Free Ashes and Dust by Jeremy Bishop, David McAfee Page B

out his spear.
    Moving quickly, Frost reacted without thinking, clutching the spear buried in Meeks’s gut, pulling it out and parrying the blow. She jumped back, holding the weapon in front of her.
    The man stopped, momentarily surprised. But then he grinned.
    His teeth were a rotted mess. Up close, she could smell his rank perfume of feces, blood and ash. The muscles beneath his deeply tanned skin twitched with energy. But he just waited.
    For what?
    Then it happened. The spear in Frost’s hands shrank down to a foot-long staff. It had the weight of a police baton, which she could wield with some skill, but it was no match for the spear now being raised over the man’s head.
    Out of options, Frost did the only thing she could think of, shouting, “Griffin Butler, don’t you dare!”

 
     
    16
     
    Crouched in the woods behind Memorial Park, Griffin took in the scene. The park was full of the creatures, more than they could ever possibly hope to get past, sneaking, shooting or otherwise.
    “We’re screwed,” Radar said.
    Griffin’s instinct was to offer a positive comeback. Some glimmer of hope. That’s what heroes did. But he had nothing. They were seriously fucked.
    “What should we do?” Avalon asked.
    Griffin ran through a hundred possible scenarios and strategies, but he was at a loss, in part because they were so outnumbered, but also because he knew nothing about these creatures—what kind of distraction would capture their attention, what they were afraid of, nothing. And it wouldn’t be long before they were discovered again. A lull in the attack had let them go deeper into the woods and circle around the park, but the things were everywhere. Many were content to simply set fire to random objects, munching on the ash, but some had a definite taste for the oilier ash that came from cooking living things. As a result, the thickest number of creatures was around the sheriff’s station, from which a near continuous boom of gunfire erupted. The building was brick, and solid, standing up to the creatures’ assaults, but portions of it were smoldering.
    “We wait,” he said.
    “For what?” Radar asked.
    “For Winslow.”
    “What if they didn’t make it?” Lisa asked. “The could be dead already.”
    “We don’t have a choice,” Griffin said. “Just keep your eyes open for trouble, but only shoot if you have to. The moment those things know we’re here...” He didn’t need to finish. The result of them being discovered was apparent.
    Griffin tried his radio again. “Cash, can you hear me? Cash?”
    Nothing.
    Damnit .
    Griffin had long ago learned how to be patient. As a Ranger, he would sometimes have to wait for weeks for a target to present itself. But he was out of practice, and with people’s lives in the balance, many of them his friends, he found himself fighting to remain still. If not for Avalon, Radar and Lisa being under his care, he’d have already acted.
    And probably died , he thought.
    “Cash,” he spoke into the radio again. “Cash!”
    A gunshot rang out, but this one didn’t come from the station. It was Lisa. She fired again and again. Griffin stood quickly and found a dead lizard, easily twelve feet long, just a few feet behind Lisa. Radar put his hand on the gun and Lisa held her fire.
    She turned to Griffin, tears in her eyes. “Sorry. It just snuck up and—”
    He shook his head. “You did the right thing.”
    But they were still in trouble. The gunfire had drawn the attention of the nearest lizards, all thirty of them. Griffin was about to order them all into the woods. They might stand a chance there. But the growl of some new monster made him—and the attacking lizards—pause.
    “What the hell is—”
    With a throaty rumble that shook Griffin’s chest, Quentin Miller’s lime green monster truck exploded into the park, bounding up and over the curb from Soucey’s parking lot. It came down hard, bouncing atop and crushing the nearest lizard. But it