Free Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) by Michael Langlois

was between him and the door and he had no intention of slowing down. She stumbled and fell into the hostess podium, toppling it. Both she and it crashed to the floor.
    He kicked the front door open hard enough to shatter the glass as it rebounded off of the outside wall, and then was gone. We left the gorilla staring up at us from the floor, one hand clutching his shoulder.
    Henry and Chuck joined us at the front of the diner, picking their way through the stunned customers. Henry’s face was a thundercloud.
    Anne extended a hand to Verna to help her up, but Verna didn’t take it. Instead she stood up ponderously on her own and righted the podium as if Anne weren’t there with her hand outstretched.
    I said, “Miss Verna...”
    She cut me off. “I think it’s best if you don’t come back for a while. When that man starts looking for you, I don’t want him finding you here. While I appreciate that you helped Nell, the truth is that you turned an argument between her and her ex-boyfriend into open war. And that I do not appreciate.”
    Ex-boyfriend? “I’m sorry.”
    She turned to Anne, who was holstering her weapon. “I thought you were such a nice girl.” She shook her head as if wondering how she could have been so easily deceived. “Please, all of you leave. Someone already called 911, so the police are on the way. Don’t worry about your bill, just go.”
    A man in overalls showed me his phone, 911 clearly displayed on it. He looked defiant, brandishing the phone like a weapon.
    Leon looked like he wanted to slap the phone out of the man’s hand, so I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out the door. The eyes of everyone in the diner burned into my back as we walked out.
    Outside the diner, Anne shoved Leon hard in the chest, forcing him back a step. “What’s wrong with you? I can never go back there again. You know that, right? I liked Miss Verna, and now she thinks I’m the kind of person she can’t have in her place or around her family. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
    Leon didn’t shout back. Instead his voice got low and even. “Anne, he was going to shoot someone.”
    “Because you went up and punched him in the face! You do whatever you want, and to hell with everyone else. Just like you had to use the thorn and ...” She stopped.
    Leon looked away. “And get Paulie killed.”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. I said it to Aunt Emily and I’m saying it to you. I killed Paulie. End of story.”
    “You can stop trying to take all the blame, “ I said. “I gave you the thorn, and all three of us, you, me and Henry, agreed to use it.”
    Chuck said, “Well, I didn’t agree to shit and I’m still having to deal with it. Maybe what we need is less finger pointing and more monster finding. How about that? What did Henry call it, Prime? Well, Mr. Prime isn’t going to sit still while we hug and cry in the parking lot. We need to get a move on.”
    I looked at Leon. “You know it’s bad when Chuck is the voice of reason.”
    “True.” He blew out a deep breath and pretended to look at the sky while he got himself together. “How about we drop Uncle Henry back at the house and then try searching the woods where they found Paulie. Maybe Anne can pick something up.”
    I doubted that would do any good, but I didn’t have any better ideas.
    We got back into the truck and started heading out of town. We were on a smaller street, just a few blocks off of Main. It was still the business district, as much as Halfway could be said to have a business district, which meant it was mostly secondhand shops and contractor supply stores.
    Anne bolted upright in her seat.
    “What is it?” I asked. She held up one hand for me to be quiet and kept looking intently out the window. A second later she spun and looked left. I turned my head in time to see a dark shape slam into the driver’s side door, rocking the truck on its springs. I hit the