Free Monsters: The Ashes Trilogy by [email protected]

. . . wait for me . . .
    All of a sudden, her mind shifted with a hard, panicky clench, a
flutter, the sudden bunch and twist of the monster sensing that she
really was on her way out. That this was it, end of the line—and it
was fighting like hell to work its way free.
    Despite everything, she wanted to laugh. Might have, if she’d had
the air. The monster had become something more, the way Kincaid
thought it would, but it was still trapped inside her head, and she was
buried alive.
    Got you . . . I g-got you . . . Her thoughts were slurring. Hurts, this
hurts. So hard to focus. Words slipping through her fingers, dropping
out of her mind. Everything going away, except for the pain. Hurts.
No air. Chest . . . hurt, hurt. Dark. No . . . air . . . n-no, can’t let go.
She fought to suck in one more breath.
Can’t . . . l-let . . .
    Outside the torture house, the horses were restless, nickering and tossing their heads. Matching him step for step, Greg’s golden retriever,
Daisy, alternated between anxious pants and high whimpers.
“Man, you see that?” Pru asked in a low voice.
    “Yeah. All the animals are spooked.” He looked up at the older
boy. “You felt it, too. I know you did.”
“Felt what?” With his fun nixed, Aidan had attached himself to
Greg and Pru. For Aidan, an alert over the radio? Excellent. Go where
the trouble was, because you just never knew when the next opportunity for a little mayhem might present itself. “I didn’t feel nothing.”
“Well, I did. Ground shook, just like Kincaid said. Like a . . . a
rumble, something vibrating. You know? When a semi goes by? Or a
big lightning strike, real close?” Pru lifted his nose and sniffed.
“What are you doing?” Aidan said.
“Sniffing for the ozone,” Pru said. “You know. The way air smells
after lightning.”
“Shut up.” Aidan snorted. “Lightning’s electricity. It ain’t got a
smell.”
“Yeah, it does,” Greg said. “Like car exhaust in summer.”
“Ozone,” Pru repeated, then shook his head. “I don’t smell anything but the snow.”
“Well, I can’t smell because it’s so damn cold,” Aidan said. “My
nose froze five minutes ago. You guys are just being pussies, letting
Kincaid psych you out.”
“Oh yeah?” Pru pointed to the left of the stable’s slider. “Look at
the snow, A.”
Greg saw what Pru meant at once. They’d had fresh snow the
night before, but instead of only a new layer icing the hard pack piled
atop the entry ramp, there were discrete hummocks, like miniature
mountains of sifted confectioners’ sugar. Digging out his flashlight,
Greg scrutinized the roof. The stable had no gutters, so whatever melt
there’d been showed in a glittering bristle of long icicles, as sharp and
pointed as bloodied fangs. Several had snapped, however, and now
protruded, like silver stilettos, from the hard pack.
“So?” Flipping up his snorkel hood, Aidan jammed his gloved
hands into his parka pockets and hunched his shoulders against a sudden snatch of wind. “Snow slid off,” he said, his voice so muffled and
far back it reminded Greg of second grade: tin cans on string.
“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.” Pru said. “But why’d the snow slip? It
hasn’t been warm enough for a melt, and the snow’s not soft. Those
icicles are snapped clean.”
“Slabs got shaken so much they slid right off.” Greg skimmed the
light over the roof and saw naked shingles where snow had caromed
down the incline. “Same as an avalanche.”
“Come on.” But Aidan sounded uncertain now. “What could do
that? Like . . . an earthquake? That’s crazy. This is Michigan. Stuff like
that doesn’t happen here.”
“Until now,” Greg said.
PART TWO:
WHERE THE BODIES ARE
    20
    It was another foot this time—the left, and a guy’s. Those tufts of
hair sprouting from the toes? Dead giveaway. The owner was a pig.
Terminal case of corns, two huge bunions, calluses so rough you
could use them for