Free Bonfires Burning Bright by Jeremy Bishop, Kane Gilmour

lay at the bottom of a sloping hill of dirt and rock, cast in high contrast black shadows and orange fire-light. The city was probably two miles away, cut off from Refuge by strings of rocks—if they were rocks—that ground up and down through the sediment, like giant whack-a-moles. He could hear the screaming. Despite coming from a great distance, it sounded loud here. Close. It sent a shiver up his spine every time he heard a fresh bout of the wailing on the breeze. This close to the city and the fires, the smoke was thicker, like a foggy morning before the sunrise. But the light from the fires illuminated the smoky haze, like lighting effects at a rock concert.
    He could make out the walls of the strange labyrinth in the distance. Twisting and turning in and around, with protrusions here and there, like towers. Curving structures swept up and over the walls in places and dropped back into the maze in other places. For the first two hours of their watch, they hadn’t seen anything moving down there.
    But that had changed.
    A lone figure walked out of the main avenue of the labyrinth twenty minutes ago. They could see him through a telescope. He wore a white helmet of some sort. The details were lost in the smoke. He carried what looked like a long pipe, dragging it on the ground as he walked. Whatever it was, it looked heavy. He looked strong, but his arms were wrapped in some kind of dark sleeves or maybe armor.
    Only one thing was certain; the man was headed in their direction. He never wavered in his trajectory. He strode forward, straight as an arrow, and would soon arrive at the parked Humvee, where five terrified men stood watch.
    When the man reached the halfway point to the town’s border, Billings asked whether they should radio it in.
    In typical fashion, West pointed out that it was only one guy, and even though he looked big, they were each armed with M-16s. They could take him if it came to that. Drake suggested the man might be a messenger, but the way he said it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. The puffing of chests had begun.
    Brian said nothing, and Jim stood next to him, likewise lost in his own thoughts.
    The big man continued toward them, one trudging step up the incline after another. Jim forgot that he had the telescope in his hand, and Brian took it from him, zooming in on the guy.
    The lens focused on the man’s chest. He put Arnold Schwarzenegger to shame. The muscular pecks looked like a solid wall of flesh. Brian shifted the view sideways. Dark, twisted coils of rope, or resin or something like that, covered the man’s arms. It looked like a roiling mess of snakes had crawled up onto his arms and frozen in place. They didn’t move. Thank God for that .
    The man’s pants were linen or cloth, but his feet looked like they were clad in boots made from large reptile feet with claws on the ends— or are those his feet? And holy shit! Is that a tail?
    Brian pulled the telescope away from his eye and looked unaided for a second, then brought the scope back up. Yes, the man had a long tapering tail like… Brian shivered. Like one of those strange fire-breathing Gila monsters that had invaded the town. Although this guy’s tail looked bluish. Not orange and black. Different species maybe, but still reptilian.
    Brian could see now that the long thing the man dragged behind him was a black lance or pike. It looked heavy.
    The helmet— God, I hope it’s a helmet —was bone. Elongated, and ridged, with huge incisors pointing down like walrus tusks. The long skull looked far too long for it to be anything but a helmet. It has to be a helmet. It appeared to be the skull of some long-dead creature. An oversized snake, perhaps. As he followed the long skull teeth downward, he gasped. The front of the heavy helmet was held in place by the long, curved fangs, which arced down and pierced into the man’s prodigious chest. With each step, the body shifted and fresh blood trickled from