their hill. Everywhere she looked, an army of the things huffed and shuffled along, all heading toward the group of people on the rocky ledge and, she guessed, toward the smell of fresh food.
Fuck me, she thought. There must be hundreds of the damn things.
“We have to go,” she said.
Loomis looked up from the spectacle below and caught sight of the massing throng of Gila-things, as well. “Oh, shit,” he said softly. Then louder: “Oh, fucking shit! Guys! Look!”
But no one could hear him.
Frost drew her side arm and fired a few rounds around her team’s feet. That got their attention.
The sound of gunfire ended as the rest of the group took in the scene. By this time, the horizon was crawling with giant, orange and black lizards. Here and there, an occasional jet of white flame could be seen. The constant chuffing noises the creatures made merged into one long, scratchy sound.
“We have to go,” Frost said again. “Right now.”
It took a bit of wrestling to get Dodge under control. In his rage, he wanted to run down and batter the army of creatures with his bare fists. But eventually Loomis, Silver and Marshall reined him in. He fought and screamed and threw wild punches for a few more seconds, then slumped in their arms, his energy spent.
He blames himself, Frost realized. He’s the reason Jillian was in town when the shift happened. But why? That matter would have to wait for another day. And a psychiatrist. For now, they just needed to haul ass.
But they weren’t moving fast enough. Dodge’s dead weight was slowing them down. She hurried ahead, stopped in front of Dodge and slapped him hard across the face. “I know you feel bad about what happened—”
“I promised her,” Dodge said.
“Well it wasn’t the only promise you made, was it?” she asked, knowing the question would invoke the memory of Rule’s death. “We need you, too.”
Dodge bit his lips. Hard. And then he shrugged free from the men holding him. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
She turned around and started running back the way they’d come. She heard the footsteps behind her as the rest of the group followed.
Then she rounded a large boulder not far from where they’d found the bones. She choked off a scream and stopped in her tracks. There, no more than twenty feet away, a group of the lizard creatures charged toward her, choking off the exit route.
11
Cash sat behind the wheel of his borrowed car, finishing his warm Coke, and thinking about the meeting he’d just witnessed. He couldn’t hear what was said, but it was the second time he’d seen Charley Wilson and Julie Barnes act like they knew each other better than most people knew, which was not at all. Aside from the conversion of Charley’s house to the new town solar grid, he couldn’t think of any reason a woman like that—sexy and sophisticated—would have anything to do with that deadbeat. He’d known Charley a long time. They’d been friends on occasion, but since Charley’s closest friend became a bottle, they didn’t socialize much, other than the occasional story swap at the Brickhouse.
Normally, his Yankee sensibilities would tell Cash it was none of his business, but now, secrets could get people killed. Still, confronting Charley or Julie wasn’t something he wanted to do alone. Better to fill in Frost or Griffin. Let the law work things out.
He started the car, looking up at the hazy yellow sky. He didn’t like this world. The light made everything look flat. At least, he thought, nothing is trying to—
A scream.
His heart beat faster. In the past, a scream would have been little more than a curiosity. Kids playing. A prank. They rarely meant anything bad. But now... He leaned forward over the wheel, looking out the windshield.
A woman bolted out from behind a house, easily identifiable by her bright pink, plaid flannel shirt. But she moved differently now. There was no swagger. No purposeful shift of her butt. She was running, for her life, heading away from him, down the street toward town. Had Charley snuck out the back and attacked her?
He had his answer a moment later when a ten-foot-long lizard scrambled into the road, its claws clacking loudly over the pavement. It was a blur of black and orange, sporting three eyes on either side of its head and two wide tails that spun as it tried to turn. It slid across the macadam, trying to stop, and slammed into the curb along the sidewalk. But the thing wasn’t fazed. It was quick to its feet again, scrabbling after Julie.
And then—the fuck?—a ball of white hot fire burst from the creature’s mouth, billowing out around its body. The flames fell short of Julie, but the thing was gaining on her quickly.
Cash buckled himself in, threw the vehicle into drive and smashed the gas pedal to the floor. He’d wanted to leave quietly, without Charley noticing him, but if Julie died, they might never find out what the pair had been up to. Tires squealed as the car accelerated, passing the 30-mph residential speed limit in four seconds. Doubling it in another three.
Without her customary heels, Julie was pretty fast. She’d nearly reached Main Street. But she wasn’t going to make it much further. The creature was nearly on top of her. Luckily for Julie, Cash’s car was even closer to the creature. He hit the thing from behind, as it rounded the corner behind Julie. There was a hard jolt as he struck the thing, but he had no time to see if he’d killed it. He hammered the brakes, skidding across Main Street and careening into the woods on the far side of the street, narrowly missing a pine tree. With the car stopped, and in one piece, he threw it into reverse and peeled back out of the woods.
He spotting Julie still running, heading for the police station, which he knew wasn’t currently manned. He knew about the posses that had been organized, and he saw people looking his way from the center of town, but no one was taking action. He couldn’t blame them. Most hadn’t seen the things he had. First encounters with the otherworldly could freeze a person in place.
But the lizard, while missing both tails now, seemed undaunted as it continued after Julie.
Cash threw the car into drive and sped after it.
To his surprise, Julie ran past the police station and stopped in front of Sam’s hardware store, which had been left unlocked. Not only was Sam dead, but the town needed access to his cache of supplies. Julie ran inside and closed the door behind her.
The lizard crashed into the door a moment later. It tried a second time, shaking its head, looking dazed. Then it jaws sprang open. White flames burst out, engulfing the door.
Holy hell, Cash thought, and he braced for an impact.
There was a jolt when he hit it, but he never lost control of the vehicle. He skidded to a stop in front of the park, where a group of five armed men and old Huck, watched with slack-jawed amazement. Cash jumped out of the car, shotgun in hand and turned back toward the creature.
Its back had been crushed beneath the car’s wheels, but it hadn’t given up the chase. Instead, it was bashing its head against the burning door...until the door was kicked open from the inside. The monster flinched back in surprise, its six eyes going wide before being frozen that way when a pitchfork shot out of the door and impaled its head. The sharp spines shot down and out of the thing’s neck.
Julie exited the fiery door, pitchfork in hand, and shoved the creature away. It fell to the sidewalk, dead. She disappeared back inside for a moment and reemerged with a bright red fire extinguisher, which she turned on the door, unleashing a cloud of compressed carbon dioxide.
When the flames subsided, she dropped the tank, rolled her neck and kicked the dead creature with an angry grunt.
Huck stepped up next to Cash, “Thought she was a real estate agent.”
Cash frowned. “So did I.”
As impressive as Julie’s counterattack was, it was also disconcerting. It wasn’t an act of desperation. She could have snuck out a wi
ndow, or out the back door. But she didn’t. She attacked. Ruthlessly. Cash saw her in a different light now. Julie Barnes was a dangerous woman.
She glanced over at him, eyeing him angrily. They’d never been friendly. She’d helped destroy his business. But then she softened her expression and said, “Thanks for the help.”
He didn’t get a chance to reply. Gunshots rose up all over town, mixed with shouting. But the sounds just punctuated the true horror Cash had only just detected: the scent of burning wood...and people.
12
A burst of static from Griffin’s hip cut through the room’s tension and made everyone jump. Cash’s voice followed. “Griffin, this is Cash, you read?”
Griffin plucked the radio up. “I hear you, Cash. Heard gunshots. What’s going on? Over.”
“Big fuckin’ lizards is what’s going on,” Cash said. “And there’s more than a few of them. Breathing fire! Could use some—” Cash’s voice was drowned out by a stream of gunfire and shouting. In the silence that followed, the echoing reports of the gunfire reached them.
“Sounds like a war,” Winslow said.
“Almost,” Griffin said. “But close enough.”
“…coming?” Cash said from the radio. “Lots of guns. No organization. We need—” More gunfire followed by, “Huck! Get back.” The boom of a shotgun. A shriek.
“Cash,” Griffin said into the radio, heading toward the door. “I’m on my way!”
He stopped when Avalon caught up to him, heading for the door. “You’re not coming.”
“I’m not staying here,” she said.
“Ava, I’m—”
Radar and Lisa headed for the door. “If they’re in town,” Radar said. “They might also be here.”
“This house is secure,” Griffin said. “A fortress.”
Winslow stepped to the front door without a word. After looking through the side window, he opened the door and stepped out. Griffin couldn’t stop the man from coming, but he wasn’t about to bring his daughter and two teens into a fight. “You’re not even armed. I can’t protect you all.”
Refuge Book 4 - Ashes and Dust Page 5