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

brakes.
    An open hand slapped into the windshield with a solid crunch and the glass fractured into a white starburst at the point of impact.
    Prime’s wooden face clicked against the driver’s side window, not six inches from my own.
    He winked.

16

    L eon’s doppelganger shoved away from the truck and ran. It took me a couple of precious seconds to fumble out of the seatbelt and throw the door open. By the time I was clear of the truck, Prime had a good fifty yard lead on me. I sprinted after him.
    His wooden feet thunked dully as they pounded against the asphalt. He careened around the corner of the nearest building, heading away from the street. I was forty yards behind and gaining. Prime was fast, but not fast enough.
    He swerved around a corner, behind a building supply warehouse. I slowed and made a wide turn around the corner to keep from being blindsided, but it was clear. Prime raced ahead, towards a fence that stretched across the alley between this building and the next.
    I poured on the speed. Twenty yards between us now, and the wooden man had reached the fence. He leapt and hit the ten-foot tall barrier halfway up, then scrambled to the top and threw himself over. He landed gracefully, then sprinted away.
    I didn’t bother climbing the fence. Without stopping, I jumped and cleared the top by a good six inches. I hit the ground on the other side and stumbled to a stop. There was no sign of Prime.
    Neat stacks of lumber rose up all around me in steel racks, along with piles of brick and cinder block and long bundles of rebar. The place must have been closed for the day as there were no employees to be seen.
    The chain link fence crashed like a cymbal behind me. I spun around and saw Anne and Leon pressed against the closed gate. It was secured with a padlock and chain, but one swift downward blow from Hunger took care of that.
    “Where’s Chuck?”
    “I told him to stay behind with Henry, just in case Prime doubled back,” said Anne.
    “If he does, I doubt Chuck will be much of a deterrent.”
    “To drive away, Abe. Not to fight.”
    “Henry can drive.”
    “Can he watch all sides of the truck by himself? Seriously, are you just going to argue with me until I go back and get Chuck?”
    “Sorry. Just worried about Prime getting away from us again.”
    I turned back towards the supply yard and let them come in behind me. Both had their guns drawn.
    “I don’t see anything,” said Leon.
    Something clattered to the ground ahead of us, on the other side of a tall rack of two-by-fours. I started to move forward, but Anne grabbed my arm.
    “You know he made that sound on purpose, right?”
    “Probably. I’ll go first, you two circle around the sides.”
    “You want us to split up?”
    Leon nodded. “Find, fix, flank, and finish.”
    “Just like the manual says,” I said.
    Anne looked at both of us. “This is stupid.”
    I moved to the lumber rack. Anne went right and Leon went left.
    A brick sailed over the rack towards my head. I leaned to one side and it cracked against the concrete.
    I darted around the rack, but there was nothing there. A shot rang out to my right. That would be Anne. I started to run that way when another shot rang out to my left.
    Dammit. Anne and Leon were thirty feet apart, separated by stacks of building materials. Which meant that they were shooting at separate targets, which meant that there was more than one bad guy in here with us.
    The wooden man had led us into an ambush. Obvious in hindsight. I’d kick myself later if I got the chance.
    There was a creaking sound behind me, so I spun around—just in time to catch an entire rack of lumber in the face.

17

    T he rack slammed into me and drove me towards the ground. Hunger saved my life. I wedged it between the metal frame and the concrete a split-second before it crushed me into pulp.
    Even so, we’re talking about over a thousand pounds of tightly packed two-by-fours. Hunger should have just punched uselessly