Refuge Omnibus Edition
Author: Jeremy Bishop
Date: 2014-01-12 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Thriller; Science Fiction; Paranormal
Description: Refuge, New Hampshire, is a small town. The kind found on postcards. Their biggest concern is the rowdy summertime revelers making their way up from Massachusetts and New York. And with most of the town's residents in neighboring Ashland, for the Fourth of July fireworks show, Refuge is quieter than usual. That is, until the Baptist church's bell starts ringing-on its own. The bell chimes faster and faster, reaching a frenetic pace, as though rung by the Devil himself. But the bell is just the beginning. The air shimmers. The night-time sky fills with a burning red aurora. The moon, previously
Publisher: Breakneck Media

REFUGE

Omnibus

Summary:

Refuge, New Hampshire, is a small town. The kind found on postcards. Their biggest concern is the rowdy summertime revelers making their way up from Massachusetts and New York. And with most of the town’s residents in neighboring Ashland, for the Fourth of July fireworks show, Refuge is quieter than usual. That is, until the Baptist church’s bell starts ringing—on its own.

The bell chimes faster and faster, reaching a frenetic pace, as though rung by the Devil himself. But the bell is just the beginning. The air shimmers. The night-time sky fills with a burning red aurora. The moon, previously a crescent, is now full. And just hours after dusk, the sun returns to the sky, revealing an endless desert where there was once a mountainous pine forest.

Led by ex-Army Ranger turned surrealist painter, Griffin Butler, Sheriff Rebecca Rule and her deputy, Helena Frost, the residents of Refuge must weather an ever changing onslaught of otherworldly dangers while trying to uncover how and why the landscape beyond town shifts every time the church bell tolls.

As a sequence of horrific events threaten to destroy the town, the residents must band together, search for answers and find a way to defend their homes, or Refuge will be lost.

REFUGE is a serialized novel, co-authored by #1 Amazon.com horror author, Jeremy Bishop, and five other authors, including Amazon.com bestsellers Kane Gilmour and David McAfee, USA Today bestseller, Robert Swartwood, and newcomer Daniel Boucher. The novel was released in five parts, every two weeks beginning in late 2013, but it is now available as one complete novel. So read for the individual parts or the whole completed novel. Either way, you’re in for a creepy ride.

REFUGE

By Jeremy Bishop
with Jeremy Robinson, Daniel Boucher,

Robert Swartwood, David McAfee,
and Kane Gilmour

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For ARGH! You know who you are.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The people I have to thank for REFUGE are a little bit different than usual. In this case, it’s four different co-authors. When I came up with the idea of writing a single novel, split into five episodes, each by a different co-author, I was very excited. There are many novella series written this way, but the stories all stand on their own. This is a single novel. So I launched the project with gusto, writing the first episode and recruiting four authors. Then reality set in. A single narrative with five authors! What was I thinking?

But the authors went to work, communicating with each other and with me, following the map of town and the detailed Refuge story-bible. And now, eight months later, all five episodes are complete. We have a novel! And it reads, well, like a novel. A single narrative from five minds.

So I must thank, in order of publication, Daniel S. Boucher, Robert Swartwood, David McAfee and Kane Gilmour. Your creativity and dedication to the project have really helped this story become everything I hoped it would be. Bonus kudos to Mr. Gilmour who also edited the entire project and helped to ensure the writing styles matched and the continuity was solid. This has been a unique and creative experience, and just the beginning for a little town named Refuge.

—Jeremy Bishop

INTRODUCTION TO A SERIAL NOVEL

REFUGE is a serial novel, co-written between five authors. This means the reading experience will be a little different from a standard novel. The best comparison for this scenario is a TV show. Each episode furthers a larger story, but it also has its own contained beginning, climax and end. REFUGE is set up in the same way, so that each novella is an episode, and the first five books are effectively Season 1. Also, TV shows use different directors and writers, meaning the show’s style, pacing and tone might shift week to week. While our team of writers strived to make each episode flow right into the next, you will notice subtle differences in writing style and tone, especially with newly introduced characters. At first I felt unsure about this approach. I’d never done it before. But once I started thinking about Refuge, a town shifting between worlds, subtle changes in tone, voice, style, and so forth, makes total sense. So, I hope you enjoy the series and the unique experience created by each new co-author.

—J. B.

REFUGE

Book 1: Night of the Blood Sky

By Jeremy Bishop and Jeremy Robinson

View the full resolution map at www.jeremyrobinsononline.com/refuge.jpg

They wandered in the scorching desert; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of refuge.

Psalms 107:4–7

1

“What! You can’t be serious, Becky,” Phillip Beaumont said, in a voice that sounded closer to a petulant six-year-old’s than that of a grown man. “I’ve only been parked here five minutes tops.” The bespectacled man thrust his milk gallon and bag of groceries out as evidence.

“Don’t much matter, Monty. You can’t be breaking laws in my town, especially not those regarding the less fortunate.”

Monty’s arms fell slack, the heavily weighted plastic bag nearly scraping against the parking lot pavement. His head tilted back and his mouth fell agape, emitting a sound like a wounded moose. “Becky, there hasn’t been a handicap person in Refuge since Bill McGill kicked the bucket five years ago.”

“Law’s the law, Monty. We’re going to be swimming in vacationing Massholes and New York Yankmees for the next three months. If I go soft now, we’re going to have to rename the town Bedlam come the end of summer.” Sheriff Rebecca Rule ripped off the ticket stub and held it out. “And it’s ‘Sheriff’ while I’m wearing the hat, okay?”

Monty took the ticket, slid it into his grocery bag and with an exaggerated sigh, said, “See you at the Ashland fireworks?”

“If I were going to the fireworks, I’d be on my way already.” Rule turned her eyes to the dark blue sky. “Gonna be dark inside of fifteen minutes. B’sides, you can see ’em fine from right here in town.”

Main Street arched over the top of a tall hill. From the center of town in front of the First Baptist Church and Memorial Park across the street, the view stretched out for miles to the north and south. And from the rooftops of the few three-story storefronts on either side of the street, you could look over the surrounding pine forest to the west and catch a glimpse of the White Mountains on a clear day, which was most days in Refuge. The easterly view was mostly blocked by Black Job hill, the tallest spot in town with clear views in every direction, upon which sat a single home, belonging to Winslow and Carol Herman.

Monty glanced at the sky. “Shit. I still have to pick up Susie and the girls.” He flung open the door to his black pickup truck, climbed in and slammed it closed. The giant beast of a vehicle roared to life, and Monty gave it two enthusiastic revs.

Rule tapped the window twice with her knuckles.

As the glass descended, Rule placed her elbow on the door. “I give speeding tickets, too. I don’t want to hear any squealing tires.”

Monty grinned. “Now come on, we all know which one of us is the better driver.”

Rule stepped back and gave a nod. “We also know which one of us carries a badge. And a gun.”

With a grin and a casual salute, Monty said, “See you in church, Beck, err, Sheriff.”

Rule gave a wave as Monty sped off. The man has a boulder for a brain, she thought, looking at the empty lot. Thirty spaces, ripe for the picking, and he took the one handicap spot. He was right, though; there weren’t any year-round handicap residents in Refuge, but with the Fourth of July being tomorrow, she didn’t want to risk one of the old rich people with fancy homes around Newton Lake having a hissy fit when their blue placard, bestowed upon them by the good Lord himself, failed to procure prime parking.

With the lot to Soucey’s Market now empty, Rule wandered toward the sidewalk. Main Street was mostly empty, too, except down by the bar. There were cars there all year long, at all hours and in nearly all weather. Only a blizzard could empty the bar, and not because the boys couldn’t get there—they all had plows. But it was those same plows that made them extra money come winter, and they got their plowing done before their drinking. Most knew well enough not to drink and drive in Refuge. Not since what happened to Bernie.

Rule didn’t normally walk the streets looking to give parking tickets. That typically fell under the purview of Deputy Jim Sweeney and Deputy Helena Frost. But Sweeney was in Ashland for the fireworks with most of the rest of Refuge’s fifteen hundred residents, and Frost was...well, she was confined to the office, at least for the night, on account of punching Casey Parks square in the nose. Granted, the seventeen year old deserved as much for pummeling fourteen year old John Bieman, but she should have shouted, “Stop, Police,” before hauling off and clocking him in front of sixteen people.

The walk will do me good anyway, she thought, purposely putting a little spring in her step. She’d put on a few pounds in the past few years, and her uniform fit a little too tightly to be decent for a fifty-three year old woman. In her opinion, anyway. She wasn’t exactly a hot ticket, but in the north woods of New Hampshire, where the competition sometimes looked like those late 1800s photos of scowling farm matrons, being a flawed woman wasn’t always a problem.

She paused at a meter where a red compact car she didn’t recognize was parked. Still an hour left. Damn. She checked the plates. California. That’s unusual, she thought, and then moved on. The next three cars were all paid up, and upon reaching the fourth car, she realized she was wasting her time.

“Parking meters enforced between the hours of 8am and 7pm,” she read from the label. She stood up straight and put away the ticket booklet she’d been holding at the ready.

“Well then—” she started, but she heard a buzzing sound. Like the hum of those big power lines out by 95. Despite the volume, she knew the sound was distant. She listened for a moment, trying to pinpoint the direction from which the buzz originated, but it was suddenly drowned out by the roar of an engine.

She turned and saw Monty, Susie and their two little girls, Alice and Joy, beaming with innocent sugar-fueled smiles framed by freckles she could see from a distance, all waving from the pick-up’s window. Monty was speeding, that was for sure, but the crafty devil knew Rule wouldn’t give him a hard time with the girls in the car. He gave a honk and disappeared down the hill and around the corner at the far end of Main Street.

They might just make it in time, she thought, looking at the now purple sky. With her plan to write tickets until the distant fireworks began now ruined, she stood in the middle of the sidewalk wondering what to do. She pulled her walkie and pushed the transmit button. “Frost, this is Rule, please tell me someone has called. Over.”

The radio crackled, and then Frost’s voice replied, “Sorry, Sheriff, if you wanted action, you should have taken a job in Nashua. But don’t worry, you’ll be plenty busy after the fireworks. We usually nab one or two overzealous drivers after the finale. Over.”

“Great. Thanks for the head’s up. Over and out.” She buckled the radio back in place and rolled her neck on her shoulders. While she liked giving a good ticket, she wasn’t looking forward to the late night. And she still needed a way to kill time before the fireworks began.

The sound of shattering glass turned her attention to the bar door. The Brick House Bar and Grill wasn’t known for drunken fisticuffs. Most in town were responsible drinkers. But tonight was the Fourth, so maybe someone new was mucking things up. She glanced at the California plates parked five spaces away and squinted.

Course, maybe someone just tripped.

Still, she had ten minutes to kill, and chatting with Walter, the bar’s owner, always left her with a grin. Not just because he had been Bernie’s best friend, but because he had a wicked sense of humor and knew everything about everybody. Including her.

Wearing a grin she wasn’t aware of, she stepped toward the door, reaching for the handle.

She stopped, noticing the faint buzzing sound again. What...

Loud shouting, muffled by the bar’s door, pulled her attention back to the Brick House. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone held the sharp punch of angry cursing. She forgot all about the frantic sounding hum and took hold of the door handle.

2

“There it is.” The words came out of Winslow Herman’s mouth as a reverent whisper, like he was an old world explorer discovering new land on the far side of the ocean. That’s how he saw himself, anyway, and it was why he named his backyard observatory, the Crow’s Nest. It was his perch. His lookout tower. But instead of looking at land, he was looking at planets, moons, stars and comets.

He stepped aside, allowing his wife, Carol, to peer through the telescope’s eyepiece. She drew a quick breath and grinned. “What’s it like there?”

“No place you would ever want to visit. Not without a specially made space-suit to protect you from Jupiter’s radiation, the absolute freezing cold and the vacuum of space.”

Without taking her eyes away from the view, she asked, “There’s no atmosphere?”

“It’s negligible,” he replied. “Most likely just gases seeping from the cracks in the ice.”

“Do you really think there could be life there?”

“If there is life anywhere else in this solar system, it’s under the ice of Europa. Scientists and smart science fiction authors have known this for a long time. It’s only a matter of time before we go there and find out. But even then, the chances are slim.”

Carol pulled back from the eyepiece and smiled at her husband, accentuating the laugh-line wrinkles on her cheeks and deepening the crow’s feet beside her eyes. She was a beautiful sixty year old woman, whose wrinkles formed earlier than most, primarily because she smiled so much. There was very little that could get her down. It was her faith, she claimed, that gave her peace and allowed her to enjoy the world, no matter the circumstances. “Listen to you. You don’t even have faith in your own theories.”

“I have faith in the scientific process,” he defended. “Theories are just theories until they’re proven. And I’m afraid, in the case of Europa, that is unlikely to happen within our lifetimes.”

“Why not just choose to believe the life is there, beneath the ice?”

Winslow scratched his cheek, burrowing his fingers through his thick, but neatly trimmed, salt and pepper beard.

“Is that what you do?” he asked. “Are you just pretending?”

Carol squinted at her husband with a wry smile. “Watch yourself, Mr. Herman—” She shook her small fist at him. “—or you’ll be seeing stars alongside your frozen moon.”

Winslow chuckled and glanced at his watch. “Speaking of that...” He flipped a switch, turning on the single light bulb hanging precariously from the domed ceiling. The observatory wasn’t exactly large—just big enough for four or five people to gather around the telescope that cost more than Carol would ever know. “Sometimes the best view is the wide angle.”

He opened the four-foot tall doorway and held it open for Carol. She crouched and exited onto the patio that connected the observatory and their custom-designed home. Before retiring to Maine, Winslow had worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. He designed optics, including those used on both the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers. But it had never been a job. He loved the work. It was his passion. And he continued it by building the observatory and allowing visits from school groups, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts troops and even the occasional visit from the teenage correctional facility in Concord. If he had an audience, Winslow could wax eloquent about the universe until his throat went raw. Most of the time, his audience was Carol, but she didn’t mind. She’d fallen for him at one of his public lectures, and if she could follow him from warm and sunny Pasadena to the more often than not frigid woods of New Hampshire, she could discuss Europa a thousand more times.

Winslow knew it. He grinned at his wife as he exited with an adoration that the stars above would never experience. Taking her hand, he led her to the grass on the north side of the house.

“I thought we were watching the fireworks?” Carol asked.

“I promised fireworks,” Winslow said. “But I didn’t specify the type.” He stepped to the side, revealing a blanket, a wine bottle and two glasses. “Ambrose Bierce once said that an observatory is a place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors, whereas I have always firmly believed that they are most useful for picking up sexy young fillies.”

Carol laughed, one hand over her mouth, the other slapping Winslow’s shoulder.

Winslow was about to carry-on with his banter, but something tickled his ear. He cocked his head to the side, trying to listen, but the nearly inaudible rumble didn’t change.

“What is it?” Carol asked.

“You don’t hear it?”

She listened and shook her head. “Only the beating of our hearts,” she joked and began unbuttoning her blouse.

Winslow caught a peek of his wife’s emerging cleavage and forgot about the sound. “You’re pretty direct for a church-going gal.”

“We’re married,” she said, removing her shirt and casting it aside. “I can be as slutty as I want to be.” She closed the distance between them, hands going for his belt.

The rumbling tickled his ear again. Tinnitus? he wondered and glanced up at the stars, so bright above, the Milky Way cutting a soft line across the sky. The view seemed to shimmer for a moment, the way stars twinkle when they’re low on the horizon, their light bent by the atmosphere. But then Carol loosened his pants, found what she was looking for and the whole of the universe ceased to exist.

3

“Listen, you backwoods hick. Don’t hold out on me. I’ll pay you whatever you want.” She thought she was whispering, but the words came out as something closer to a growl and loud enough for the bar’s five other patrons to hear.

Cash Whittemore pushed his half-drained beer to the side and leaned forward over the worn brown table that had started out a light shade of maple thirty years earlier. By all outward appearances, he was now a co-conspirator. “Look, Lony.”

“My name is Avalon,” she grumbled. And she was right, her name was Avalon Butler, but other than her parents, no one ever called her by her actual name. Unless you were blessed with a single syllable name or were well respected, the people in town had a horrid habit of shortening just about any name and tacking on an E sound at the end. Avalon became Lony. Jeremy became Jerry. Richard became Richie, or even worse, Dickie. As a kid, she knew three separate Dickies, and only one of them deserved the name.

Cash sighed. “Fine. Avalon. I’m not entirely sure what it is you’re looking for, but unless it’s cold and frothy, I don’t know anything about it.”

Avalon looked him up and down. He wore dirty blue jeans, a torn and paint-spattered flannel shirt—in July—and a dirty Red Sox cap with a frayed bill. He was handsome, but that was hidden by a few days worth of stubble and the dark rings under his eyes. If anyone in this Godforsaken town knew where to score some Oxycontin, it was him. “Bullshit.”

“Why are you sweating, Lon—Avalon?” he asked. “Walter keeps the AC cranked. Must be sixty-five degrees in here. You feeling okay?”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked at her shaking hand, which came away slick with perspiration. Her heart pounded in her chest, making her feel like she’d just run a few miles carrying a hungry anaconda. She gripped the table with both hands, oblivious to the old bubble gum her left ring-finger compressed on the underside. When she was collected—in her mind, to everyone else she appeared as an overheating steam engine—she spoke clearly and concisely, no longer concerned about anyone hearing, because the only person that currently existed was the man in front of her, whom she believed could end her suffering. “I’m fine. Now do you have any Oxy or not?”

After a moment of thought, Cash winced and asked. “Is that like the tub cleaner?”

He knows, she thought. Damn him, he knows! And he’s just mocking me. He wants me to suffer!

Avalon’s fingers scraped against the bottom of the table. The nail of her ring-finger, now embedded in the unmoving gum, folded back, peeling away from a few millimeters of skin before popping free. She didn’t notice the sharp sting that would make most people hiss in pain. “You son-of-a-bitch!” Her voice rose in volume and pitch with each shouted word. With hooked talon fingers, she hauled back and swung at Cash’s cheek.

Moving faster and with more agility, Cash leaned away from the swing, caught hold of her arm and turned her away from him. Before she knew what was happening, he’d planted his big, muddy, steel-toe boot against her backside and shoved.

It wasn’t a hard push, but in her current condition, Avalon lacked the wherewithal to slow herself and avoid the table where Pastor Ken Dodge sat with a woman she didn’t know. As she flipped, ass over tea kettle atop the table, taking drinks and pretzels with her, she thought it was strange for the pastor to be out at a bar with a woman, but then, he wasn’t a priest and even Jesus imbibed.

Then she hit the floor.

Hard.

The room fell silent as Avalon stared up at the ceiling. Bright track lights blazed in her eyes, their glow magnified by the effects of Oxycontin withdrawal. Her eyes filled with tears, partly in response to the light-induced sting, partly because of the deep welling despair gripping her body—not because she’d become a shell of a person dependent on a drug to feel normal, but because she knew she wouldn’t be getting any tonight, and come morning she’d have to once again face the real world and all its real problems.

A bell above the door chimed, announcing the arrival of another bar patron. Heavy boots clomped across the wide wooden planks of the bar’s floor, vibrating in the back of Avalon’s head.

A figure leaned into view above her, obscured by the blur of her tears. Avalon squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the tears out onto her cheeks.

“Well, as I live and breathe,” the woman above her said. “Avalon Butler. That explains the California plates.”

Avalon looked up with cleared vision. “Mrs. Rule?”

“Been a while since you’ve been home for a visit,” Rule said and then tapped the badge on her chest. “It’s Sheriff Rule, now.”

Avalon giggled. “You follow all the rules...Rule?” She winced as a sharp pain lanced through her head and sucked away her laughter.

“You trying to ask me something?” Rule asked, and then turned to the bar. “She been drinking?”

Walter shook his head, no. “Not here, at least. Came in like this. ‘Bout five minutes ago.”

Avalon slowly writhed on the floor for a moment, lost somewhere between withdrawal, a lump on the head and confusion from seeing her childhood babysitter dressed in the tan uniform of a sheriff. “Mrs. Rule...”

The sheriff leaned closer.

“You have any Oxycontin?”

4

Joshua Wilson nearly threw up. He managed to hold it down primarily because he knew it was perhaps the worst response he could have to a first kiss. But his nerves were a mess and were playing havoc with his body. He was clammy and cold and sweating profusely. He’d doused himself with copious amounts of his father’s Old Spice before heading out, but he wasn’t sure if the cologne could completely mask his growing nervous odor. Rivulets of cold perspiration tickled his sides. He stepped back, rubbing his T-shirt against his skin.

“Did I do something wrong?” Lisa Howard asked.

She was picture perfect, with a tight yellow T-shirt, blonde hair and twin ponytails. The sight of her, hands wrapped around the chains of the swing upon which she sat, froze Joshua in place. He’d known her for all fifteen years of his life. They were next-door neighbors, after all. But despite the long years of friendship, she had always had this effect on him. Until just a moment ago, when she returned his kiss, he had no idea she felt similarly.

“N—no,” he finally said, and decided to not have a sitcom relationship. “I’m sweating like a pig at the beach.”

Lisa smiled and then laughed. “I’ve seen you with snot all over your face. I think I can handle a little sweat.”

In first grade, during a circle-time reading, he had sneezed a volcano of mucus into his hands that splashed back onto his face. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. “You remember that, huh?”

“Radar,” she said, using the nickname bestowed upon him by his cousins and picked up by the rest of the town, “it’s a sight I will take to my grave. But you don’t need to be nervous. I’m still just me.”

“You always make me nervous.”

“We live next door to each other, we’re in the same class, we walk to and from school together every day, play on the same soccer team on Saturdays and go to the same church on Sundays.”

He nodded. “I’ve been nervous since the day you were born.”

She hopped off the swing, stepped up close and ran her fingers through his curly red hair. They stood nearly eye to eye, him being just an inch taller. “You don’t have to be nervous anymore.”

He could feel the warmth of her breath and smell the gum she’d been chewing. “I think you’ll make me feel this way until the day I die.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You have long-term plans already?”

He cleared his throat, smiled and said, “Since the day you were born.”

“Such a romantic,” she said, and kissed him for the second time. As they lingered, frozen in the moment, Radar’s wristwatch began beeping. He ignored it for a full thirty seconds before Lisa leaned away. “You have somewhere to be?”

“Huh?” His mind slowly became aware of the shrill beeping. He looked at his watch and then remembered. “Oh! C’mon!”

He took her by the hand, leading her through the park. To their backs was the swing set and the elaborate wooden jungle gym where they used to play as kids. Beyond that was the baseball field. Straight ahead was green grass, tall trees and a gazebo where a band would play during the town barbeque tomorrow afternoon, surrounded by gaudy red, white and blue decorations, which were already hanging all around town along with a surplus of American flags. But tonight, with the fireworks drawing everyone to Ashland, the park and most of the town was empty, including the First Baptist Church on the other side of Main Street.

The church building gleamed bright white on sunny days, its steeple reaching up to the sky like the tower of Babel. That was probably an exaggeration, but it was the tallest building in town, which was precisely why Radar had stolen his father’s key. Even now, in the dark of early night, the building glowed, lit by street lights and the light of the waning half moon, still low on the horizon.

“What are we doing?” Lisa asked as Radar led her across the street, hand-in-hand.

He dug the stolen keys from his pocket and shook them. “Best view in town. It’s all ours.”

“I don’t know...”

“It’s not like we’re stealing anything. And I have keys. We’re not even breaking in. We’ll be in and out before anyone even makes it back to town.”

They paused by the church’s front door. Radar wasn’t going to do this without her support, because, if he was honest, entering the church without permission terrified him. It wasn’t that he felt uncomfortable in the building. He’d attended church, Sunday School, Youth Group and Vacation Bible School in this building all his life. He was as comfortable here as he was most everywhere in their small town. But he knew that if they were caught, his father would likely fashion a switch and have at him till the tears he shed in church were more from sitting than from a supernatural encounter.

“Okay,” she said, and he immediately began working the key into the lock. “But we’re not having sex in the church.”

The keys virtually exploded from his hands and fell on the ground. He crouched to pick them up and cracked his head on the doorknob. Wincing in pain, he snatched up the keys and stood quickly, trying to look composed.

Lisa laughed gently, hands over her mouth, eyes watering.

“I—I wasn’t...that’s not what I was thinking...” In truth, he thought about sex roughly three times every ten minutes and at least thirty times since their last kiss, which included fantasies in nearly every room of the church building, thoughts that caused him to quickly ask for forgiveness before starting the daydream over once again. But he’d never planned on following through. That wasn’t what made him stumble. It was that her words didn’t forbid the possibility of sex, just not sex in the church.

With profusely sweating hands, he unlocked the door and turned the handle. It creaked open, and they crept inside, into the darkened house of God. It was far darker inside than out, but Radar knew his way around. The church interior, which was far cleaner than the hearts of anyone who attended the services, provided no obstacles. They quickly entered the stuffy and dusty-smelling steeple and followed the stairs around and up, careful not to hit the church bell rope and alert anyone left in town to their presence.

Upon reaching the top, standing beside the large bell that summoned believers and heathens to church every Sunday morning, Radar took hold of the slats and tugged. The three foot tall rectangle of ventilation slats popped free and swung open, revealing an unhindered view to the south.

“How did you know that opened?” she asked.

“Remember that Sunday when there was no juice for communion?”

“That was like four years ago, right?”

He nodded. “Well there was no juice because I drank it all. My dad figured it out when I threw it up. Turns out a half gallon of juice is a little too much. Pastor Dodge brought me up here afterwards. It was an inspiring lecture about honesty and integrity, but all I could think of as I looked out this window, is how much I wanted to show you the view.”

The distant pop of a firework pulled their attention south. Bright red sparkles of light drifted toward the ground. The fireworks display would lack the power of one seen up close, but there wasn’t any other place on Earth Radar would rather be at that moment. He wrapped his arm around Lisa, and she snuggled in close.

A thought popped into his head, and he chuckled.

“What?” Lisa asked.

“Shadow Liar.”

Lisa turned her head toward him, eyebrows raising.

“It’s an anagram of your name.”

“You just think of that now?”

“And ninety-seven others, but that’s the coolest.” He knew he didn’t need to explain. She’d played Scrabble with him enough times to know that he had a savant-like gift with words and codes. It was one of the many secrets they shared. Not even the teachers at school knew about it, mostly because he feared they’d give him too much attention, putting him in the crosshairs of less gifted bullies, including his father. “Would make a good online avatar name, but if you don’t like it, we could always go with ‘hairdo slaw.’”

She gave his chest a slap and turned back to the fireworks display, leaning into him. Radar squeezed her arm, feeling at home in Refuge for the first time.

Neither of them noticed the bell behind them, swaying slowly back and forth.

5

“Gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” Rule said. “Just this once. Ask that question one more time and I’ll be babysitting you again, but this time you’ll be in a cell.”

Rule’s relief at Avalon clamping her mouth shut was minimal. She knew the girl had had a rough go of it in the years since her mother had passed, but this...she was strung out. Rock bottom. Rule had remained good friends with Avalon’s father, Griffin, and received updates about her life whenever he did, but it had been six months since he’d heard from her. They’d feared the worst. Looks like they weren’t too far from the mark.

Leaving Avalon on the floor, where the girl would likely be the safest in her current state, Rule turned her attention to Cash. An electrician by trade, Cash was a town staple. He was a bit rough around the edges, especially when he drank, but she’d never had to lock him up. Still, she knew alcohol did things to the mind. Turned folks into different kinds of people, who did things they wouldn’t normally. She eyed the half-finished pint on his table. Times had been tough on Cash recently. Thanks to a government grant and the town’s altruistic benefactor, Renford Ellison, the town’s new electrical system, which serviced downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, removed a good portion of Cash’s business.

Fields of solar panels could be found in and around town—mostly filling the old airport—not to mention atop the roofs of nearly every home and business, including the sheriff’s station. The church was one of few buildings exempt from the requirement. But energy didn’t just come from the sun. Towering wind turbines lined many of the hills. The combination of natural energy sources wasn’t exactly pretty, but they delivered free energy to the entire town. If the whole world went dark, Refuge would still have power—as long as there was a sun and wind. Water and sanitation had also been retrofitted, making the town a true experiment in self-sufficiency. They’d been told that Refuge was a model for the future, but most folks in town didn’t care much about technology, let alone the future. They were just happy to get a break on their monthly bills.

Not Cash, though. If he didn’t find more out-of-town business, he’d lose his house, and tough times like that can drive a man to the bottle. If the demons can’t be beat in a fair fight, her father told her once, they can always be drowned.

“Can’t say I appreciate what that look in your eyes is implying, Sheriff,” Cash said.

While his direct nature ruffled her feathers, his correct use of the word ‘Sheriff,’ rather than ‘Becky,’ ‘Becks’ or ‘Mrs. Rule’ kept her from replying strongly. She also heard his very clearly enunciated, not drunk, speech. She softened her expression. “That your first drink?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cash said, and without being asked, explained what happened. “She came in here looking for that Oxy-stuff. When I told her I didn’t have any, she took a swing and I helped her walk away.”

“Maybe a little too roughly?” Rule asked.

“It was self-defense,” Pastor Dodge said. “We all saw it. The poor girl is a mess.”

“Screw you,” Avalon said from the floor.

The distant boom of fireworks entered the bar as the door swung open. Guess I won’t be watching the display this year, after all, Rule thought.

The distant rumble was drowned out momentarily by the bell above the door jingling. She felt a warm breeze wash over her as the air outside blew into the room. In that brief moment, the buzzing sound she’d noticed earlier returned.

“Oh my God,” came a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t the newcomer. It was Julie Barnes, the hoity-toity real estate agent who’d swept into Refuge two years previous, brokering the land and home deals that made the town’s retrofitting possible. She must have been rich now, so Rule wasn’t sure why the city girl, with her power suits, high heels and tautly bunned hair was still in town, let alone in the Brick House.

Julie stood quickly and scurried for the door, eyes wide, high heels clacking out a beat.

“Everything all right?” Rule asked.

“Fine,” Julie chirped. “Just got a text.”

As though that explains everything.

The door opened again as Julie left, allowing in more warm air, the faint buzzing sound and a reminder that someone new had just entered.

Not wanting to further complicate the situation, Rule held her hand up toward the door without looking back. “Step outside, please, until this situation is—”

“Tell me what happened,” a man said, his voice full of anger and fear.

Rule recognized the voice and didn’t need to turn around to know who it was or what would happen next. “Watch your temper, Griff.”

He appeared next to her, moving as silently as a ghost. She glanced in his direction. His eyes were searching the bar for a guilty face. His fists were clenched. She turned her eyes to Cash and saw the same casual indifference that was his trademark expression. But Griffin was a smart man. He’d take in the scene, piece it together and play it in reverse. Her only chance to avoid a fight was to put him on the defensive.

“All this coulda been avoided if you’d told me she was home.”

“She arrived last night,” he said. “Found her on my doorstep, shaking.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Withdrawal. She’s an Oxycontin addict. I was going to keep her at home until—”

“He’s keeping me prisoner!” Avalon shouted. “Locked me in the basement. Call the police. I need to go to the hospital.”

Rule sighed. She didn’t want to ask the question, but was obligated. “You lock her in the basement, Griffin?”

“If I had, she wouldn’t be sprawled on the bar floor.”

She believed him. He was a good man—probably the best man in town. And given his past, she didn’t think James Bond could escape from Griffin Butler. “Point taken.”

“Isn’t anyone going to pick me up?” Avalon asked.

Rule and Griffin replied as one, “No!”

“Look,” Rule said, “she hasn’t done anything all of us can’t overlook...” She glanced at the bar’s few patrons. She knew all of them except for Pastor Dodge’s lady friend. She got quick nods from everyone in the room. They knew Griffin and Avalon, and knew the tough time both had gone through. This town took care of its own. But mostly they knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She ended her visual tour of the room by leveling her eyes at the Pastor’s company. “...isn’t that right?”

The woman nodded.

“What’s your name?”

Dodge answered for her. “This is Sally Field—”

“Like the actress?” Rule asked.

“Yes,” the woman said.

“MmmHmm. What kind of parents would do that to a kid?” Rule shrugged. “Well Ms. Field, you okay with forgetting this mess if Griff here covers the cost of—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dodge said quickly.

Rule squinted at the pastor. If anyone was acting like they’d done something wrong, it was him. But that didn’t make sense. He was a single guy out with a... Her attention turned to the woman. Her left hand. Her ring finger...

Bong.

Everyone in the bar held their collective breath.

“What...was that?” Walter asked from behind the bar.

Radar shouted in surprise, clutching his hands to his ears. He knew the scream had been high-pitched and embarrassing—he could feel it in his throat—but his voice had been drowned out by the resounding gong of the church bell. He and Lisa spun around, away from the fireworks. The bell was shifting slowly.

“What the hell?” Lisa said, her voice barely audible. “Who did that?”

Radar’s thoughts turned to possible explanations, and he quickly came up with one. Someone knew they were in the steeple and had decided to teach them a lesson. It didn’t sound like something Pastor Dodge would do, so he spoke his mind. “Knock it off, asshole!” he shouted. “We’re coming down!”

The bell swayed sideways, lifting higher than it probably should have.

“It’s going to ring again!” he shouted, slapping his hands over his ears.

The soundwave shook his insides, making him queasy. He pitched forward, shouting in agony. The pain grew infinitely worse when Lisa fell and he reached out to catch her. As the bell’s chime faded again, he pulled Lisa up. When he saw the tears in her eyes, he wanted to pummel whoever was ringing the bell, but then he realized that he was equally upset. Unlike most young men Refuge forged, Radar wasn’t externally tough.

With one arm wrapped around Lisa and the other holding her elbow, he scrambled down the stairs, doing his best to not stumble in the darkness. He hoped that whoever was ringing the bell would hear them coming and stop, but he could see the rope, dangling in the steeple’s core, moving downward, pulled for another chime.

As they rounded the final flight of stairs, he looked for the person ringing the bell. Nobody was there. No one at all. And yet, the rope attached to the bell continued to descend, as though pulled by a spectre.

Then the rope shot up, released from its downward pull.

Bong!

The volume of the ringing bell, inside the enclosed steeple, knocked both of them off their feet. The pair tumbled down the last few stairs, shouting in pain again. When Radar landed, part of him wanted to check on Lisa, but his attention remained fixed on the church bell rope, as it shifted downward once more, pulled by some invisible force.

“Sounded like the church bell,” Dodge said, standing slowly.

“I don’t know,” Cash said. “Why would—”

Bong.

“Definitely the church bell.” Dodge headed for the door.

Rule met Griffin’s eyes. They still had unfinished business here, but if someone had broken into the church, that was something she couldn’t let slide. She unclipped her radio, “Frost this is Rule, over.”

“I hear you, boss,” Frost replied. “Who’s ringing the church bell? Over.”

“I’m gonna head over there and find out.” Rule glanced at Griffin before speaking again. “Listen, Griff Butler is headin’ your way with his daughter—”

“Lony’s home?” Frost broke in.

“Avalon!” came a shout from the floor.

“I need you to put her in a cell for the night,” Rule finished.

Bong.

Cash, Walter and Sally Field exited the bar along with the few other patrons, off to see what crazy soul was ringing the church bell.

“A cell? Why?”

“She’s not in trouble. Just needs some time to work things out. Why don’t you meet them outside? Over.”

“Copy that,” Frost said. “I’ll head your way now. Meet them half way.”

Before signing off, Rule added, “Keep an eye out for anyone fleeing the church in your direction. Over.”

“Will do. Over and out.”

Bong.

Rule took out her handcuffs and motioned to Avalon with her head and spoke to Griffin. “Help her up.”

“You’re going to cuff me?” Avalon protested, as Griffin pulled her to her feet.

“She a flight risk?” Rule asked Griffin.

Bong.

He glanced at the cuffs and then the fiery eyes of his daughter. “Do it.”

Before Avalon could protest again, Rule spun her around and slapped the cuffs on both wrists. “Frost will take them off when you settle down for the night.”

“You gonna sing me Twinkle Twinkle?” Avalon said with a sneer. “Would be like old times.”

Bong.

“Is it just me or is that bell speeding up?” Rule asked.

Bong.

Definitely speeding up.

“Go ahead,” Griffin said, taking hold of the chain between Avalon’s wrists.

“I’m never speaking to either of you again,” Avalon growled.

Bong.

“Honey, you probably won’t remember a lick of this.” Rule glanced around the empty bar. “And between the three of us, I am happy you’re home—current circumstances notwithstanding.”

Bong.

“Fuck you,” Avalon responded.

Rule grinned. “Like I said.” She headed for the door and held it open for Griffin and Avalon. He led his daughter north, walking quickly. Rule followed behind, angling out into the street. While the police station was just north of the church, it was on the wrong side of the road.

Bong.

Rule picked up her pace, breathing quick, deep breaths, inhaling air that smelled strongly of the lilacs growing beside the church. It was only a block away, but she was winded by the time she joined Cash and Walter on the sidewalk.

Bong.

“You okay, Sheriff?” Cash asked.

“Nothing a few months of exercise can’t cure.” Rule looked up at the church steeple. Bong! Whoever was ringing that bell was really putting their back into it.

Bong-bong!

“Where’s Dodge?” she shouted over the resounding echo of the church bell.

Bong-bong!

“Inside!” Walter shouted back.

She took a step toward the church when the front doors burst open. Three bodies spilled out, running down the front steps, hands clasped over their ears. Rule recognized all three faces: Dodge, Radar and Lisa. Rule sighed, she knew she might have to let yet another transgression slide or Radar was going to get a beating, and then she’d have to haul his father off to jail for real. Happy fourth of July, she thought. At least the excitement is over.

But then, it wasn’t.

Bong-bong!

“Who else is inside?” she shouted at Dodge, who looked ten shades paler than he had in the bar.

“No one is inside!” he shouted.

Bong-bong!

Rule caught hold of Dodge’s shoulder and spun him so they were eye-to-eye. “Pastor, who the hell is ringing that bell?”

Bong-bong!

He snapped out of whatever panic had gripped him and said, “No one! It’s ringing itself!”

Bong-bong-bong-bong-bong-bong!

6

“Bells don’t ring by themselves, Pastor,” Rule said, matter-of-fact. Her instinct was to cross her arms or plant her hands on her wide hips to punctuate the statement with a little body language. But the constant ringing of the bell forced her hands to her ears.

“It’s demonic,” Dodge said. “Has to be.”

Rule went to church, just like most everyone else in town, but like most everyone in town, it was to maintain appearances. She knew all about the Bible and God and Jesus, and she liked the message most of the time, but she wasn’t sure she actually believed. There was a difference between knowing and appreciating and actual belief—the kind of belief that would lead her to accept an invisible malevolent force was taking time out of its busy schedule to ring a church bell. Seemed to her that such a thing would be counterproductive for the forces of evil. Most people’s response to proof of the existence of the Devil would be to run headlong into the open arms of Jesus. So without stepping foot in the church, she knew this wasn’t demonic.

“I’m with you, Sheriff,” Cash said, leaning down close.

“You’re a dear,” Rule said, making a mental note to never doubt Cash’s integrity so quickly again. Then she turned to Walter. “You’re coming too.”

Walter was clearly displeased with this development, but nodded and fell in line when Rule headed for the front door. Rule pointed at Radar as she stomped by. “You two don’t go anywhere! No sense in running. I know where you live.”

Radar nodded so quickly he looked like a red-headed woodpecker. He was as petrified as Dodge.

The sheriff wasn’t sure how fast a church bell could ring, but the rapid fire bonging didn’t seem possible. The bell rang when a rope was pulled from the bottom of the steeple. She’d rung the bell once a few years back and it wasn’t exactly easy. Building up this kind of speed would require what? A machine, she decided. Someone must have put something against the bell. I swear to God, she thought, if Radar did this to impress Lisa, I’m going to help his father tan his hide. That could be why Radar looked so afraid. Having been caught in the act, he knew what kind of hell might come down on him.

She yanked the heavy door open and stepped inside. It felt strange being in church on a Saturday night. The smell of wooden pews, polished by years of human backsides, old candle smoke and vanilla air freshener was an experience reserved for the following morning. The clanging bell was muffled some but was still loud enough to tense every muscle in her body, mostly because she knew it was about to get louder.

A lot louder.

They took the stairs two at a time, heading toward the second floor. Jogging past the nursery, they reached the solid wood door that provided access to the steeple. The hallway walls shook, jittering a framed photo of a praying Jesus. Rule could feel a vibration moving through her body, as though some supernatural being had just taken hold of her. She fought against the chill that rose through her body, reminding herself that she didn’t believe in ghosts. The doorknob on the steeple door began to rattle, turning slowly, but was it from the noise or was something else turning it? She watched the knob twist until it stopped and began shifting back in the other direction.

It’s the vibrations, she thought, but she didn’t fully believe it. She believed something was ringing that bell, just as surely as she believed something was turning that knob. Someone, she told herself, not something.

Gathering her resolve, Rule turned to Walter and Cash. She had to shout to be heard. “If someone is in here when I open this door, feel free to tackle them without warning.” She couldn’t do it. By law she had to announce her presence first, but Cash and Walter could act however they wanted, and if they decided to throw a few punches while they were at it, she’d somehow not see it. “Ready?”

Cash crouched down, ready to spring. When Rule saw him down like that, she remembered he’d been something of a football phenomenon back in the day. Refuge’s one and only football phenomenon. But like most people in town, he had picked up the trade of his father.

“Do it,” Cash said.

She twisted the heavy, metal door handle and pulled. The door swung open, revealing the ten-foot square space. Starting on the left was the staircase, leading up. And straight ahead was the bell rope, writhing back and forth like a wounded snake. The bell’s chime exploded from the doorway, sending three sets of hands to cover ears. Even if someone had been inside the steeple, she didn’t think Cash could have tackled anyone inside without permanently ruining his hearing.

But then, he did remove his hands from his ears. There wasn’t anyone to tackle, but there was a rope to hold. With grinding teeth, he leapt onto the rope, no doubt expecting his weight to hold the bell in place. But that’s not what happened. Cash was thrashed about, whipped back and forth, and within three seconds, flung free. His head struck the staircase, and he fell to his knees.

Without thinking, Rule rushed to his aid. For a moment, she was glad the bell was so loud; no one could hear her screaming. Fighting against the pain in her ears, she got her hands under Cash’s armpits and hoisted him up. He seemed to regain his senses at her touch and stood. Walter was at the door to receive him and they quickly retreated, slamming the door behind them.

“Becky,” Cash said, a trickle of blood rolling down his forehead. “What the fuck?”

What the fuck, indeed, she thought, but didn’t say anything. She understood why Dodge assumed this was supernatural. The bell was indeed ringing itself, and with enough force to man-handle all two hundred plus pounds of Cash Whittemore.

“I have some noise canceling headphones back at the house,” Walter said. “Maybe those would—”

The bell stopped ringing.

Rule pulled the door open. The rope gently swayed back and forth.

Her eyes turned toward the stairs. Could someone have been ringing the bell from higher up? Without a second thought, she hit the stairs, climbing quickly. After the excitement of the ringing bell, she found her breath hard to catch. She could feel her heartbeat pounding hard and fast. Could feel it in her neck. Her fingertips. She wondered what a heart attack felt like, and then stopped, clinging to the railing.

Feeling light-headed, she gripped the rail. She breathed deeply and slowly, willing her body to slow down, but her heartbeat—boomboomboom—raced along. Trying to distract herself, she looked up, searching for her perp. But no matter how badly she wanted to find someone, the steeple was empty.

Through the ringing in her ears, she heard a new sound.

Shouting.

Screaming.

From outside.
“They’re getting away!” Cash said, and he ran for the steeple exit.

Rule wasn’t sure if Cash was right. Even if there was someone else inside the church, something was ringing that bell while Cash clung to the rope. Unless...she thought, picturing the only other way out of the steeple, which was safe only for birds and bats. Could someone have actually jumped? She followed Cash down the stairs, through the foyer and out the front door.

There was no mistaking what caused the others to shout, and it wasn’t a desperate perp who’d flung himself from the steeple. The air outside the church shimmered like heat rising from summer-time pavement. But that wasn’t all. The sky was alive with vivid red light. Refuge was pretty far north, and during peak sunspot activity, they occasionally got a glimpse of the aurora borealis. She’d seen it twice in her life—just faint waves of green sliding through the sky. Never anything like this.

She nearly toppled down the steps, but caught herself on the rail. No one noticed her near spill. She barely noticed it herself. All eyes were turned skyward, watching the waves of blood red light arch across the sky. Something about the sight was beautiful, but more than anything, it was awful. Ominous. While the night sky was still visible, stars and all, the waves of glowing red rolled across it. She stared up, wishing it would go away, hoping for a clear night sky, but the night continued to burn above her. It looked angry. Violent. The hair on her arms rose, as some primal part of her being screamed at her to run.

She looked at Cash, who met her gaze. He looked just as stunned as she felt. Before she could comment, Dodge spoke up again. “It’s not demons,” he declared. “It’s the Devil himself.”

7

When Deputy Frost met Griffin and Avalon in front of Soucey’s Market, she quickly read and translated the serious look in Griffin’s eyes as: Do not speak. She simply said, “Follow me,” and led them to the police station, a block past Memorial Park. It was hard to not ask about Avalon’s delirious state or the now constantly ringing church bell, but she managed to stay silent for the two-minute walk. Inside the small station, she led them past the processing desk, where she would normally book people brought in for a crime, which wasn’t very often. As she understood it, Lony wasn’t in trouble, she just needed to work off a bender...or something worse, by the looks of her.

Without a word spoken, she opened one of the two cells in the station’s back room. It was a small space with a cot, not designed for more than a single night’s stay. Frost unlocked the handcuffs and closed the cell door, locking Avalon inside.

Avalon all but collapsed on the cot. She opened her eyes, looked around the small space and groaned. “No toilet?”

“If you have to go, give a shout,” Frost said.

“You just want to see me with my pants down,” Avalon said, her speech slurred for a moment. “Always thought you were a lesbian.”

Frost glanced at Griffin, who just shook his head. Don’t respond.

“I’ll get you an extra pillow and a bucket,” Frost said, which garnered a nearly inaudible ‘Thanks.’

Frost returned to the front of the station with Griffin. She could see he wanted to talk, but she wanted to get that bucket before she forgot. “One sec,” she said, entering the bathroom where the storage closet was located. She paused in front of the mirror and noticed the quick jaunt into the early July humidity had made her ponytailed, smooth black hair into something resembling an explosion of wool. She wet her hands and attempted to smooth out her hair. When it didn’t cooperate, she frowned and said, “Damnit.”

Then she squinted at herself. What was she doing? She wasn’t the type of woman to wear makeup or push-up bras or jewelry. For one thing, she ran every day, and her body was pretty much everywhere it was supposed to be for a thirty-three year old woman. And unlike the sheriff’s hip-hugging uniform, hers was loose-fitting and did nothing to accentuate her femininity. So why was she worried about a few errant hairs?

Because Griff likes smooth hair, she thought, always has.
Like Julie Barnes’s. Real-estate slut. But Griffin was off limits. She’d been close friends with Jess, his wife, before she’d died. Didn’t seem right to show an interest in her husband, now that she was gone. Of course, if Frost was honest, she’d been interested in Griffin when Jess was alive, too. “Get a fucking grip,” she growled at herself and headed for the door.

She exited the bathroom to find Griffin staring at her quizzically.

“What?”

“No bucket?”

“Shit,” she whispered, reentered the bathroom, found the bucket and returned to the office without meeting his eyes. When she entered the back room, Avalon was passed out on the cot, a puddle of vomit already on the floor. “Double shit.”

With a shake of her head, she unlocked and entered the cell, propping Avalon’s head up on a second pillow, covering her with a blanket and placing the pail next to her head. The puke could wait, Frost decided, and she turned toward the door. Griffin stood there, watching.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Just doing my job,” she replied, but his grin revealed he knew she was lying. Jail cells weren’t meant to be comfortable.

Back in the front office, she could hear the church bell running non-stop now, and she really wanted to be out there. She hated office duty. But she also understood why she needed to be here. Punching a seventeen year old kid was never a good idea. Still, the little douchebag deserved it.

Despite the ringing bell being the perfect segue out of the uncomfortable silence between them, she instead went with, “Any new paintings?”

Griffin was a surrealist painter who created huge images—oil on canvas—that Pastor Dodge had once called ‘monstrosities’ from the pulpit. As one of the few non-church goers in town, Griffin found himself on the receiving end of more than a few accusations of occult interests and devil worship, if not by Dodge himself, then by some of the older folks in town, a few of whom might personally remember the days when witches were burned at the stake.

“Finished one yesterday,” he replied. “Good thing, too. I don’t think I’ll be getting much done for a while.” He glanced toward the back room.

“She okay?”

Griffin leaned back, hands atop Deputy Sweeney’s desk. “Showed up last night. Asked me to help her detox. Apparently she’s...” He paused, eyes on the floor. “She’s addicted to Oxycontin. And I got a little more than I bargained for. I think she was probably still a little high when she asked for help, but once the craving set in...” He shook his head and sighed. “I’ve seen some pretty unstoppable people in my time, but she...she was feral. Lucky Becky found her when she did.”

Frost knew that Griffin was one of the few people in town who could get away with calling the sheriff by name while the woman was on duty, so she didn’t mention it. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all, which made her feel like an idiot, but she really just wanted to hug the man. It was probably the right thing for a friend to do, but her feelings got in the way.

Luckily, the ringing bell became so feverish and loud it was no longer possible to ignore.

“What the hell could ring that bell so fast?” Griffin said, standing from the desk.

They headed toward the front door together. Frost could feel the hot and humid air working hard to curl her hair again, but she managed to ignore it. Outside, the bell was so loud it hurt her ears. She turned toward the church and saw Pastor Dodge, Radar and Lisa Howard standing in front of the church, alongside a few others who had gathered to behold the spectacle. But most were backing away with their hands over their ears. The sheriff was nowhere in sight, which meant she’d probably gone inside.

Of course she’s inside, Frost thought with a pang of jealousy. Of all the nights for the town to get restless, it had to be the one she was on office duty.

“Want to go check it out?” Griffin asked.

She nearly replied in the affirmative, but caught herself. With Avalon in the cell, there was no way she could leave.

Griffin seemed to understand her hesitation and added, “Ava’s not going anywhere.”

Frost sucked in a quick breath. Only Jess had called Avalon by that nickname. Griffin usually used her full name, unlike everyone else in town, who called her ‘Lony.’ The use of the nickname reinforced the idea for her that Griffin was off limits. “Can’t.”

But then, the bell stopped ringing, and despite her determination to shirk her feelings for Griffin, she was secretly pleased, because it meant he might not leave. When his hand wrapped around her arm and he spoke her name, “Helena,” with a calm sense of wonder, she became gripped by worry that he was going to break her rule for her. When she turned to look in his eyes, he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking up.

She followed his gaze and found the sky above was moving and flexing like a great big red blanket, lit from the back side, as if it was being shaken over Refuge. She could hear the people by the church shouting now, but paid them no attention. “What is it?”

“Nothing good,” Griffin said.

Despite the beauty of the sight, Griffin’s confident declaration concerned her greatly. It wasn’t the words exactly, but the fear behind them. Griffin Butler didn’t scare easily.

He dug into his pocket, pulled out a cell phone and quickly dialed. The phone rested against his ear for just a moment. When he yanked it away, even she could hear the high pitched squeal emanating from the speaker. She quickly tried her phone and got the same result. She tried the radio next, intending to check in with Rule, but it shrieked at her too.

For a moment, she locked eyes with Griffin, and then they ran inside the station, each trying a different landline phone. “Dead,” she declared.

“Same,” he said moving to a computer. He clicked the mouse three times. “No internet. Do you have a satellite phone?”

“Why would a small-town police station have a satellite phone?”

“Right,” he said, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I have one.”

“Of course you do.” She nearly said she was coming, but she remembered her job. She couldn’t leave Lony here, even if the sky was falling. She could, however, double-check whether the sky was, in fact, falling. She stepped outside with Griffin and looked up.

The sky warbled with rolls of red, like the night itself was bleeding.

A tightness gripped her chest. She reached out instinctively, grasping Griffin’s arm. She knew others might see her fear as a sign of weakness, but if she could share her inner frailty with anyone in town, it was Griffin.

“Something’s very wrong,” she said.

He checked his phone again. It no longer shrieked at them, but there was still no signal. “There’s a lot wrong tonight.”

“I don’t hear anything,” she said and then specified, “We should still hear the fireworks.”

“They probably stopped them when...” He pointed to the sky, “...you know.”

Maybe, she thought, but the fireworks in Ashland had become a pretty big deal because they were one of the few towns in the region to have a big fireworks display. She was pretty sure the whole show was run by a computer that wouldn’t stop because of some lights in the skies, and it was possible that the crowds might think it was part of the show. Lasers or something.

But there was something else nagging at her, something different that she couldn’t quite put a finger on, until she did. She turned her head toward the black and red sky. The full moon at its core warbled in and out of view. “Griff,” she said, tugging on his shirt. “The moon. When we entered the station, it was still on the horizon.”

He craned his head back, looking up. His shoulders dropped the way a man’s does when he’s been defeated by life. He whispered a curse and turned to Frost. “It wasn’t full, either.”

8

Rebecca Rule stood dumbfounded, staring up at the sky above the church like she’d seen the good Lord himself perched atop the steeple. The red sky would have been strange on its own, but the way it coincided with the ringing bell and the wavering air suggested all three phenomena were part of the same strange event.

She didn’t want to fuel Dodge’s belief that the Devil was involved, but she couldn’t deny the event smacked of the supernatural. What else could turn the night sky blood red and send a church bell into a fevered spasm?

“Sheriff,” Cash said quietly, as though speaking any louder would bring about the apocalypse. “Laurie’s working at the diner tonight.”

His body language was apologetic, but urgent. She could tell he was going to leave no matter what, but he was being polite about it. “Go.”

“If you need me,” he said, taking a step back.

She nodded. “You’ll be at the diner or your place.”

“Or Laurie’s,” he added. “You know how she gets.”

Rule knew very well. At least thirty percent of their calls came from Laurie Whittemore, Cash’s younger sister. A stiff breeze could send the girl into a panic. She’d only ever had one serious man in her life, Henry Something from Concord, but he only lasted six months on account of how frequently she woke him up at night, claiming someone was in the house. Rule had gotten to know Henry pretty well during those months. Saw him a few days a week, and then not at all. Poor Laurie, Rule thought. Being a nice gal just isn’t enough when you have the emotional constitution of an abused chinchilla.

“Anyone you see on the way or at the diner,” Rule said, “You tell ’em to go home. Nothing bad is happening. We’re taking care of it.”

Cash glanced up at the now silent church steeple, his eyes communicating that he knew better, that none of them really knew what was happening.

“You don’t have to believe it,” she added. “Just tell ’em.”

“Will do, Sheriff,” Cash said, and began jogging to his pickup truck.

“Sheriff,” Walter said. He had the same look on his face as Cash, but he didn’t have a sister in town. Or a wife. Or kids. The Brick House was his family, and right now, it was unattended.

“Go ahead,” she said, and waved him away.

“My phone’s not working,” someone said, taking Rule’s attention away from Walter. She dug into her too-tight pocket, pulled out her phone and switched it on. The screen worked fine, but her usual three-bar status showed a circle with a line through it.

No signal.

She tried her radio next. There was a brief, high-pitched squeal and then silence. “Frost, this is Rule. Can you hear me?”

“Oh my God,” came Frost’s reply. “Do you see this?”

“Where are you?” Rule asked.

“Station steps.”

Rule turned toward the station. She could see Frost and Griffin standing on the front steps. Frost gave an urgent wave, while Griffin kept his eyes on the shifting sky. She toggled the radio. “Listen, our job isn’t to figure out what happened; it’s to keep people safe.” She glanced at Dodge. “People are going to take this all sorts of ways, and we need to make sure no one causes any trouble. Understood?”

“Copy that,” Frost said, her voice calm and back to business. She was a good officer, and Rule secretly hoped Frost could one day reign in that temper of hers and become the next Sheriff. Ultimately, it was up to the people of Refuge, so she’d have to stop punching people sooner or later. Preferably sooner than later.

Cash’s truck roared to life across the street. He pulled out into the road and performed a wide U-turn. He gave a wave as he passed and then sped off down Main Street, headed north. She waited for the sound of his engine to fade before speaking.

“Griffin, can you hear me?” Rule asked, and she knew he could because he looked down when she said his name. “If you’re not planning on going anywhere, could you man the phones tonight, so Frost can help me around town?”

A breeze washed over her, carrying a foreign odor she couldn’t identify, but the air was dry and tickled her throat. Her first thought was that there was a fire, but she couldn’t smell smoke. It was almost like...salt.

“Becky.” It was Griffin’s voice on the radio. She turned to the station and saw him looking at her. “The phones are out. Even the land lines. We’re completely cut off.”

Rule nearly asked why they still had power, but remembered that the town was self-sufficient.

“But...” Griffin continued, sounding grave. “I’m not sure...” The radio went silent, and she saw him lower his radio for a moment before bringing it back to his mouth. “We should speak in person.”

She was about to ask why when Dodge appeared at her side, eyes wide. “What’s wrong? What doesn’t he want us to know?”

She shook her head as casually as possible and forced a smile. “It’s nothing, Pastor. Phones are out is all. Nothing to worry about, and it’s not the Devil.”

“You can’t know that,” he said.

“Can and do,” she replied. “And if I hear about you spreading that kind of nonsense around town, I’ll lock you up.”

Dodge reacted like he’d been slapped. “Nonsense? Lock me up? For what?”

“Incitin’ a panic.”

The man nearly argued, but had the good sense to close his trap.

As the few remnants of Refuge’s population began to emerge from nearby homes, looking up at the sky, a small crowd began to form in front of the church. Rule would have to address them soon, before the rumor mill began to churn out end-of-the-world scenarios and the pastor found his voice again. Before that could happen though, she needed to get organized, and if Griffin had answers, she’d need those too.

She turned to Radar and Lisa as she started toward the station. “You two head home. I’ll keep this from your parents for now, but we’re going to have to work out something with Pastor Dodge.”

Radar nodded rapidly, looking supremely relieved. Although the town might be worried about nuclear war or Satan’s imminent appearance, Radar was more worried about his father. And she knew Dodge would agree to keep things silent. Radar’s father was one devil they could all agree on.

The kids ran into the quasi-darkness, eerily lit by the glowing red sky and the partially concealed full moon. They headed to their homes two blocks away, at the base of Black Job Hill. Rule stomped toward the station. Her feet ached from all the walking, but she barely noticed. Something else nagged at her, tugging at the back of her mind. Something...

She stopped in the middle of Main Street, looking in both directions. There wasn’t a car in sight, and the center of town was well lit by a series of street lights staggered on either side of the street, each holding an American flag. One by one, she saw the flags at the far end of town snap toward her.

A wind is coming, she realized, and she squinted her eyes. The flags next to her snapped hard when the wind hit. Rule’s hat was torn from her head. But the removal of her hat went unnoticed. The sting of whipping grit across her cheeks held her full attention. She raised her arms over her face and waited out the gust.

The wind died down. The flags hung limp. Rule lowered her arms and played her tongue around her mouth. What the hell? she thought, isolating a small, hard grain in her mouth and spitting it into her hand.

Sand.

A thin film of it covered the road. She leaned forward and shook her hands through her hair, messing it up more than she would have preferred, but the grit against her skull was already starting to annoy her. The sand fell like thick dandruff, bouncing on the macadam around her feet.

She heard the scuff of feet behind her. She turned to find Griffin bending to pick up her sheriff’s hat. He dusted it off and handed it back to her.

“There’s a sand pile in Ashland for when the roads get icy,” she said, answering the question she thought he was going to ask. “But I don’t see how a wind could carry it all the way here. They keep it covered most of the year. Though that would explain the smell in the air.”

Griffin looked confused, but sniffed the air and said, “Salt.”

“It’s got to be from Ashland,” she said, trying to convince herself, but not really believing it.

“Becky,” he said. “I think the sand might be the least of our worries.”

This got her attention. “What do you mean?”

The sound of screeching tires filled the air. A car, headlights out, tore around a side street corner and barreled toward them.

“Look out!” both Rule and Griffin shouted in unison and moved to tackle each other out of the way, but the driver saw them and hit the brakes. Tires squealed over the pavement, and the sporty SUV swung to the side, stopping ten feet away.

Without missing a beat, the driver’s side door popped open and a half-dressed Winslow Herman sprang barefoot onto the road, while Carol Herman, still in the passenger’s seat, put the vehicle in park and turned on the hazards.

“Winslow,” Rule chided, “What in the name of God’s green—”

“The stars!” he shouted, wide-eyed. “The stars!”

Rule looked up at the sky. Aside from the red glow occasionally concealing them, the stars, in her opinion, were right where they should be—above her head. But then she noticed something that was wrong. “The moon...”

“That’s what I was going to tell you,” Griffin said. “The moon shouldn’t be full, and it shouldn’t be overhead.”

“That’s not all,” Winslow said, his voice shaking with either excitement or panic. “The stars...they’re all wrong. They’re not our stars. And neither is the moon.”

Rule nearly argued, but quickly saw that he was right. She’d looked at the moon a lot as a kid. Her father had been obsessed with the lunar landings. And she’d even looked at the moon through Winslow’s telescope a few times. The pattern of shadows and craters had become familiar to her. But not anymore. The sphere above her head was a stranger. The craters weren’t where they were supposed to be.

She wanted to ask ‘What does it mean?’ but that was the obvious next question, and Winslow answered it with his usual informed tone, as though explaining a scientific law. “We’re no longer on Earth.”

9

Phillip Beaumont lifted his head with a groan. Without thought, he put his hand to his head and winced. The pain was intense—a combination of a deep, throbbing pain and the sharp sting of salty fingers touching an open wound.

What happened? he thought, blinking his eyes. Everything was blurry—not because of an injury but because his glasses were missing.

He searched the area with his hands, patting his pants, which were sticky. He searched the seat beneath him and then absentmindedly placed a hand on his belly. He quickly recognized the hard, smooth surface of a lens. It wasn’t his glasses, but at least he could see.

With one eye closed, he raised the lens to his right eye and the world came into focus. He was in his truck, but a white sheet had been thrown over the steering wheel.

Not a sheet, his mind told him, the airbag.

His memory scratched at the inside of his skull, clawing its way back to the surface. He looked down to his blue jeans, now darkly stained. He couldn’t make out the color in the low illumination from the truck’s lit dome light. But then the scent of old copper tickled his nose, and he knew what it was: blood.

A lot of blood.

But not his. Whoever had lost that much blood was...

A swirl of hair resting on his leg caught his attention. He took hold of it between his shaking fingers and lifted. He immediately recognized the straight black strands as belonging to his wife, Susie. A trembling scream rose up in his throat and burst from his lungs, when he saw the chunk of flesh dangling from the hair’s end.

He dropped the hair and nearly lost hold of the lens, but managed to clutch it in his fist. Tears blurred his vision further as he wept. He remembered.

Remembered everything.

He was driving too fast, squealing the tires around the curvy country road, trying to reach Ashland before the fireworks began. But they didn’t make it. When the fire red explosion blossomed in the sky, both girls began crying, Susie started yelling and while his eyes were craned upward, watching the embers turn orange and slip back toward the distant Earth, a deer leapt in front of the truck.

He saw the animal as a blur of motion and reacted by turning the wheel hard to the left. His right bumper caught the deer in the side and knocked it down to the pavement, where it was struck by the right front tire. The mammoth vehicle bucked wildly and launched off the road.

With just thirty feet of grass between the truck and the line of hundred-foot pine trees, Beaumont had just a second to make a choice: crash headlong at near full speed, turn left, slow down and dull the impact, or turn right.

Both girls were seated on the left side of the vehicle, right behind him, so he made a choice.

He turned left, hopefully slowing the vehicle and sparing his daughters—and himself—from the direct force of the impact. At the time, his mind hadn’t fully comprehended the full ramifications of his choice. But he understood it now. He’d killed his wife to save his girls. And it wasn’t an accident, not to the courts. He’d been speeding. Driving recklessly. Hell, Sheriff Rule had seen him speeding away from town. It was manslaughter, plain and simple. He’d go to jail and lose the...

Girls!

He unclipped his seatbelt, and with a groan of pain, he spun around to look at the back seat. With the lens against his eye, he looked at the empty seats with a sense of relief. The windows were up and the door was closed. They hadn’t been thrown out, so they must have left on their own. He searched the seats for blood and saw just a small smudge on the window.

They’re okay, he told himself. But then he realized they’d left him there. They think I’m dead, too. He faced forward again and caught sight of his wife as he turned. It was just a flash, but it was enough. A pine tree had basically forced its way into the cab of the truck. Buckled in her belt, Susie had been torn apart at the waist and neck. Shards of metal from the door and ceiling had mutilated the rest of her. If she hadn’t been sitting next to him in their truck, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize her.

He fumbled with the truck’s handle, wrenched it open and fell to the tall grass on the side of the road. Vomit exploded from his mouth, matting down the grass. Two dry heaves followed. As he caught his breath, his thoughts began to clear.

The girls, he thought, forcing away images of Susie’s body. I have to find the girls.

He stood on unsteady legs, waiting for a moment, testing his weight to see if anything was broken. To his surprise he seemed mostly intact, except for the nasty gouge on his forehead. He stumbled up the rise, finding forward movement far more difficult than simply standing.

He fell to his knees and stifled a shout when he found himself looking into the eyes of a very dead deer, its insides uncoiled in the road and crushed by his truck’s tires.

Catching his breath, Beaumont fished out his phone. Thank God, he thought, when the now-cracked screen glowed brightly. He dialed 911 and held the phone to his ear. Nothing. He lowered the phone and looked at the signal indicator.

“Shit,” he said. He was on his own until someone drove by.

He got back to his feet, stumbled a few steps toward town and stopped. The girls were eight and ten. Smart kids, but after an accident, with both of their parents presumed dead, the panicked pair might not have headed for town. They might not even be on the road.

His chest ached as he filled his lungs. He realized he might have a few broken ribs, but he ignored the pain. With a shriek of desperation, he screamed, “Alice! Joy! Can you hear me?”

He staggered, waiting for a reply.

There was only silence. He took another long inhalation and nearly began coughing from the dryness of the air, but turned the urge to cough into a shout, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Joy! Alice!”

He listened, holding his breath. And this time, he got a reply from the south, “Daddy! Help!” Alice’s voice.

They’re headed away from town, was his first thought, but it was quickly followed by, ‘Help?’ Was one of them hurt badly?

He was about to shout again, when Joy’s high pitched voice cut through the night. “Hurry! He has us!”

He has us.

He!

The girls weren’t headed in the wrong direction on their own. They were being taken!

Beaumont took one step in their direction and then realized he was in no condition to fight someone for his daughters. Ignoring the thunderous pain in his body, he ran back to the truck, tore open the door and lunged for the gun rack behind the back seat. The Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun was still securely mounted. Unlike his collection of hunting rifles, the Mossberg was for home defense, or in this case, vehicle defense. He pulled it free and spun around. Without a second thought, he leaned past his wife’s wrecked body, feeling what remained of her head on his shoulder and reached into the already open glove box. He found his spare pair of glasses and put them on. Then he quickly recovered the small box of shells, yanked it out and jumped from the car.

He ran slowly at first, carefully loading six shells into the shotgun. He pumped it once, chambering a round, and then he poured on the steam, running into the dark, which was lit by the full moon above and the LED flashlight mounted on the weapon’s front.

“Girls!” he shouted, hoping to discern which direction to run and how far away they might be.

But there was no reply, so he ran faster...for fifty feet, when he came to a sudden, sliding stop that planted him firmly on his ass. Confused by what had tripped him up, he aimed the shotgun forward, lighting the scene. He kicked back and climbed to his feet, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The road ended like it was a tomato, cut clean through by a knife. Where the road ended was nothing but sand, for as far at the flashlight could reach.

Sand.

And footprints.

Large footprints.

One set.

And they weren’t just large, they were deep and unsettlingly not human. He tried to think about what, in New Hampshire, could have made such large footprints, but nothing made sense. Not that he could see details. The general shape of the prints was lost in the sand, and that’s what disturbed him the most. Because while the footprints were strange, the sand was something closer to otherworldly.

How did it get here? Where’s the road? The forest? How did this happen?

But, ultimately, his attention remained on the prints. The single set of prints.

The girls are being carried, Phillip Beaumont thought. Blinded by fear for his daughters, he charged ahead, running up the side of a long sand dune that shouldn’t be there, and he disappeared over the other side.

10

“Winslow, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m seeing the same thing as you, but there ain’t no way I’m believing we’re not on Earth.” Rule had her arms crossed over her chest. The very notion of what he was saying just felt wrong. Impossible. The man might have been a genius once, but he’d clearly lost his mind. Of course—she glanced up—the moon did look different. “It’s still the moon,” she added, vocalizing her internal debate. “It might look off, but if we were on another planet—which might damn well be the most ridiculous words ever to come outta my mouth—what are the odds it would have a moon just like ours but slightly different?”

Rule was relieved to hear Griffin say, “She’s right.” He took a deep breath. “The air is breathable.” He hopped up and down. “Gravity is the same.” He looked around town. “And as far as I can see, we’re still in Refuge, New Hampshire.”

If Wilson was hearing them, he gave no indication. He just stared at the sky, mumbling to himself.

Carol came around the SUV. She was fully clothed, but looked disheveled and had grass in her hair. It didn’t take much of an imagination to figure out what these two had been up to when things went wacky.

“Becky,” Carol said in greeting. “Griff.”

Rule nearly corrected Carol’s use of her first name, but she was growing tired of the fight. She’d been ‘Becky Rule’ to the folks in town far longer than she’d been ‘Sheriff.’ She’d always been a person of authority—principal of the middle school during her late twenties and early thirties, then president of the Town Council, which was a part-time position, but just one step beneath mayor. She babysat on the side during those days, which coincided with an economic depression in the region, resulting in a higher crime rate and a rash of drunkenness. Bar fights became common. A couple of twenty-somethings drove their Camaro into a tree and died. And then Sheriff Weldon, her predecessor, went and had a heart attack.

It was two days later that her husband, Bernie, a dear sweet man who preferred fishing over talking, was struck down, not more than fifty feet from where Rule now stood. The driver was never found—there wasn’t a Sheriff to lead the search—but witnesses described the female driver as being drunk. That no one recognized the woman or the vehicle meant she was from out of town, but that didn’t change Rule’s reaction to the loss of her high-school sweetheart and long-time companion.

Two years later, after breezing through training, she was unanimously voted in as Sheriff, and with a ferocity no one could have predicted, she set about cleaning up the town. She was a natural leader, an ever present public figure and a world-renowned stickler. In her first year, she and those serving under her, issued more tickets than in the previous five years combined. People drank more responsibly, sped less and there hadn’t been a violent crime in four years. Rule knew she couldn’t take all the credit, though. The government grant and the new construction all around town had also brought a lot of money to the area. Not to folks like Cash, but for most, Refuge had never been as prosperous.

Carol stepped up next to her husband and looked up. “What do you see?”

Unlike Rule or Griffin, Carol got his instant attention. “They’re right. This is still Earth, but not.”

“Explain,” Rule said sternly.

“Well...” He adjusted his glasses and pointed to the night sky. “I see Mars and Venus. They’re out of position for this time of year, but they’re there. And Griff is right about the air and the gravity.” He looked at Rule. “And you’re right about the moon. It’s a statistical impossibility that another planet would have a moon that was the same diameter, equal distance and approximate lumens as Earth’s moon.”

“Could something have changed our perception of space?” Griffin asked. When Winslow just twitched his beard back and forth, Griffin elaborated. “I mean, we’re seeing some pretty crazy visual distortions. Maybe there’s something screwy in the atmosphere? Some kind of gas?”

“Bending the light,” Winslow said. “Distorting the image, so the stars are out of position and the face of the moon looks different?”

Rule didn’t point out that the light bending theory didn’t explain why the half moon was now full, or how it had leapt to an entirely different position in the sky, but all the speculation in the world wasn’t going to calm people down. She heard voices rising from the front of the church. Case in point. “Winslow...” Rule said, and he didn’t reply again.

“Winslow, honey,” Carol said, and he looked right at her. “Becky’s talking to you.”

He turned to face her. “Sorry, this is...ahh, this is pretty exciting.”

Not the words Rule would have chosen, but she might agree in a few days, after she knew everyone was safe. She nodded toward the group gathered around Pastor Dodge at the front of the church. “I need you to go tell them the same thing, that this is all a visual distortion.”

“Created by what?” Winslow asked. “I can’t—”

“Solar flare,” Rule said. She’d seen enough Neil Degrasse Tyson specials to know that a strong solar flare could not only cause the aurora borealis, but could mess with electronics and communications. One more visual distortion added to the mix would be believable to the group by the church, whose science education ranged between Ghost Hunters and the purple dinosaur, Barney, with Barney being the more intelligent of the two.

Winslow shook his head. “But I don’t think that—”

“Don’t matter what you think,” Rule said. “Matters what they think.”

Winslow looked toward the group, whose voices were rising in pitch. He nodded. “To calm things down.”

“Exactly. Just talk some scientific circles around them. Make them feel safe. Then I’ll come over and tell ’em to go home.”

“And then,” he said, “We’ll figure out just what is happening.”

It was a statement. Not a question. But she agreed with every fiber of her being. “Damn straight, we will.”

“Okay,” Winslow said, and he headed toward the crowd, walking in a casual gait that was completely contrary to his tire-squealing arrival. She hoped no one would notice the change, and they would just believe his big words. Hell, if he’d given her an explanation that made any kind of sense, she would have believed him. Would have been happier that way, too. On another planet... She shook her head at the ridiculous turn her night of parking-ticket bliss had taken.

“Hey,” Griff said, touching her elbow.

She could hear his words starting to form, but she cut him off. “If you’re going to talk about other planets or gravity or bending light, save it. I need a mental breather.”

He laughed, and it was about the nicest thing she’d heard all night. She liked to hear him laugh—not because it sounded like anything special, but because she hadn’t heard it much in recent years. She couldn’t help but smile, which made her whole body relax. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been until that moment.

“I have a satellite phone back at the house,” he said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder. He lived just a few blocks away, like most people in town, not far from Radar’s house. “Something tells me it’s not going to work, either, but I think we need to try.”

“It’s that or drive to Ashland,” she agreed. “But I think I’ll be doing that next.”

“If you do, take Frost,” he said.

“Not sure I should leave the town unattended. Frost will stay at the station with Avalon.”

“And I’m not sure you should be alone tonight.”

Not many people could get away with talking to her so casually. Luckily for Griffin, he was one of the few. She grinned. “You going to run for Mayor?”

“Not a chance,” Griffin said.

“Well, you’re gonna have to, if you want to boss me around.” She gave him a grin to let him know she was teasing and then added, “But I’ll consider it.”

“Be back in twenty,” he said, and he jogged away.

“Make sure Radar and Lisa made it home okay,” she shouted after him, and he waved to let her know he had heard her. She nearly asked him why he wasn’t taking his car, but then she remembered she hadn’t seen it. He’d been searching for Avalon on foot, or, she thought, Walter gave him a courtesy call. He must have run the few blocks to the Brick House, intending to drive her little red number back home.

Loud voices turned her attention back to the church, just as Carol, in a nervous voice said, “Becky...” Winslow was backing away from the small crowd in front of the church. She couldn’t hear the words, but it sounded like he was being scornfully admonished by Pastor Dodge.

Rule sighed, put on her deadpan face and started for the group. She stepped around Winslow and stopped the flow of humanity as though she were Jupiter and they were her moons, unable to break away. “I don’t know what kind of nonsense is being spoken over here, and I don’t really want to know. What Dr. Herman here told you is the truth. Ain’t no way around it.”

“But the sky is red,” someone said, and while it wasn’t said outright, Rule could read between the lines. Red was the color of the Devil, at least as he was portrayed in American pop culture, which also gave angels wings and made Jesus a trim-bearded white man.

“It looks alive,” a woman said. “I feel watched.”

The only thing alive was the paranoia eating these people up. Natural phenomena, no matter how strange, could be reduced to science. Although some declared tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes were God’s wrath, Rule understood that physics dictated such things, whether you believed God created the world or not.

She saw the pastor’s mouth open slowly, but didn’t intend to give that motor-mouth a chance to get revved up. “Now we’ve all had a crazy night. Some interesting things have taken place—” She set her eyes on the pastor, letting him know this next bit was for him, “for some more than others.” She glanced at his lady friend who hung back at the fringe of the group. The woman wilted under the attention and the clear message.

Back to Dodge. “Everyone needs to go home. Go to bed. If you had plans for the fourth, they’re cancelled. If you’re waiting for family or friends from Ashland, chances are they’re going to be delayed on account of the strangeness. So just go to bed, and in the morning, I’ll have answers for all of you. I promise.”

Dodge frowned, but it lasted just a moment before he pushed it away and replaced his true expression with a smile.

How many Sunday mornings does he pull that trick, she wondered.

“You heard the Sheriff,” he said. “Go home. Pray for our missing—”

Our missing?
He’s baiting me, she decided, but she let it slide.

“—and thank God we’re all safe,” the pastor continued. “We’ll meet back here first thing in the morning. Seven a.m. We’ll have coffee and donuts in the foyer.”

Coffee and donuts placated a congregation like nothing else on the planet. The group quieted and began dispersing. She wasn’t happy about being told when she’d be addressing the town, but seeing as how she’d likely be awake all night, an early morning meeting would be for the best.

When he finished saying quick goodbyes, Dodge turned to her and said, “Where do we start?”

“You can start by going home and taking your...whatever she is, with you. I don’t want anyone not coming home from Ashland driving on the roads and confusing things.”

They locked eyes for a few seconds. He then walked away, approached the woman from the bar and handed her his keys. He returned with a snarky grin that Rule nearly slapped off of him. “She knows where I live.”

“I bet she does,” Rule replied. “But you’re still not—”

“Most of this town trusts me more than you, and far more than the Mayor. You’re going to need me to support whatever lie you tell them in the morning, so I want to know what’s really going on.”

That surprised her. “No demons? No Devil? You’re really after the truth?”

“I’m not barring out the supernatural, but I recognize it could be something more...mundane.”

“Or scientific,” Winslow clarified. The two men couldn’t be further apart on the spectrum of personal beliefs. But Dodge gave a nod.

“If that’s the case,” Dodge said. “They’ll swallow it a lot better coming from me.”

“If you get in my way,” Rule said, “I’ll lock you in a cell for the rest of the night.”

“You won’t even know I’m there,” Dodge said with a satisfied grin.

“I’m coming too,” Winslow said, and when Carol began to complain, he added, “Go home. Get some rest. We’ll have it figured out by morning.”

Carol relented, and the pair said their goodbyes before she drove away, leaving Rule in the middle of Main Street with Dodge and Winslow Herman.

Winslow clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth like he was about to dig into a big plate of baby-back ribs. “So, what’s the plan?”

Rule laid it out for them, plain and simple, so they knew she wasn’t joking. “We’re going to go to the station and have a sit.”

11

Griffin Butler saw motion to his right. A rustle of leaves accompanied the shifting shadow behind a thick rhododendron, framed on either side by small white Cape Cod style homes. Standing in the shade of an oak tree, hidden from the nearby streetlight, he paused, gave the neighborhood a quick once over and said, “It’s just me. You can come out.”

Two shapes emerged from the protective shroud of the bush. As they came into the light, Griffin stepped into the street and crossed over toward them.

“Mr. Butler...” Radar said, his voice apologetic.

“The Sheriff asked me to check on you,” Griffin said. “She’s the only person I’m going to report to.”

The boy relaxed, and the transformation made Griffin angry. What had the boy’s father done to make him so afraid? There were rumors, of course. Stories about belts and fists and the hiding of bruises, but they were such stereotypes, Griffin wasn’t sure which were real and which were inspired by a Lifetime Network made-for-TV movie. Rule knew more than most, but she wasn’t sharing, which was a testament to her professionalism, but since Radar still lived at home and his father wasn’t locked up, clearly nothing had been proven.

“Do—do you know what’s wrong with the sky?” Lisa asked. She held on to Radar’s thin arm like he was the only thing holding her to the ground.

Griffin turned his head to the night sky. It was still cloaked in waves of translucent red. The way they moved, sliding through the sky like a sinister fog, made him nervous. Made everyone nervous. And not just because it shouldn’t be there. There was just something...off about it. Something not right. He tried to sound casual and confident. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Do you think it could be, like a poisonous gas or something?” Radar asked. “A chemical attack?”

“You know I was in the military, right?” Griffin asked. Both kids nodded. “I can promise you both, Refuge has absolutely no strategic value. If there were a nuclear war, this would be one of the few places left untouched on the planet. Why do you think they named it Refuge?”

Radar half smiled. “I guess.”

“Might want to get inside soon, though,” Griffin advised. “Won’t be long before people start driving back from Ashland.”

“We were watching for headlights,” Lisa said, standing behind Radar. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Watching for headlights wasn’t the only thing these two were doing inside the rhododendron. But it explained how he was able to sneak up on them. He smiled without realizing it.

“What is it?” Radar asked, sounding nervous, like he’d been caught doing something, which in a sense, he had been.

“Just realized I’ve seen you two playing inside and around that bush for most of your lives.”

Radar looked back at the big plant, then at Lisa. “Yeah...”

“Of course, I’ve never seen you come out looking so guilty.” Before Radar could react, Griffin burst out laughing. After everything that had happened that night, with Avalon, with the bell, and the stars, he needed a release and found it by teasing Radar. Happily, the boy was able to find the humor in the jab and joined in the laughter, followed by Lisa, who sounded a little less comfortable.

Griffin wiped a tear from his eye and controlled himself. “Listen, you guys can go to your separate houses if you want, or you can stay in the bush. It’s your call, but don’t leave, okay? Sheriff wants to know that you’re here and that you’re safe.”

Both nodded.

Griffin tilted his head toward his home, which was two houses down on the opposite side of the street. “I’m going to my house to pick something up. I’ll be in and out inside of ten minutes. With the phones out, if you need anything, or have an emergency, you head straight for the police station. If Frost or Rule aren’t there, I will be.”

Nods again.

“Good.” He took two steps away, heading for his house.

Lisa stopped him. “Is everything going to be okay? Are our families okay?”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Griffin said. “Stranger things have happened.”

Lisa smiled slightly, in a way that said she knew he was lying, but that she appreciated it.

“Thanks,” Radar said, heading back toward the rhododendron.

Griffin made for his house. He glanced back over his shoulder. If Radar and Lisa were back in the bush, he couldn’t tell. They’re good at hiding, he thought, and he wondered how much of that was a learned defense for Radar.

He slipped past the open gate of his white picket fence that he’d been meaning to remove for several years. The iconic symbol of the suburban American dream just mocked him now. His daughter was a strung-out addict and he was a single father, who had failed miserably at helping his one and only child adapt to life without a mother.

He might have succeeded if Jess had died suddenly. He sometimes felt jealous of Becky. Her husband’s death was tragic, but it also gave her drive and purpose. He would never tell her to her face, but she’d become a better and stronger woman as a result. Jess’s death had been long and slow. The cancer had tortured her, and when she’d fought back, it fought harder. Two years of treatment, of long drives to Boston and of sleepless nights, had left him broken and weary—so much so that he’d never noticed how it all had affected Avalon. She was sixteen when Jess had been diagnosed. Eighteen when her mother had died. Avalon moved out a month later. Six months after that, she went to California with some friends. He fooled himself into hoping the change of scenery would do her good, but that clearly had not been the case.

The front door was unlocked. He didn’t know anyone in town who locked their house or car, unless they traveled to Concord or Manch-Vegas. At least not since Becky had become the sheriff. The town went through a few rough years, but they were in the past now.

The light switch just inside the door clicked beneath the weight of his finger, but it produced no results. Damnit, he thought, shaking his head. He’d been one of the few people to not retrofit their homes. It wasn’t because he disagreed with the effort; he just didn’t want to ruin Jess’s home. Perhaps it was time to move past his sentimentality.

He took the stairs two at a time, each one groaning under his weight. The old Victorian home had been Jess’s dream house. It wasn’t exactly Griffin’s style, but he couldn’t bring himself to sell it, and the large rooms made for excellent studio space for his large paintings. He didn’t make a lot of money, despite being well known and respected in the art world. His work had even been compared favorably to Bosch. But not many people could afford what he charged for his fifteen-foot long monstrosities. He only needed to sell a few every year to make a living, which was another benefit to staying in Refuge. Everything was so damn cheap.

He paused in front of his studio door, looking into the dark space. Moonlight streamed through the windows, creating rectangles of light on the dark hardwood floor. A shiver ran up his back. He couldn’t see the recently finished painting, but he could see the twisted, dark image in his mind’s eye. After the strange night he’d had, that kind of darkness, inspired by his very real past, was not something he wanted to dwell on. He took a long deep breath through his nose, letting the familiar scents of oil paint and turpentine return a sense of normalcy to his mind, and then he headed for the bedroom.

After gathering two flashlights and a strap-on headlamp from the top drawer of his bureau, he moved to the closet. He hadn’t had any need for the satellite phone in years, but he knew exactly where it was. He slid a box of Jess’s clothing to the side—he’d manage to box it up, but resisted bringing it to the Salvation Army—and pulled out the fireproof safe.

It had been four years since he’d last opened the safe, but he quickly entered the combination and opened the lid. Inside was a stack of bills—$10,000 for emergencies—his passport, the satellite phone, his dog tags, an M9 handgun, a holster, three magazines and a box full of 9mm ammunition. He took out the phone and pressed the power button. As expected, it was dead. He’d have to recharge it back at the station.

He slid the phone in his pocket, rested his hands on the safe lid and looked down at the handgun. It had been a long time since he’d held it and even longer since he’d shot it. He reached for it, but stopped short.

Don’t be stupid, he told himself, you can’t shoot at a different moon.

The lid slapped closed, but he stopped before locking it. People in town were going to panic. It seemed obvious to him. Something in the world had gotten screwed up, and someone was going to do something stupid as a result. And if he was going to be manning the station while Rule and Frost dealt with the town...

He opened the safe and picked up the M9. He loaded the magazines and slapped one into the handle of the pistol, but he didn’t chamber a round. The two spare magazines went in his jeans pocket, which was already full with his wallet. But the other side now held two phones and his keys. He considered breaking out his old cargo pants, but opted for simplification instead. He removed the wallet, but kept his driver’s license, in case State Troopers showed up. He put his key chain, which held ten different keys and a collection of tiny knickknacks on the bureau, but kept his car key. Better, he thought, and then he clipped the now holstered gun to his belt where everyone could see it.

As he left the house, he considered walking back to the station. It wasn’t far. But he opened the silver Ford Fusion’s door and started the engine for the same reason he’d taken the gun. If shit started flying in the town of Refuge, he wanted to be able to move himself—and Avalon—out of the way quickly.

12

Rule sat behind her desk in the wide, open, front room of the station. She hadn’t moved since placing herself in the seat and leaning back. Normally she resisted sitting. Unless there was paperwork on the desk and a pen in her hand, sitting felt stagnant. Like a swamp. And Rule hated swamps. Mostly because they stunk, a fact she learned as a child when she slipped off a log and landed in some old brown water full of very green and slimy frog eggs. That’s what sitting felt like to her. But tonight, she welcomed the chair’s support.

She needed to talk to someone. Verbalizing always helped her sort things out. But Frost was in the back, checking on Avalon. Winslow was bent over a desk, scribbling something like words onto a piece of paper. That left her with Dodge, who was basically the last person with whom she wanted to talk.

“How long are we supposed to wait?” Dodge asked. He’d been pacing by the door for ten minutes, muttering to himself, and that made her nervous. The muttering, more than the pacing.

“Isn’t patience a virtue, Pastor?” Rule asked, hoping to distract the man from wearing down a circular path in the linoleum.

“Ugh.” Dodge rolled his eyes so hard his whole head swiveled around like a bobble-head figure. “That’s not from the Bible. It’s a fifth century poem.”

“Well,” she said. “It shoulda been in the Bible.” She wasn’t sure why she was egging the man on. Probably because she needed to release some tension. She didn’t feel like she could be serious with him, and he was an easy target.

Dodge turned to her. “‘Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.’ Romans 12:12. That’s just one of many actual Biblical references to patience.”

“In that case, Pastor, I don’t see you smilin’, or prayin’, or—”

“I haven’t stopped praying, Sheriff.”

So that’s what he’s been doing, she thought, and decided to give him a break. While her faith was about as solid as a Jell-O block, she appreciated that he was putting his to work on their behalf. Of course, she had no idea what he was praying for, but he was a good man. Despite his propensity to cry Devil, Dodge had done a lot of good for the town over the years, and he had helped keep people rooted during the tough times that had predated her reign in the town. In a way, the pair of them kept the town in order using a combination of the world’s law and God’s law. He wrote prayer requests. She wrote tickets. He carried a Bible. She carried a gun, and cuffs, and mace, and a—well, she liked to think she was prepared for the end times Dodge preached about regularly.

A shadow bounced back and forth on the windows of the station’s front double doors. Someone was running up the steps. She sat up, for some reason expecting a screaming panicked person. Instead, it was Griffin. He yanked open the outer door, stepped through the foyer, opened the second set of doors and entered the office with a confidence she wished she felt.

Dodge glanced at Griffin, gave him a once over and stepped back. “You have a gun?” He looked at Rule and pointed at Griffin. “He has a gun.” The words came out as part declaration, part warning, like Griffin might go on a shooting spree. Rule half expected Dodge to dive for cover, but this was Griffin and not the Devil, so he stood his ground, waiting for Rule’s response.

“He’s also got a permit to carry that gun,” she said, deflating Dodge’s inflating anxiety balloon. “And if he didn’t bring it, I was going to give him one.”

This surprised both men until she reached down to the desk, picked up a circular deputy’s badge and tossed it across the office. The circle-encased star looked like some kind of Japanese weapon as it spun through the air, but Griffin had no trouble catching it.

He held the badge up. “You sure about this?”

“If anyone comes in here while we’re gone, they’re going to feel better seeing that badge on your chest.”

“People here know me,” he said. It wasn’t necessarily a protest. More of a clarification.

“It’s all about marketing. Perceptions. If you need to make a call, that badge will make people listen faster than the gun on your hip or your good reputation.”

“If they don’t listen to me, they’ll have to answer to you, is that it?” Griffin smiled, and Rule joined him.

“Exactly.” She waved him over. “Did you find the phone?”

“Needs to be charged,” he said.

“Don’t you need to swear him in or something?” Dodge asked, taking a circuitous route to the side of her desk, opposite of where Griffin now stood.

Rule grunted. It was a technicality. She trusted Griff, and that was good enough for her. “Do you swear?” she asked him.

“All the time,” he replied.

She smiled at Dodge. “Good enough for me.”

Griffin crouched by her desk and plugged the phone’s charger into the surge protector, which was zip-tied to the desk leg. He attached the charger to the phone and was happy to see the screen light up green. “You know what,” he said. “I think we can use it while it’s plugged in.”

He handed the phone to Rule. She looked at the numbers, wondering who to call. FBI? Homeland? NASA? The damn White House? She opted for the State Police, punched in the number and lifted the phone to her ear. It shrieked at her, a wailing cry so loud that she yanked the phone away from her ear and dropped it on the desk.

The high-pitched tone could be heard clearly from the desk. Then it stopped.

Griffin put the phone to his ear and shook his head. He hung up and hit redial. “Nothing. Same as the cells and land lines.”

“What was that sound?” Winslow asked.

“Sat-phone,” Griffin said.

Winslow scratched his gray hair. “Sounded like interference.”

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now, but we’re not getting a signal.” Griffin turned to Rule. “Looks like you’re going for a drive.”

Rule got Griffin situated, pointing out a few things around the office with which he might not already be familiar. She told him to stick with the solar flare story if anyone asked, and to send people home. If there was an emergency...well, he’d have to handle that as best he could. She decided to take two cars. Dodge would ride in her patrol car. Winslow with Frost. As soon as they reached Ashland in one piece, she’d send Frost back. She finished detailing her plan by handing him a radio. They seemed to work, but she couldn’t depend on that continuing, since every other mode of modern communication seemed to be on the fritz.

“Stay safe,” Griffin said, as Rule headed for the door with Frost, Dodge and Winslow. She hung back while the others exited.

“Listen, Griff...” She spoke quietly. Secretive. “My personal opinion is that whatever happened has probably affected a lot more people than just us. There were thousands of people in Ashland. And no one’s come home. If people there panicked...” She let that linger. “If that’s what we find, and some kind of craziness spills over into Refuge, you have my permission to take Avalon and get the hell out of town. Head up to that cabin of yours.”

“I will,” he said. “Just as soon as you and Frost get back safely.”

She smiled and gave his face a playful slap. “Question is, which one of us do you have a crush on? Unless it’s both of us. Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Both of Griffin’s cheeks turned red despite only being slapped on one side. His grin confirmed her suspicions. She kissed his cheek where she slapped him. “Jess would approve.” She headed for the door. “Back in a jiff.”

13

Dodge had remained quiet for the first few minutes of the ride, but Rule could see him growing antsy. She really didn’t want to get into an argument with the man. It wouldn’t do anyone any good. So don’t argue, she told herself. Let the man speak his mind and just nod.

Dodge pulled his eyes away from the green and brown blur of the pine forest they sped through and swiveled toward her exactly when she expected him to. But his words nearly caused her to yank the steering wheel and plow the police cruiser into a tree. “I want to apologize.”

She glanced at him. “’Scuse me?”

“You heard me,” he said, willing to apologize, but not repeat the words. But then he elaborated, and Rule felt like she’d been transported to another world. “I overreacted.” The words came out slowly, begrudging more than thoughtful. “I jumped to conclusions. I haven’t ruled out the supernatural, mind you, but I should have withheld judgment until I had all the facts.”

Rule nodded slowly, waiting for a punch line, but it didn’t come. “Appreciate you saying that, Pastor.”

She wondered how honest she should be with him, and she decided that now, while he was feeling open, was the time to forge a functional relationship. “This town needs us both. You know that, right?”

Dodge stared at the floor for a moment. “I think that’s accurate, yes.”

“And the town’ll be better off if we’re not bickering.”

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation, which made her worried he’d insist on something like her being baptized again as a public expression of faith. But she didn’t think he’d suggest anything like that after she finished speaking.

She took a moment to gather her thoughts and realized she was squeezing the steering wheel. She loosened her grip and let out a breath. “I still don’t think we’re dealing with the supernatural—not because it’s not a possibility, but because it doesn’t make sense. The devil is most dangerous when we don’t know he’s there, right? So why announce his presence with a church bell?”

She let Dodge digest that for a moment, and when she saw the first hint of a nod, she continued, “But I do think something...large is happening. Something that’s going to frighten people. And frightened people sometimes make poor decisions. They react instinctually. And...” She looked at Dodge, “...they’re easily led.”

“Are you saying I would take advantage of people’s suggestibility?” Dodge asked, a trace of fire and brimstone in his voice.

“Not at all,” Rule said. “Just requestin’ you use the pulpit to keep people calm, which will help me keep ’em safe and alive.”

“Alive?” Dodge’s eyes grew wide.

Rule didn’t soften the blow. “I think something’s gone wrong in the world. Don’t know what. Could be war. Could be some kinda cosmic event. There really isn’t a way to know right now. But my gut tells me something bad is coming.”

Dodge pursed his lips hard, turning them white. Through clenched teeth he admitted the truth, “Me, too.”

The two-way radio crackled, and a broken voice filled the police cruiser. Rule couldn’t understand a word of it, but recognized Frost’s voice. She and Winslow were in the cruiser behind them. They were headed south on Main Street, which led all the way to the Ashland border. No one lived in this part of town, not unless you counted the deer, moose and bears.

There were only two intersecting streets. Lakeshore Drive on the left was a dirt road that ran out and around the lake. There were a few cabins and nicer new homes out that way, but none held a candle to Renford Ellison’s mansion at the end of the street. It was a three-story affair with sweeping views of the lake and surrounding area. She’d seen it only once, while it was being constructed, because two of the contractors got in a scuffle. She wasn’t even sure if Ellison lived there. Never saw him around town. In fact, it’d been at least a year since she’d seen him. He could be dead and rotting in that skyscraper of a home, and no one would ever know.

The second street was well paved and gated. It led to a National Guard storage depot. Like Ellison’s house, she’d been back there just once—a courtesy tour for the new Sheriff. Wasn’t much of a tour. All she’d seen were the exteriors of six large, metal buildings and an empty helicopter landing pad. She glanced at the chain-link gate, topped with razor wire, as she picked up the radio mic. She didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean the small base was deserted.

“Say again, Frost,” Rule spoke into the mic. “Did not copy, over.”

The voice that replied was not Frost. “The sky. Look at the sky.” Winslow’s voice came through loud and clear, projecting the fear hidden just beneath the surface of his words. Rule and Dodge both leaned forward looking up through the front windshield. The sky behind the curtain of undulating red was still dark...but not.

It was no longer black.

It was purple.

The sun was rising behind the crimson curtain. Part of her hoped the phenomenon would be burned off or muted by the sun’s light, but the rising sun presented a problem of its own.

“Shit,” Rule muttered. It had only been an hour since the sun went down.

“Missing time,” Dodge said. “We must have all passed out at some point.”

“If we’d all passed out, we’d all remember waking up on the ground,” Rule countered.

“We could have been in a trance-like state,” Dodge said.

“So we were just standing around all night, staring up at the church bell?”

“It would explain how the moon got so high in the sky. It would explain the rising sun.”

Dodge was grasping at straws, trying to make some sense of what was happening. She didn’t blame him. It was freaky as hell, and it didn’t feel like a supernatural event. “Doesn’t explain how a half moon became a full moon.”

With a frown, Dodge echoed her feelings, “Shit.”

“Did you see?” Winslow asked, his voice booming from the two-way.

Rule leaned forward again, looking at the lightening sky—the sun was rising fast—and held the mic to her mouth, but Frost’s voice exploded into the car. “Look out!”

Before seeing the danger, Rule slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed for just a moment, before the anti-lock brake system kicked in, rumbling them to a quick, but controlled stop. Rule leaned back in her seat. Looked at Dodge. “You okay, Pastor?”

But the man didn’t respond. His eyes were wide and facing forward. His lips moved slowly, and Rule could read a litany of curses being spoken between him and the good Lord. She didn’t want to look, but craned her head forward.

“What the fuck?” she said, giving voice to Dodge’s whispers.

Stretching out before them was a golden desert, where there should have been road. And forest. But it was all gone. The road just ended, cut clean. She opened the door and nearly stumbled from the car. She looked back at the thick, New Hampshire forest, full of pines, maples and oaks. She could smell the familiar leafy decay mixed with the scent of miles and miles of dried pine needles. But when she faced forward, that world, and every familiar thing about it, disappeared. It was like someone had scooped the town out of New Hampshire, carried it half way around the world and deposited it amidst the golden waves of the Sahara Desert.

On weak legs, she stepped to the sand, knelt and scooped it up. It was coarse, warm and smelled of salt. She turned her head to the right. The forest ended along the same line as the road. A tall pine had been sliced in half vertically; its pale flesh was exposed and bleeding sap.

Next to the tree was an orange reflective road marker. It was fairly mundane, but she’d never seen an orange road marker. It only stuck out to her now because it was right on the edge of town, precisely where the world had been cut away. A half inch further and it would have been cut in half, just like the tree.

Dodge crouched next to her and put his hand on the sand. “This can’t be real.”

“It is,” Rule said. “I don’t know how, and I don’t want it to be, but we’re seeing, touching and smelling it. It’s real.”

“Hey, boss!” Frost called out. She sounded upset, and not in a ‘what happened to the road?’ kind of way.

Rule spun around. Winslow stood atop Frost’s cruiser, looking into the distance through a pair of binoculars. Police issue. Frost must have given them to him. Rule nearly barked at the man for standing on top of the cruiser, but she honestly didn’t give a shit any more. She was more concerned with the desert behind her and whatever Frost had found.

Frost rose up from the side of the road and waved. Her face was ashen. “Over here.”

The side of the road angled down toward the forest a good ten feet, so Rule didn’t see the wrecked truck until she was close to the edge. She’d missed it driving past, because her eyes had been on the sky.

“That’s Monty’s truck,” she said, quickening her pace. “Is anyone—”

“Susie,” Frost said, tears in her eyes. “It’s bad. Probably don’t—”

Rule knew Frost was telling her not to look, but she had to see for herself. It took just a second for her to see what used to be Susie Beaumont inside the truck, but it was enough to permanently claim a leading role in her nightmares.

“No sign of the girls or Monty,” Frost said, her voice forced, almost robotic. “But his shotgun is missing.”

Frost and Monty both loved guns. Hell, most people in town owned a gun, mostly for hunting, but Monty was the type to carry weapons for personal defense, which seemed a bit excessive for their low crime area. They were all legal, so he’d never had a problem, but he occasionally showed off his mobile collection to people like Frost, who appreciated such things.

“Sheriff!” It was Dodge this time, his voice two octaves higher. “Sheriff!”

She ran back toward the desert, her hand going to the gun on her hip. But there was no danger in sight. Dodge stood in the sand, five feet from the side of the road. He pointed down. “Footprints. They head off into the desert.” He crouched and picked up a small red cylinder.

A shotgun shell.

Monty. He’d gone into the desert. But why?

There was only one reason the dedicated father would leave the crash site and head away from town.

The girls.

She yanked open her car door, sat behind the wheel and grabbed the radio mic. “Griff, are you there? Over.”

After a pause, Griff responded. “I’m here.... Just looking at the view. Listen, you need to turn around. Come back to town. The road to Ashland isn’t passable. Over.”

“You can see the sand from Main Street?” Rule asked. “How far does it go?”

“For as far as I can see,” he said, sounding stunned. “Are you guys okay down there?”

“Not even close,” she said into the mic. “We found Monty’s car wrecked on the side of the road. Susie’s dead, but the girls and Monty are missing. We’re going to look for them, but...”

A shotgun blast echoed from the distance. And then again. It was followed by a scream. Rule dropped the mic, leapt from the car and drew her side arm. “Let’s go!” she shouted to Frost, and she charged into the desert that had appeared overnight.

14

Griffin stood in the back room, hands wrapped around the bars of the cell that held his daughter. Wasn’t long ago that he would check in on her like this at night. She slept with a stuffed dinosaur then. Had always been a different sort of girl. Tougher. Strong willed. Interested in things that would cause most girls to turn up their noses. While other kids collected ribbons and trophies as proof of an athletic childhood, Avalon collected scars.

It was nerve wracking being her parent. He’d grown accustomed to the sight of blood during his years in the military, but when it covered his daughter’s body...even the memory of their frequent emergency room visits made him squeamish.

But he would exchange any of those bloody experiences for this, watching his daughter in a drug-withdrawal induced, comatose state. She occasionally shook, and her forehead glistened with the sweat of a breaking fever. When she woke up, she’d be in a world of pain, as her body screamed at her for the narcotic it had come to crave, but at least she’d be lucid. She’d still crave Oxycontin, but would hopefully have a mind to resist the craving. If not, he’d have no problem keeping her in this cell until she came to her senses. Of course, if the world had really gone to shit, finding Oxycontin might be a challenge. The pharmacy in Soucey’s might have some in stock. If she became desperate enough, she might try to steal the drug. But he was determined to not let that happen.

He leaned his head against the cold metal bar and closed his eyes. If Jess could see him now, what was she thinking? Had he failed their daughter? Had he failed his wife? Even considering these possibilities was too much. He stepped away from the cell, wiped the moisture from his eyes and looked up.

The black sky, partially masked by the red haze, had turned purple. A sense of relief filled him. Life always looked better in the clear light of day.

Day...

Griffin barreled out of the back room and tripped over a waste bucket. He spilled to the floor along with Deputy Sweeney’s collection of empty Snapple bottles, which sounded like angry wind chimes as they rattled across the aisle. It wasn’t a soft landing, but he barely noticed the impact on the hard linoleum floor. He scrambled back to his feet and tore toward the front door, a little more careful of the room’s detritus.

Two sets of doors later, he was outside, head turned up. The full moon still hung in the sky, but it had faded in brightness, fighting for attention against the quickly rising sun and the obscuring redness. The purple sky had grown lighter already, but had yet to take on a shade of blue. And the red phenomenon showed no signs of fading.

“Mr. Butler!”

He quickly recognized Lisa’s voice and scanned Main Street in the direction of her house. She emerged between two brick buildings, Radar in tow. Both were looking up at the impossible sky. He descended the stone staircase and started across the street. They met him half way.

For a moment, they all stood there together, looking up. Radar broke the silence, “Umm, we were thinking we’d like to stay with you.”

“Yeah,” Griffin said. It wasn’t the most detailed or reassuring of responses; the kids could have probably used some kind of pep talk, but Griffin felt just as lost as they did, and frankly, he was equally thankful for the company. He slowly lowered his gaze, admiring the different shades of purple, which turned pink toward the horizon, blending with the warbling redness in a way that was almost pretty. Almost, but not quite. He spun around slowly, lowering his eyes until he was looking straight down the tree-cleared line of South Main Street.

He staggered back.

His knees went wobbly, and he planted his hands on them to keep from falling over.

The view from Main Street had been the same for as long as the road existed—the endless trees of a state that was 90% forested. But now...

Lisa saw it and screamed.

“Oh my God,” Radar said, but then he focused on helping Lisa not fall to the ground. He wrapped his arms around her protectively. “I have you. I have you.”

But as Griffin’s mind imploded, no one had him. He fell to his knees. His vision narrowed. Pinpricks of light flitted back and forth.

Breathe, he told himself. Breathe!

He sucked in a deep breath, held it for a five count and let it out slowly. His vision cleared. He repeated the process once more and then stood again, unable to take his eyes from the view.

The most obvious feature was the sand. The endless forest had been replaced by dunes of sand stretching off to the pink horizon. The world beyond had been replaced somehow. Perhaps remade. Or destroyed. But the new world wasn’t completely featureless sand. There was something else on the horizon—miles away. It made his stomach twist in tight knots. It was a structure, that much was clear. Straight lines like that don’t exist in nature. Three dark spires, like Egyptian obelisks, rose up into the sky, one pointed straight up, the other two leaning at opposing 45 degree angles. He’d never seen anything like it, but it wasn’t the odd design that bothered him most, it was the size. The curve of the Earth allows people to see three miles before the land disappears over the horizon. That’s at ground level. From a tall hill, such as the one upon which Main Street had been built, you could see further—four or five miles. At that distance, the Empire State Building would look like the nub of a well-used pencil.

But this thing...he held up his arm. The central spire of the distant structure was barely covered by his forearm, stretching from his elbow nearly to the tip of his middle finger.

“It must be a mile high,” Radar commented.

“Bigger,” Griffin said. “Much bigger.”

Out of habit, Griffin reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, aimed the camera at the view and snapped a photo. He frequently took photos of things he thought would look good in a painting.

The radio on Griffin’s hip crackled to life, making all three jump. Rule’s voice came next. “Griff, are you there? Over.”

“Shit,” he said, pocketing the phone. He unclipped the radio and pressed the call button. “I’m here.... Just looking at the view.” He realized Rule wasn’t going to make it to Ashland or anywhere else. “Listen, you need to turn around. Come back to town. The road to Ashland isn’t passable. Over.” It sounded stupid, but he couldn’t think of any other way to explain, without sounding insane. Turned out he didn’t have to.

“You can see the sand from Main Street?” Rule asked. “How far does it go?”

“For as far as I can see,” he said. “Are you guys okay down there?”

“Not even close,” she said. “We found Monty’s car wrecked on the side of the road. Susie’s dead, but the girls and Monty are missing. We’re going to look for them, but…”

A sharp retort coupled with static burst out of the small speaker. Then it repeated. The gentle static of a transmitting signal disappeared. The radio went silent. He waited a moment, hoping Rule would press her call button again. When she didn’t, he pressed his. “Becky, what happened? Over.”

No reply.

“Becky? Please respond.”

Nothing.

Griffin looked back at the frightened faces of Radar and Lisa. He’d heard enough gunfire over a radio to recognize the sound, but he didn’t think either of the teens would have. Of course, they didn’t need to know someone was shooting a gun to feel afraid. The giant alien structure stabbing out of the horizon could do that on its own.

“You two follow me,” he said, knowing that one of the best ways to calm people down was to give them something to do. “I need your help with something.”

Griffin ran up the police station steps and opened the front door. “Hurry,” he said, waving them inside. Lisa was still pretty shaken up, but Radar looked alert and helped her inside the station. Griffin took one last look around. The town was quiet. Probably still asleep. He drew his pistol, looked at it for just a moment and chambered that first round before sliding it back in place.

“Damnit,” he said, and then he slipped inside the station.

15

Rule charged up a sand dune. Each step slid through the sand, carrying her only half the distance her stride normally provided. The effort it took to maintain a jogging speed felt closer to a sprint. She ignored the burning in her chest and the sharp sting in her throat, as the hot, dry air wicked the moisture away from her mouth with each exhalation. Her body had begun to itch as her sweat evaporated just as quickly as her body could pump it out. But she didn’t slow. Didn’t even consider it. The trail of footprints kept her on course. The gunshots, still fresh in her ear, kept her motivated.

Her job was to protect the people of Refuge, and right now, one of them was in trouble. Maybe all three of them were. She’d be damned before letting an otherworldly desert keep her from performing her duty. She could deal with the psychological fallout from their situation when or if she had a few minutes by herself. Then she might bawl her eyes out. Release all the anxiety she was feeling in a few weepy minutes. But until that opportunity presented itself, she’d bury the feelings deep and do her job.

The sand beneath her feet slipped out from under her, and she started falling forward. Frost planted her hand firmly on Rule’s butt, shoving her up and forward. The deputy had followed her sheriff without a word. Without hesitation. Rule felt a bit of pride. She was the only female sheriff in all of New Hampshire, and she had one of the best female deputies supporting her, in this case, literally.

As she hurried up the sand dune, a shadow fell over her. A large wavering thing that slid past like a giant wavering snake. She glanced up toward the light purple sky, but saw nothing. Whatever it was, it had flown away. Probably a hawk, she thought, out exploring the strange new environment.

She nearly fell again, but not because of the sand. As she crested the dune, signs of a scuffle emerged. The sand was a mess, and there were thick clumps of it where liquid had landed. Rule knelt, placed her fingers on one of the small beads of sand and pinched. Although much of the water had already been leached away, the bead was still wet and smeared red against her fingers.

Blood.

“Monty!” Rule shouted, then louder. “Monty!”

A distant voice responded. She couldn’t make out the words, but it was Monty. Without looking back or up, she surged down the opposite side of the dune, sliding more than running to the bottom. The path led through a twisting valley between two dunes.

Running faster on the flat surface, Rule barreled around a bend and nearly slammed into Monty. He was crouched on the ground, bleeding from a wound on his shoulder and clutching both of his girls. She took a moment to catch her breath, the blood rushing behind her ears loud enough to drown out the faint buzzing sound in the air.

“Cover us,” Rule said to Frost. She was surprised to see Dodge and Winslow arrive just behind Frost. Both men were braver than she would have guessed. She crouched down and looked at the girls. Both had their eyes open, but appeared to be in some kind of shock. Her instinct was to get them talking. Find out if they were injured. But she thought it could wait, given the surreal circumstances and the fact that Monty had shot at something or someone twice, and there wasn’t a body or blood to show for it.

“Can you stand?” she asked Monty.

He just stared at her, his bottom lip quivering. He was as shocked as his girls. She took hold of his uninjured arm and squeezed. “Monty, we need to get back to town. We need to—”

“Run,” he whispered. “Just run.”

“Monty.”

He focused on Rule’s eyes.

“It’s just us. Your friends. No one else is here.”

He turned his head to the side and down. She followed his eyes and saw his shotgun, the barrel bent to the side. She nearly cursed, but held it in. What could have done that? Crushing a shotgun barrel would take a lot of force—mechanical force. She wasn’t even sure a lion’s powerful jaws had the PSI to compress a cylinder of hardened steel.

“We’re getting you home,” Rule said, yanking Monty up. She turned to Dodge and Winslow. “Take the girls and follow the path back. We’ll be right behind you.”

As Dodge and Winslow moved in for girls, Monty tightened his grip. “No! They can’t have them! They can’t—”

The sharp report of a bare hand striking flesh made everyone jump. Rule lowered her hand. She’d slapped Monty hard across his cheek. The jolt shook some of the panic from him.

“Monty,” Rule said, her voice firm, but controlled. “We’re tryin’ to save your family. Now snap out of it.”

He loosened his grip on the girls, allowing Dodge and Winslow to scoop them up. They turned together and ran back the way they’d come.

“Go with ’em,” Rule told Frost. “Keep those girls safe.”

Frost hesitated for just a moment, then gave a nod and chased after the others.

“What did that to your shotgun, Monty?” Rule asked. She knew they should be running, too, but she wanted to know exactly what kind of danger they were in. Remembering the shadow from earlier, she glanced up, looking for a bird of prey. But the sky was empty and still very purple.

“Wrong direction,” Monty said. His voice quivered and nearly didn’t make it out of his throat.

She turned to him. “What?”

“They’re in the sand,” he said.

Her eyes widened a bit as she realized he hadn’t been looking at the shotgun earlier, he’d been looking at the sand.

A slight vibration caused the sand around her feet to dance around. Monty whimpered like a frightened dog.

“Can you run?” she asked.

He nodded rapidly.

Before either could take a step, the sand atop the dune to their right began to rise up. They stood transfixed by the sight. The sand was alive. Not alive, Rule realized as it fell away, but the creature within the shroud of falling grit was certainly alive.

A dry wind kicked up, pulling the sand away from the body, which continued to rise up, fifteen feet into the air. With a shake, the rest of the sand fell away, revealing a figure cloaked in shredded, pale fabric, which billowed in the wind. The creature had two arms and two legs. Humanoid. But not human. No way was that thing human. It was nine feet too tall, and the way it stood was wrong, bent sharply at the spine, knees twitching in both directions. The head—if it was a head—was wide and flat, with spherical insect-like eyes that stared down at her with curiosity.

The eyes could have been goggles, but she didn’t think so. A shifting color beneath the shimmering octagonal divisions gave her the distinct feeling that this thing was sizing them up.

“Kill it,” Monty said. “Kill it!”

Rule had never fired her weapon at a person before. She raised her gun, but hesitated. “Is that what took the girls?”

“One of them,” he replied.

One of them. Great.

A low gurgling sound emanated from the thing. The sound was so foreign and loud that Rule flinched and pulled the trigger, sending a round into the monster’s chest. It jolted back when the bullet struck home, but seemed otherwise indifferent.

Fear took hold of Rule and squeezed her chest. A panic attack coming on strong. Realizing she was going into shock, like Monty, she pulled the trigger twice more, aiming for the thing’s head. It staggered back and let out a grunt. The bullets definitely hurt it, but it didn’t fall over dead like it should have.

Monty tugged on her arm. “Let’s go.”

The man-beast reached behind its back and tugged a black sword out of the sand. The blade wasn’t flat like a traditional sword, but more like a pyramid that had been stretched out eight feet to a perfect, needle sharp tip. She staggered back as Monty continued pulling at her, but her legs had gone soft.

All it has to do is take one step forward, she thought, and it will be in striking distance.

She shook her head as a buzzing sound grew in volume. She was determined to keep her eyes focused on the monster.

Bong!

The sound was distant. Hard to hear. But it slammed into her thoughts like an atom bomb, returning some clarity and rooting her back in the world she knew and understood.

The church bell is ringing.

Again.

Why would it be...

Her stream of thought was interrupted.

Bong!

Rule sucked in a breath and spun around. The church bell was ringing, and that scared her more than the monster now at her back. She shoved Monty ahead of her and shouted, “Run! It’s starting again!”

16

“Let me out, you scrawny piece of shit!” Avalon’s voice echoed against the concrete walls of the police station’s back room. Radar didn’t react to the shouting. First, because he had orders from her father to keep her locked up no matter what. He didn’t fear Griffin, but he respected him enough to listen to him. Second, Avalon at her worst couldn’t match the volume or ferocity of his father. Ignoring her was a piece of cake.

Not that he was ignoring her completely. It was his job to make sure she was taken care of, too. “I can get you a cup of water if you want.”

Avalon’s hair hung in wet tendrils. She looked tired and in pain. Water was all he could think to offer her. She sat on the cot, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

“Are you okay?” Radar asked.

“I’m just dandy, Josh.”

The venom in her voice made him pause for a moment. She wasn’t the girl he remembered. Speaking quietly, he said, “You can call me Radar.”

Her voice softened a bit. “Thought you hated that.”

He shrugged. “Got used to it. Everyone calls me Radar now.”

“Mind turning down the lights, Radar?” she asked.

“The lights?”

“Head is killing me. The light makes it worse.”

Radar moved to the light switch. “Sure.” He flipped the switch, dimming the light. He couldn’t make the room completely dark, though. Purple light streamed through the windows.

“What time is it?” Avalon asked.

“Umm, midnight, I think.”

“What’s all the light from?” She glanced at the back wall of the station like she could see through it. “There’s nothing but trees back there.”

Radar gave her a funny look. How could she not know? But then he remembered she’d been asleep. Or more likely, passed out. He lived with a drunk. He knew the difference between sleep and unconsciousness. One looked peaceful, the other looked like something closer to death. Yeah, he thought, she was passed out.

“You don’t know, do you?” he asked.

“Know what?” She was beginning to grow agitated again. “You know what, forget it. Doesn’t matter. I barely remember the last twenty-four hours. I have no idea how I got in this cell. And I don’t really care. I found my father, right?”

Radar nodded. “He left me in charge of you.”

“Where is he now?”

“Went to help the Sheriff.”

“The Sheriff?” She closed her eyes. Shook her head. “That’s Becky now, right? I think I saw her last night...or was it tonight? Where’s Frost?”

“With the Sheriff. Before you ask, Officer Sweeney isn’t here, either.”

Avalon sighed and leaned her head straight back. “Please, God, don’t tell me they left you in charge.”

“Uh, yeah,” Radar said. “Kinda did. Sorry. Can I get you some water now?”

Avalon’s head all but fell forward. She returned to massaging her temples. “Sure. Couple of ibuprofen would be great, too.”

Radar hesitated. Griffin had told him that Avalon was in detox. That she’d been addicted to a painkiller. And no matter what, he couldn’t get any for her. Not from a stash. Not from home if his dad had any. And not from the pharmacy. She wasn’t asking for that drug, but ibuprofen was a painkiller too.

She must have sensed his hesitation, because she added, “I’m an Oxycontin addict, not ibuprofen.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yeah,” she said. “One makes you high as a kite, the other takes care of headaches and melts your stomach.”

Oxycontin. That was the stuff. Griffin didn’t say anything about any other drug, and just about everyone had a big bottle of ibuprofen in their medicine cabinet. Radar decided it would be okay and said, “Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.”

He quickly searched the station’s kitchen drawers and found a small bottle of acetaminophen. Not the same, but it should do the trick. He tapped three pills into his hand—her headache looked bad—and put the bottle back. He then found a cold bottled water in the fridge and a chocolate pudding that probably belonged to Sweeney, who had a sweet-tooth. After locating a plastic spoon, he quickly checked on Lisa, who was watching the sun rise out the front window, then returned to the cell and presented his findings.

He held the items through the cell bars. “Okay, three acetaminophen. Not what you asked for, but I’m pretty sure they melt your stomach, too. A bottle of water to wash it down, and a pudding to help avoid the previously mentioned stomach melting.”

Avalon stood with a groan, but smiled when she saw the offering. “Thanks.” She took the pills with the water, tore open the pudding. Polished it off in four heaping spoonfuls and then chugged the water until the bottle was drained.

“Is there a chance you’ll puke all that up?” Radar asked. He’d noticed the congealed vomit beside the bed. Its odor was hard to ignore.

Avalon glanced back at the mess. “I think I’m past it. But I’m awake now. I’ll aim for the bucket.”

“Radar...” Lisa called him from the front room, drawing his name out. She sounded tense.

“Go ahead,” Avalon said. She sat down. “And sorry for calling you a little shit.”

“Scrawny little shit,” Radar corrected.

Avalon smiled. “Right. Sorry.”

“Radar!” Lisa shouted.

He left the back room, entering the front room quickly. Lisa stood a few steps back from the window, her hands rubbing her ears.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Do you hear that?”

He didn’t hear anything at all, but he stopped walking and turned his head to the left. He was about to say he heard nothing, but then something tickled his ear. It was faint. Like a hum. “I think...”

Bong!

The church bell rang.

Radar flinched back, tripped on a chair and ended up sitting on Sheriff Rule’s desk. Lisa screamed.

Across the room, Radar saw a radio sitting atop a cabinet. He rushed to it, picked up the device and flicked the power switch. Nothing happened. The battery was dead.

“Is it happening again?” Lisa asked.

The church answered.

Bong!

Radar made for the front doors. He exited into the bright night and looked at the church. The building was as deserted as it had been when he and Lisa had snuck in just a few hours ago. He glanced up at the still purple sky and saw the fading moon. But that wasn’t all. There was a shimmer to the light.

Just like before, he thought. It is happening again.

He was about to retreat back into the police station—it was about to get noisy—when he noticed something else in the sky. A shape. Like the letter M.

It grew larger.

Fast.

By the time he realized what it was, his time was just about out. He dove for the doors, knowing he wouldn’t make it fast enough.

Bong!

The chiming church bell was answered by an angry shriek.

Radar turned around as he pulled the station door closed behind him. The only things about the creature atop the stone stairs of the police station that he recognized were that it had a head and wings. The rest of it was out of a nightmare. The wings were large membranes stretched over bony digits, like a bat’s, but on the ground, it folded them up and used them like arms—or legs. Its body was slender and skeletal, powerful for sure, but also light for flying. It moved atop four back legs, each with a single-clawed digit like an oversized eagle talon. Its head and neck were the creature’s strangest attributes. They curved up in segments, like a centipede’s body, narrowing toward the top, where two yellow eyes scanned the area in opposite directions. It had a mouth running up the front of its neck—or was it a face?—that held at least a hundred horizontal-facing sharp teeth, which stitched together like a zipper when the orifice snapped closed. Not very good for biting, but Radar didn’t think that was how it ate. This thing looked like it swallowed prey whole, and he was just about the right size.

One of the eyes spotted him. The other swiveled around, and then they moved closer together, giving them a more human orientation. The vertical mouth snapped open and the thing shrieked. It charged forward, but all it managed to do was slam the door further shut.

Radar walked away from the doors slowly. He opened the second set of foyer doors and moved inside the office. The creature seemed perplexed by the clear glass door in its way, and had lost interest in Radar. That was when Lisa saw it—and screamed.

The creature’s eyes locked onto her, narrowing further and leaning forward, like they could shift to just about any part of the thing’s head. The creature shrieked at them, spewing drool or phlegm at the glass, and then it charged. Having already forgotten the clear barricade, the creature hit the door with unrestrained might and shattered the glass. It spilled inside the foyer, appeared stunned for a moment, but then refocused on Lisa. It shrieked and threw itself at the second set of doors.

17

The pop of Rule’s 9mm side arm normally made her flinch a bit with each shot, but as she fired it over her shoulder, it sounded feeble. The thunderous report of a shotgun or higher caliber round would have provided a bit of comfort. Not much, though. She was being pursued through an alien landscape by a behemoth with a giant sword, who shrugged off bullets like they were Nerf darts. She didn’t think she’d ever feel safe or sane again.

The magazine ran dry, so she popped it free and let it fall to the sand, while she hauled ass up the side of a sand dune. She slapped in a fresh magazine and chambered the first round. She was about to point the gun back and empty it, but thought better of it. These were her last fifteen rounds.

She really didn’t want to look, but needed to know if she was even shooting at something. She glanced over her shoulder.

The thing was there.

Right there.

Just feet behind her, raising that giant blade over its head.

Rule shouted and dove to the side. The sword came down hard, just missing her legs. Sand exploded away from the impact, stinging her face. She thrust her weapon up, aimed for the thing’s eyes and fired twice. She stopped after the second shot when the telltale ping of a bullet ricocheting off something solid accompanied a spark on the monster’s bulbous eye.

Not an eye, she realized. Armor. A helmet.

She scrambled up the hillside while the man-thing lifted its sword for a second strike. The sand fought her all the way, but her fear emerged as the more powerful force, and she managed to out-distance the blade as it whooshed through the air behind her. She didn’t see the missed swing. Her eyes were locked on to the top of the dune. But she had the distinct feeling the strike was meant to sever her legs. Even a glancing blow from that monstrous sword would spell her end.

She fired over her shoulder three more times as she crested the dune, hoping the shots would at least slow the thing down. But when she glanced back, the giant was loping up the hill after her, its broad feet—two black-skinned digits spread in a wide V, with a translucent membrane stretched between them—acting like snowshoes in the sand.

Gunshots turned her attention forward again. From the top of the dune, which led back to the town’s border, she could see Frost standing on the pavement’s end, firing her weapon at a second large form rising out of the sand. On the ground behind Frost was Monty, once again clutching his girls. Dodge and Winslow were bent over the trunk of her squad car. She knew what was in there, and she willed them to hurry.

Rule charged down the dune toward the newly emerging creature. Not because she wanted to attack the thing, but because she had no choice. There was already another monster at her back, and the distant church bell was now sounding out a near constant chime. The air around the town had begun to waver as well.

She knew what it meant. Whatever brought them to this Godforsaken place was about to happen again, and if she didn’t make it back in time, she’d be left here to die.

Running down the hill was faster, but less controlled. She fought against gravity and the slipping sand to run at an angle, taking herself to the side of the still emerging body, not just to avoid it, but to give Frost a clear shot.

“Behind you!” Frost shouted, adjusting her aim. Three shots sizzled past Rule, each pinging off something metal. Her pursuer was right behind her again. Not knowing what else to do, Rule stopped hard, threw herself down and crouched into a tight ball.

The thing’s long leg struck her just half a second later, but it hadn’t kicked her. It careened into her. Its double-jointed knee bent backwards, and the monster pitched forward. With a grunt Rule recognized as surprise, the monster fell. Its fingers lost hold of the giant sword as its arms swung forward. The massive blade arced through the air toward Frost, but she saw it coming and ducked. Just as Dodge and Winslow closed the trunk, the black sword impaled the hood of her patrol car, no doubt destroying the engine.

The giant slammed into the sand and slid several feet before coming to a stop. Seeing the thing laid out like that gave Rule some hope. They weren’t perfect hunters. They made mistakes.

But there were two of them now. She saw the second reaching back for its big sword as she ran right over the body of the first. As it pushed up from the sand, she leapt from its head, using the creature’s upward momentum to give her a boost. As she soared toward Refuge, something snagged her ankle. She jolted to a stop and hit the sand hard. A crushing weight began squeezing her ankle. She rolled and looked back. The fallen monster had her leg in its powerful hand.

She fired the remaining rounds in her gun, but the thing didn’t even flinch. Nor did it move. But the other monster did. It stepped toward her, raising its giant sword up, planning to execute her right here in the sand. She dropped her side arm, drew her taser and fired. The prongs attached to the loose fabric covering the thing, but found no flesh beneath. Useless.

Gunfire erupted from the road. Frost had reloaded her weapon. Dodge held a pump action shotgun from her trunk. And Winslow had found her .45 ACP handgun, which had significant stopping power. But the hail of lead did nothing to stop the creature. It was oblivious.

She looked to Frost in what would be her last moment, hoping to communicate a message with her eyes, but the visual distortion surrounding the town now made it hard to see her. But Rule could still hear the others shouting, and then a car horn, honking a warning.

The gun fire ceased.

The blade came down.

A streak of silver flew out of the wavering air and struck the swinging creature before its blade could complete its path through the air. The sword fell away, and the monster was pinned beneath the front end of Griffin’s Ford Fusion.

The driver’s side door was flung open, and Griffin emerged. If he was shocked by the desert and the giant monsters it contained, he did a good job of hiding it. He leapt over the car’s hood, drew his side arm and aimed it at her leg. He fired just once and the pressure on her ankle disappeared. He’d shot the thing’s exposed hand. A shriek of pain exploded into the air, so loud that she couldn’t hear the constant ringing of the church bell for a moment.

“Hurry!” Frost shouted from the other side of the visual distortion. Her voice sounded wrong, too, like she was shouting through a window fan.

Rule got to her feet and shoved Griffin toward town. She chased after him, glancing to the side as the pinned giant began hefting the car up like a power lifter.

She looked forward as a pulse of light shimmered through the distortion. She shoved Griffin forward. He disappeared through the now flashing wall of light. She dove through behind him, her hand still on his back, just as the church bell stopped ringing.

18

I ate the pudding too fast, Avalon thought, sidling up next to the metal barrel. Her stomach was roiling, but after a few minutes of waiting for the pudding, water and pills to return back to the world, she realized the nausea wasn’t physical. It was emotional.

She still felt like shit, but her mind had returned, and along with it came the memory that she’d returned to her hometown and father for help. She’d hit rock bottom out in California. Did and saw things she would never forget. Four days ago, she’d seen a friend die from an overdose. A dead body, it turned out, was what it took for her to break and run for home.

Right now she wanted her father more than the Oxy, and that said a lot. If anyone could pull her out of the darkness, it was him. He was a rock. Maybe not after mom died, but he just needed time. So did she, but instead of dealing with the pain, she had hidden from it. Cloaked herself in a fog of mental smoke so thick she barely knew the world existed.

Despite her thoughts beginning to clear, the world around her was going insane. She knew it was night. She had a vague memory of the setting sun. And Radar had no reason to lie about the time. But the sun was definitely rising. The purple light filling the back room was growing brighter by the minute. She would have thought she was still tripping if Radar hadn’t also seen the light.

And then there was the church bell. Who was ringing it at night? It felt so loud in her throbbing head. She just wanted it to stop, but the clanging was repeating faster and faster.

She felt a rumble beneath her. She’d grown accustomed to earthquakes in Los Angles. They were more common than most people realized. But they weren’t supposed to happen in New Hampshire.

She was about to shout to Radar, ask what was going on, but then Lisa screamed. The shrill cry made Avalon wince, but the pain she felt was quickly replaced by concern. The scream sounded familiar.

She heard her own voice in her head, high pitched and sharp, screaming at the sight of her friend, naked and dead in the tub. It was a scream of abject horror.

A vibration rattled through the walls, coupled with the sound of breaking glass. A shriek followed next, but it wasn’t Lisa. It was too loud and too...primal…to even be human.

“What the...”

Shouting followed. Radar’s voice. Afraid, but commanding.

Another impact.

Another shriek.

“Radar!” she shouted. “What’s happening?” Her own booming voice stabbed her head with pain, but she ignored it as a flood of adrenaline entered her bloodstream. The natural drug tricked her body into thinking it was getting high, and she felt some of the withdrawal effects slip away. They’d be back, she knew, but for now, she felt almost normal again.

The room shook once more, and the sound of breaking glass filled the back room loudly this time, as Radar flung the door open. Lisa ran in first. She was a mess. Whimpering. Shaking with fear. Radar wasn’t much better, but he was still acting. Still with it. Whatever was outside that door, presumably inside the office, terrified them both.

“Is it a bear?” she asked, but she knew it wasn’t. Bears don’t shriek. “A mountain lion?” There hadn’t been mountain lions in New England for a long time, but she thought she remembered a few reported sightings in the years before she left. And the shriek did have a kind of cat-like quality.

But Radar just shook his head and produced a set of keys in his nervous hands. He was going to let her out. The thing in the office was making them abandon the police station.

“Thanks for not leaving,” Avalon said.

“Hurry,” Lisa urged. Her legs shook in time with her hands. Her eyes were red and watery. She looked like an addict. Looked like Avalon.

A shriek from the front office made all of them jump.

“That’s not a mountain lion, is it?” Avalon said, growing still, listening to the creature rampage through the office, the sound of its movement partially drowned out by the church bell, which rang at what seemed like an impossible speed.

The light in the room had gone from purple to red, wavering from dark to light like they were inside a giant lava lamp.

“It’s happening again,” Lisa said.

Radar ignored her, focusing on the key ring, trying one key at a time on the cell lock.

“What’s happening?” Avalon asked, feeling like she’d lost her mind and partially believing that this was all a withdrawal-induced hallucination.

“The...the shift,” Lisa said. “When everything changed.”

Avalon had no idea what Lisa was talking about, but Radar found the key, twisted the lock and slid the door open. Avalon sprang for the door, but was knocked back. She stumbled and wound up sitting on the cot. A complaint formed on the tip of her tongue, but made it no further.

Radar hadn’t been setting her free.

He and Lisa were now inside the cell. He slid the door closed, reached through the bars, twisted the key in the lock and then retreated to the back of the cell with the keys. He shrank into the back corner with Lisa, his arms wrapped protectively around her.

The rampage continued in the front office. Avalon spun on the huddling pair and shouted. “What the fuck is out there?” The words came out more forceful than she meant, but her imagination was conjuring nightmares similar to her father’s dark surrealist paintings.

Radar looked up, shaking his head back and forth. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

His head continued shaking. “It’s not...it’s not...”

“What?” she shouted.

“It’s not from this planet.” The words shot from his mouth rapid fire, like it was the only way he could bring himself to say it.

“Like...alien?” Avalon felt her fear abate just a little. This had to be a hallucination. And if that was the case, it was one of the most vivid she’d ever experienced.

“Yes,” Radar said, now speaking confidently. “It’s alien. Has to be.”

Avalon smirked. “Are you guys screwing with me? Is someone out there making all this noise and shining lights in the windows to teach me a lesson about drugs?”

“What?” Radar said, like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever head. She’d seen Radar in a school play once, before she skipped town. He was young, but he was such a bad actor, she didn’t think it was possible for him to pull off the range of emotions she was seeing.

This was for real.

They were terrified of something otherworldly tearing apart the police station.

Shit.

The door to the back room shook from an impact, bending inward in a way that left no doubt the next strike would knock it free from its hinges.

“Get down!” Lisa implored.

“Hide!” Radar said.

Hide? Avalon looked around the cell. There was no place to hide. Then she saw the pillows and blankets. A person might recognize the abstract shape of three people hiding beneath a blanket, but an animal might not make any sense of it. She tore the blanket off the cot, sat in the corner beside Radar and tossed the blanket over all three of them.

“Stay still,” she urged. “Stay quiet.”

Their silence meant they’d heard her requests, but none of them could fully squelch the tremors of fear twitching their muscles.

Avalon found a small hole in the blank and peeked through. Just as she spotted it, the door exploded inward, slamming hard against the cell bars. The monster came next, and it was so unexpected and vile that she nearly screamed. Radar must have sensed it because he grabbed her arm and squeezed.

She worked hard at controlling her breathing. It was shaky and loud, but she didn’t think the creature could hear her over the now constant clang of the church bell. It was just one long and very loud tone. The red light shifting through the room became more violent. Almost urgent. And it gave the beast the look of something that emerged straight from the depths of hell.

Its vertical mouth flapped open and closed, testing the air. Was it smelling? The yellow eyes atop its lobster tail of a neck—or maybe head, it was hard to tell—swiveled toward her and came together, pressing against each other so hard that the spheres became ovals.

It can see me, she thought. It sees my eye! But she remained motionless. It still might not have realized she was edible.

It pushed through the room, sliding up against the cell bars. It spread open its bat-like wings and clung to the cell, which darkened beneath the living shroud. Lisa let out a squeak of fright. The yellow eyes swiveled toward her and then returned to Avalon’s eye, peering through the hole. Its head rotated and slipped through the bars.

Avalon tensed. “It knows we’re here,” she whispered. “But it can’t reach us.”

As soon as she spoke the words, the beast decided to prove her wrong. Rather than try to smash its way through the solid metal bars, the thing’s neck extended, one segment at a time, stretching the long jaws even larger. With the elasticity of an anaconda’s belly, it reached for them.

“I was wrong,” Avalon said quickly. “It can reach us.”

Lisa let out another squeak, diverting its attention for just a moment.

“We’re going to have to fight it,” Avalon declared.

“How?” Radar asked.

“I don’t know,” Avalon admitted. “Just beat the shit out of it with anything you can find, with your fist. Aim for its fucking eyes.”

She saw him nod. Lisa would be sitting the fight out.

“Ready?” Avalon asked. “On three. One. Two. Three!”

Avalon flung the blanket up and out. It fell atop the creature’s head, blinding it. It reacted violently, throwing its head up, smashing the ceiling. Then it came down and thrashed side to side. Before Avalon or Radar could land a blow, they were struck by the flailing beast and flung against opposite ends of the cell.

Avalon’s head throbbed with pain. Warm liquid ran over her shoulder. She pushed herself up, half on the cot. The creature shook the blanket free, locked on Radar and lunged for the kill.

Radar, Lisa and Avalon screamed in unison.

A shotgun blast drowned out their voices. It was followed by a loud shriek that was ended by a second explosion. The sound was deafening inside the concrete space, but when the monster fell limp, its head deflating and shrinking back in on itself, Avalon didn’t care about the pain. They’d been saved.

“You okay in there?” came the deep ragged voice of a man who’d spent the better part of the past thirty years with a cigarette dangling from his lips. The words also came out with the slow slur of someone who’d been drinking. A lot.

Avalon didn’t recognize the voice of their rescuer, but Radar did. He stood to his feet, looking just as afraid as he had when the monster was trying to eat him. “Dad?”

The giant bird-bat-thing was yanked away from the cell. It fell in a still deflating heap. The room filled with the scent of its warm insides and exposed guts. Charley Wilson, a rough looking man wearing dirty jeans and a white ‘wife-beater’ tank top stepped over the carcass.

“Radar?” Charley rubbed a hand through his already messy hair and squinted. He lowered the shotgun, and the weight of it nearly pulled him to the floor. “Chu’ doing in jail, boy?”

Radar said nothing. Just stared at the floor.

“You stole something, you gonna have to answer to—”

“Leave him alone,” Lisa said. The words were quiet, but packed a punch.

Charley swiveled his head around, eyes widening for a moment, seeing Lisa and Avalon for the first time. “Look at you boy, locked up with a pair of sluts.” A lopsided grin pulled at one side of his face, revealing a missing tooth.

Avalon realized that Charley might pose a bigger threat than the monster he’d killed. If he decided to get violent with that shotgun, there was nothing they could do about it. She stood, trying to hide her fear, and approached the bars where he stood. He eyed her up and down. In his drunken state, he didn’t recognize her as the girl who’d grown up across the street. Or maybe he did and didn’t care. Didn’t matter. She gave him a look no man could turn from.

“I wouldn’t mind being shared,” she said, stopping at the bars.

He leaned forward with a drowsy look in his eyes and an expanding grin. “That right?”

She reached through the bars and ran her fingers through his greasy hair. The slick feeling between her fingers and the humid stench wafting off the dead monster nearly made her throw up in his face, but she fought her revulsion, grabbed the back of his head and yanked.

Charley’s skull played a tune on the cell bars as Avalon slammed him against the hard metal three times, stopping only when his body went slack. She let go of him, and he fell on top of the dead monster.

She expected Radar to yell at her, to be angry about what she did to his father, despite the man being an abusive prick. But he didn’t say anything. He just walked to the cell door, unlocked it and slid it open. Working in silence, the three of them dragged Charley into the cell and closed it behind them, locking him in.

Avalon recovered the shotgun, gave it a pump and headed for the front room. Radar and Lisa emerged behind her. “It’s quiet,” she noted. “The bell stopped.”

Radar moved around her and made for the wrecked front door. They had to climb over piles of debris, but quickly reached the exit and stepped out into a mid-afternoon day with a bright blue sky. They descended the steps, looking up.

Lisa smiled. “I think we’re back. I think we’re home.”

Avalon lowered her gaze and looked south, down Main Street. She shook her head. If the monster in the police station wasn’t bad enough, she now saw a landscape that shouldn’t exist. “Not even close,” she said before passing out.

19

Frost assessed herself quickly. She was shaky with adrenaline and horror, but unharmed. Her throat stung from sucking in deep breaths of hot, dry, desert air, but it was fading already. Winslow and Dodge crouched beside her, catching their breath. She spotted Griffin and Rule in front of the cruiser closest to the town’s border, which was now lush and green. She ignored that, though, and focused on her job.

Her thoughts were on Monty and the girls. They were, after all, who they’d all set out to rescue. If Monty and the girls weren’t okay, what was the point? She found them just a few feet away, leaning against one of the cruisers. Monty had a girl under each arm, protecting them like a bird might protect its young.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him. When he didn’t reply, she took his chin gently in her hand and lifted his gaze to her. “You’re safe now. The girls are with you. Are you hurt?”

Clarity slowly returned to his eyes. He blinked. “Hurt?” He glanced at his shoulder. Blood flowed from a straight slash, but it didn’t look profuse.

“Can you move it?” she asked. If the cut was deep and the muscle was cut, he either wouldn’t be able to move the limb or would cry out in pain from the attempt. He lifted the arm briefly. He sucked in a breath, but didn’t shout.

“It’s not bad,” he determined.

Frost looked at both girls. Both looked unharmed, but they’d need time to recover mentally. Probably years of counseling.

“Alice, Joy,” she said. “How would you two like some lollipops?”

Alice glanced up. As shook up as kids got, they almost always reacted to triggers that indicated things were back to normal. She reached into her pocket where she kept the candies—always on hand to promote good will with the next generation of Refuge residents. She handed one to Alice, who unwrapped it and placed it in her mouth. She held the other out to Joy. The girl stared at it for a moment, then reached out and took the candy. She didn’t unwrap it, though. She just held it close to her chest and mumbled, “Thank you,” in a soft, quiet voice that all but broke Frost’s heart.

“Frost.” It was Griffin. His voice sounded forced. In pain. Like someone who’d just woken up with a hangover. But then he said her name—shouted her name—and it was full of pain and desperation. “Frost!”

She got to her feet. Griffin was on his knees. Rule was beside him. She could only see Rule’s face. Her eyes were open. Her mouth was moving. Had something come through with them?

Then she saw tears in Griffin’s eyes, dripping from his eyes to Rule’s cheeks, and neither of them paid any attention to it. Frost rushed toward them. Griffin heard her coming and turned to her. His eyes were red and wet.

Rule reached up and pulled Griffin close. Her mouth moved quickly, whispering a message. Griffin nodded several times, saying, “I will. I will.” He leaned up and said, “Thank you,” as Frost arrived and rounded the front of the police car.

Frost gasped at what she found and stumbled back. She tripped over a thick, green plant and fell backwards. The ground beneath her was like a saturated sponge, leaching water into her clothes. But she paid the tall vegetation and wet landscape no attention as she scrambled back to the road, and her dying friend and mentor.

Rule had made it past the town border before the shift, but not all of her. She’d been cut in half. The wound had been cauterized, and though she wasn’t bleeding, the massive shock to the system and copious internal damage would soon stop her heart from beating. Rule knew this as well as anyone who saw her would. Time was short. Rule waved her down.

Frost, tears in her eyes, fell to her knees, oblivious to the pain of the pavement biting through her pant leg. Rule raised her hand and Frost took it. “You’ve been like a daughter,” Rule said.

A loud sob barked from Frost’s mouth, her sorrow fighting to get out. But she couldn’t do that to Rule. She couldn’t make the woman feel guilty for dying. So she swallowed her anguish and just nodded. Rule had more to say. Always did.

“Made me proud today. World went to hell, and you held it together. Got those girls to safety. Did the right thing.”

“I was just following you,” Frost said.

Rule shook her head and smiled. “Nah, that was you. Listen,” Rule said. She left go of Frost’s hand and took hold of the badge on her chest. She tried to unpin it, but her hands were shaking too much.

“Let me,” Griffin said, unpinning the badge.

“No,” Frost said, not wanting this to be reality. She shook her head. “No.”

“Ain’t no other way,” Rule said, her voice getting softer. She took the badge and placed it in Frost’s hand. Closed her fingers over the symbol for the law and order Sheriff Rebecca Rule had brought to Refuge, New Hampshire. “The town is yours now. Keep ’em safe.”

Frost nodded, straightened her spine and sniffed. With a nod, she said. “I will. I promise, I will.”

Rule gave a nod and said, “Get the Pastor.”

Griffin stood. “Dodge.” He waved the man over.

Pastor Dodge arrived a moment later, stopping in place when he saw the state of the former sheriff. “Dear Lord.” He was by her side a moment later, both of his hands wrapped around hers. He closed his eyes and began whispering—praying, Frost knew. “Amen,” he said.

“Will I see him?” Rule asked the pastor.

“Bernie was a believer,” Dodge said. “Like you were, before his passing.”

Frost flinched. The pastor wasn’t pulling his punches. She was about to object, but Rule gave a smile and nodded.

“Death can kill faith,” Rule said, glancing at Griffin.

“Only you and the Lord God knows what’s in your heart, Becky,” Dodge said. “But I’ve just petitioned Him on your behalf. He’s merciful.” He smiled, tears in his eyes. “He might even make an exception for a heathen like you.”

Rule laughed, which caused her obvious pain, but her smile never faded. She leaned her head up a little and nodded at Frost. “You give her the same respect you woulda given me. It’s the only way things’ll get done. Only way to keep our people safe.”

Dodge nodded. “You have my word.”

Satisfied, Rule leaned back and turned her eyes to Griffin. As she moved, a white gold necklace slid out of her shirt, a tiny diamond dangling from the chain. Rule clutched at it, squeezing tightly, but didn’t seem conscious of the action. It was reflex. A nervous habit. “Tell Avalon I love her. Get it done.”

And then, she was gone.

The sheriff was dead.

20

Griffin stood at the center of Main Street, looking south. It had been only an hour since Rule had left the world—whatever world this was now. The view was mostly green, a jungle as endless as the desert it replaced. A streak of dark blue cut across the horizon. A lake or an ocean reflecting the blue sky where the three-pronged, impossibly large obelisks had stood. If he hadn’t snapped a photo of the scene, he might not have believed it ever existed. He raised his phone and snapped a photo of this new world.

And that’s what it was. He had no doubt. The town—a perfect circle of Refuge and the surrounding forest—had been transported somewhere else. Another planet? Another dimension? Another time? Those possibilities were Winslow’s area of expertise. But there was no doubt in his mind that this was not Earth. At least as they knew it. Identical gravity and breathable air suggested it was, but he’d looked into the jungle before coming back to town with the others, all squished inside Frost’s cruiser. There wasn’t a single plant in the dense jungle that looked familiar. Everything was spongy, even the leaves. They were all designed to hold moisture, which might be why there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. The land here clung to its water, fighting evaporation.

It didn’t matter really. Their new surroundings were just a distraction from the pain he felt at Rule’s passing. She’d been one of his closest friends. He trusted her. Took comfort in her existence. But now... Refuge was a darker place without her.

Dodge was holding a prayer service in the church for the townspeople that had awoken to a new world. He promised to keep people calm. Winslow had returned to his observatory, eager to work out exactly where they were and how it happened. Monty and the girls were at the walk-in clinic on the north end of Main Street. It wasn’t open, but Frost had banged on the door of Janet Nikols—the only nurse who lived in town—until she answered. Frost then went back for Rule’s body. Took Walter with her. Griffin had objected. Said it should be him. But the badge now affixed permanently to his chest meant that she was now his superior. So he obeyed. If he didn’t listen to Frost, who would? She and Walter were armed to a T, wore flak jackets and carried stun grenades.

“Dad,” Avalon said. She’d snuck up behind him. Still looked a mess, but at least she wasn’t the only one now.

“Are they settled in?” he asked. Radar and Lisa were staying with him until this was all over. Charley would be released when he sobered up. He hadn’t committed a crime and had managed to win a few brownie points by saving three lives. But Griffin wasn’t about to leave Radar and Lisa under the man’s care while life unraveled around them. Who knew how the man would react. Didn’t take much to set him off.

“You know we have no power, right?” she asked.

“Cash can connect us to the grid,” Griffin said. He wasn’t sure if it was true, but Cash was a skilled electrician. If anyone in town could get it done, it was him. It’s not like they were about to get outside help.

He lifted his arm. An invitation.

She accepted, sliding under his arm. He pulled her close. “Glad you came back to town?”

“Honestly?” she said, and smiled. “Fuck, no.”

He managed to chuckle. “While I would do anything to get you out of here and back home, I’m glad to have you with me.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Was it really the last thing she said?”

He knew she was talking about Rule. He’d passed on her message. And while it wasn’t exactly the last thing she had said—the final message was for him and him alone—no one else needed to know that. He nodded. “Loved both of us and your mom.”

Avalon sniffed back a tear.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like I need to get high,” she said. He didn’t like it, but appreciated the honesty. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s out of my system now. The fight’s in my brain now.”

“And I’m going to help you with that,” he said.

“Pretty sure I might be able to find a few things to distract me from the—”

The roar of a car engine climbing Main Street cut her off. Frost was returning. The cruiser pulled up to the sidewalk. Frost got out, frowning deeply. Griffin expected her to be upset. Rule’s body would be in the back seat...maybe the trunk, but Frost looked pissed more than anything.

She saw him and headed straight for him.

“Give us a minute,” he said to Avalon, and he kissed the top of her head.

She headed toward Memorial Park, which looked like it always did, chirping birds, bright flowers and all.

He turned to Frost as she arrived. “What’s wrong?”

The look in her eyes was pure rage, and he feared he’d somehow upset her. But instead of slugging him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and lowered her head to his shoulder.

“She’s gone,” Frost said.

“We put her in the car,” he said, surprised.

“I know.” She shook her head. “The door was open.”

“I hate to say this, but people in town need to start carrying weapons. Who knows what the hell is in that jungle or if any of those big assholes from the desert came along for the ride.” He was talking about the humanoid giants and the oversized flying creature they’d dragged out of the police station and put in Soucey’s freezer for later scrutiny.

He felt her nod on his shoulder.

She stopped and stayed quiet for a moment. Then asked, “What did she tell you?”

They separated.

“Kinda private,” he said.

She squinted at him. “Were you two...”

He smiled lightly. Rule would have gotten a kick out of that. Mostly she’d told him how much she cared about him. Told him to be strong. To watch out for Avalon. But she’d also given him permission...with Frost. He’d keep that to himself, but he couldn’t deny he needed to tell someone about the mission she’d given him. In part, because it was a heavy weight to carry alone, but also because he would need her help.

“She wanted you to protect the town.” He looked into her eyes and fought against the way they softened his heart. Turning toward the southern view and the endless jungle, he added, “She wanted me to avenge it.”

Just then, the church bell chimed.

REFUGE

Book 2: Darkness Falls

By Jeremy Bishop and Daniel S. Boucher

Then the Lord said unto Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt—even darkness which may be felt.”

Exodus 10:21

21

The hideous chime of the church bell signaled an impending shift. Griffin saw Frost stiffen at the sound. She gripped the old mug on her desk, which had survived the attack on the Sheriff’s station unscathed. It had been seven hours since the last shift, and neither of them had slept. How could they? Instead, they had brewed copious amounts of coffee and set to work on the station, repairing the damage done and getting things back in order. And as they made physical progress, a slow sense of normalcy had returned. While much of the main office was still a mess, the space was functional once more, and the front doors had been crudely repaired with sheets of plywood.

But despite the progress, both physical and emotional, Frost was still tense. The death of Sheriff Rule had not only forced her into a position of authority, but she now carried the responsibility of Refuge’s safety. It was a big task for even the most experienced of law keepers, and one that Griffin knew she wouldn’t be able to handle alone. Who could?

“Hey!” came a shout from the back room. Charley Wilson was still locked up. They had told him of Rule’s death, but they hadn’t released him yet.

They ignored his call.

“C’mon. I know you can hear me.” Charley rapped against the cell bars with something solid, adding harsh clangs of metal to the now repeating clang of the church bell. “I’m sober now.”

While Griffin’s survival instincts had kicked in, his Army Ranger training had not prepared him for what was happening in the town. It defied logic. Refuge looked like the same cozy New England town it had been since the first foundation was laid in 1749, but the world around it was no longer their own. Since the desert world disappeared, they’d been surrounded by a lush jungle. Despite the obvious signs of wildlife surrounding the town, nothing came in past the borders. Everyone remained safe. Things got quiet, which gave people time to collect themselves.

But now, they were going to shift again, and no one knew where they would end up. Home? Back in the desert? Some place new? Some place dangerous?

“Seriously,” Charley said. “Rule wouldn’t have kept me in here sober. You know it. And if my hazy memory serves, I saved some people last night.”

Frost sighed and looked up at Griffin. “He’s right.”

“You don’t think he’s a danger?”

“Not while he’s sober,” she said.

“But how long will that—” Griffin looked toward the front of the station like he could see straight through the wall toward the now incessant church bell. “Never mind.”

They headed back to the cells.

“Seriously. Frost.” Charley sounded desperate. “I don’t want to be in here when—” He clamped his mouth shut when Griffin and Frost entered.

Without a word, Frost unlocked the cell, swung open the door and stepped to the side. As Charley stepped past her, she took his arm. “Next time you get drunk in public, I’m going to leave you in here.”

He nodded and tried to continue past, but she held on tightly. “Next time you invoke Becky’s name in your defense, I’ll knock your teeth out.”

Charley smiled briefly, but it faded when her gaze communicated the seriousness of what she had said.

Frost released him, but he made it only one step before Griffin blocked his path. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he complained.

“Your son and his friend, Lisa, are under my protection,” Griffin said.

Charley sneered and puffed out his chest. “You telling me I can’t see my son?”

Griffin shook his head. “I’m telling you that if you hurt either of them, or anyone else, having your teeth knocked out will be the least of your worries. The world is different, Charley. It’s dangerous beyond the town border. It can’t also be dangerous within it.”

Charley stared at Griffin for a moment, then backed down and nodded. “I get it. Okay.”

The church bell continued to ring, growing faster with each ear shattering peal, until it became one, loud long tone.

Without another word, the trio headed for the front door. Charley reached the plywood first, and opened the makeshift door. He turned his head skyward and stopped, holding the door open, more out of stunned immobility than politeness. “Not in a million years...”

Frost and Griffin exited next, and stood beside Charley, wincing at the sound of the church bell.

The air all around them shimmered.

The sky above shook and darkened, changing as one place faded and the other emerged. Then, in a snap, the shift tore them into a new world.

A dark world.

Griffin caught sight of motion above. He tracked its slow descent.

The object was gray, slightly lighter than the blackened sky above. He reached out for the quarter-sized object. It slid gently into his hand, nearly weightless.

“What is it?” Charley asked.

Griffin smelled the answer in the air all around them, but didn’t speak it aloud. He looked up again as a blizzard of gray descended toward Main Street. Somewhere, the world was burning.

22

“Approach the bench Mr. Lake.”

A smug laugh came from his left, where his (soon to be ex) wife sat alongside her high-powered lawyer—a man who believed the financial burden of his hiring fell to Sam.

Sam cleared his throat and made his way to the bench.

He felt awkward and out of place as he crossed the perfectly polished tile floor. The courtroom, it seemed, was comprised of his wife’s friends, all taking time out of their busy lives to bear witness to the proverbial lamb led to the slaughter.

Unsure of what to say, he stammered, “Uhh… Your Honor?”

His voice shook. His obvious unease drew rounds of sarcastic laughs from his wife’s friends.

When did they all turn on me? I couldn’t have pissed them all off.

The judge, a rotund woman with a receding hairline, littered with gray roots, frowned. Her pudgy face, all but consumed by blotchy red rosacea, was hard to look at. Her left hand rested on a wooden gavel. Her dark, lifeless eyes darted from left to right, as she studied the papers in front of her.

“Mr. Lake,” she said, “I’m not even sure where to begin.” She slapped her hand on top of the papers. “Neglect. Emotionally unavailable. Absent father…” She paused for emphasis. “…and my personal favorite, sexually inept.” A chuckle rolled through the courtroom. “Sounds to me like you’re an all-around winner. Do you know what we do with winners like you in my courtroom?”

Sam looked up at the judge, unsure whether he was supposed to answer.

“Shove a hot poker up his ass!” came a shout from the courtroom.

“Cut off his pecker and feed it to the crows!” came another.

The people were abuzz now, alive with the notion that they were about to get what they came for.

Where the hell am I?

“As much as I’d like to do any one of those,” the judge said with a grin, “Those god-damned never-worked-a-day-in-their-life liberalists out there would deem it ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ They’d ruin all my fun. No, Mr. Lake, the best I can do with winners like you, is give you something that will serve as a reminder. A reminder that will squelch the unholy debauchery marring your soul, should you ever decide to go back to your self-indulgent ways.”

She brought her left hand up. Gone was the gavel, now replaced with a red, five-pound Stanley sledgehammer.

“Please place your right hand on the bench, Mr. Lake.”

Sam moved his hands behind his back.

“Mr. Lake?” she said.

Sam looked to his lawyer with a plea for help. The man just stared at him, nodding in silent approval for him to follow the judge’s order.

“Mr. Lake, I will not ask you again. Put your hand on the bench now, or I’ll have someone do it for you.”

Sam dared one last look at his wife. God, I miss her.

“God has nothing to do with this,” the judge said, as if reading his thoughts. “Now, for the last time,” she leaned forward and smiled. “Place your fucking hand on the bench.”

Emotionally unavailable? Absent father? Was that really how his wife felt? Perhaps he really did have this coming.

Against every instinct, Sam obeyed. The bench felt cold and hard, two perfect ingredients for what was about to happen. The irony that the judge’s tool of choice had no doubt come from his own hardware store, was not lost on him as she delivered his reminder with impossible speed.

23

Sam woke to the boom of thunder. He grabbed his right hand to make sure it was still there and in one piece. Relieved to find it intact, he shook his head to clear the dream-fog from his mind. The nightmare left him feeling funky.

Mental indigestion, he thought with a slight grin.

The events of the previous day started coming together again. Closing the shop early for the fireworks, he had driven past what used to be their house—a place he was no longer welcome. He’d been forced to live out of his office at the hardware store, while they ‘worked things out.’

Depressed, he’d gone to Jimmy’s garage, and he and Jimmy had knocked back a few before the sun set, long before the fireworks started. From the way his head throbbed, ‘a few’ must have become ‘a shit-ton’—he didn’t remember how he got to the shop.

Thunder boomed again, echoing loudly in his thick skull. No, not thunder…pounding. Someone was knocking on the store’s front door.

He flipped off his blankets, gripping the sides of his head and wincing at the surge of pain that faded slightly with each step. His makeshift bedroom was tucked in the corner of his office. It wasn’t a long walk to the front door, but it felt like a marathon distance.

The pounding stopped. Thank God for small favors. He looked at the clock next to his cot. 12:00 AM blinked back at him. The window above the makeshift bed was still dark. He made his way out of the office and onto the main floor of the store. It wasn’t a large building, but it carried all of the essentials that a town like Refuge could need. A variety of products lined its aisles. Everything from tape measures, to power saws and hammers. A shiver crept down Sam’s spine at that last thought.

Business had been good to him as of late. Ever since Julie Barnes, the town’s (only attractive) real estate agent, had brought in the ‘outside’ contractors for the town’s utility retrofitting, he’d been having a hard time staying stocked. Sure it’d pissed off people who’d made Refuge their home—regulars like Cash Whittemore, who wasn’t a fan of Ms. Barnes—but it was a boon for Sam.

A tall, lone figure was visible through the glass door. Sam would have recognized that silhouette anywhere. Only one person in Refuge stood that tall: his best friend, Jimmy Stanley. Ever since Sam and Tess had split, Jimmy, a thin man of sixty with a shock of white hair, had made it a point to get together with him almost every night after closing. Be it beers at Jimmy’s Automotive, or over to Harrison’s Brickhouse Bar & Grill, they’d spend evenings together getting buzzed and forgetting, just happy to have survived another day.

Jimmy was a friend in every sense of the word, but not one to come pounding on his door while darkness still covered Refuge. Something was wrong.

“I gotta say,” Sam started, letting Jimmy in, “having you banging on my door in the wee hours of the morning doesn’t really do anything for my beauty sleep.”

Jimmy looked uncharacteristically serious, “Do you know what time it is?”

Sam scratched his chin. “Hell if I know. That stupid clock I have only works half the time.” Sam nodded to the glass storefront. “Either it’s early, or I’ve gone and slept through an entire day. Why?”

Jimmy looked at his watch. “It’s 9:30 in the morning.”

Sam scoffed and walked over to the beverage cooler set against the wall. “Bullshit. It’s still dark out. And FYI, I’m sober now.” He grabbed a water and took as swig. “Shit, it’s bad enough that I’m hung-over and I missed the fireworks with my kids last night. I don’t need you messing with my head to boot.”

“I’m being serious. Something weird is going on,” Jimmy said. “I guess the fireworks didn’t even happen last night, from what Dana says. The whole thing got cancelled or something.”

“Dana?” Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Cram?”

“Ayuh.”

Jimmy and Dana had been friends since high school, but Dana had moved south to Manch-vegas a few years back, and now he only made sporadic visits to town, usually on holidays.

“No shit, when did he get into town?”

“Late yesterday. Woke me this morning, babbling on about some crazy shit happening in town. He’s right about one thing though, something’s going on. Phones, cable, Internet—none of it’s working. Had to check three different clocks just to believe the time. Look, just get your shit together and come on. I’m headed over to the church to meet Dana and a few others.”

Sam started to speak then stopped. Movement from outside the store caught his attention.

“Is it...snowing?”

Sam walked to the doors for a better look. Jimmy followed.

“I don’t know what it is,” Jimmy said, “but I can tell you it ain’t snow. It’s been coming down ever since I left the house. Smeared up the windshield pretty good on the way over.”

Jimmy stepped outside and held the door for Sam. It wasn’t completely dark. Some sort of a moon hung over the town, casting a deep purple glow over Main Street and the buildings that lined it.

The falling flakes were almost invisible in the night sky. Sam caught one in his hand and rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. It left a black smudge over his fingertips. He brought them up to his nose and sniffed.

“Ash,” Sam said.

24

Jimmy grabbed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and tapped them against the palm of his hand. “Like I told ya,” he said, flicking his lighter. “Shit ain’t right. Like some volcano erupted during the night.” He took a deep drag.

“Ain’t no volcanoes in New Hampshire. Or anywhere near here,” Sam told him.

Jimmy shrugged. “Maybe Frost will have answers. I think she’s at Soucey’s with most everyone else.”

“Frost? What about the Sheriff?”

Jimmy frowned. “I heard Becky... I heard she was dead.”

“Dead?” Sam felt ill. Becky’s husband had been a friend, and Sam had remained friendly with Becky since he’d passed, chatting on the sidewalk when they crossed paths, which was fairly regular since the station and his store were neighbors. She knew he’d been living out of the store; noticed on day two. Told him it was against the law, but looked the other way so he didn’t have to find someplace out of town, further from his kids. That she was dead... It didn’t seem possible.

Sam silently went back in and grabbed his watch and wallet off the nightstand. Aside from Becky’s death, he was having a hard time understanding everything Jimmy had just told him. Communications were out, but he could see the street lights blazing outside. Near as he could tell, Refuge still had power. At least downtown did. He wondered what else had happened.

Leaving Jimmy’s truck parked in front of the hardware store, the pair started the short walk past the now gray park, toward Soucey’s Market, where they could see a throng of people gathering. Sam looked at the park, covered in ash. The gazebo, the swing set, the ball field and trees; he used to admire the park view from his office window, but now it was a macabre scene.

Jimmy tapped his arm. “Hey, there’s Griffin.” He started across the street, toward the church, before Sam could question his interest in Griffin. He followed his friend across the street, shuffling through the gathered layer of ash that continued to fall from the sky, pushed by a southerly wind creating drifts against the buildings.

They walked into the church parking lot, where a single truck was backed up to its front doors. Its tailgate was down and the truck bed was half loaded with boxes.

Griffin Butler stepped out of the church carrying a couple of folding chairs in each hand, tossing them onto the back of the truck. He shut the tailgate and then made his way over to Sam and Jimmy.

“Jimmy. Sam,” Griffin said with a nod.

“Hey Griff,” Jimmy said. He pointed to the badge on Griffin’s chest, a simple circle around a star with the word Deputy etched into the center. “Been deputized, eh?”

Griffin nodded. “For the time being.”

“So, ah, why aren’t we meeting at the church?” Jimmy asked. “Seems like the best place—” He looked up at the sky. “—given the circumstances.”

Griffin pulled a small ring of keys from his pocket. “Not everyone agrees on the circumstances. We thought it would be better to meet at Soucey’s instead.” He motioned to his cargo. “Hence the chairs.”

“Something wrong with the church?” Sam asked.

“You mean aside from the ear splitting bell toll?” Griffin said.

“What?” Sam asked.

“You don’t know?” Griffin looked up to the church tower as if expecting it to do something. “Look, I gotta get this stuff over to Soucey’s. Jump in and we can fill you in there.”

They drove down the street and turned into the Soucey’s Market parking lot. Sam was surprised to see that two large white patio canopies sectioned off the first quarter of the lot, closest to the store’s entrance. These spaces were usually reserved for handicapped parking.

The parking lot lights were off, but the store front was lit up. A few halogen work lamps stood atop a few neatly stacked bags of dog food that lined the front walk. If not for the fact that it was close to ten in the morning, it would appear that business was booming on a warm Refuge night.

Sam could see a few people moving about inside the store as he and Jimmy stepped out of the truck. They helped Griffin carry some boxes and chairs up to the store.

“Thanks guys. Just set those over there, if you would.” Griffin pointed to the canopy closest the store. “I’m gonna check on a few quick things, and then I’ll fill you in.”

Mary Soucey-Bartlett puttered about under one of the canopies, setting out Styrofoam cups, sugar, plastic spoons and creamer on a folding table. The smell of freshly brewed coffee permeated the air and seemed to lighten Sam’s dull hangover.

“Hey Mary,” Jimmy said, setting down his box where Griffin had asked and taking a long sniff. “That smell is nothing short of a godsend.”

“No kidding,” Sam said, setting his box on top of Jimmy’s. He took a deep breath, and for the first time since waking, smelled something other than ash. “I need something to clear this funk out of my head, and a little ‘nectar of the Gods’ sounds just about right.”

Mary frowned. “Not sure coffee is gonna fix much around here.”

Mary was a petite woman with red curly hair and an athletic build. At 35, she was one of the youngest business owners in Refuge, and attractive to boot. Inheriting the Market from her father—who’d passed unexpectedly one night, hitting a moose out on 95, after visiting a friend up in Maine—had interfered with her plans of heading off to New York. She was generally an upbeat type, though.

“It’s a start,” Sam said, not sure how to approach the conversation, since he seemed to know less than everyone else, and no one was all that talkative when it came to the current situation.

Mary grabbed two cups and filled them with coffee, pouring cream into one and sugar into the other.

“Here you go boys,” Mary said, giving the coffee with cream to Sam and the sugared to Jimmy.

“Can one of you please tell me what’s happening?” Sam said.

Mary stared at her cup for a moment. “I’m not really sure. No one is. Lots of speculation, but nothing concrete. Winslow has a few ideas, but again, it’s all just speculation. I overheard Griff telling Brian earlier that there was a bad accident, and something happened to Sheriff Rule, but other than that, I don’t know much.”

“Heard she was dead,” Jimmy said, and then he asked, “Is that why this is all set up? Some sort of makeshift reprieve?”

“Pretty much,” Mary said. “Not everyone got switched over to the new power grid during the upgrade, so there are some stuck without power now. Figured I’d do what I could to help. Hot coffee and some snacks can go a long way when people are nervous. In theory.”

“Well, it’s helping me,” Sam said, taking a sip. “Thanks.”

“A small group has already gathered inside,” Mary said, and craned her neck to look inside the market. “I think Tess and the kids were in the last batch that came in.”

“Tess is here?” Sam’s heart skipped at the thought.

25

Sam squinted at the market’s bright interior lights as he entered. The store wasn’t huge by outsider standards, like one of those fancy Hannaford supermarkets, but it was large for Refuge.

Four aisles separated the interior, each neatly stocked with canned foods, snacks and assorted beverages. The lone checkout stand sat off to the left, its counter lined with candy guaranteed to make kids whine enough to force mom or dad pay for it. The wall behind the counter had been reserved for more adult vices, with just about every form of tobacco one could imagine.

The front of the market was floor to ceiling glass, each pane holding a single carefully placed poster listing the current specials. We have Twinkies Again! Get them before they’re gone! read one of them. Sam had never quite understood the appeal of Twinkies, until he’d had one deep-fried up at the Scarborough Fair in Maine one summer. He could only think of one word to describe the dessert treat: dangerous.

He made his way toward the back, where he could hear the dull murmur of people talking.

“Sam!” came a call from the back. “Holy shit! Now it’s a party!”

Sam smiled. “Mr. Cram. How the hell are you?”

Dana Cram rushed up to Sam, grabbing him in a bear hug and lifting him off the floor. On a good day Dana probably stood about five-foot eight, and maybe dressed out at about one-hundred-twenty pounds, soaking wet. This was a guy that was a walking contradiction, lending a whole new meaning to the saying never judge a book by its cover.

Sam let out a muffled umph. “Easy there hoss, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Sorry, boss,” Dana said, releasing Sam with a grin. “You just get me all excited, don’t you know.”

At least Dana was his normal jolly self, though Sam could detect a trace of nervous energy fueling the man.

“You should hear the shit Winslow’s had to say,” Dana hung his head. “But the only thing we really know for sure is that Sheriff Rule’s dead.”

“I heard. Twice. You know what happened?”

“I don’t. I’m hoping Griffin can tell us more, now that he’s back. He’s wearing a badge now, after all.”

They walked into the stock room, and Dana moved off to the corner to talk to Winslow Herman and his wife Carol. Sam looked around just as Tess stepped out from the woman’s bathroom with the kids in tow. She bent down to tuck in his son’s shirt, and Sam couldn’t help but appreciate the fine curve Tess’s ass made in her Levi’s. God, he missed that woman, and not just her ass. His daughter, Ellie, looked up and spotted him.

“Daddy!” she cried out, running to him.

Sam bent down and caught her in his arms, picking her up. Ellie planted a big wet kiss on his cheek, her cold fingers wrapping around his neck.

“How’s the world’s sweetest li’l princess?” Sam asked, kissing the top of the head.

“I went to the bathroom with Mommy. Wyatt came too,” Ellie added, her eyes wide, as if she just discovered something new. “The girl’s bathroom!”

“Oh my goodness,” Sam said.

“I missed you, Daddy,” Ellie said, tucking her head against his chest.

“I missed you too, hun,” Sam said, kissing her head again.

Wyatt walked over, trying not to be embarrassed about having just left the ladies room.

“Hi Dad,” Wyatt said.

“Hey bud,” Sam said, setting Ellie down.

Sam crouched down to eye level with them both, and then brought them in for a tight group hug.

“I missed you both so much,” Sam said.

He placed his head against Wyatt’s. “How’ve you been? You still taking care of things, while your mom and I work things out, like we talked?”

“Trying,” Wyatt said, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Well that’s good, Son. It makes me proud to see you accepting responsibility. You’re going to make a mighty fine man.”

Sam hadn’t noticed Tess walk up to join them, and he was startled when she spoke.

“Sam,” Tess said, sounding slightly annoyed.

Sam stood and pulled his shirt loose in a futile attempt to hide the little beer belly he’d recently acquired. Not a big belly, just enough to be noticeable with his shirt pulled tight.

“Hello, Tess,” Sam said, clearing his throat. “You look good.”

Sam struggled against the urge to reach out and hug her. Ten years of living with a woman and all of its subliminal programming makes one behave certain ways in certain circumstances. Hugging Tess was never a thought process; it was just something he’d always done, something he’d simply taken for granted. But now there was a new rule to live by. The look on Tess’s face might as well have been a neon sign flashing ‘Hands Off.’

“Thank you,” Tess said, pulling Ellie close. “Kinda crazy outside, ya?”

“You could say that,” Sam said. “What have you been up to?”

“Sam, don’t start.”

“What? I simply asked a question,” Sam said, feeling his old friend, agitation, creep up on him. “No need to get defensive. I just think I have the right to know who my kids are spending time with.”

“You know what I mean, Sam.” Tess crouched down and brought the two kids close. “Why don’t you two go over and visit with Uncle Dana. Your dad and I have a few things to talk about.”

“You’re not going to fight again, are you?” Wyatt piped in. Ellie was thankfully oblivious to the tension.

“No buddy,” Sam said. “No more fighting. I promise.” Sam meant it.

“Good,” Wyatt said, giving Sam a hug. “I love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, bud.” Sam squeezed his son and reached out for Ellie. “And you too, li’l princess.”

Ellie hugged Sam’s leg tightly. She looked up and asked, “Are we going with you today?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he whispered, the words hard to speak. “I think we need to find out a little more about what’s going on first. Now go see the world’s ugliest Uncle.”

“Uncle Dana?” she giggled.

“The one and only,” Sam smiled, giving her a quick love pat. “Go bug him for a little bit. Okay?”

“Okay, Daddy,” Ellie said, running off to Dana.

“You too buddy, okay?”

Wyatt nodded and shuffled off with his hands in his pockets.

Dana wasn’t really their uncle, but between him and Jimmy, they were about the closest the kids would ever get to the real thing.

Sam couldn’t help but smile as he heard Dana’s mock cries of surprise and Ellie’s childish laughter. The smile was short lived, though. Now that the kids were out of earshot, any pretense Tess had put on that she was happy to see him was gone. “Who I spend my time with is none of your business.”

“You’re still my wife,” Sam said.

She looked at him, a mix of anger and sadness. “Sam...”

“It’s Dodge, isn’t it? Don’t think I haven’t noticed how often the car is parked at the church,” he said, and immediately regretted it. He’d accused her of cheating on him several times since she’d sprung her unhappiness on him. He just couldn’t think of any reason for the sudden reversal of her feelings. At least, it felt sudden to him. His newest accusation ended roughly the same as the others.

The slap across his cheek stung, but not nearly as much as her words. “I swear, sometimes you’re just asking me to give up and divorce you.” With that, she walked away, leaving Sam feeling like the ash falling from the sky was the least of his problems. But there was a ray of hope in her words. She hadn’t given up. Yet.

26

More people had gathered outside since Sam had stepped away. He recognized most everyone, though there were a few people—probably out-of-staters—that he didn’t. Sam wondered why they simply hadn’t packed up and driven off.

“There’s not a lot to tell,” Winslow was saying to the group, “at least not a lot that I’m sure of, anyway. But it appears that Refuge has been…” He paused and scratched at the back of his head. “…cut off.”

“Cut off? Cut off from what?” someone asked.

“Well, the rest of the world, or whatever it is out there. Like we’ve been shifted somewhere else,” Winslow said.

“Not to sound like a broken record, but what do you mean by cut off from the rest of the world?” Sam asked. “The town seems to be functioning okay.”

Winslow squinted at him. “You slept through the night.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s still night,” Sam said.

“Did all of you sleep through the night?”

“A lot of people did,” Griffin said. He rested a hand on Winslow’s shoulder as if to say ‘thanks, but I’ll take this from here.’ People began to gather around, drawn in by the conversation.

“While some of you were sleeping last night, the church bell began to ring, just like you heard a little while ago. The air shimmered. The fireworks in Ashland disappeared. And the world outside Refuge...changed. We went to the edge of town, to the south, down past the National Guard Depot. The road ended at a desert. Sand as far as you could see. Sheriff Rule found Phillip Beaumont’s abandoned car with his wife still inside it.” Griffin took a deep breath. “Dead,” he added, making no attempt to sugar-coat it.

A woman gasped.

Griffin proceeded to tell the assembled residents a horrible tale of sand creatures, kidnappings and flying bird-things. The story ended with Sheriff Rule’s death.

Sam found all of it very hard to swallow, but he knew Griffin and Rule were as close as family. He wouldn’t sully her memory by making a mockery of her death. Plus the badge on Griffin’s chest lent credence to his outlandish tale. But others weren’t as easily convinced.

“Bullshit,” someone cried out.

Griffin replied by taking out his phone and opening an image. He turned it around to the group. It was a shot from Main Street, in broad daylight, except the sky was red, and in the distance was a desert and a towering structure. “I know many of you will find this hard to believe. You slept through it. But this was the view from Main Street—” He pointed toward the street, “—right over there, just a few hours ago. And then, this.” He swiped his finger across the phone, switching to a similar image, but instead of a desert, there was a lush jungle. “And now we’ve got darkness and falling ash.”

“So...” Sam looked Griffin in the eyes, searching for a trace of doubt. “What you’re saying is that we’re—that Refuge—isn’t on Earth anymore?”

“That’s the simplest way to put it,” Griffin said. “Yeah.”

“With Rule gone, who’s in charge?” Dana asked, accepting the news with surprising ease.

“Frost,” Griffin said, without hesitation. “It’s what Rule wanted, and I can’t think of any reason not to agree. She’s going to need help, and I expect nothing less from all of you.”

“Where is she?” someone asked.

“At the station,” Griffin said. She’d told him she wanted to come up with an organized response plan, and to do some research, but he’d suspected she just needed time to mourn. Griffin did too, but his military training was kicking in. He’d mourn later, when things cooled down. If things cooled down. “She’ll be here soon.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Sam said, volunteering Jimmy and Dana along with himself. “Where do we start?”

Winslow stepped forward. “Let’s start with what we know. Facts,” Winslow said. “Not speculation. No theories.”

“And what exactly do we know, beside bup and kiss?” Sam asked.

“Well, for starters,” Griffin said. “We know that its dark, snowing some sort of ash. So far, this world has been pretty benign, but we can’t afford to assume it will remain so. Wherever we are, it’s not home, and we need to treat it as such. Foreign and potentially hostile territory.”

“Cell phones, landlines and the Internet are all shit,” Jimmy said. “None of it works.”

“Do we have any communication at all?” Sam asked.

“The two-ways are working,” Griffin said, motioning to the device attached to his belt. “I can check in with Frost, get any spare radios the station has. That’s a start anyway.”

“I suggest we compile a list of places of interest,” Winslow said. “Locations that seem connected to what’s happening.”

“The church,” someone from the crowd called out. “Start with the church.”

Ken Dodge stepped through the crowd.

“The church bell rings each time one of these...shifts, for want of a better word, occurs. I would like to believe it’s a warning. A tool for good, but... I suggest we start there.”

No one argued the point. That Dodge was casting suspicion on his own church building was surprising to Sam. He’d had more than a few harsh thoughts about the pastor as of late, losing sleep to fantasies about kicking in the Church door, finding the pastor with his wife and then proceeding to bludgeon the man with an offering tray.

“Church it is,” Griffin said. “Pastor, you know the building. Winslow...” Winslow just nodded. If anyone could figure this mystery out, it would be him, and everyone, including him, knew it.

“For now,” Griffin said, looking at Mary, who had taken a time out from serving to listen in. “We’ll use the Market as a temporary HQ.”

Mary smiled. “You do whatever needs doing. Just promise to please be safe.”

“We will—” Griffin started.

“Hold on,” Sam said. “Phones don’t work, but the two-ways do?”

Griffin didn’t reply. He just waited for Sam to get to the point.

Sam looked to Jimmy. “You still have your HAM radio?”

“Nah, gave it to Tommy up at Piece of Shit.”

“Piece of shit?” Winslow asked.

“WPOS,” Sam explained. “The radio station.”

“You don’t suppose Tommy still has it up there?”

Jimmy shrugged. “He could. He liked to mess around with it on the weekends. Could be worth a shot.”

“How many watts does the average station put out?” Sam asked.

“Average?” Winslow thought for a second. “Probably around 15,000.”

“How far do you think 15,000 watts will get us?” Sam asked.

“On a clear night, I can usually get WXZM up in Bangor,” Dana said.

“Exactly,” Sam said. “I think we need to try for the radio station. If that’s still working then we might be able to reach help. Maybe the world beyond whatever is out there is still normal? Could be just the Lakes Region that’s affected. Or maybe just New Hampshire.”

“That’s good,” Griffin said, and looked at Winslow. “We hadn’t thought of that possibility.”

“I’m in,” Jimmy said. “We can take my truck. It’s back at the hardware store.”

“Let’s go,” Dana said.

“Be careful,” Griffin said. “I think the station is inside the border, but it’s not far. You guys want to wait for a two-way?”

“Won’t matter if we have one,” Sam said. “Once we get behind that ridge line out past the water tower, it’ll be useless. We’d be too low. Hell, nothing works there. We’ll call you from the radio station once we get there—assuming we can.”

“Any hint of trouble you turn tail and head back,” Griffin said. “Got it?”

“Got it—”

A silver Land Rover pulled into the parking lot going a little too fast. Any local would recognize the pricey vehicle as belonging to Julie Barnes. Hell, even the newcomers to town would know. It had her face, agency name and phone number plastered on the doors like a mobile billboard.

At thirty-five, five-foot eight and with the bluest eyes Sam had ever seen, it was no wonder why most of the residents had signed on for the retrofit program she’d shilled. She was easily one of the most attractive women in town—it was with a bat of an eye and the illusion of sex that she did her business—much to the chagrin of many a wife and girlfriend.

Sam watched with appreciation as Julie stepped out of the Rover, one well-toned, tanned leg at a time. She was wearing her standard attire: short, tight skirt, buttoned blouse—with just enough left undone for the imagination—and heels that looked lethal.

Julie joined the group .“Hey,” she said, brushing fallen ash off her blouse. “Am I interrupting?”

Griffin squinted at her. “I...was just leaving. I haven’t seen you since the bar. Are you okay?”

“Fine, hun,” Julie said with smile that might have been forced. Her feathers had certainly been ruffled, but she was doing a commendable job of looking composed. “Thanks for asking, and before you ask, the safest place in town, in my opinion, is by your side. So, where are we headed?”

Griffin looked about to argue, but just shook his head. “The sheriff’s station.” He started walking toward the parking lot exit. The station was a quick walk.

“Wait up,” Julie said, stumbling in her heels. “I’ll go with you.”

Sam chuckled. Everyone could see Julie was hot for Griffin, but he’d been spurning her advances. So far.

Jimmy slapped Sam’s arm and motioned to the side, where Tess approached with the kids. “Catch up.” He and Dana started across the lot to the park, and the hardware store beyond. The ash still fell from the sky like tainted snow.

“The kids wanted to see you off,” Tess said.

“We’re making a run up to the radio station, see if we can’t get some help.”

“Can I come?” Wyatt asked.

Sam mussed Wyatt’s hair. “That’s up to your mom.” He wasn’t convinced it was the best idea, but spending time with his son was a rarity these days. He wouldn’t turn down the chance, and honestly, in a situation like this, he thought the kids would be safer with him, Jimmy and Dana, rather than with their mom. He knew Tess would never agree to Ellie tagging along, so he didn’t even bring it up.

“Can I, Mom? Can I go with Dad?” Wyatt pleaded.

Tess looked at Sam. “Do you think it’s safe?”

“You let him snow plow around town with me last winter.” Sam looked up at the ashen sky. “That had to be worse than this. And we’ll be in Jimmy’s truck. Thing is a tank.”

Sam took Wyatt by the shoulder and pulled him close. “It’s just a quick trip there and back. Won’t let him out of the truck.”

“Not even once,” Tess said.

Wyatt understood that this was essentially permission and pumped his fist.

Sam gave a nod. “Not for anything.”

27

Charley Wilson had been a lot of things in his life. A drunk being at the top of that list. A drunk, with no future to speak of, whose wife had left him for a postal worker up in Maine.

That’s not all she’d left him with, though, no. She’d left him broke, turned him into a drunk and deemed him a total asshole (which he freely admitted). She’d also left him with their son, Joshua—‘Radar’ to the locals. The nickname had come from his cousins, on account of his clumsiness, because, they said, he’d need radar to avoid bumping into things. He wasn’t actually that clumsy, but it had stuck. Even Charley called his son by that name. The boy had turned out pretty well in spite of his influence. Was he fit to be a dad? Probably not. He wasn’t fit for a lot of things.

But he also knew more than most, and that was something that would change his standing before long. Not necessarily with the town, or with his son, but with the people who really mattered. The people—or was it person?—who had power.

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts and vision. He grabbed a can of Coors from the passenger seat, snapping it free of its plastic ring with the skill of an experienced professional. Probably couldn’t walk a straight line for shit, but he could decimate brain cells like a champ.

Charley glanced into the rearview mirror, half expecting to see Frost’s cruiser lit up like Christmas, but he was startled to see Radar staring back at him. He swerved into the oncoming lane, narrowly missing a silver Land Rover, before regaining control.

“Sheeit! The fuck you doin’?” Charley shouted, tossing his half-empty can of Coors out the window. He rubbed at the spilled beer on his jeans, willing his heart back into his chest.

Radar only stared. No reply.

Charley’s expression turned hard and calloused, the look of a man haunted by too many ghosts to care.

“Go on, get outta here, why dontcha? I sure as fuck don’t need no shit from you right now.”

“What are you doing?” Radar’s reflection asked.

Charley refused to meet his son’s gaze.

“What I shoulda done a long time ago. Settin’ things right for me,” Charley said.

“You’re wrong,” Josh said. “You’re wrong and you know it.”

“The fuck you say?” Charley shouted. “You don’t know nuthin ‘bout nuthin, boy.”

Charley grinned, revealing a dental hygiene regimen that would make Steve Buscemi smile. He reached over and grabbed another can of Coors, popping the top and drinking half the can in one long gulp. He followed with a satisfying burp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why fart and waste it when you can burp and taste it?”

Josh’s reflection stared back blankly.

“Oh I see,” Charley said, agitated. “You don’t agree, so conversation over, right? Just like your mother—”

“You’re wrong,” Radar said. “You’re going to get people hurt, Dad.”

Torn between years of outrage and love for his son, Charley struggled to respond. He wanted to listen to the nagging voice that had crept up inside him, tickling the back of his brain through the ghostly apparition of his son conjured by his imagination. He wanted to, but—

Charley grabbed hold of the rearview mirror and ripped it from the Ford. He chucked it hard out the window, and heard it shatter against the blacktop.

“When I want your ‘pinion,” Charley said, feeling manipulated, “I’ll give it to ya.”

He finished the can of Coors and tossed the empty out the window. ‘Nother dead soldier. He grabbed hold of the steering wheel with both hands and sat up straight. The Ford’s headlights lit up a green road sign. A white arrow pointed left with big block letters that read:

LAKE HUDSON 2.5 MILES

Charley Wilson stared at the sign, knowing who he needed to see, for answers, and to be told what was coming next. But he didn’t feel ready for it yet. After chewing on his lip, he slowed to a careful stop, performed a three-point turn and headed for the place where he felt most comforted.

28

“You sure you don’t want to wait at the bottom?” Pastor Ken Dodge asked, as he paused halfway up the steeple stairs.

Winslow Herman caught his breath and shook his head. “What good is having a scientist along to inspect things if he can’t even make it up the stairs? Besides, it’s my knees, not my heart. I can handle a little discomfort.” To prove it, he started up again, wincing with each step, but managing the pain through a stubborn determination that sometimes drove his Carol crazy, and sometimes made her proud.

They continued to the top, slower than some, but they made it all the same. Dodge buzzed around the steeple top, searching for anything unusual. The man spent more time at the church than anyone and clearly felt comfortable in the space, despite recent unnatural—supernatural if you asked the pastor—events.

Winslow, on the other hand, stopped to admire the view through the open, three foot section of ventilation slats. Well, ‘admire’ was really the wrong word. While the steeple might normally provide postcard worthy views of town, it was now a bleak, gray shrouded landscape. Visibility was poor, the air rank with ash. Winslow had to admit, despite his issues with religion, the world outside had become hellish, and he’d begun to ponder the pastor’s beliefs.

“See anything?” Dodge asked.

“Nothing good,” Winslow replied, closing the slates.

“I don’t see anything different.” Dodge lifted one of his shiny shoed feet up. “Here, give me ten fingers.”

Winslow clasped his large hands together and bent low. His back groaned, but he didn’t complain. The pastor, who was now leaning against the bell and inspecting its top, over an open, three story drop, had the worse of the two jobs.

“Not a thing,” Dodge said, and carefully hopped down from Winslow’s boost.

“You sound disappointed,” Winslow said.

Dodge clapped some dust off of his hands. “I am.” He looked over the bell again, but his expression was less focused. “You think I want this to be supernatural? That I’d prefer to find out the Devil was ringing this bell? I’m a believer, not a masochist. But do I think it’s possible? Yeah, I do. And until you can say to me, ‘here’s the observable and repeatable proof against the supernatural,’ whatever that might be, I’m open to all possibilities.”

Dodge went back to scouring the bell tower. Winslow just watched him. His job wasn’t necessarily to look, but to inspect once something was found.

“That’s the funny thing about you science types,” Dodge said. “You think I’m the one who’s closed-minded.”

“You’re not?” Winslow asked, curious about where Dodge was going. “What about evolution? The big bang?”

“Well, aside from neither of those theories being observable or repeatable, who am I to determine exactly how God formed the universe? It’s interesting to speculate, I suppose, but I’m not as interested in his methods as I am his results, and his mission.”

Mission? Winslow thought, wondering if the pastor was going to get fanatical. “And what mission is that?”

“Good news,” Dodge said. “There’s nothing up here. Nothing I can see, anyway. Could be something behind the walls I suppose, but they look intact, and—”

Thud.

Dodge’s voice hiccupped and fell silent.

“Was that from outside?” Winslow asked. He turned toward the ventilation slats. Still closed.

Thud.

The two men looked at each other, eyes wide, sharing the same reaction to the mysterious noise, despite their opposing views on the universe.

“Do you have a gun?” Winslow asked, thinking of the giant bird-thing that had been killed at the Sheriff’s station.

“Not yet,” Dodge said. “But I’m thinking a handgun might compliment the armor of God.”

Winslow turned to the pastor. Was he serious?

“Sorry,” Dodge said. “Bible humor. I’m used to talking to parishioners instead of heathens.”

Winslow let out a chuckling laugh. He’d never really spoken to the pastor, but the man was sharp, if misguided. Bolstered by humor, the pair crept toward the hatch.

“Just a quick peek,” Dodge said.

Winslow nodded and took hold of the small handle. He glanced at Dodge, who nodded, and then pulled. Together, they looked out and saw nothing beyond the bleak sky.

“Chunks of ash, maybe?” Winslow postulated.

“Fire and brimstone?” Dodge said, raising his right eyebrow and right side of his mouth in tandem.

Winslow caught the joke right away this time, but didn’t get a chance to laugh. A scratching noise locked the sound of his voice just beneath his Adam’s apple. Both men looked down and tensed.

The scratching grew louder as three black talons slid over the chipping white paint of the steeple’s overhang, five feet below them. The clawed foot belonged to a creature perched on the gutter, its back to them.

“What is it?” Dodge asked, but Winslow had no idea. He’d never seen anything like it. It looked like a large bird, dipped in oil and dried in an oven.

Before he could reply, the black creature’s head began to rotate slowly. It continued turning until it had spun 180 degrees and craned upward. Two, large, round eyes, black as night, stared up at them.

“It’s an owl,” Dodge said.

“Not anymore,” Winslow countered.

The bird chimed in by shrieking at them, it’s voice dry and haggard. Both men leapt back. Winslow slammed the hatch shut and leaned against it. He half expected the bird to attack, but he could hear the beat of its wings flying away.

Winslow put his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He looked up at Dodge, “No offense, Pastor, but I really hope we can prove your whole hell theory wrong.”

Dodge nodded, his face slightly paler than it had been a moment ago. “Me too.”

29

Sam thought about Tess as he and Wyatt climbed up into Jimmy’s pride and joy, a Ford Phantom 350. It was one of the largest trucks (probably second after Quentin Miller’s mud-spattered monster truck) that graced the streets of Refuge.

Jimmy flicked his cigarette butt out the window. “Mind if we stop by the garage first? There’s a few things I’d like to pick up.”

“Fine by me,” Sam said, in no hurry. Dana nodded from the back seat, while Wyatt just looked thrilled to be coming along with the men.

They headed North on Main Street, the Phantom’s headlights set to low beam. Trying to see through the large ash flakes with high beams was like trying to see with a flashlight with dying batteries.

Sam watched as the flakes struck the windshield, broke apart and then flew off to either side. The occasional flake would stick, requiring Jimmy to turn on the wipers, but not the washer fluid, which would have caused an all out smear fest.

The purple-like haze created by the moonlight filtering through the ash, cast Main Street in an eerie glow, which was accentuated by how lifeless the town appeared. The empty businesses sat dark, while the street lights remained on, their built-in sensors detecting that it was still night.

As they drove by the Sheriff’s station, Sam thought he saw Helena Frost—now Sheriff Frost—standing by one of the windows, talking to someone he couldn’t see. He didn’t envy her. He was having a hard enough time understanding the current situation, let alone having to manage, and try to explain it all to an entire town. Although he suspected she probably knew more than he did at the moment.

The whole thing felt surreal. Many of the houses around town had their lights on, even some of the camps down by Ayers Pond. The town was alive and awake, but no one was going outside. And for good reason. They might as well all be sucking on Jimmy’s cigarettes. The taste of ash was already stuck to his tongue.

Despite the reassuring glow of power in town, there was something about the light that made him uneasy. There was light from the moon and from around town, and then there just wasn’t. It was as if some giant black wall had dropped around them, cutting Refuge off from the rest of the world.

Jimmy pulled into a parking lot, driving past the huge Jimmy’s Automotive road sign—a local landmark for most, due to its size and the happy cartoon mechanic on it. The shop was one of the larger buildings at the north of town, originally built by Joe Miller to service semi-trailer trucks back in the day, when Refuge was in its logging prime. After Joe passed, the place sat abandoned. Joe had owed back taxes and none of his kids wanted to pay them, so the place ended up becoming the property of the town, until Jimmy bought it.

“Back in a jiffy,” Jimmy said, getting out of the truck.

Sam watched as he made his way to the garage and then disappeared inside. Dana had nodded off, and Wyatt was watching out the back window, like he expected Jimmy to return in seconds. Sam turned on the radio and was greeted by static. He punched through the preset channels, found nothing and hit the ‘Seek’ button. The digital numbers scrolled past, never stopping. Before the scrolling numbers finished their first pass, a dark shape on top of the garage caught his attention. Something about it made his arms tingle. He turned his eyes without moving his head.

The hell is that?

Something sat on the peak of the garage, like a fat, misshapen weathervane. The longer he stared, the more it appeared to be alive. Could be a bird, he thought, covered in ash. Hell of a big bird, though.

Sam reached over and killed the headlights, hoping for better night vision. The shape moved, as if noticing the truck for the first time. He’d seen the way deer stood motionless at the first hint of encroaching danger. As his muscles tensed, he realized people weren’t all that different. Whatever was up there, he could feel it watching him now.

Before he braved another look, Jimmy came out of the garage and slammed the door behind him. Sam’s eyes went to the roof, half expecting Jimmy to be attacked. But whatever had been there, was gone now.

Jimmy opened the back driver’s side door, nudging Dana awake and handing him a cardboard box with two D-cell Maglites and spare batteries. Sam was surprised when he saw Jimmy climb into the front of the cab with his old Mossberg shotgun.

“Uh, something you want to tell me, Jimmy?” Sam asked.

Jimmy slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. “I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.” He put the truck in reverse, turned them around and headed out of the lot.

“Need it for what?” Sam asked.

“At this point…” Jimmy gave the others a nervous glance, “…anything.”

30

Jimmy turned on the Phantom’s high beams. The falling ash had slowed, but it covered the road and was slippery like slush, despite being dry. Jimmy was forced to drive at a slow pace. They headed north, out of downtown, making their way toward the WPOS station. They’d only been on the road for a few minutes, but from what Sam could tell, the darkness seemed to grow thicker the further they got from the town’s center.

The sinking dark reminded Sam of childhood summers on Lake Hudson. The shoreline waters were always clear and inviting, but they grew darker the further you ventured out. As a kid, the dark water frightened him. As an adult, he knew it was just water depth and rotting leaf litter that made the water look dark.

The dark is never as scary as people imagine it, he thought. Probably the same tonight. Or is that today?

“Hey,” Jimmy said, slugging Sam’s shoulder. “You still alive over there?”

“Huh? Yeah.” Sam said. “Just spacing out.”

Sam looked to the back cabin of the Phantom, where Dana and Wyatt talked quietly. Dana was telling Wyatt what he believed was the best way to grill a steak, and Wyatt was nodding in approval.

Sam turned back to Jimmy. He looked spooked. “What’s up?”

“Might be the wonky light playing tricks, or my imagination, but I’ve been seeing something just behind the trees. Moving. Like it’s following us.”

Before the words had finished coming out of Jimmy’s mouth, Sam regretted his decision to bring Wyatt along. He hadn’t seen anything dangerous since waking up. But Griffin’s story... What if one of those things from the desert was still in town?

He looked out the passenger window and watched the trees scroll past. The thick night was definitely darker out here, but the moon overhead cast enough of a glow for him to make out the passing roadside.

“I don’t see nothing,” Sam said, turning to Jimmy.

“Like I said, could be my ‘magination, but there’s something else that’s been troublin’ me.”

Sam noticed that Jimmy had his Mossberg propped beside him, muzzle to the floor. Ready for action.

“What’s that?”

“The houses…”

“Ya, what about them?”

“They’re all dark.”

Sam looked out his window. “They probably just never got hooked up to the new grid is all.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said, resting his hand on the Mossberg. “But where the hell is everyone? Shit, you know how the winters are out here, you’d think being this far out of town at least a few houses would have gennies runnin’, ya? Hell, even candles in the windows or somethin’. But look. Nothin’. Not a single light for the last two miles.”

Dana spoke up from the back. “Most everyone was over to Ashland for the fireworks…when the weirdness started. Place’s like a ghost town now.”

If anyone was still on the outskirts of town, they probably had no idea what was going on.

Jimmy cracked his window down and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and leaned toward his window, blowing out a jet of smoke.

“Jimmy,” Sam said, not hiding his annoyance.

“What?”

Sam raised an eyebrow, glanced at the cigarette and then back at Wyatt. “Seriously?”

Jimmy shrugged and took another drag. “I smoke when I’m nervous.”

Sam leaned back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t ask me for help when Tess cuts off your nuts.”

Jimmy flicked the butt out the window. “She’d keep them in a jar, right beside yours.”

Sam laughed.

Jimmy leaned forward over his steering wheel and looked to the right. He slowed the Phantom to a stop. “Think I just saw a light.”

Jimmy backed up and came to a stop at the end of a driveway. The truck’s lights lit up a large billboard in the distance of an image of a grandmother wearing a brown apron. The pleasantly smiling grandma stood in front of a quintessential boxcar diner, holding up a hot apple pie in her right hand. There was a big arrow pointing to the left and the slogan read:

VOTED BEST PIE THIS SIDE OF REFUGE 10 YEARS RUNNING!

ONLY AT THE SILVER SPRINGS DINER!

OPEN 24 HOURS

Sam looked at the packed dirt and overrun grass Jimmy had indicated on the right. Definitely a driveway. Most driveways outside of town could be mistaken for old tote roads. Sam could make out the two tire ruts running into the woods that disappeared around a curve.

“Right there,” Jimmy said, pointing to the woods on the right. “You see it?”

Sam could see a faint yellow light peeking out between two trees. He couldn’t quite tell what it was, but for whatever reason, that single light in the surrounding darkness creeped him out.

“Whose place is this?” Sam asked. He knew most places in town, but had never ventured down this long drive.

“Ol’ Tom Mungovan’s,” Jimmy said.

“He’s still alive?”

Jimmy nodded. “Kind of a hermit now. At least, more of a hermit than everyone else in town. Think Soucey’s even delivers his groceries.” Jimmy put the truck in drive and turned the wheels a hard right. He started up the rural driveway, moving slowly, mumbling to himself about scratching his truck while he maneuvered around some low hanging branches.

A low crescendo of thunder boomed off in the distance, as if punctuating what Sam had been thinking. Since leaving town they hadn’t seen or heard another living thing. Sam watched as a few scattered bursts of purple light lit the horizon. He caught a glimpse of the distant Refuge water tower in his side-view mirror during one of them.

They came around a final bend in the driveway and Sam realized how long it was—longer than some roads in town. Must be a bitch to plow in the winter, he thought.

Jimmy parked the Phantom in a turnaround, next to where a little brown Honda was parked. The truck’s headlights lit up the front half of the house, giving it an elongated shadow, like something out of a horror movie. Spotty grass littered with pine needles poked through the ash on the front yard, where a rusted-out pickup sat on blocks, adding to the effect. A dull yellow light shone from one of the second story dormers.

“Homey,” Jimmy said, turning off the truck.

Sam turned back to Dana. “Mind waiting out here with Wyatt, while Jimmy and I go check it out?”

“I want to go with you, Dad,” Wyatt said, a little worried.

Sam shook his head. “I promised your mom.”

“We can play some tic-tac-toe,” Dana said to the boy. “Maybe this time you can let me win, though.”

Wyatt smiled.

“We’ll be back in a jiff, bud.” Sam pointed to the flashlights resting between Wyatt and Dana. “Hand me those.”

Sam clicked each one on and off, after Wyatt passed them forward, making sure they worked. He passed one back to Wyatt. “Keep this one with you, in case you need it. You know how Uncle Dana gets afraid of the dark.”

Sam closed the door and turned to Jimmy. “I’m scared shitless, how ‘bout you?”

“Like a fat-ass turkey on Thanksgiving.” Jimmy stepped toward the house. “Let’s go.”

31

Thunder rumbled again as Sam and Jimmy approached the house. Purple flashes sporadically lit the sky above the tree line. The air had warmed and smelled heavy with moisture.

“Might rain,” Jimmy said.

“Was just thinking the same thing.”

“I can’t imagine the mess that’d make,” Jimmy said, kicking his boot through inches of ash on the ground. He held his Mossberg at the ready. “There’s a lot more of it out here than in town.”

Sam shined the light on the old colonial-style house, as they approached the front porch. It was in better shape than he had expected, given the spotted grass and rusted lawn décor. The home had a wrap-around farmer’s porch, and was covered with red cedar clapboard siding, although most of the red had run out of the wood long ago, leaving it as gray as the ash falling from the sky.

Sam led the way up the front steps and stopped at the door, where a double-seated swing swayed lazily on its chains. They had seen the light on upstairs, indicating that someone might be home, but now, up close, the house appeared quite dead. Their footsteps cut through the silence. If anyone was home, they knew there were guests on the front porch…

“Go ahead,” Jimmy said, cradling the Mossberg in his arms. “Knock.”

Sam turned to the door and knocked. It swung open freely, swinging back until it struck the wall behind it with a bounce.

“Ahh, shit,” Sam said, and stepped inside. He searched the immediate area with his flashlight. The front door opened to a hallway that stretched to the back of the house, ending in a kitchen. To his left was a well-kept living room, complete with a large L-shaped sofa and a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. To his right were stairs leading up to a second floor. “Tom! Tom, it’s Sam Lake. You here?”

Getting no reply, Sam continued further down the hall, hearing Jimmy’s footsteps right behind him. He stopped beside a door to his right and shined the light inside. It was a formal dining room, the type reserved for holidays and special occasions. A polished oak table with six matching high-back chairs sat in the middle, their places set as if in anticipation for the next event. A tall hutch with carefully displayed dishes rested in the corner.

“Hello,” Jimmy called out.

Sam jumped, like someone snapping awake before hitting the ground in a dream. “The fuck is wrong with you man? I damn-near pissed myself.”

Jimmy laughed. “You’re moving too slow. Figured I’d speed it up a little. Besides, I don’t think anyone’s here. The place looks deserted.”

A crash followed by the sound of footsteps came from upstairs. The footsteps were too quick and light to have come from a person.

Jimmy looked at Sam in silence, shotgun at the ready. “Or not. Maybe a dog?”

They made their way back to the bottom of the stairs.

Sam rested a hand on the newel post of the railing and turned to Jimmy. “Your turn, Rambo.”

Something sounded like it flittered across the upstairs floor again. It sounded louder. Closer.

Jimmy gripped his Mossberg tightly. “Keep that light front and center,” he said, starting up the stairs.

They climbed to the top and stopped after the turn at the second floor landing. Thickly rugged hallways ran through the center of the house. There were equal amounts of hallway to the left and right.

Sam shined his light down the right end of the hall, revealing several open doors and a window overlooking the back yard. Outside was dark, but he could see that the trees were now swaying in a breeze. He shined the light left and found a matching window overlooking the front. There was only one room off the left hall, and its door stood closed. Something scratched at it from the other side.

“Hear that?” Jimmy asked.

“Sounds like something trying to get out,” Sam said, remembering how Daisy would scratch at the laundry room door, whenever Tess locked her in there to keep her away from company.

“I knew it was a dog,” Jimmy said. “Poor thing. Probably gotta piss.” He started toward the sound and looked back at Sam, unsure. “Keep that light on me just the same.”

Sam nodded and followed, keeping the light aimed over Jimmy’s shoulder.

They slowly walked the length of the hallway. The scratching became more urgent as they neared the door. Whatever was on the other side knew they were there.

They stopped just outside the door. Sam examined it with his light, starting at the top and working his way down. It was painted white and solid wood—not one of those cheap ones contractors insisted on using to cut costs—a detail that Sam could appreciate. The jamb itself was cracked and splintered, as if something had slammed against it from the other side.

Sam followed the cracks in the door jamb to the floor where he let out a startled yelp. “Sonovabitch.” He backed into the wall behind him, training the light on the floor. He and Jimmy were standing on a patch of blood-soaked carpet.

“What the hell?” Jimmy said, seeing the red patch, but remaining calm. He knelt down on one knee, steadying himself with the shotgun. Reaching out, he touched the wet carpet with his index and middle fingers, then brought them to his nose.

“Don’t need to sniff that shit,” Sam said. “We both know it’s blood. And I can smell it from here.”

Jimmy paused, hand halfway to his nose. He thought better of it and wiped his fingers on a dry area of the rug. “It’s cold. Been here for a bit.”

“Human or animal?” Sam asked.

“Dunno,” Jimmy said, standing. “Given the amount here and that we’re inside a house… Well, let’s just say I don’t think it’s from the family cat.”

A soft whimpering came from behind the door. Sam aimed the Maglite and took a step back. They both stared, waiting for anything else to happen.

“Something’s fucked here, man.” Sam thought of Wyatt and Dana waiting in the truck, and he had the sudden urge to join them. But what if someone in there is hurt and needs help? “Fuck. Let’s check the damned room and get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

Jimmy nodded and stepped forward. He tapped the door with the barrel of the Mossberg several times. “Hello? Anybody in there? Hello?”

More whimpering.

Jimmy lifted the shotgun slowly, aiming it at the door. He looked to Sam. “On three.”

32

Wyatt drew an X in the upper right corner of a tic-tac-toe grid. “So what do you think is going on in there?”

“Not much I ‘magine.” Dana drew an O in the upper middle. “Prob’ly just lookin’ around. I doubt anybody’s home.”

Wyatt drew an X in the lower right corner and grinned. “Your turn,” he said.

Dana drew an O in the center, to which Wyatt followed with an X in the right middle, declaring he won.

“Sonofa—,” Dana said. “I thought you were going to let me win a round or two.”

Wyatt laughed. “You snooze, you lose.”

“Oh, it’s on,” Dana said. “Best two outta—” Dana froze, thinking he’d seen someone standing in the front yard. The cabin light glared on the front windshield, making it hard to see.

“What?” Wyatt said.

“Shhh,” Dana said calmly. “Turn off the light.”

Wyatt did as told, blanketing the truck cab in darkness. Thunder rumbled off in the distance.

It took a minute for Dana’s eyes to adjust, but once they had, whatever he thought he’d seen was gone. He grabbed hold of the driver’s seat and pulled himself forward for a better look. He studied the front yard and the woods just beyond it. Nothing. He could still see the light on in the upstairs window, but no sign of Jimmy or Sam yet. Movement from the back yard grabbed his attention.

“What?” Wyatt asked. “What is it?”

Dana could tell Wyatt was getting worried. I should console him, he thought, but the shadow walking toward them had him too alarmed to speak. Something about it wasn’t right. The way it moved was...wrong.

Black drops of rain began clicking against the truck, leaving streaks as they ran down the windows. The shadow was closer, moving erratically—another twenty feet and it’d be on them. A burst of purple lit the sky above them, momentarily revealing the dark, twisted form that might be human...or not.

“Wyatt,” Dana said, grabbing the Maglite off the seat. “Lock your door.”

Sam reached out and grabbed the door knob. The house whistled as a gust of wind struck it from the front, sounding almost like a distant scream. Light flashed through the window, casting the door in a purple hue, temporarily burning it into Sam’s vision.

He pushed the door open about two inches before it struck something solid on the other side. The smell of death seeped through the opening.

Sam ignored the rank odor and leaned his shoulder into the door. At first it remained stuck, but after a second shove, it broke free and opened another foot. Something on the other side slid with it. The putrid smell made him wince, and something in the air stung his eyes. He brought the collar of his shirt up over his nose.

A dull yellow light spilled out into the hallway, giving the blood on the carpet a darker tint. A smeared path of dark red continued on into the room. He gave the door another shove. There was a thud and a wet splat, as the thing behind the door fell onto the room’s hardwood floor and into view.

“Shit,” Sam said, staring at a man’s arm. “Think we found Tom.” A shredded shirtsleeve had torn away from the arm and was glued to the floor in a red paste of congealed blood. The forearm was mangled, covered in jagged wounds with pieces of hanging flesh. Sam felt his stomach flip, and he had a sudden realization. “The wounds look defensive.”

Sam suddenly understood the situation. Dog. Body. Blood. Defensive wounds. Jimmy stepped forward, shotgun raised, just as a large German Shepherd came into view. It let out a deep, unnatural growl that froze Jimmy in his tracks. A dark shadow flamed off the dog’s body, like some sort of black fire.

“The fuck?” Jimmy said.

It took a step forward, ears down and teeth bared. The Shepherd let out another growl that made Sam’s blood run cold. There was something wrong with the way it moved. It jerked—like something might move in a strobe light.

A scream reached his ears, barely registering, until he realized it came from outside.

“Wyatt!” Sam yelled, turning to leave and removing his light from the twitching dog.

“Sam, no!” Jimmy shouted.

The Shepherd leapt and careened into Jimmy, sending them both crashing to the floor. Sam landed hard on his back, with Jimmy on top of him. He coughed as the air was knocked from his lungs. The Maglite rolled down the hall and struck the wall under the window.

Jimmy’s weight made it hard for Sam to catch his breath. He tried to shout and push, but the best he could do was open his mouth and grunt, while Jimmy struggled with the Shepherd.

The dog lunged, jaws agape. Jimmy raised the Mossberg horizontally, shoving it into the dog’s mouth. Its teeth buried deeply into the stock. Splinters of wood chipped away as the two struggled.

Sam felt close to blacking out. He couldn’t breathe under Jimmy’s weight, and he was running out of strength. His left foot struck something solid. The edge of the door jamb. He braced his foot against it and gave a hard push in a final attempt to break free.

Jimmy kicked the Shepherd back into the room and leaned right, giving Sam enough space to escape. Jimmy then rolled back, just as the dog charged him again.

Sam lay on the carpet, sucking in lungfuls of air. He could hear Jimmy fighting with the dog, but it sounded far away. Tiny white stars speckled his vision.

Jimmy. Gotta help Jimmy.

He forced himself to sit up, his vision clearing with each breath. This was serious; the dog was really going nuts. His hand struck the cold metal of the Maglite behind him. Without thinking, he grabbed it and stood. The dog was too busy with Jimmy to notice his approach. Sam swung the Maglite like an axe, putting all his strength behind the swing, which after countless winters of splitting wood, was considerable. There was a satisfying thunk as the metal met flesh and cracked the dog hard on the snout.

The Shepherd gave a startled yelp and ran to the top of the stairs. Then it turned and growled, oblivious to its caved in snout, its body smoldering with what looked like angry black fire.

Jimmy didn’t waste any time. He rolled to the side and drew a bead on the thing. The shotgun boomed. The dog flipped over backwards from the force and slammed into the wall. Jimmy stood, and in one quick swoop, he switched to the second barrel and unleashed a second round of hell, sending the Shepherd sprawling to the end of the hall.

Jimmy let the barrel of the shotgun dip to the floor. He studied the lifeless dog at the end of the hall, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. The German Shepherd didn’t move, but its body still undulated with black...something. He ejected the two spent shells from the Mossberg and quickly replaced them with two more from his pocket.

“Last two rounds I got with me,” Jimmy said. “Rest are in the truck.”

The blasts had been deafening in the enclosed hall. Sam stood stunned, his ears ringing. Jimmy was speaking, but his words sounded muffled, like someone talking through a thick wall.

Jimmy grabbed him by the shoulder. “Sam! We gotta go!”

Sam looked at Jimmy. His mind vacant. And then, he remembered. “Wyatt!” He took one step and stopped. “Oh, fuck.”

The German Shepherd was up on all fours. Dead, but alive.

Jimmy turned and fired again without hesitation. His shot struck the Shepherd square in the chest. The dog showed no reaction. No yelp. No flinch of pain. Nothing. It looked up and made eye contact with Jimmy in an almost human-like action, and let out another chilling growl, this one gargled due to the holes in its neck.

Jimmy took a step back, switching over to the second barrel of the gun. “We ah, could be in a little trouble here.”

The Shepherd stepped forward. Jimmy raised the shotgun.

“See if you can’t take off its head with the next one,” Sam said, adjusting the flashlight’s aim. The moment the bright circle of light fell on the advancing dog, it yelped and jumped back. The darkness enshrouding the dog reacted similarly, snapping back and slipping to the dog’s far side.

“Light the fucker up!” Jimmy shouted.

Sam raised the Maglite, trying to focus its beam on the darkness. The Shepherd howled in pain each time the light struck it and jumped from side to side trying to dodge its aggressor.

“The head! On the head!” Jimmy said.

“I’m fuckin’ trying,” Sam said. “It won’t stay still.”

Sam grabbed hold of the Maglite’s tip and gave a quick turn to the right. The beam’s focus went from narrow to wide, lighting the whole hallway. The dog yelped, spasmed and collapsed on its side. Unable to escape its tormentor, the dog clawed at the floor in agony.

Jimmy fired, striking the Shepherd’s exposed head. Bits of bone, brain and blood sprayed down the length of the hall, decorating it like some sort of sick wallpaper. The dog no longer moved or cried out. The smoky black fire fled down the length of the dog’s body and disappeared with a puff and a purple flash.

There was another loud yell and a crack of thunder from outside.

“Wyatt!” Sam yelled, running down the stairs, with Jimmy following. “We’re coming!”

33

Thick rain met Sam at the front door. It mixed with the falling ash to form a kind of raining mud, lashing against his body. He nearly slipped and fell down the steps, as the now saturated ash was slicker than eel snot. He skidded off the front porch and landed on his ass. Jimmy’s big hand reached down and pulled him up.

No time for thanks, they ran to the parked truck.

Wyatt was inside the truck yelling to Dana, banging on the driver’s side window. Dana was outside, struggling with a large black shadow that had him pinned to the ground. But it wasn’t just a shadow. It was physical. Solid. But not a human being. At least, not anymore. It looked like a man dressed in a strange gillie suit of smoke and ash, but it didn’t move like a man. Sam ignored the thing when he saw blood on the side of Dana’s face.

“Your light,” Jimmy yelled. “Hit it with the light!”

Sam shined the Maglite directly on the shadow. Nothing. Panicked, he gave the Mag’s tip a twist to the left, focusing the light into a stronger beam. That worked. The shadow let go of Dana and gripped its head, tilting it back like it was silently screaming. Like the Shepherd, the smoky black fire that protected it gave way. The sight reminded Sam of an experiment he’d once done with Wyatt, where he’d placed a finger coated with dish soap into a bowl of peppered water and the pepper shot away. As the black shroud lifted, a person was revealed beneath—or what used to be a person. Its solid black eyes bore witness that nothing actually human still remained.

Dana took advantage of his attacker’s pause and gave a quick buck of his hips, tossing his assailant to the side. He followed with a quick kick to the thing’s exposed face, knocking it backwards in a heap.

Sam kept the light on the body as he and Jimmy ran to Dana’s side. The attacker sat up and screeched at them in a high-pitched squeal that was anything but human. Jimmy’s leg shot out and kicked it in the side of the head, sending whatever it was, back to the ground, unconscious.

Sam knelt beside Dana and looked to Jimmy. “Is it dead?”

“I doubt it,” Jimmy said, nudging the body with his foot. “Let’s bug the fuck out.”

Sam took Dana’s left arm and draped it over his shoulder. “C’mon.”

Dana moaned and placed a hand on his left hip. “Fucker bit me. Right on the hip, the fuckin’ perve,” Dana said. “Fuckin’ burns.”

“Gotta work on your vocabulary,” Jimmy said with a forced grin. He reached down and grabbed Dana’s free arm. “Ready?”

Dana nodded and groaned again, as Jimmy and Sam lifted him.

The trio hopped over to the truck on unsteady legs. In spite of the black rain that was soaking them both, Sam could see a growing red stain on Dana’s leg. Not good.

Jimmy grabbed his keys from his pant pocket and pressed the button that unlocked the truck doors. He let go of Dana long enough to open the back cabin, where Wyatt was waiting, scared, but ready to help.

“Reach behind that seat, Wyatt,” Jimmy said, nodding to the back passenger side. “There should be a couple of blankets back there. Grab ’em and lay ’em out.”

Wyatt laid out the blankets and crawled back out of the way. The rain made Dana’s clothes slick, and Sam and Jimmy struggled to get him into the back seat.

Sam saw Wyatt’s eyes, large and scared, as they lifted Dana into the truck. All he wanted to do was take Wyatt into his arms and thank God he was okay, but Dana was in serious trouble. He needed immediate help. Sam felt proud as Wyatt helped pull Dana in and covered him with blankets. Wasting no time, they climbed into the truck, which roared to life a moment later.

A loud crack of thunder erupted above, followed with a few quick flashes of purple, which lit the sky and the woods around them. Sam and Jimmy leaned forward simultaneously, peering through the front windshield. They’d seen the same thing. More shadows. Closing in…

The truck jolted as something jumped onto the rear bed. Sam didn’t need to look to know what it was, but he did anyway. Another dark shadow-walker, its body burning in that same smoky, black fire that had also coated the Shepherd, stood staring in at them.

Jimmy shifted the Phantom into drive. “Hang on!” He stepped on the gas, and the shadow-walker in the truck bed lost its balance and fell off, as Jimmy rounded the first bend in the driveway. The ash and rain made for a real mess, and Jimmy struggled to keep from veering off into the woods. He jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and back to the left, swerving around a fallen tree. The road lay just ahead out of sight.

“Holy shit!” Jimmy slammed both feet on the brakes, bringing the Phantom to a skidding halt.

The truck’s wipers whisked against the windshield, revealing three shadow-walkers standing at the end of the driveway. They formed an inky line of jerky movement and twitching darkness, blocking the exit to the road.

Jimmy looked into the rearview mirror and saw three more approaching from the rear. “God, I could really use a cigarette right now,” he said absently. He looked to Sam. “What do ya wanna do? I don’t think they’re people anymore.”

“But what if they are?” Sam asked. “We don’t know for sure. I mean, what if—”

Dana hacked and coughed up something wet. He shifted in his seat and moaned.

“Fuck, Sam,” Jimmy said. “People or not, they’re trying to kill us. I think we can agree on that.”

Something large struck the side of the truck, startling them. Sam looked to the right and saw two shadow-walkers coming through the trees and a third that had stopped to pick up and throw another rock. Sam flinched as it struck just below his window.

Wyatt called out nervously from the back seat. “Dad?”

“If these bastards ain’t trying to kill us, then the good Lord himself can judge me.” Jimmy gripped the steering wheel tightly. He switched on the Phantom’s high beams, causing the three shadow figures that blocked their exit to scream out in protest. They raised their arms in a futile attempt to ward off the stark white illumination. Their tight, jerky movements became slow, zombie-like stumbles, as the black fire that covered their bodies exploded away in bright purple flashes.

Jimmy floored the Phantom, thumped over the three people and turned onto the paved road, tires spinning in a mix of wet ash and blood.

34

Griffin walked in silence, not allowing Julie to walk in front of him. She was dressed to kill, as usual, and he didn’t need that kind of distraction at the moment. Of course, he was already feeling distracted. By his daughter, Avalon’s, return. By the hell on Earth that Refuge had become. And by Frost, whose uniform hid what his walking partner flaunted. The feelings he had for Frost were, at least, noble. But Julie... She was a temptress, and given her past flirtations, quite tempting. So he did his best to avoid her, despite the fact that she was two paces behind him, and trying to catch up.

“I’m supposed to be out of town,” Julie said, her high heels tapping out a steady beat. “I should have left yesterday, but—”

“You were in the bar,” he said. “When Ava... You left pretty quick.”

“I got a text from a client,” she explained.

“Must have been important.”

“All of my clients are important,” she said. “Too bad you were never one of them.”

Griffin blushed, a little ashamed of the direction his thoughts took. It seemed the studies about men were right. Even with the world going to shit, sex wasn’t far from his mind. He pushed the thoughts away and cleared his throat. “Where were you headed?”

“Boston,” she said absently. “Some of my old college friends and I were supposed to get together. We do it every year to make sure we stay in touch. You know, something more than a Christmas card once a year. Must be similar for you, with the gallery shows in New York.”

“Actually, I’m more of a ‘meat and potatoes’ kind of guy. A card once a year is damn near an invasion of privacy.”

Julie laughed and managed to catch up, so they were walking side by side. The woman could all but speed walk in heels. “Right. The dark and brooding artist. Except you’re actually the type a girl takes home to meet mom and dad.”

Griffin laughed, caught off guard by the overt flirtation. Part of him wanted to scold her, to tell her that this wasn’t the time, but her advances made the world feel a little bit more normal. “You want to take me home to meet your parents?”

“I said, you’re the type a girl takes home to meet mom and dad.” Julie stretched as she walked, pushing out her chest, her blouse buttons strained nearly to breaking. “Now a woman... A woman could find something a little more interesting to do, than go visit her parents.”

Griffin blushed again. The whole world’s upside down, and I’m stuck in a teenage wet dream.

Pulling his eyes away from Julie’s curves, he looked forward and saw the ruined front of the Sheriff’s station. Some of the damage had been repaired, but not all. They’d managed to get the plywood up in place of the shattered doors, though. At the thought of seeing Frost again, his walk became a jog.

“Hey,” Julie called after him, but he didn’t slow. Free from the conversation, his thoughts cleared. After he talked with Frost, he would check on Avalon, Radar and Lisa back at the house.

He took the steps two at a time and entered the station, pausing just beyond the foyer. The main office was still a pretty good mess, though Frost had taken time to tidy up her desk.

Julie, out of breath, stumbled in behind him. “I’m going to the lady’s room.” He barely noticed her passage. Frost was nowhere in sight.

To the right was a large conference room and behind that were the facilities, where Julie went. Griffin looked to the first room to the left. The ‘booking room,’ Rule had called it.

“Helena?” he called out.

A quiet, “In here,” was the reply. He relaxed at hearing her voice. She sounded okay, if not a little annoyed.

Griffin walked past a vacant receptionist desk and a row of filing cabinets, before stopping at the second door.

Frost sat behind a cluttered desk in Sheriff Rule’s office. Hers now, he thought, as he tapped on the door with his knuckle and walked inside. She wrote notes on a yellow legal pad in front of her. A topography map of Refuge lay spread out on her desk.

“Helena,” Griffin said, trying not to startle her.

She smiled when she saw him.

“What’s up?” she said.

“Julie mentioned that Charley almost ran her off the road. Might have to lock him up again.”

“Did I hear my name?” Julie said, walking into the room.

They both ignored her.

“Should I go after him?” Griffin asked. “No,” Frost said. “If we’re lucky he’ll just head home and sleep it off.”

“Or do us all a favor and crash into a tree,” Julie said.

Griffin immediately thought of Susie Beaumont, dead in the crashed car. Frost must have as well, because they both frowned.

“Tough room,” Julie said.

Frost sighed. “We have bigger things to worry about.” She turned the map of Refuge toward Griffin. On it were five circles that she’d drawn with a red sharpie. “Take a look at this.”

Griffin leaned over the desk and twisted the map for a better look. Julie stepped up beside him.

“What are those?” Griffin asked, pointing to one of the red circles.

“I started looking at all the new construction in town. If whatever is happening was done by...people—”

“What makes you think people did this?” Julie asked quickly. “Sounds like a pretty big jump to me.”

Frost just stared at Julie for a moment, and then said, “Rule would have said to leave no stone unturned. It’s cliché, I know, but some clichés are simply really good advice. Also, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

“Haven’t heard that one before,” Julie said, half a smirk on her face.

Frost didn’t see the humor. “Another cliché. Occam’s razor. You should read more thriller novels.” She turned back to Griffin. “If people are behind this, then it has to be some kind of machine, right? And that would probably be hard to hide. I didn’t find much, but those five spots struck me as odd.” Frost pulled out a handful of carbon copies from under her legal pad. “According to these construction permits and site surveys, there are five of them in all, built along the outskirts of town during the retrofit.” She glanced up at Julie. “You know anything about them?”

Julie leaned over the map and very quickly shook her head. “I bought, sold and leased. I didn’t build. If I had to guess, they probably have something to do with the solar panels.”

Griffin picked up one of the permits. It was mostly smudged and illegible, with the exception of Renford Ellison’s name signed neatly at the bottom. Ellison had been a liaison of sorts, for the town’s retrofitting. He’d spent summers in Refuge as a boy. Later in life, after becoming a rich inventor, he’d built one of his many houses by the lake. Thanks to his contacts in the energy industry, when the government grant was issued to make a U.S. town self-sufficient, Ellison had nominated Refuge, pledging to oversee the project and to foot half the bill. It was an irresistible proposal that landed Refuge on the fast-track to energy independence. The man spent most of his time in the mansion, rarely making public appearances, but he was well liked and had propelled himself to legendary status. There had even been talk of erecting a statue of him in the park. Griffin made a mental note to ask the man what he knew, but if Frost was right, and the strange phenomenon carrying the town between worlds was created by man, it smacked of big government. Ellison loved Refuge. He wouldn’t do anything to endanger the town. If anything, he was probably an unknowing pawn, like Julie.

“Could be nothing,” Frost said, taking back the permit. “But I was hiking about a week ago.” She pointed to the circle to the north of town. “I saw whatever this is. It was tall, maybe fifteen feet. Like one of those Egyptian obelisks, but made from brushed metal. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, and it had an electrical danger sign. I meant to look into it after the Fourth.” She pulled the map back. “Anyway, like I said, it could be nothing, but I figured it was worth looking into.”

Griffin nodded. “Definitely.”

Julie rested a hand on Griffin’s shoulder affectionately. “Did you ask about the radios?”

“Radios?” Frost asked.

Griffin saw the way Frost eyed Julie’s behavior, and he took a step away. Good-looking or not, he had no interest in playing emotional games. “Some of the people in town were asking about spare two-ways, to keep in touch.”

Frost stood and stepped out from behind the desk. Her uniform was wrinkled and dirty. Like him, she hadn’t bothered changing since the first shift.

She walked over to a small utility closet and pulled a set of keys from her pocket. Several keys later, she had it unlocked.

“I keep telling myself I’m going to mark which key goes where,” she said, opening the door. The cabinet was stocked with paper, pens, legal pads, clip-boards and other office supplies. On the top shelf sat five two-way radios in charging cradles. Green LEDs shined steadily on the front of each one.

She turned to Griffin. “How many do you need?”

“We’ll take ’em all,” he said. “Mary and Brian set up a makeshift camp for those who ended up stranded here. There are a few groups going around, checking whether any others need help. I don’t like that they can’t keep in touch.”

“You’re welcome to them,” Frost said. “The batteries are supposed to be good for up to four hours of solid use. Of course, I probably wouldn’t put that theory to the test in a jam.”

Frost set the radios on the desk and then closed and locked the cabinet. She sat on the desk corner and yawned.

“Have you slept yet?” Griffin asked.

She raised a single eyebrow. She placed her hand on Griffin’s. “Have you?”

Julie let out an annoyed huff and crossed her arms. “Are we leaving soon? I need to get back to my truck. Things to do.”

Griffin was disappointed when Frost let go of his hand. His mother had always told him that you could tell a lot about a person from their touch. It’s like sticking your tongue on a 9-volt battery, she’d said. Good and bad energy flows through people like an electric current. You just need to learn the difference. Griffin remembered the first time he’d touched his wife, Jess. It had felt a lot like touching Frost, though he’d never say as much, because it sounded downright creepy, especially with Jess dead.

Griffin picked up the radios. “I need to get these back to Soucey’s, and check on the kids back at my place.”

“I’ll finish up here,” Frost said, “and meet you there. We can check out the obelisk at the north end.”

Griffin nodded, happy that Frost wasn’t going to go charging out there by herself. “Sam, Jimmy and Dana are checking out the radio station. Going to see if they can contact anyone out there beyond the darkness.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Rain started to plink against the windows. Thin streaks of black ran down the glass, cutting jagged paths through the light dusting of ash. The room flashed briefly with a hint of purple as the sky lit up outside.

Frost walked to the window and looked out. “Well, I hope they’re having better luck than us.”

35

Jimmy stopped the truck in the center of the road and they all looked back at the three creatures laying facedown and bent in unnatural positions. They should have been dead, very dead, but they were already twitching back into shape. Several more shadow-walkers stumbled out of the woods and onto the driveway. The group of them stood motionless, watching, their bodies cloaked in living smog.

Sam watched out the back window as the three crumpled bodies finished standing and joined the others. Darkness once again engulfed their jerking bodies.

“Why did they stop?” Sam asked.

“Maybe they’re afraid to get run over?” Jimmy said.

“Better yet,” Sam said. “Why did you stop?”

The shadow-walkers started to back away.

Without another word, Jimmy hit the gas.

As they left the dark mob behind, Sam gave Wyatt the most reassuring smile he could muster. The boy should have never come. Bringing him was a stupid thing to do. By trying too hard to show Tess what a good father he was, he’d managed only to reveal how bad a father he actually was.

Dana hacked and coughed. He was getting worse. “Hang on, buddy. Help is just a few minutes away.”

Jimmy started back toward town, making it about twenty feet before stopping again. The Phantom idled in the middle of the street, while Jimmy stared ahead down the road. On his face was a look of disbelief.

“I’ve had about all the surprises I can take for one day,” Jimmy said, calmly shifting the truck into reverse.

Sam didn’t see anything at first. The road ahead was dark and lined with trees as expected, but something about it didn’t feel right. Something moved just within reach of the headlights.

Something large.

Like some four-legged caged beast, a dark form, half the road’s width, paced back and forth. It easily matched the size of Jimmy’s Phantom, and the sight of it made Sam’s blood run cold. The monstrosity had the body of a bull, one of those freakishly large Belgian Blues. It had the paws of a lion and the head of a hyena, a really big hyena. It stomped about on thick legs, its head rising and lowering like it was trying to pick up a scent.

Our scent.

It stopped.

“Might be a good time to start backing up,” Sam said.

Jimmy answered by stomping on the gas. The Phantom’s tires spun in the wet mess of ash, rain and mud, squealing as they found traction and jerking the truck backward. Sam fell forward, catching himself on the dash, and Wyatt let out a little oomph as he struck the back of Sam’s seat. Dana’s head rolled forward, but he was no longer conscious.

The beast lowered its head, like a cat having just found its prey. Its snout grinned, almost humanlike, revealing two rows of jagged, red-stained teeth. A smoky darkness snaked out from its mouth, curving around blackened lips and trailing off into the sky. The beast sprang forward, its feet pulverizing the pavement.

The truck shook as the monster closed the distance. Sam braced himself, placing one hand on the dashboard and the other over his seat, taking turns watching the road and looking at the beast. Jimmy remained focused, watching over his right shoulder as they sped down the road. They shot past the driveway to dead Tom Mungovan’s place, the shadow creatures long gone.

Sam watched as the beast rammed through the billboard for The Silver Springs Diner, sending the grandma’s head somersaulting. The impact stumbled the creature for a moment, letting them gain a few more precious feet of distance. But then it was nearly on top of them again.

“We’re never gonna outrun it in reverse,” Sam said.

“Hold on!” Jimmy jerked the wheel a hard right. The Phantom spun left, bucking in protest, until they faced the opposite direction. A split-second later he had the truck in Drive and the pedal mashed down, with a precision that surprised Sam.

Sam looked back to check on Dana and Wyatt. Dana was still unconscious. His blankets had fallen to his lap, and his body hung loosely over his seatbelt. Wyatt looked terrified, gripping the handle to his door.

“You okay?”

Wyatt nodded, but his brave front was betrayed by the shaking in his arms. “This is kinda like a video game.”

“Here it comes!” Jimmy shouted.

Sam looked up just in time to see the beast’s grin, as it slammed into the back of the truck. The Phantom lurched forward, bolting Dana, almost comically, upright and then back down again. Sam grabbed his seat’s headrest and held tight, making eye contact with the beast. In addition to raw malevolence, he saw intelligence in its eyes.

“There! The Diner!” Jimmy said, getting the truck back under control. “And sweet baby Moses in a basket, if it ain’t lit up like a fuckin’ Christmas tree!”

Sam saw the diner about a half a mile up the road. It was lit up all right—every light under the gas pump’s carport was blazing brightly. The diner’s pink and green neon road sign spun slowly, casting eerie light in slow circles, like a disco lighthouse. The number of lights, and their brightness, surprised him—this far out, he figured everyone would be on generators and trying to conserve fuel and power.

The beast pushed forward with a final burst of speed, sideswiping the truck, but not enough for Jimmy to lose control. Its desperate attempt to knock them from the road gave Sam a little bit of relief. It must recognize the diner as a threat. It’s trying to keep us from getting there.

The beast’s chase slowed and then stopped, as Jimmy pulled into the glow of the diner’s carport lights. The creature gave a final roar before turning tail and running off into the woods. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relieved.

36

Sam threw open the truck’s back door and reached inside for Dana, whose head was leaning limply to the side. He had thrown up on himself, and now he was moaning.

Cash Whittemore, who was working on his van beneath the bright lights of the filling station’s hood, dropped what he was doing and rushed over. Sam caught only a glimpse of Cash’s van, but the man had done something strange to its roof. A young man—maybe early thirties—ran out of the diner to help. A woman stood by the door, holding it open. She shouted for someone to get the first aid kit from the back office.

“Just hold on,” Jimmy said, taking Dana and dragging him out of the back. “We’re gonna get you inside.” He tried to lift Dana, but he couldn’t do it alone. The unconscious man might have been skinny and short, but he was currently floppy-armed, dead weight. The young guy arrived in time to keep Dana from falling to the ground. As Sam reached for his frightened son, Dana was carried toward the diner.

“Let’s go, son,” Sam said.

Wyatt looked unsure, still clinging to the door handle.

“I know you’re scared. Hell, I am, too. But you saw how those things reacted to light, and this has got to be the brightest place in town right now.”

Wyatt gave a slow nod and relinquished his grip. Although Sam’s speech sounded confident, he looked terrified to the core. As soon as Wyatt was in range, Sam took hold of him, yanked him from the truck and carried him to the diner.

Sam recognized Laurie Whittemore holding the door open as they rushed in. There were seven other people in the diner, but they were all strangers, probably people that had been passing through. Aside from the young guy, they all kept their distance. Laurie let out a little gasp when she saw the blood on Sam’s shirt and face.

“It’s not mine,” he said, putting Wyatt down.

Dana was laid down on the floor, a single blanket under him for comfort. Cash set a first aid kit on a nearby table. Sam hurried over. Dana was no longer moaning, but he was still slipping in and out of consciousness, and he’d gone as pale as a seagull turd.

“Thanks for the help,” Sam said to the young stranger. “Name’s Sam.”

“Kyle Gardner,” the man replied. While the leather jacket and scruffy face made him look tough, it was just a veneer. The jacket looked expensive. The styled hair smelled of product—and not cheap gel, more like the mousse Tess used. His hands looked smooth, like they hadn’t seen any physical labor. Not the kind of man often found in Refuge, but he was helping, and that made him a friend.

Sam kneeled by Dana’s side. “Everybody, step back, please. I need the light. Jimmy give me the first aid kit.”

Kyle knelt down next to him.

“What are you doing?” Sam said. “I told you I—”

“I’m a doctor,” Kyle said. “I can help, but you need to do what I tell you.”

Kyle didn’t look old enough to be a doctor, but Sam couldn’t think of a reason he’d lie about it. He gave a nod and put the first aid kit between them.

“Roll him onto his side, and pull the shirt away,” Kyle said.

Dana’s shirt was a mixture of blood and vomit. Sam hesitated for a moment, but with Jimmy’s help, he rolled the small man onto his side. Sam peeled the shirt up and away with a wet sucking sound, struggling not to gag. The smell of infection was overwhelming. Sam was worried. How can this be so infected already?
It just happened.

“That can’t be good,” Jimmy said, turning his head.

Black streaks ran like varicose veins up the length of Dana’s side.

Kyle took alcohol and cotton pads from the first aid kit. He tore open one of the pads and soaked it with alcohol. The tip of a bright red wound poked out just above Dana’s jeans, on his right hip.

Sam remembered what Dana had said: Bit me on the hip, fuckin’ perve.

Kyle wiped the pad just above the wound. The blood and vomit disappeared, but the black veins and red infection stayed.

Next, Kyle took the scissors from the first aid kit and looked at Sam. “Open a few more of those pads and soak them good.”

Slipping a finger through a belt loop on the front of Dana’s jeans, Kyle pulled. He carefully slid the scissors into the opening and cut a straight line down about six inches.

Dana moaned.

Kyle set the scissors down and spread apart the jeans.

Sam finished soaking the cotton pads and looked over. Dana’s hip was a red swollen mess of teeth punctures and leaking puss that throbbed in time with his pulse.

Sam looked at Wyatt and then Laurie. “Take him to another room, won’t you, Laurie?”

Laurie took Wyatt’s hand without a word and led him to the kitchen area behind the counter.

With Wyatt away, Sam reluctantly turned back to Dana’s wound. It stared back at him, like some grotesque mocking smile. Kyle snapped a finger at Sam, reaching for the cotton pads. He passed them over, the scent of alcohol a welcome reprieve from the rotten stench coming from Dana’s hip.

Kyle started wiping, working from the outside in. The blood cleared away, revealing gnarled, leaky flesh. Kyle continued to wipe, but he stopped when he hit something solid. He cleaned around the area, careful not to dislodge the object. It was a tooth, still stuck in one of the puncture holes. He gently wiped around the tooth, and then he gripped it inside the cloth. He looked at Sam for approval. Sam didn’t want to nod. He knew this was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. But it had to be done, for Dana’s sake. He nodded and watched as Kyle tugged. There was a slight pop of escaping wretched gas and a tiny stream of blood.

Sam waited a few seconds, then let out a breath of relief.

Kyle lifted the tooth away, but it slipped from his cotton grip. He tried to catch it, but struck the wound in the process.

The flesh around the freshly unplugged hole swelled upward, spraying tiny jets of fluid, and then, like some sort of septic volcano, erupted in a lava of puss and blood. Dana cried out and slapped a hand on the infection on his hip. He scratched at the wound, tearing away skin, oblivious to the further damage he was doing.

Sam fell back, gagged and then vomited under one of the booths.

“Get away from him,” Kyle said, on his feet. “Now.”

“What? No,” Sam said. “I’m fine.”

“You may be, but he isn’t,” Kyle said. He pointed at Dana’s hip.

They all turned and looked. Under the skin that Dana had scratched away, a patch of inky black spread out in all directions. The dark flesh grew thicker and started to swirl about, lifting up off the body like a black flame. Sam recognized it immediately. It was the same thing that had consumed all those people in the woods. It was taking Dana, too.

Dana’s body convulsed and shook, his feet jittering on the tile floor. His eyes snapped open, and he reached up to Jimmy, catching hold of his pant leg. “Help me, Jimmy. It hurts. It hurts so fuckin’ bad.”

Jimmy’s eyes swelled with tears. It was obvious he felt as helpless as Sam did. He took Dana’s hand, despite the darkness claiming his body, and squeezed it. “I’m here for you, brother.”

Sam watched in horror as the roiling darkness was sucked inside Dana’s body, like a piece of dust in a vacuum. Dana gave a final jerk and then lay still, his lifeless eyes staring at Jimmy.

Jimmy reached down and closed Dana’s eyelids with a sigh.

“The fuck is goin’ on ’round here, Sam?” Jimmy said, starting to lose control. “You!” Jimmy said, pointing at Kyle. “You shoulda done more!” Jimmy stood, his tall frame looming heavily over Kyle’s own six-foot height.

“Hey man, take it easy,” Kyle said, taking a step back. He raised his hands as a gesture of submission. “There was nothing I could do for him. We’ve seen this happen to a few other people already.”

Jimmy took another strong step forward, halving the distance between him and Kyle.

Cash stepped forward and rested a hand on Jimmy’s chest. “Jimmy, he’s telling the tru—”

“Oh, fuck!” Sam said, trying to backpedal away from Dana, his boots slick with puss and blood.

Dana sat upright and stared straight ahead with jet black eyes. He looked around the room like he was confused and in pain. He jumped up to a standing position, something he could have never done before. He was a skinny guy, but he wasn’t an athlete. Everyone took a step back, including Jimmy.

“The light,” Dana said in a voice that sounded like many, layers of it echoing softly. “It hurts. It hurts my eyes!”

Sam watched with a mix of fear and loss, as the skin on Dana’s arms started to blacken like paper towel laid in a puddle of ink. He pushed himself back further.

That’s not Dana anymore.

The Dana-thing raised an arm to shield its eyes from the light. It spotted Sam and realized it was not alone. It looked around the room and started to growl when it saw the others.

“Dana?” Jimmy said, taking a step forward.

The Dana-thing lunged at Jimmy and struck him in the chest, tossing him across the diner. It then grabbed one of the diner tables and ripped it from the bolts that held it to the floor. The Dana-thing looked at Sam and shrieked in anger, lifting the table over its head.

Sam raised his arms in defense, waiting for the blow, but the table never dropped. Instead there was a loud crash and the sound of glass shattering, as the table smashed through one of the front diner windows.

The Dana-thing let out another angry shriek and then jumped through the broken window. It screamed and lashed out at the overhead lights as it ran under the filling-station carport. Flecks of black skin peeled away from its body and floated to the ground like ash.

Ash.

It was everywhere. Beneath their feet. In the air. In their lungs.

Are we breathing in these fuckers’ bodies?

The Dana-thing continued to shriek, until it finally disappeared into the woods.

37

Griffin stopped halfway up his front steps. He turned to Julie and asked, “You sure you don’t have someplace you’d rather be?”

“Rather be?” It was clear that to Julie Barnes, the question of where she’d prefer to be, and with whom, was ridiculous. “I did my research on every home owner in town. You were a military man before you took up the brush. If things get dangerous, I’d rather be with you.”

“See, that’s just the thing,” Griffin said. “If things get dangerous, I’m going to rush right into the middle of it.”

Julie frowned.

Hadn’t thought of that, had you? Griffin smiled. Julie was charming, and ruthless in a real-estate agent kind of way, but she clearly hadn’t thought things through. Being with the strongest warrior often meant becoming a larger target yourself.

Regardless, she stepped up next to him and said, “You know I’ve got no one in town to go see. It’s just...the idea of being alone...”

Griffin sighed. “I understand.” He headed for the front door and opened the screen. “Mi casa es su casa. Unless you want to buy it, then you can screw off.”

Julie laughed and slapped his shoulder as he opened the door. He let her enter first, but she stopped short and said, “Umm.”

Griffin took her shoulders, moved her to the side and stepped in. Avalon was in the kitchen at the end of the hall, sitting in a chair.

Tied to a chair.

Radar stumbled into view, looking sheepish. “Uh, Mr. Butler. I—she...”

Hearing nothing beyond normal worry in Radar’s voice, Griffin had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Even more so when Avalon called out, “It’s okay, Dad.”

“What’s going on?” he asked Radar.

“She, uh, she was having a pretty bad craving.”

“I asked them to do it,” Avalon said.

“She kind of freaked out for a bit,” Radar said. “But she’s chilled out pretty good.”

Griffin looked beyond Radar to the kitchen, where Lisa was now silently cutting the rope binding Avalon. “You okay now, Ava?”

She gave an embarrassed thumbs up. “Aside from my wounded pride, I’m dandy. Asked them to tie me up, didn’t I?”

Griffin smiled. Before Avalon had become an addict, she’d been a fighter, like him. Like her mother. He was glad to see some of that personality coming back.

Once Avalon was free, she stood and hurried into the downstairs bathroom.

“That’s not where I keep my oxy,” Griffin called out with a smile.

“So not funny, Dad,” Avalon said, though she was fighting a grin. She slammed the door, rushing to the toilet.

Radar seemed to notice Julie for the first time, his eyes flitting down to her bust for a moment. “Uh, hi, Ms. Barnes.”

“Joshua,” she said, and stepped into the hall, heading for the living room.

Radar watched her strut away, hormones guiding his eyes. When he noticed Griffin smiling at him, he turned red and said, “Sorry.”

Griffin smiled. “Far as I know, she’s single.”

Radar looked petrified. “But—”

Griffin gave Radar a shove. Felt good to be teasing. “I used to be fourteen. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Does it get easier?” Radar asked.

Griffin tilted his head, watching Julie bend over to inspect his DVD collection. “Sorry. But you’ll get better at hiding it.” He turned to Radar. “Haven’t seen your father, have you?”

Radar’s smile faded. “I thought he was locked up.”

“Let him out a little while ago. He’s sobered up.”

Radar shook his head. “He hasn’t been home. I’d have heard his truck.”

And that left only one place in town Charley Wilson would have gone. The man was going to spend the rest of his life sleeping in a jail cell. But at least he didn’t know where Radar was. Even sober, Griffin didn’t trust that Charley would be safe, not that many places were these days. But so far, the Butler household remained unscathed.

The toilet flushed, and Avalon exited the bathroom. She gave her father a sheepish grin and said, “Jerk.”

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head. “I’m glad you’re fighting it.”

“It sucks,” she said.

“It’ll get better soon.”

“Says the man who has never been addicted to anything. You’re like an organic, non-GMO, free-range egg.”

Griffin laughed. “Yeah, well, good parents take care of themselves, so they can be around longer for their kids.” He realized he’d said it in front of Radar. Before he could apologize, a horn honked out front.

“It’s Frost,” Julie said from the living room, looking out the window. She strutted back into the hall. “Time to go?”

“Actually,” Griffin said. “Would you mind hanging out here for a bit? I’d feel better knowing there was an adult around.” He looked at Radar and Avalon. “No offense.” They both just shrugged, though Radar looked a little nervous about the prospect of spending more time with Curvy Barnes.

“I’m not good with—”

“We won’t be long,” Griffin said, backing toward the door. “And I wasn’t joking about what I said on the stairs.” He kept the message vague on purpose, not wanting to worry Avalon the way he wanted to worry Julie. If she came, she was likely to get herself, or someone else, hurt or killed. He added, “Please? It would really mean a lot to me,” like a thick helping of maple syrup, placing his hand on her wrist.

She smiled uncomfortably at first, but then larger. “Fine. But please hurry.”

“And be careful,” Avalon said, kissing his cheek. He kissed her back and turned to Radar. “There’s more rope in the basement, if you need it.”

Radar started to smile, but stopped when Griffin very seriously said, “I mean it. Don’t let her leave.”

A knock on the door turned Griffin around. He opened it to find Frost, fist raised to knock again. “You ready?”

He nodded and turned back to the others, who had gathered in the hall. “We’ll stop in on our way back. If things get tough without power, head to the station. The doors are...”

“Barely on?” Avalon said. “I remember last night just fine. And I’ve seen what’s out there now.” She got right in front of him, dead serious and said, “You’re not allowed to die.”

Griffin felt a swell of emotion, but tamped it down and nodded. “Yes ma’am,” he said, and then turned to Frost. “Let’s go.” They headed out the door and down the steps to the still-running cruiser.

You’re not allowed to die. The words played through his mind, but it wasn’t Avalon’s voice speaking them. It was his. He’d said those same words to Jess, just an hour before she passed away. Griffin wasn’t normally superstitious, but his gut was telling him to sit tight and take cover. Problem was, Frost would never go for that, and he wasn’t about to let her die, either. At least, not alone.

38

Sam walked back to the diner’s kitchen, where Wyatt sat on a chair, glass of milk in hand. He stared aimlessly at his drink, eyes fringed red from crying.

Sam squatted down and pulled Wyatt close, hugging him tightly. Wyatt’s small body shook with sobs, and Sam let himself cry, too, his head a swirling mess. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I’m so sorry you were here for this.”

“Uncle Dana,” Wyatt croaked out between sobs. “Is he…”

Sam took Wyatt by the shoulders and gently pushed him back, so he could look at him. He’d never had to deliver news like this to his son. The divorce was hard enough, but death...that was permanent. No coming back. No visitations. He decided honesty was the best course of action. It’s what he’d want. “He’s gone... He’s gone to Heaven.”

Wyatt sniffed. “Is that really true, Dad? You don’t go to church. And I know you don’t like Pastor Dodge, even though he’s nice to Mom.”

“How nice?” Sam asked, instantly regretting the question. It was none of his business, and it was so very far from the right time to think about such things.

“Mom cries a lot with him,” Wyatt said. “When they talk...about you. He says mom should try to work it out. That leaving isn’t the right thing.”

Sam nearly fell over with surprise. Ken Dodge was telling Tess not to leave?

“I saw what Uncle Dana did to Uncle Jimmy,” Wyatt said, turning the conversation back to current events. “I saw him jump out the window.”

“Look at me, Wyatt,” Sam said, running a hand over the boy’s head. “That wasn’t Uncle Dana. He’d never hurt your Uncle Jimmy, and you know that. That was…something else. Trust me, Uncle Dana is in a better place. I promise.”

That seemed to calm Wyatt a little. As long as he didn’t realize they were still stuck in the worse place, he’d be okay. Wyatt finished the rest of his milk in one long gulp and stood. He wiped his tears on his sleeve and set the empty glass on the chair. “Can I go see Uncle Jimmy?”

Sam smiled at Wyatt and ruffled his hair. “I think he’d like that.”

Sam followed Wyatt back into the front of the diner, where the out-of-towners had gathered in two small groups, whispering in hushed tones, eyeing the locals like they were all crazies. Only the doctor, Kyle, seemed to be socializing with the locals. Jimmy sat at one of the tables with Laurie and Cash, drinking coffee and talking quietly. He smiled when Wyatt ran up and gave him a hug.

It had been a long time since Sam had set foot in the Silver Springs Diner, and from the looks of things, not much had changed. Except for the busted-ass window.

The diner was a single large room with white tiled floors and a walk-up counter lined with the classic red-seated swivel stools. The main dining area consisted of a row of six smaller tables next to the windows, each with a little mini jukebox that would play the song of your choice for a quarter. There was also a row of eight larger tables in the middle. To the side of the diner was a little bakery counter, featuring Grandma’s Famous Apple and Cherry pies, despite Grandma having passed away some time ago.

Sam joined the group.

“Feeling better?” Sam asked Jimmy.

“Little sore, but I’ll survive. I gotta be honest, though,” Jimmy looked to Wyatt and back to Sam. “I don’t think everything’s quite sunk in yet. If you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Sam said.

“I was just telling Cash about our plan to go up to WPOS.”

“The plan’s crap,” Cash said, but then he winked and added, “But it’s a plan. If there is help out there to be had, we need it. What’d Becky think of the plan?”

“Uh, Cash,” Sam said. “Sheriff Rule... She didn’t make it.”

“I was with her just a few hours ago,” Cash said.

“That’s what I was told,” Sam said. “She didn’t make it back in town before the…the shift.” He glanced at his son, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “She was cut in half.”

Cash took the baseball cap off his head, closed his eyes and made a cross over his chest. “Frost in charge now?”

Sam nodded. “She deputized Griffin.”

Cash gave a nod of approval. “Okay, look. I’ve got this place rigged bright enough to see from space, but the gennie’s going to be tapped out in the next few hours. We’re going to have to haul ass to the station, contact whoever we can and get back here ASAP, before making a run for town.

“This was our plan,” Sam said, motioning to Jimmy. “I can’t rightly ask you to—”

“You gone and forgot that I’m the best electrician north of Nashua?” Cash asked. “You’re going to need me to get that place up and running.”

“I’ll come, too,” Kyle said.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“What about Wyatt?” Laurie asked.

“I was hoping you might—” Sam started.

“No!” Wyatt shook his head. “I’m not staying behind again.”

“You won’t be alone,” Sam replied.

Wyatt crossed his arms. “I wasn’t alone with Uncle Dana, either.”

“I know,” Sam said. And touché. “But you’re a lot safer here. Those things don’t like the light, and we’re going to have to move fast out there.”

“I am fast,” Wyatt said.

“Not fast enough,” Sam replied. “Now I don’t want to hear one more complaint. You’re staying here with Laurie, no ifs, ands or buts about it.” He looked at Laurie. “Sound about right to you?”

Laurie pulled Wyatt onto her lap. “Staying here with this cute little man? No, I wouldn’t mind one bit. But you guys better be careful. And quick.”

Sam nodded his thanks. “Now what do you have for lights?”

“I’ve got that one covered,” Cash said. “I have a halo.”

Laurie smiled and patted her brother’s hand. “You and your toys.” She looked at Sam. “Anything else?”

“Actually, yes,” Sam said, wondering if Cash’s response was sarcasm. “What’s a halo?”

39

Sam, Jimmy and Kyle followed Cash to his van, which was parked by one of the pumps. The lights were bright inside the diner, but they were downright brilliant under the carport.

Cash opened the door to his service van and climbed in. “So where is it?” Jimmy asked. “This ‘halo’ of yours. Cause it sure as shit ain’t floatin’ above your head.”

“Saw the effect the light had on them. Put this together using stock I had in the truck. Haven’t had much use for it since the retrofitting began. We would have left soon if you hadn’t shown up.” Cash reached under the dash and flipped a switch. White hot light from six halogen work lamps mounted around the roof brightened a fifty-foot radius around the van.

Heat radiated from the lights, the temperature change sending a shiver through Sam’s body.

Cash flipped the toggle back to the off position and the temperature immediately dropped. He opened his door and stepped out. “Only problem is, she’ll drain the battery faster than a redneck going to a Nascar event.”

“Well then, let’s hope we don’t need it,” Sam said.

“Rather have it and not need it—”

“Than need it and not have it,” Sam finished, slapping Jimmy’s back. “You need to get a new line, buddy.”

Cash climbed back into the van and slammed his door shut. “Saddle up, boys. Time’s a wastin’.”

If it had been a long time since Sam had been to the Silver Springs Diner, it’d been an eternity since he’d been up Domenick Ridge (named after one of Refuge’s founding fathers). The road to the radio station was steep but well maintained. Aside from the surrounding mountain ranges, Domenick Ridge was one of the highest points in Refuge.

Cash pulled to a stop in front of the station. All four men sighed with relief. The tension during the drive had been intense, but they hadn’t seen a single shadow monster. Sam leaned forward and peered through the windshield. The building was dark and quiet; it was about the size of a one-bedroom ranch home. Four tall letters stood on its roof, advertising its call letters, WPOS.

“Not much to the place,” Cash said, turning off the van. “Only has three rooms. One for the DJ, another for the tech and a server room for all the broadcast equipment. Came up about a month ago to install a new lightning suppression unit.”

Cash pulled four lantern flashlights from a box between him and Jimmy. He clicked one on and off and handed it to Jimmy before checking the others.

“Batteries are good, but they’re not new,” Cash said, passing two back to Kyle and Sam. “Try to use ’em sparingly.”

Sam stepped out of the van and stretched. The ride up in the back with Kyle had been cramped.

A light rain fell from the sky, and a warm breeze blew through the trees, creating a soft hiss. A bright purple flash lit the distant sky over Refuge, and thunder rumbled off in the distance. Would have been pretty, if it wasn’t a stark reminder that they were severely fucked.

Sam could see the distant lights of town, but the darkness appeared to be slowly encroaching, winking out one light after the next. When they’d left Soucey’s, the light from town had carried out to the water tower, but now the tower was gone, lost in total blackness. Sam thought of the dog at the house and the Dana-thing back at the diner.

It’s like a disease. Spreading and infecting everything it touches.

He thought of Tess and Ellie, back in town, and what might happen if the darkness swallowed the town whole. If they didn’t reach outside help through the ham radio... He shook his head, fighting off his morbid train of thought.

The moon—or is that the sun?—hovered above them, peeking out occasionally from behind dark clouds, like some giant watchful eye, casting a deep purple glow over the surrounding woods and the station. It seemed to have a mind of its own, shifting to different locations in the sky, not following its normal arc. Sam thought of The Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings, and he wondered if this moon could be in some way responsible for what’d been happening since he woke. He nearly laughed at the thought. Shadow creatures was one thing. But living moons?

“So, what first, chief?” Jimmy asked, looking to Sam.

Sam clicked on his flashlight and gave the grounds a quick once over. To the right of the station was a walkway past two parking spots and around a small supply shed. The walkway continued past, leading to the radio tower. To the left was a paved driveway that led to a single-car garage that was almost beyond the flashlight’s reach.

Sam turned his light on the station door. “Probably a little late to be asking, but does anybody have a key to get in?”

Jimmy walked up to the station door and gave the handle and solid turn and a shove. “Locked,” he said, trying the handle again. “Good thing I carry a master key with me.” He took a step back and gave the door a hard kick. The old door caved in on the first try.

“Master key, eh?” Sam said, walking past Jimmy and inside the station.

“Hasn’t let me down yet,” Jimmy said, following Sam with Kyle and Cash.

They moved down the hallway, single file. Sam stopped in front of a closed door, listening, not in the mood for any more surprises.

“Tech room,” Cash said, stepping by Sam. “It’s also where the switch to the generator is. Beauty too. Generac, 70-kilowatt, propane-fueled and liquid-cooled. Shit, I’d have one of ’em at home, if I had a spare 20k laying around.”

“I thought those were automatic?” Sam said. “Shouldn’t it be up and running already?”

“Depends on the power running into the building,” Cash said. “A lot of places still need the main breaker switched off. I’m guessing no one was here when this place went dark.”

“Can you get it running?” Sam asked.

“Bear shit in the woods?”

Cash opened the door to the tech room and stepped inside.

“We’re gonna check out the rest of the place,” Jimmy said. “We’ll meet you back here.” Kyle followed him.

Sam nodded and joined Cash in the tech room. Cash focused his light on a panel door in the back corner. He ran his finger down a numbered list and read the labels. He stopped and flipped a breaker off and then on again.

“Huh,” Cash mumbled.

“Huh, what?” Sam said. “Bears still shit in the woods, right?”

Cash ignored Sam and shined his light over the breaker panel. He ran a finger down each line of breakers.

“Main switch is flipped and all the breakers are on. Should be running.”

“Any ideas?” Sam asked. “Propane right? Not a priming problem then. Maybe they turned the line off for safety, when everything started happening?”

“Maybe,” Cash said, scratching his chin. “Makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” Jimmy asked, he and Kyle joined them just outside the tech room.

“Propane line to the gennie might be off,” Sam said.

“Well, we got some good news for ya,” Jimmy said. “Ham radio’s set up over in the server room. Looks good as new. Tommy’s got a damn antenna mounted to the station’s radio tower. Better hope the FCC don’t catch him.”

“National Guard emergency still at 34.90 frequency?” Cash asked.

Jimmy smiled, impressed. “Ayuh. You can try 47.42 if that don’t work. Should be the Red Cross, if memory serves.”

“So where’s the shutoff?” Kyle asked.

“In the garage,” Cash said. “The main feed for pretty much everything up here D-marks in there. Tank’s just outside, behind the garage.”

“Lemme guess, locked?” Jimmy asked.

“Probably,” Cash said. “Unless they left here in a hurry and forgot to check it.”

“All right,” Jimmy said. “We’ll head out and check it.” Jimmy turned his attention to Sam. “There’s a window out in the broadcast room, you should be able to see us from there. We’ll flag you when it’s on, so you can give it a try.”

Cash flipped the top breaker in the panel to the left. “Main breaker’s off. Go give it a whirl.”

“Jimmy,” Sam said. “I’ve already lost one friend today, I’m not looking to lose another. Eyes open and ears sharp. No surprises.”

40

Jimmy made his way to the garage, with Kyle following after him. Between the dog, the giant bull-thing and Dana, his last shred of bravery was threadbare. Just get this done and get the hell out.

“Sorry about your friend back at the diner,” Kyle said.

“Wasn’t your fault,” Jimmy said.

“That’s not—I’m just sorry. I lost my brother eight years ago in Iraq, so when I say I know how you feel, I do. It’s not just Doctor-speak.”

Jimmy said nothing in response. He just crept forward, listening to the shifting breeze and watching their bleak surroundings.

“IED. Took out his Humvee and two others out on patrol.”

“Helluva thing,” Jimmy said, heading across the patch of open space between the main building and the shed. “But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not announce our presence to whatever’s lurking out there.” He eyed the nearby woods.

“Right,” Kyle whispered. “Sorry.”

Might be a smart doctor type, Jimmy thought, but he’s lacking a little something in the common sense department.

They reached the garage and stopped. Jimmy grabbed hold of the door’s handle and jiggled it. Locked. He shined his light through the windows and peeked inside. A wheelbarrow and a few yard tools sat off to the left, but aside from that, it was pretty much empty. Then he spotted a door on the side of the garage.

“Door on the right,” Jimmy said, heading around.

He stopped at the door and raised his right leg, getting ready to give it a good kick, but paused and tried the door handle first. It turned easily in his hand and the door swung open.

Jimmy stepped through the door and shone the light back and forth. The main tower’s breaker panel was on the middle of the back wall. To the right of the panel was a metal pipe that ran up from the concrete floor and out the back. A thin red lever was twisted perpendicular to the pipe.

“Think I found it,” he said, walking to the pipe. “Can you see Sam or Cash at the window?”

Kyle turned and flashed his light back at station, checking the windows. He jumped when he found a person staring back at him through one of them. Sam was at the window, and he flashed his light twice in acknowledgement.

“Got him,” Kyle said.

Jimmy studied the pipe and saw that the red lever labeled PROPANE was in the off position. He grabbed hold and called out to Kyle. “It’s off. I’m gonna turn it on. You ready?”

“Ready.”

Jimmy pulled the red lever down, lining it parallel with the metal pipe. There was a hiss and the faint smell of propane, as it flowed past the cutoff and fed the generator.

“Shit. I think it’s leaking.” Jimmy pointed his light where the lever for the cutoff met the pipe. There was a hairline fracture just below the valve.

“Is it bad?” Kyle asked.

Jimmy sniffed the air around the cutoff. He could smell the chemical compound the manufacturer had mixed in with the propane. The rotten egg stench was there, but it wasn’t anything that he was too worried about. “Well, I wouldn’t light a match back here, but it should still work.”

“Okay.” Kyle turned his flashlight around on himself and gave Sam a thumbs up.

Jimmy jumped as the Generac came to life a moment later, in a series of spins and sputters. After a few clunks and what sounded like leaves caught in the master fan, it hit a steady hum.

“Ready to head back?” Kyle asked.

“Almost,” Jimmy said, fishing through his pocket, retrieving a cigarette.

Kyle looked at Jimmy with a look of shock. The smell of rotten eggs was impossible to ignore now.

Jimmy laughed as he put it together. “I ain’t going to light it in here.”

Sam stood in the main broadcast room watching Jimmy and Kyle leave the garage and start back to the station. He hadn’t had a chance to mourn the loss of Dana, and he felt oddly numb as a result. His thoughts shifted to Wyatt, back at the diner, and he prayed to God for the first time in a long time, that the boy would be okay.

“Equipment’s booting,” Cash said, joining Sam. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple minutes.”

Sam took a seat in the disc jockey’s chair and spun around to look at the soundboard. Numerous little red and green LEDs flashed like lights on a Christmas tree. He turned on a small desk lamp just above the sound board, and he squinted at the sudden brightness.

In front of him were a series of sliders and dials that he hadn’t a prayer of ever understanding. He reached up and pulled down the suspended mic, so it was level with his face.

“So this is where he sits, huh? DJ Stan and the Saturday Morning Countdown,” Sam mocked into the mic. “You ever met him?”

“Once,” Cash said. “And that was enough for me. Kind of a prick.”

“So, you know how to run this thing?”

Cash stepped up next to Sam and pointed to a slider with the word mic in small print below it. “That’s your volume. Slide it up for sound and all the way down to mute.” Cash pointed to a red-lighted button. “Push that when you want to talk, and it’ll turn green. Green to talk; red to stop. Tech’s in the other room. I should be able to patch the ham’s feed right through the station for some extra push. You good here?”

“Green means go. Got it,” Sam said.

Cash left for the adjacent room, and Sam turned his attention back to the soundboard. He ran a finger over a series of sliders, careful not to move any.

Wyatt would get a real kick outta this.

Wyatt had always been a tinkerer, even from an early age. He was always taking things apart and putting them back together again, out of curiosity. God, he missed that kid.

Cash knocked on the glass between the two rooms.

“We’re up,” Cash said, his voice muffled. He leaned over and spoke into a little microphone. “You ready?” Cash’s voice boomed through the speakers.

Sam gave a nod. “As I’ll ever be.”

Cash looked down and pressed a button, illuminating a red ON AIR sign above the window. He spoke into the mic again. “You’re live.”

Sam turned back to the soundboard and re-adjusted the mic. He cleared his throat and stared at the volume slide, wondering what to say. He’d spent all his time thinking about getting to the station, but never about what he’d say once they made it.

He pressed the red button and it lit green, as Cash had said it should. Then he slid the volume up and leaned in to the mic. He still wasn’t sure what to say, so he just started speaking. “My name is Sam...Sam Lake of Refuge, New Hampshire. I’m trying to reach someone—anyone—who can hear this broadcast. We need help. We have an emergency situation and require immediate assistance. If anyone can hear this, we are set up to receive on frequency 34.90,” And then, for added measure, “Over.”

Sam counted to sixty in his head and repeated the message. He looked to Cash, who simply shook his head. Nothing.

“I repeat, Refuge, New Hampshire is in—”

Static and feedback suddenly blasted from the speakers. Sam cupped his hands over his ears. A horrific shrieking filled the room from every corner, as if it was no longer confined to the speakers, and then it ended as quickly as it had started.

Sam removed his hands from his ears and listened to the silence. His heart pounded as he scoured the room with his eyes. Despite the empty room, he no longer felt alone. He’d watched—and mocked—countless TV shows where paranormal investigators claimed they felt a presence in a room. Real or not, he had a new respect for anyone actively seeking an experience like this.

The static picked up again, shifting in and out. After a series of sharp crackles and a jittering squeak that sounded like a voice, Sam said, “Hello? I can hear you! I can—”

“Saaaaaam,” came a long, slow whisper from the speakers.

Sam went rigid while every hair on his body sprang up as though he’d been inserted into a static filled tube.

“Saaaaaam,” the voice said again, but more faintly, lost in a burst of static, which was suddenly replaced by a second voice. “Dad?”

Sam’s fear fell away. He jumped to his feet. “Wyatt?”

“Daaaaadyyyyy.” The voice was now half Wyatt, half...not. It was never really Wyatt, Sam told himself. It’s just fucking with you.

“Daaaadeeeee!” The E sound became a high pitched squeal that forced Sam’s hands back to his ears. It was so loud he could feel it in his body. His vision blurred. A scream erupted from Sam’s lips, as a sinister laugh filled the air around him, merging with the shriek.

Then it was just Sam’s voice, screaming in fear and agony.

He jerked as something grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. He shot his left arm upward, breaking the thing’s grip and struck out with a right fist. Pain shocked down his arm in protest, as he struck something solid, but he felt satisfaction as his assailant cried out in surprise.

Whatever it was, it was strong and fought back, knocking him to the floor.

“God fucking dammit, Sam! What the fuck?”

Sam looked up from the floor. The desk lamp above the soundboard was on, and he could see Cash standing in front of him, rubbing his chin.

Sam looked around the room, disoriented. “Did you hear that?”

“Hell yes,” Cash said, jerking his arm free. “I cut the power to it.”

“You don’t think...?”

Cash shook his head. “It wasn’t Wyatt, but they’re not just monsters. Not all of them. Something out there is intelligent, and it knows we’re here.”

“Then I think it’s time to get gone,” Same said. “Where’s Jimmy?”

“Front hall with the new guy.”

“We gotta go,” Sam said. “I need to get back to Wyatt.”

“What about calling for help?” Cash asked, incredulous.

Sam took one step toward the door and was nearly knocked off his feet by what felt like an earthquake, but he recognized it as an impact. Something large had struck the building, which pretty much left one suspect. “That big asshole is back.” The lights flickered and then went black.

41

Jimmy fled outside as the radio station bucked and creaked. He stumbled and caught himself against Cash’s van. He flicked his now bent cigarette away. “The hell is this now?”

“Shut up,” Kyle hissed. “You hear that?”

Jimmy held his breath and listened. At first he heard nothing, but then a sound akin to a galloping horse steadily arose. It sounded familiar. His eyes widened with recognition.

It’s back.

Jimmy grabbed Kyle by the arm and pushed him toward the station. “Get back inside. Now!”

“What is it?”

“Just get inside! Go!” Jimmy shouted, as the source of the sound came running up the road.

Kyle’s look of confusion snapped to horrid understanding, as he saw the giant beast closing in.

He leapt up the stairs, nearly falling at the top. Jimmy was right behind him, but so was the dark-shrouded monster. We’re not going to make it, Jimmy thought. As soon as he saw Kyle reach the door to the station, he made a sharp turn to the right and jumped off the side of the staircase.

The beast’s thick, wolf-like head slammed into the doorway. Wood splintered, as it snapped at Kyle’s feet. The creature’s wide body was too large to fit through the narrow entrance, but that didn’t stop it from trying. Kyle backpedaled furiously into the hall, but he only managed to bunch the floor mat under his feet.

The beast lunged forward again, missing Kyle’s left foot by inches, as Cash and Sam pulled him out of its reach. The monster snarled at them, its massive head smelling of death and decay. Ash fell from its open mouth, like drool. Its lips curled back, and it snorted at them, coughing out more ash. Then it was off, chasing after the one person who wasn’t inside.

Jimmy slammed into the tool shed, hoping it was open, but the door held fast, knocking the wind out of him. He turned, his back against the door, his lungs burning for air. I shoulda quit smoking.

He watched as the beast rounded the corner and sniffed the air. Its boxy hyena head turned and looked directly at him. Its black eyes seemed lifeless, and yet, hungry. It lowered its head and slowly stalked toward him, ashen muscles twitching, casting off small geysers of smoke. Black claws extended from its wide paws, digging into the ground with each tense step.

Jimmy stood rooted to the spot, his broad shoulders heaving as he took deep breaths. He absentmindedly reached into his pocket and touched the familiar lighter. It was one of the few things of his father’s he still had, and ironically, part of the habit that had contributed to his death. See you soon, Dad.

The beast charged, closing the distance before Jimmy could react. It placed a single large paw on his chest and shoved him to the ground. It lowered its ashen snout to his face, showering him in a cascade of dry flakes.

Jimmy struggled to breathe from both the beast’s weight and the stench. He reached up with both hands and grabbed at its neck, his fingers sinking into a gray-black mess of crispy flesh.

The beast leaned forward, putting weight onto the leg that had pinned its prey. It flexed its paw and sank four sharp claws into Jimmy’s chest.

Jimmy let go of the beast’s neck and wheezed, coughing up a mix of blood and vomit. His vision faded, like he was watching the end of a movie. His own personal ‘fin.’ He raised a bloody hand and slowly extended his middle finger.

“I hope you choke on me, mother—”

The beast leapt back, startled and in pain. Jimmy cried out as the monster’s talons slipped out of his flesh, and again as two sets of shadowed hands grabbed hold of his shoulders and pulled him away. Too tired to fight back, he simply accepted his fate.

“Geez you’re heavy, Jimmy,” a familiar voice said.

Jimmy lifted his head and saw that it was Cash and Kyle dragging him away. He looked back at the beast, now busy snapping at the source of its pain.

Sam held up the three lantern flashlights, now strapped together, combining their light. Using the brilliant light to hold the strange shadow-beast at bay, Sam backed away slowly, following Cash, Kyle and Jimmy past the ruined threshold of the radio station. Jimmy felt a moment of relief as Sam entered and the monster didn’t follow, but it was short lived. His vision spun and then faded. The encroaching darkness terrified him, but there was nothing he could do about it, as unconsciousness claimed him.

42

Frost drove slowly, steering the cruiser through the thick layer of ash that covered the road leading out of town, to the north. She hadn’t been down this way since the first shift occurred, but other than the copious amount of ash painting the scenery in grayscale, the land seemed unchanged.

“How much further?” Griffin asked. He’d been pretty quiet since leaving the house. Frost didn’t think much of it. He was probably worried about Ava. But she was glad to hear his voice again. Strange how a day before, Griffin was just a good friend with the distant prospect of being something more. Someday. Now, she couldn’t imagine Refuge, or her life, without him in it. Not that things had moved any further. How could they? But she knew, without a doubt, that she desired a future with him.

She knew Julie Barnes felt similarly, and though that woman could flaunt her wares like no one else in Refuge, Frost believed Griffin could see past the curves and follow his heart before his loins.

Not that Frost wasn’t good looking. She just hid her looks while on the job, so the fellas in town would take her seriously.

“About a quarter mile ahead,” she said. “On the right.”

Griffin leaned forward, looking through the windshield, which was smeared with streaks of drizzle-soaked ash. “We should have Jimmy replace these wipers when we get back. Are the high beams on?”

“Yeah,” Frost said. “But it’s like the light is just being absorbed. Getting worse the further we go.”

She nearly missed the turn-off because the normally light brown dirt road was covered in ash. She hit the brakes, slid a few feet and then turned into the overgrown road, which was not so much a road as an old path, probably carved into the woods by loggers.

“I think I see something ahead,” Griffin said.

She could see it, too. While most of the world beyond fifteen feet was hidden in muted gray, there was a blue light up ahead, shining like an electric beacon.

As they got closer, Griffin whistled. “Was it doing this last time you saw it?”

The fifteen foot tall silver obelisk, surrounded by an eight foot fence topped with razor wire, glowed light blue, pulsing occasionally. The air around the object was free of falling ash, as was a thirty-foot circle of earth around it. With each pulse, the ash falling above it would billow out and away as though a gust of air had repelled it.

“I wouldn’t have forgotten about it, if it had been,” she said, slowing to a stop, fifty feet away. When she turned off the car, they could hear a gentle buzzing that crackled with each pulse of light. The thing was positively brewing with energy.

They exited the car, still within the falling ash. It clung to their shoulders and hair. Approaching the fenced-in obelisk, they stepped into its glow, past the clean cut border where the ash was kept at bay, and they felt a breeze. The ash covering them was swept away.

Frost’s skin tingled as they inched closer together. Ten feet from the strange object, she stopped. “I think this is close enough.”

Without a word, Griffin made a slow circle around the obelisk. “Each side is identical.” He stopped next to Frost. “Except...” He crouched down and picked up a grapefruit sized rock split in half. He dropped it and turned around, pointing to a fallen tree, now cleaved in two, and then beyond, to the forest, which had a five foot wide path carved straight through to the south.

Griffin stepped into the center of the path, reached out and took Frost’s arm, pulling her next to him. For a moment, she was distracted by being pressed up against him. Even put an arm around his back, grasping his shoulder, but then she saw what he was looking at.

The path disappeared into the rolling hills covered with trees, but there were two very noticeable details. The first was that she had an ash free view. Whatever force was repulsing the ash from the obelisk, was also traveling in a straight line, away from it. The second detail was that if she followed the straight line up, a single building came into view.

The church.

Or more accurately, the church’s steeple.

She glanced at Griffin, her arm still around his back, their faces close. She was about to speak, but Griffin’s hand, on the small of her back—When did that happen?—tightened.

“Don’t move,” he whispered.

She remained rigid, panning her eyes back and forth, but unable to see what had tensed him. But she could hear it, a shuffling sound just behind the obelisk’s buzzing. A clunk as something struck the squad car.

“Slowly,” Griffin said, loosening his grip.

She turned around an inch at a time, fighting hard against the urge to spin quickly. But Griffin had yet to go for his gun, so they were not yet in mortal danger. But when she saw it, she nearly drew her weapon and opened fire.

It stood outside the light cast by the obelisk, as though held at bay by it, repulsed like the falling ash. The twenty-foot-tall, ash-coated creature swayed back and forth, eyeing them with its four obsidian eyes. Its forelimbs were long and slender. She couldn’t see a joint below its shoulder. The arms were like long, curved, black leather-coated blades. Its body was long and slender, ending at a pair of short hind legs. The body shape reminded her of one of those vintage bicycles, with the large front wheel and small rear wheel—a penny-farthing. Except deadly. And evil.

“It doesn’t like the light,” Griffin remarked.

Frost drew her gun. “I’m not sure I want to bet my life on this thing staying lit until the next shift, whenever that will be.” She opened fire, quickly emptying the magazine at the creature’s small, insect-like head. It twitched back as each round found its mark, ash and smoke billowing from the creature’s face and torso.

As Frost ejected the magazine and slapped in a fresh one, the monster shook off the assault and lunged into the light. One long stride brought it ten feet closer, but it shrieked when the obelisk crackled brightly. It stumbled back out of the light, stalking around the luminous circle. Frost followed it with her gun, but didn’t fire.

Griffin on the other hand, walked closer to the thing.

“What are you doing?” Frost asked.

“Head toward the car, slowly,” he said, moving toward the far side of the circle. The thing tracked him and then hurried around the light, toward the far side, where it appeared Griffin was going to exit. The creature bounced excitedly on its long front legs, punching craters into the ground.

Frost moved slowly, eyes on the creature, but it didn’t seem aware of her now. She quickened her pace and reached the far side of the protective light. The car was just a quick sprint away. She nearly shouted out, but thought better of it. Instead, she toggled the radio on her hip, pushing the button three times. She heard the three clicks of static from Griffin’s hip.

He held out a hand.

Three fingers extended.

Then two.

And one.

They acted as one; the plan worked out silently between them. Frost broke for the car, keys in hand, while Griffin sprinted straight back through the light. With a roar, the creature dove after Griffin, but threw itself into the light. With a wailing howl it reeled back, stumbling over its long limbs. It fell back, out of the light, just as the car roared to life. Griffin arrived a moment later, breathing hard. “Go, go, go!”

Frost tore down the dirt drive backwards and quickly reached the road. Neither spoke as they raced back to town. As they crossed onto Main Street, Frost said, “The radio station wasn’t much further from the town’s border than that obelisk. I hope Sam and the others found someplace bright to hide out.”

43

Laurie brought a fresh round of coffee to the few patrons who had ended up stranded at the diner. No amount of pie could salve the fear they all felt, but the coffee at least kept them alert. Though some had talked about leaving, Laurie had remained adamant about them staying put. Traveling without Cash’s halo seemed to be about the same as suicide. For most, the issue was closed when one foolish young man had finally had enough and left. His screams while hauled off into the darkness were enough to root the others in place.

She took a seat across from Wyatt and let out a tired sigh. She was worried about Cash. Older brother or not, she felt responsible for him. She knew that things had been tough for him lately, especially since that Julie Barnes lady had brought in outside contractors for all the new projects around town. She worried about the stress he now carried, and though he’d never let her see it, she knew he was angry and frustrated with his life of late.

She watched Wyatt draw quietly with crayons on the back of a paper placemat. He’d drawn a truck with a man standing outside and a kid looking out a window from within. The man appeared to be swinging something at another person. Wyatt was coloring the person black.

“Whatcha drawing?” Laurie asked.

Wyatt continued to draw without looking up. “Uncle Dana,” he said quietly.

Laurie’s heart sank. “He was a brave man,” was all she could think to say.

“This is the man that hurt him,” Wyatt said, drawing little black flames coming from the man’s body.

“What is that? Is he on fire?”

“No,” Wyatt said, still focused on his drawing. “It’s the black stuff that was on the bad man. Looked more like smoke, really,” Wyatt paused. “Like he was on fire, but someone put him out.”

Laurie studied the picture. She flinched when it looked as though the dark man moved. But it was just the paper, shifting in the breeze.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Then she looked to the broken window, where a curtain swayed. She was just about to dismiss it when the power flickered in the diner. She slowly tightened her fists, turning her eyes to the lights above. They grew brighter, and then all at once, they went out completely.

She nearly screamed, as something tugged on her sleeve.

“Laurie,” Wyatt said, pulling her down. She leaned over to him and felt his warm breath on her ear, as he whispered, “I think we should hide now.”

44

“Wake up!” Sam said, slapping Jimmy across the cheek. “Wake up, dammit!”

Sam knelt next to Jimmy, who lay on the floor in the broadcast room. He looked at the four puncture wounds that lined Jimmy’s chest. Each one was about the size of a fifty-cent piece. The two wounds on the left side of his chest were leaking blood, though not as much as one might expect. But the two on the right...the only thing coming out of them was black smoke.

Sam raised a hand to slap Jimmy again, but this time Jimmy caught it.

“I’m awake,” Jimmy said. “And that fuckin’ hurts.”

“Thank God,” Sam said, relieved. He looked over his shoulder to Kyle and Cash, who were both standing guard at the broadcast room’s door. “He’s awake,” Sam called out.

“None too soon,” Cash said. “They’re coming out of the woodwork. We need to get to the van.”

In the past minute, an army of shadow-walkers had slipped out of the woods and surrounded the station. They didn’t do anything. They just stood, smoldering and waiting. The ash-monster on the other hand, ran around the station breaking windows, tearing up walls and doing its best to reach them. Although the beast couldn’t get in, Sam knew that it was only a matter of time before the shadow-walkers strolled right on in through the broken front door. That they hadn’t already probably had something to do with the big-ass flashlight they’d used to ward off the shadow-hound.

“We need to get you up and moving,” Sam said.

Kyle ran over to give Sam a hand. Together they each grabbed an arm and lifted Jimmy into a standing position.

Jimmy pushed them away and leaned over. He puked.

“Guys, I hate to say it,” Jimmy said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’m fucked.”

Cash looked back from the door worried. “They’re in the hall.”

Sam took a tight grip of Jimmy’s arm. “I already lost one friend, I’m not losing another.”

Jimmy yanked his arm away. “Nothing you can do about it, besides accept it. You saw what happened to Dana, same as I. And you got your boy to worry about.” Jimmy winced and looked down. Warily, he opened his shirt. Black veins covered his chest. His once red blood now ran black. “I can feel it inside me. It wants me to hurt you. Kill you. Eventually, it’s gonna win.”

Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his Phantom. He took Sam’s hand and put them in it. “She’s yours now.”

Sam looked at Jimmy, his eyes filled with sadness. “I—I can’t just leave you. I won’t—”

Cash looked back to the three of them, his shoulder pressed firmly against the door. “Guys, whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it now. They’re almost on us.” He looked back to the door, through its window, and right into the eyes of a dark, flaking face. He screamed. The dark figure shrieked in return.

Sam turned back to Jimmy, but he was no longer there. He’d taken a fire extinguisher from the wall and was getting ready to break open the window.

“Jimmy, no!” Sam cried out.

“When I go…” Jimmy said, looking at Sam. “It’ll be fast. High-tail it back to the van.”

“Jimmy—”

“You’d do the same fer me,” Jimmy said. “Take care of your son. Do right by Tess.”

Sam said nothing. He couldn’t. He just watched as Jimmy hefted the extinguisher back and slammed it through the window. “Go! Now!” He jumped through the shards of glass that remained, oblivious to the jagged points poking his skin. He hit the grass and ran for the garage, yelling like a mad man. Countless black eyes snapped toward him, following his flight, and like cats hunting prey, they gave chase.

Jimmy didn’t see the ash-monster, but he knew it was still out there with him. Despite his primal instincts revolting at the idea, he hoped it would take the bait.

He raised his arms and yelled as best he could. Each breath was more labored than the last, and he suspected one of his lungs had been punctured. He glanced back and was surprised to see a smoldering gang of angry forms bearing down on him. “Holy shit!” he whispered, and he tried to run faster. He was going to die. He knew that now, and he had accepted it faster than he would have believed possible, but he was going out the way he wanted, not as one of those fuckers. No way was he going to let his body be used to kill his friends.

He made it to the garage and slammed the door shut behind him. He leaned against it, holding back the first shadow-walkers to arrive. The garage reeked of rotten eggs. He looked at the propane shut-off valve. The small fracture was now cracked open, hissing fumes into the air.

“Seriously?” Jimmy said. “This is the one thing that’s going to go right today?”

He dropped the fire extinguisher and reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out his cigarettes. He kept his back pressed against the door to keep it shut, bouncing forward from the occasional push. The fumes were making him dizzy, and his aching body felt slow. The wounds on his chest burned like hot iron brands, and in an odd way, he figured he had been branded.

He looked down at his smokes, happy to see a single crumpled stick poking out of the pack. He brought the pack to his lips and plucked it out, tossing the empty packet to the floor. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter.

He twisted it around in his hand and remembered the truth behind the old piece of junk. His father hadn’t really given it to him—that was just a story that he told others when they asked about the old, beat up thing. The truth was his father had thrown it out. Jimmy had fished it from the trash. It had, in a way, taken on the personification of the relationship he’d wanted with his father. It was always with him, and it always worked when he needed it to.

He thought of his father as he flicked the top open with its familiar metallic click. The sound reminded him of his younger days, when his biggest worries were zits and homework. Days when his father had still been his hero and someone he wanted to emulate.

He counted to sixty, and then he staggered to the back of the garage. The door crashed open behind him, but he didn’t care. Over soon, he thought, fighting the urge to close his eyes and sleep. He could feel the darkness within him, slithering around, as it wormed its way through his body.

He turned to face the front of the garage and wasn’t surprised to see the Dana-thing’s blackened face staring back at him. He knew it would be there. Felt it in the darkness. Inside of him. He brought the lighter up to his cigarette and placed his thumb against the flint wheel. He wanted to say something cool. Something like in one of those movies where the hero blows himself up. But nothing came to mind.

“Fuck it.”

Jimmy cupped a hand over his mouth, flicked his thumb, and watched as his trusty lighter sparked a tiny blue flame to life. He had time enough for a single drag.

45

The pounding on the broadcast room’s door slowed, as most of the shadow-walkers left to chase after Jimmy. A few remained in the hall, but just stood still, as if waiting for direction.

Cash kept a shoulder against the door, regardless. “Sam, I’m sorry, but he’s right. We need to get back. Laurie and Wyatt are waiting on us,” he said.

Sam didn’t hear Cash speak. His sole focus was on Jimmy, and on the shadows that chased him. He watched his old friend reach the garage and slip inside. He clenched his eyes shut, cursing whoever was responsible for this shitty situation and silently bid Jimmy farewell and a ‘give ’em hell.’

Then, Sam turned to the others. “Let’s go.”

Cash didn’t wait. He threw open the room’s door, slamming it into a shadow-walker, who toppled to the floor. They stepped over the fallen thing and ran down the hall, past the few other remaining figures, who seemed confused by their sudden appearance.

Cash shouldered another ashen body out of the front doorway, lifting if off the ground and hurling it down the stairs. It made a little umph sound as it struck the pavement headfirst. A swirl of darkness erupted from its head, spewing flakes of ash.

Cash flung open the van door and hopped in the driver’s seat. “Hurry!”

Kyle ran around to the other side of the van. He climbed into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door behind him.

Cash started the van. “Where the hell’s Sam?”

“Here,” Sam said, opening the side door and climbing in. He narrowly avoided being tripped up by a shadow-walker lying beneath the truck. He yanked his legs into the van rapidly. “One of those fuckers almost—”

A dark shadow reached in and grabbed Sam by the arm, nearly pulling him out. Sam braced himself against the door and felt the tendons in his arm stretch as he pulled back. He’d never enjoyed tug-o-war as a kid. Enjoyed it even less when the rope was his arm.

Another set of arms reached in and pulled, dragging Sam halfway out before he lurched to a halt, like a dog reaching the end of its leash. He looked back and saw Kyle had hold of his legs, straining to keep Sam inside the van.

“Dammit! Cash, use the halo!” Kyle shouted.

Cash flipped the halo switch. White light, like God himself had appeared above the van, burst in all directions. The shadows screamed and let go of Sam, sending him crashing back into Kyle. Some of the creatures lashed out at the lights, as pieces of black flesh singed and flaked from their bodies. Others ran away into the dark safety of the woods.

Sam grabbed the van door and slid it shut. “Go! Go! Go!”

Cash jammed the van into drive and floored it, spinning them around and back down the road. He kept the pedal down, trying to get as much distance between them and the station as he could.

Sam saw the monstrous ash-beast slamming into the garage bay door. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen it look their way as they sped by in a blur.

Then the garage erupted in a massive ball of fire that enveloped the area. The blast shook the van and nearly shoved them off the road. Cash braked hard and stopped the van. The halo still cast its protective light around them, but it was starting to flicker. The light in the front had fallen off and swung over the passenger-side windshield on a wire. He looked back to Sam as if to say something, but his voice caught in his throat.

Sam saw the look on Cash’s face and turned back just in time to see a burning chunk of debris crash into the back of the van. The van shot forward and off the side of the road. Cash swerved around a thick pine, and braked again without crashing.

“What the hell was that?” Kyle shouted.

Sam watched in horror as the debris rose up and shook its head. Clouds of black flakes shed from its head and body, floating up into the air. Fire—the bright orange variety—shot off the shadow-beast’s back. It thrashed in pain, though Sam wasn’t sure whether that was from the heat or the light cast by the fire. Maybe both. Sam turned to Cash, who had blood running down his forehead. “Can you drive?”

“Just a little dizzy,” Cash said, rubbing his head.

“Here it comes!” Kyle shouted.

Sam scrambled into the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats and took hold of the wheel, reached over with his left foot and jammed down the gas. As they spun out around the pine tree, Cash snapped back to himself and took the wheel, crushing his foot down on top of Sam’s. They swerved back onto the road as the monster struck the tree, splitting it with a loud crack. They tore away, pursued by the sound of a falling tree, the beast’s roar and then the beat of its heavy paws on the pavement.

Laurie grabbed Wyatt and ran to the kitchen. Pots and pans clanged to the floor as they stumbled through the darkness, stopping at the freezer door. She wanted to tell the others to follow, but it was too dark to see and—oh my god—they were already screaming. But it wasn’t just the high-pitched wails that had Laurie terrified, it was the sound of tearing flesh that accompanied the voices.

She paused at the door for a moment, reaching out in the darkness for where she knew the cooking aprons hung. They weren’t much and they smelled to high Heaven of grease, but they would have to do. It was about to get cold.

She fumbled with the freezer door handle, trying to get it open. The sounds of carnage from the dining area made it difficult for her to focus. She heard a familiar clank as the door’s latch opened. Frigid air washed over them.

She pushed Wyatt inside, just as she heard something shriek not far behind her. It thrashed about, stumbling over chairs and tables as it struggled to get at them. She rushed inside the freezer and pulled hard on its heavy door.

She felt relief as the door swung shut with a solid thunk. The thing outside the door screeched and pounded, but it never tried the door handle. Although the darkness took control of the people it encountered, it didn’t seem to learn from them. They were simply vessels for the dark.

“I think we’re safe,” Laurie said.

“For now,” Wyatt replied.

“Yeah, kid. For now.”

But probably not for long, she thought.

Sam’s heart sank as they skidded into the diner and he saw the place was dark with shadow-walkers thrashing about inside. Cash drove in a loop around the diner. “We’re going in.”

Sam nodded and strapped himself in.

“Wait, what?” Kyle asked. “That place is crawling!”

Sam shot Kyle a disapproving look that said, my son is in there.

“Right. Let’s do it.” Kyle muttered.

Cash drove around to the front and stopped on the street, facing the diner. He put the van in park and stared straight ahead. Sam couldn’t read Cash’s mind, but he was pretty sure you didn’t need to be a psychic to know what was going on in there. Laurie was in there with Wyatt, and if they were still alive—and he prayed to God they were—they needed help.

Sam saw the flaming beast charge down the ridge toward them, leaving a burning trail of branches and leaves in its wake. Cash throttled the engine twice.

Sam looked to Kyle. “Hang on.”

Kyle braced himself against the passenger seat. “Go!”

The pounding on the freezer door stopped. Laurie let go of the handle, which she’d been clutching tightly, just in case, and ran back to Wyatt. She wrapped her arms around his shivering body. She quickly covered him with the aprons and rubbed his arms and legs. “How’re you doing?”

Wyatt shivered under the aprons. “It’s cold.”

Laurie pulled him closer. “Snuggle with me for heat.”

“These stink.”

Laurie wrinkled her nose in agreement at the aprons and smiled, despite her looming death and the freezing temperature. She had once worked for a call center where the motto was: Always smile, because even though a customer won’t see it, they will feel it. She hoped it was true in this case.

“Do you think my Dad is okay?”

She rubbed Wyatt’s arms some more and said, “I’m sure he’s doing everything he can to get back to you. Cash, too. I imagine they’re raising hell.” She cringed at her choice of words, but she hoped she was right.

Cash fastened his seatbelt, shifted the van into drive and pushed the gas to the floor. The van’s tires spun on the pavement, churning out rank, black smoke, but then they caught. The van shot forward, leaving a cloud of burnt rubber in its wake.

Cash held the van steady and straight. He lost the passenger side mirror to a canopy post as they gunned between the two sets of fueling stations. He steered toward the broken window. “Here we go!”

The van rammed through the front of the diner with a loud crash. The two halo lights on the left sheared off in a spray of sparks and smoke as they struck the edge of the window frame. The vehicle came to a spinning halt as Cash jerked the wheel left and slammed the brakes. The three remaining halo lights sputtered and then blinked out as the van stalled.

Sam grabbed the makeshift triple flashlight. He ripped off the duct tape and broke the lanterns apart, tossing the two remaining lights to Kyle.

“Why do I get two?” Kyle said, looking worried.

“We need a distraction.”

Kyle shook his head. “Shit.

“See if you can get them to follow you outside.”

“Right. Outside. Where the giant, burning ash-monster is. Perfect.” Kyle was incredulous, but he put his hand on the sliding door handle.

Cash reached out a hand to stop him.

“Get your ass up to the roof. There’s a ladder ’round back that’ll take you up. You can wait for us there.”

“If I don’t die,” Kyle said, “I’m asking your sister out.”

Cash grinned and slid the van door open. Kyle leapt out, shining the two lights around the ruined diner. The twin beams were met with angry shrieks, followed by an, “Oh fuck,” from Kyle and the sound of running feet. The darkness came alive and surged after him, heading out through the hole made by the van’s entrance.

46

Kyle rounded the diner, hauling ass. He didn’t look back, but he could hear the cacophony of bodies now chasing him, slowly gaining. He was a runner, but focused more on endurance than speed. While he wouldn’t get winded anytime soon, he also wouldn’t be outrunning any of the specters behind him, and he doubted they worried about fatigue.

He considered Cash’s suggestion of heading to the roof, but dismissed it when he spotted his motorcycle in the parking lot. He’d parked it there the previous day, before all the madness had started, and until now, he’d forgotten about it. The ride was noisy and quick, both of which he needed if he was going to keep the shadow-walkers distracted without also being killed. If that fireball on legs is out there, the bike is my best bet at outrunning it, he thought.

He dug into his right pocket, pulling out his keys. With the keys in his right hand and both flashlights in his left, he spun around, saddled the bike and shouted in surprise. Five of the charred things were nearly on top of him. He lifted the lights and the things flinched back , screaming. But they weren’t backing down. Instead, they were moving apart. He couldn’t stop all of them if they approached from multiple angles.

He inserted the key in the ignition, and the Ducati’s headlight sprang to life. The brighter light, with its wider spread, set the creatures into a panic, tearing at their flaking dry flesh and staggering back.

Kyle revved the engine several times, its high whine getting the attention of even more of the creatures. The last of them had hurried out of the diner, while still more emerged from the surrounding woods. He dropped the flashlights, shifted the bike into gear and roared through the parking lot, struggling to keep the bike steady in the sloppy ash on the ground.

With the light turned away from them, the horde of shadow-walkers recovered quickly and gave chase. He moved just fast enough to stay out of reach, and he could maintain the cat-and-mouse game indefinitely, as long as the giant ash-creature didn’t join the chase. He searched for it, but the massive beast was nowhere in sight, which was almost worse than being chased by it. If the fire had gone out, it could be just off the side of the lightless road, and he’d never know.

Sam kept low and watched through the front window as the shadow-walkers left the diner, pursuing Kyle outside. Satisfied they were alone in the diner, he slid the van door open and slipped out. He flinched when his feet crunched over shattered dishes, but no attack came.

“Your show, Cash,” Sam said. “Lead the way.”

Cash turned on his flashlight and swept it back and forth, illuminating a macabre scene of carnage. “Oh my God.”

The bodies were torn apart. Ravaged. There was no chance this lot would be coming back to life as shadow-walkers, but Sam needed to know whether Laurie and Wyatt were among the dead. Without a word, they tip-toed through the gore, searching for familiar clothing or faces.

Sam felt close to losing his mind, and he knew, without a doubt, he’d simply snap if he came across Wyatt’s body. But they reached the far side without seeing any sign of the two.

Cash snapped his fingers to get Sam’s attention. He motioned to the kitchen with his head. They entered the back room slowly. The flashlight’s beam reflected back at them off the stainless-steel appliances. Sam squinted against the light, but he was also glad for it. The brighter, the better.

Unlike the dining room, the kitchen was devoid of bodies and blood. So where are they?

A thunk made them both stop. Cash aimed his light at the side of the kitchen, where the entrance to the storage room stood open.

“Stockroom’s back there,” Cash said. “So is the freezer.”

Sam picked up a butcher’s knife and motioned to the flashlight in Cash’s hand. “Aim for the head.”

Cash nodded and continued across the kitchen, stopping at the entrance to the stockroom. He shined his light in, gasped and fell back.

Kyle steered the bike in long circles around the diner, a string of shadow-walkers lumbering after him. With every lap, they grew more agitated, their shrieking drowning out the roar of the motorcycle’s engine.

As he swung around the back again and came up alongside the building, he saw the ash-monster and nearly fell off the bike. But it wasn’t after him. It was pushing its way into the diner through the hole carved out by the van.

47

A shadow-walker lunged out of the stockroom, shrieking, arms outstretched, its talon-like fingers reaching for Cash’s face. Despite the sudden attack, Cash kept the light focused on the monster’s head, even as he fell back. The darkness cloaking its face fled from the beam, bursting out in all directions.

“Now!” Cash yelled.

Sam lunged forward, holding the large knife like a slasher-film serial killer. He swung down hard, but the thing must have heard him coming, because it tilted its head to the side, just in time to avoid being impaled. As the monster continued falling toward Cash, now pulling Sam’s arms with it, he managed to turn the blade around. When they landed atop Cash, the force of the fall shoved the blade up through the thing’s chin and into where its brain should be...if the shadow-walkers still had brains.

When the thing fell still, Sam felt pretty sure the shadow-walkers still had brains, and they needed them to not have butcher knives embedded in them. Good news all around.

Working together, Cash and Sam rolled the thing away and got back to their feet.

Sam looked down, his breathing labored, as he watched as the smoldering black body slowly extinguish, revealing what remained of the human being beneath. Part of him was horrified by the charred remains, but he was also relieved. The body was so mangled he couldn’t recognize the victim. Whoever it was, would have died if freed from the darkness’s control anyway, even without the knife buried in its head.

“Over here,” Cash said. “Give me a hand with this.”

Cash shined his light on the freezer’s door handle. “It was trying to get inside.”

Sam quickly understood the implications.

Cash gave him an odd look. “Get something to use as a weapon, in case one of those things is inside.

Sam stepped back into the kitchen and yanked the butcher’s knife from the dead man’s head. It resisted for a moment, as bone and brain clung to the blade, but then it came free with a slurp.

Cash aimed the flashlight at the door, put one hand on the handle and looked to Sam. “Ready?”

Sam held the knife up and nodded.

Cash pulled hard, stepping back as the door swung open and cold air washed out over them. He shouted in surprise as something flew out of the freezer, just missing his head. Sam couldn’t be sure in the limited light, but it looked like a frozen ham.

“What the...?” Cash said, aiming the light at the projectile next to him. A spiral ham wrapped in plastic.

“Oh my God, Cash, is that you?” Laurie stumbled out of the freezer with Wyatt wrapped in her arms. They were both pale and shivering. Sam crouched and took Wyatt, embracing him tightly, while Cash hugged Laurie.

“I got you,” Sam said, not sure if he could ever let go of the boy again. “I got you.”

“D-Dad,” Wyatt stuttered.

“Ya?” Sam said.

“Can we go home now?”

Sam laughed and hugged him tighter. “Yeah. We can go home.”

“Dad,” Wyatt said again, his body growing rigid. “Is something burning?”

A massive ashen head burst through the kitchen entrance. It roared, sending a cloud of ash toward them. Too large to fit through the door, it snapped about with its massive jaws in a wild attempt to reach any of them.

Laurie screamed and backed into storage room wall.

Sam grabbed Wyatt and stood in front of him. He backed them up next to Laurie, his mind desperately searching for a solution. He thought of hiding in the freezer. No good. If the creature got in, it could easily trap them inside where they would either freeze to death or asphyxiate.

Cash picked up the flashlight and shined it on the creature, but only managed to piss it off. It pushed forward, cracking the door frame blocking its path to the kitchen.

“Is there another way out? That door frame’s not going to hold him for long,” Sam shouted over the creature’s wrathful roaring.

Cash shined the light to the back wall of the stockroom. A solid, painted white wall covered with shelves and cooking supplies glowed in the light. They were trapped.

Frustrated, Sam stepped back into the kitchen and saw a possible solution. A five gallon bucket, filled three quarters to the top with chunky grease sat on the floor next to the grill. Above it, on a shelf, was a bottle of cheap bourbon. He took a dish rag hanging from the oven, popped off the bourbon’s cap and stuffed the rag halfway inside. Placing the bottle to the side, he picked up the bucket. As lethal as a Molotov cocktail could be to a human, he didn’t think it would be enough for this monstrosity. But a bucket of grease? Now that would burn hot.

Holding the heavy bucket of salty smelling slime, he ran across the kitchen, lifted the bucket and hoisted it at the creature. The bucket sailed through the air, spewing an arc of grease and landing square on the creature’s face, coating it in heavy oils that matted the ashen body down, revealing the cracked, black skin and sinister facial features hidden beneath.

Sam’s momentum carried him forward and he spilled to the floor, sliding toward the creature. With a snort, the thing reeled back, but just for a moment. When it saw Sam within striking distance, it forgot all about its slimy covering. With a quick snap of its forelimb, the creature struck out with the speed of a praying mantis, impaling Sam’s leg with a long black claw and pinning him to the floor.

Before Sam could fully understand his situation, the beast reeled back again, this time from a bright orange light. Cash stood above him, lit Molotov in hand, shaking it at the monster.

Sam dragged himself away from the monster while Wyatt yelled for him. He got to his feet, putting on a brave front, but he could already feel the dark curse spreading up his leg. It wouldn’t be long before he shared Dana’s fate...right in front of his son. But he’d worry about that once Wyatt was safe.

He took the Molotov from Cash and motioned to the window between the kitchen and dining room where the cooks placed ready meals.

“Go!” Sam shouted.

48

“Go! Through the food window!”

Cash moved quickly, helping Laurie through first, who received Wyatt next.

“Sam,” Cash urged.

“Right behind you,” Sam said. He inched closer to the monster, shaking the Molotov, keeping it distracted by the painful light. As Cash dove into the dining room, Sam stepped back and tossed the flaming cocktail as hard as he could. The bottle struck the thing’s snout and burst, flames exploding out in all directions as the bourbon, and then cooking grease caught on fire.

The creature wailed and thrashed back, slamming its head into the ceiling. While the beast writhed in anger and pain, Sam squeezed himself up through the food counter and chased after the others, who were running past the crashed van. He could no longer feel his wounded leg, which was a reprieve since the wound should have hurt like hell. The numbness was spreading, moving up through his torso. In his mind’s eye, he saw his blood running black, sliding through his body, turning it against him. Against his son.

Not yet, he thought. Not fucking yet.

Only then did he realize they had no way to escape back to town. When Laurie ran for the parking lot, he shouted. “Where are you going?”

“My car!” she shouted back.

Sam felt a flicker of hope, but it was quickly squelched when he heard the ashen predator careen out of the diner behind him. He glanced back. The ash-beast was nearly on top of him already. Two more leaps and it would—

Bright light struck the creature, stumbling it up before it reached him. Sam looked forward and found Kyle on his motorcycle, high beam aimed at the monster. But while he kept the giant at bay, the horde closed in from behind him.

“Hurry up!” Sam shouted as Laurie fumbled with her keys. When she dropped the keys, Cash put his fist through the window, unlocked the door from the inside and pulled it open. The first thing he did was sit inside and flick on the lights.

Nothing happened.

“I told you to replace this battery!” Cash shouted.

“Dad!” Wyatt yelled. “They’re coming!”

Sam turned to find the horde closing in. He pushed Wyatt behind him, ready to slug his way free. But he had no illusions about surviving. The shadow-walkers numbered at least fifty, and Sam noticed with a twist in his stomach that many of them were never human beings. They had four limbs, but the forelimbs were long and solid, deadly looking. The back legs were short, but powerful. Some were about the size of man, but a few were even bigger, and he had no desire to find out exactly how big these things grew.

The ash-monster roared and pushed into the light, moving in for the kill, despite the flakes of ash being torn from its body by the bike’s headlight.

Sam looked to Cash, who shook his head. They were all out of ideas. “Thanks,” Sam said. “For everything.”

“Likewise,” Cash said.

Sam knelt in front of Wyatt and wrapped the boy in his arms, holding the boy’s head down so he wouldn’t see the end coming. Sam squeezed him tightly, part out of despair, part of pain as the darkness spread through his limbs and clutched its cold tendrils around his heart. He looked to Kyle. “You might as well make a run for it. You might make it back to town.”

Kyle rolled the motorcycle backwards, keeping the light on the oncoming monster. “I’m not going any—”

Sam wondered why Kyle had stopped speaking, but then noticed he was looking to the side, rather than at the giant monster about to kill him. Sam turned and saw a warbling distortion in the air.

What the...?

“Is that the church bell?” Laurie asked.

Sam listened for the bell and heard it immediately.

“It’s happening again!” Cash shouted, but the hope in his voice confused Sam. “In the car! Everyone, inside now!” He flung open the back door, shoved Laurie inside and dove in next to her, slamming the door closed. Sam didn’t question the man’s judgment. He simply threw Wyatt inside the car too. But he didn’t follow his son. He couldn’t. When he changed, he would kill them just as surely as the creature would.

Holding back sobs, he took Wyatt’s arm. “Tell your mother I love her. Tell your sister the same. Understand?”

“But—” Wyatt reached out for him, lips trembling.

“And I love you,” Sam said, opening his shirt, revealing the black tendrils, so the boy could at least understand the reason for his sacrifice. When Wyatt withdrew his hand, he knew the boy understood.

“Love you, too,” Wyatt said. Sam closed the door.

Despite the madness of everything that was happening, Kyle took the time to put down the bike’s kickstand and balance it before heading for the car. He gave Sam a confused look, but then noticed his blackening chest, gave a nod of gratitude, jumped inside and closed the back door.

The beast stalked forward, pushing through the motorcycle’s high beam, still headed for the car, ignoring Sam, perhaps understanding that he’d already been claimed by the darkness.

“Hey!” Sam shouted at the creature, waving his hands. “Hey!

The monster ignored him, just a few feet away from the car. Sam jumped on the vehicle’s hood. He stood still, fists clenched, staring down the monster, daring it to test him. But it just waited, and he knew why, the darkness was moving up his neck now, spreading over his face. In just seconds, he would no longer be Sam Lake.

The wavy effect in the air became frenetic, distorting their view of the world so much so that even the ash-monster noticed. It turned back and forth, agitated, perhaps looking for a new target. But there was nothing.

And then, there was everything.

In a blink, the darkness of night became the brightness of day. Sunlight flooded the area, illuminating everything beneath a clear blue sky.

Sam saw it all through human eyes, for just a moment, and then through the eyes of the darkness. The light of a normal sun shone with such brilliant purity that it burned through him, scorching the darkness, destroying it, along with his body.

The monster wailed, its high-pitched voice loud enough to send hands to ears. The shadow-walkers joined in, shrieking in anguish. The giant thrashed about, its body shrinking away as it was scoured by the light. During its writhing, the monster caught sight of Sam, arms outstretched, welcoming the purifying light, despite the pain it brought. Their eyes met, and the monster, perhaps knowing it was doomed and longing for revenge, lunged at him.

The beast struck him hard, wrapping its large arms around his body. They fell back toward the car together and struck the windshield, both of them harmlessly bursting into a cloud of ash that swirled away into the blue sky.

Kyle sat up slowly. He’d ducked down, covering the boy with his body and his head with his hands. But the darkness, and its minions were gone. The sun shone brightly. Since arriving in town the night before, he had been wishing that he’d never decided to stop at the diner, that he’d just passed through as planned. But now, he forgot about all that and just started laughing, happy to be alive. Cash and Laurie joined in, their laughter fueled by relief. Only Wyatt remained silent, staring up at the sky, where swirling motes of ash were whisked away. Despite their relief, it was a full minute before anyone got out of the car. When they did, they were greeted by a parking lot full of singed corpses, human and not. Sam, however, was nowhere to be see. He and the ash-monster had simply ceased to be.

Wyatt clung to Cash’s leg, not looking.

Cash held the boy with one hand and noticed Jimmy’s truck, still parked nearby.

Laurie stepped up next to her brother. “We better get him home to his mother.”

Wyatt sniffed back a tear. Kyle was impressed he’d held it together this long. He was about to comment on the boy’s strength and resolve, say something—anything—to ease the boy’s pain. But something in the sky caught his attention. A bird? Looked too big to be a bird, and it was shaped roughly like a kite...or a square balloon. With tentacles.

Cash noted his attention and looked up. He frowned and said, “We can head back to town, but we’re nowhere close to home.”

49

Griffin walked in the center of Main Street waving his hands when Jimmy’s Phantom roared into view. The truck pulled over and parked in front of the station, under the bright sun. The latest shift brought the sun back, just minutes after he and Frost had returned to town.

A strong wind whipping past him sped his approach toward the truck and whisked away the gathered ash, carrying it far away from town. He stopped against the wind when Cash—not Jimmy—exited from the driver’s seat. When Laurie climbed out next, Griffin knew something had gone horribly wrong. He felt a measure of relief when Wyatt exited, but when he saw the child’s eyes, he knew Sam wouldn’t be getting out next. And when Cash and Laurie closed the doors, he knew they’d lost Jimmy and Dana, too. Three good men. How many more people were going to die?

The roar of a motorcycle turned him back to the street. A man he’d never seen before pulled up in front of the truck, parked the bike and took off his shiny black helmet. He gave Griffin a nod and extended his hand. “Kyle Gardner.”

Griffin shook it. “Griffin Butler.” He glanced past the man, watching as Frost exited the station. He spoke to Cash, Laurie and Wyatt. “Can you tell me what happened?”

To Griffin’s surprise, the man laughed. “Can anyone tell you what the hell is happening?”

“Good point,” Griffin said. “But I was asking about his father.” He nodded at Wyatt. “And the men with him.”

“Sorry,” Kyle said, his grin fading. “Friends of yours?”

“It’s a small town,” Griffin said.

“They...they didn’t make it.” Kyle looked at Wyatt. “His father was a brave guy.”

“Wyatt!” Tess ran across the park, arms outstretched. “Wyatt!”

The boy broke free from Cash and ran to his mother. They met at the corner of the park. As soon as Wyatt reached his mother’s embrace, all of the anguish he’d been holding in, burst out as a long, sad wail. Tess fell to her knees, holding the boy. She would know what it meant. Her husband was dead.

Griffin clenched his jaw, feeling a growing anger. He turned back to Kyle, all business. “Can you do anything useful?”

“I’m a doctor,” Kyle said.

“Great. You’re hired.” Griffin stepped to the side and pointed down the street, toward the Soucey’s parking lot, where the white tents were set up. “You can start over there. Lots of panic attacks. Some injuries. But if I were you, I’d set up some kind of triage at the pharmacy. I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”

Kyle put his helmet back on, but before he could start the bike, Griffin took his arm. “And do me a favor. Make sure any Oxycontin they have is locked up tight.”

Kyle nodded after a moment, turned on the bike and drove down Main Street, turning into the market’s parking lot, just beyond the park. Griffin watched him go, but his eyes turned from the newcomer to the view beyond Main Street, beyond the border of town, where an endless blue ocean stretched out to the horizon.

“Welcome to Refuge.”

REFUGE

Book 3: Lost in the Echo

By Jeremy Bishop and Robert Swartwood

He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

Job 16:14

50

Frey was dying.

He had gotten the worst of it when those creatures had attacked. Being stabbed in the gut was one thing—you could be sewed up as long at nothing vital was hit—but the main issue was Frey’s legs, or rather what was left of his legs. His left leg had been chopped cleanly off at the knee, his right leg sliced farther up, across the thigh. Both femoral arteries had been severed, but still the man clung to life, and fought to stay conscious.

Frey was laid out on a cot. His slender body, having lost a lot of blood, looked emaciated and wrinkled. Like a human raisin, but pale. Even his bright blue eyes seemed dimmer. Sanchez sat beside him, deciding whether or not to change the wounded man’s bandages. The right leg was starting to bleed through again.

“What are you doing?” came the voice of Boyle, from behind.

Sanchez swiveled his head toward the door. Boyle leaned against the frame. He was a big man, and ugly as sin, with deep set eyes and a round, close shaven head. He’d seen a lot of action in his time, and he could be cold, but even he couldn’t hide the fear creeping into his voice, or the pain his injured leg was causing him.

“I think we should give him another shot,” Sanchez said.

“We’re not giving him shit. The supply’s already low to begin with.”

“He needs it.”

Boyle ignored him. “Have you seen Price?”

“Not lately.”

Boyle grunted with annoyance. “I tried radioing him but there was no answer.”

“Where is he?”

“Patrolling the perimeter. At least, that’s where he should be. Can you check it out?”

“Why can’t you do it?”

Boyle’s face darkened. “It’s not a request. It’s a goddamn order.”

Sanchez clenched his jaw, told himself to stay quiet. He didn’t need to point out that rank no longer existed. Not here, wherever they were. Sanchez might initially have been the low man on the totem pole, but things had changed. Before, there had been ten of them. Now there were only five, and in the next hour or so, it would be four.

Why Sanchez even bothered to take care of Frey, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because he had known Frey before this particular mission. They had been friends, or at least as close to friends as soldiers-for-hire could be. They had served on two tours together, before leaving the U.S. military for jobs at Sidewinder, a ‘security’ company that paid far better. Ironic that their first security job was posing as National Guardsmen. They had bought each other beers. Frey had even treated Sanchez to a lap dance at a strip club in Texas. Wasn’t that friendship?

“Now,” Boyle said.

Sanchez rose to his feet. He glanced down at Frey once more—the skinny man squirmed slightly beneath the olive green blanket—then headed for the door. Boyle didn’t move out of his way. The man was trying to prove his dominance, and it made Sanchez hate him even more.

“Take a rifle.”

Sanchez only nodded. He thought about saluting, just to be a prick, but he was too tired to even attempt it.

Boyle held up an extra radio. “Take this, too. If you find…well, anything, let me know immediately.”

Sanchez took the radio. “Where’s Osterman?”

“He’s trying to get us in contact with the boss.”

“Any luck so far?”

“None. Now get going.”

Sanchez slid past Boyle and headed down the corridor. He had already seen the sky earlier, after the most recent change, so he wasn’t surprised at all when he stepped outside and was bombarded by the bright sun and a deep blue sky. The ash was gone, thank God, dried out by the sun and swept away by high winds that continued to bend the trees surrounding the depot, filling the air with the ceaseless creak of swaying pines. But it wasn’t all bad. The air smelled clean. Fresh. Like when you’re standing near a waterfall. It was a welcome relief to the sulfur-scented ashen world they’d recently left behind.

He headed toward the corner of the perimeter, past two of the large metal hangers, past the oversized satellite dish. He’d never questioned what, exactly, they were guarding in the hangers, and why anyone would need a monstrous satellite dish, but now, he couldn’t help but wonder. Was Sidewinder working for whoever was responsible for serving up an order of super-sized shit burgers? Knowing the question would drive him mad, he forced it from his mind and turned the corner. Price was there, right where Sanchez knew he would be.

The razor-wired chain-link fence had been torn completely apart just hours ago, by a lumbering creature that seemed to be composed primarily of ash.

Price had slipped through the ragged fence and now stood out on the grass. A few yards ahead of him the clean-cut ground dropped four feet. Beyond the curving drop-off, an endless sea of fresh water stretched out to the horizon. The sun shining off the wind-chopped surface was almost blinding. Turning his eyes skyward, he saw what Price had deemed an Origami Cthulu drifting past. The tentacled creature floated in the air, held aloft by a box-shaped sack, probably filled with helium or some other lighter-than-air element produced by the creature’s alien biology. Its body was primarily green, but it shimmered in the sun with shades of blue and purple. Thus far, the things had been benign, drifting past occasionally without incident.

Sanchez stepped up beside Price. “Boyle is looking for you.”

Price ran his fingers through his messy, brown hair, scratching his head, but said nothing. He was the most relaxed of them, in personality and looks. He’d lost the high and tight haircut after leaving the military, but he was also highly skilled. One look in his dark brown, almost black eyes could freeze a man in place. But the eyes were usually offset by his casual demeanor and charming smile. Not today, though.

“Radio battery dead?” Sanchez asked.

Price patted the radio clipped to his belt. “Nah. Turned it off.”

“Why?”

A shrug. “Why not?”

They stood quietly for a moment, staring out over the ocean, while behind them the rest of Refuge lay silent.

Price said, “Do you think we’re floating?”

“What do you mean?”

“This place, this world, wherever the fuck we are, it seems to be all water. Or maybe we’re just in the middle of an ocean. Either way, the border of town cuts off, just like the past three times. Before, it was solid land, but now it’s water, so… What do you think is under us?” Price lifted his right hand, placed a half-smoked joint to his lips and took a long, hard drag.

“I have no idea.” Sanchez reached out for the joint, despite it not being offered. Price handed it over anyway.

“This water is so blue, man,” Price said. “It reminds me of this time I was stationed in Hawaii. We were on Oahu. So one weekend, me and a couple of the guys drove down to Waialua. There was this bay there, and the water was clear like this, and we met these girls. There was this one girl...Leialoha.” He smiled. “Pretty name, so I asked what it meant. ‘Beloved child,’ she said. Anyway, she was eighteen, nineteen, and so fucking beautiful. There was this little gap between her teeth, and she had this tiny mole on the side of her cheek, and she just… She was the most beautiful fucking thing I had ever seen. Do you believe in love at first sight?”

Sanchez said nothing. He just blew the smoke from his mouth and handed back the joint.

“I never did myself. I’d been stationed all around the world, bases in the most exotic regions, and I’d seen some beautiful women, had even slept with my fair share, but Leialoha was just…perfect. Like an amazing piece of art, when the more you look at it, the more you tell yourself it can’t be real.”

“What happened?”

Price took a short drag. “Nothing. We talked for a little, I got her number, but when I tried calling her the next day the number was no good. Maybe she gave me a fake number. Maybe her phone got disconnected. Maybe…shit, I don’t know. I went back there but couldn’t find her. I wanted to look all over the island. All over the world.”

Price shook his head, smiling. “Listen to me. Am I fucking pathetic or what?”

Sanchez took the joint, offered this time, and took a hit. He didn’t hold it long. He had news to deliver. “Frey is dying.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t died yet.”

“That’s cold.”

“What do you want me to say? It sucks for Frey, but the sooner he lets go, the sooner he’s done with this mess. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sign up for this.”

But Price had signed up for this. So had Sanchez. So had all of them. Handpicked from Sidewinder’s vast ranks, for a top secret mission. The best of the best. Paid more than any of them could ever imagine—once the mission was complete. But now…

Sanchez asked, “Do you think we’ll get back?”

“Fuck if I know. The way things are going, probably not. First there was the desert, then the jungle, then the darkness and that...that thing, and now… Who the hell knows what’s swimming beneath the surface.”

The ash creatures had done most of the damage. Not only had they torn through the fence like it was wet paper, they had been nearly invincible against conventional weapons. The first of the team to encounter the monsters had been bitten, and then he changed. Cloaked in blackness, he had turned on his former comrades. Then more of them turned. Boyle and Frey had been injured, but not changed, with Frey taking the most injuries. And then the creatures were gone, burned away by the sun.

“We should head back in,” Sanchez said.

“What’s the point?”

“Boyle told me to radio him, once I found you.”

“Fuck Boyle.”

Sanchez couldn’t argue that point. Still, he didn’t want to leave Frey alone for too long. Suddenly, he realized the reason he had stayed by Frey’s side these last couple hours; the idea of dying alone filled him with sorrow. He couldn’t imagine many worse fates, not counting being turned into one of those shadow fuckers. The epiphany felt strange. He was a trained soldier. Spent time all over the world. Had killed terrorists and rebels in the name of freedom. Sometimes for money. For the longest time, he had convinced himself he had no fear, but now here he was, afraid to die alone.

The church bell started ringing off in the distance.

Price mumbled, “Here we go again.”

Sanchez turned back to the fence. “We should go back inside.”

“No,” Price said, keeping his gaze on the now blurry water, “I want to see this.” He pinched out the joint, tucked it into his pocket and bent down. He picked up a long, dead branch and stood. Then he stepped a few feet forward and held the limb out past the new town line.

Everything in Sanchez told him to head back inside. To safety. To check on Frey. And to ignore Boyle, when the man asked about Price. Let the asshole keep wondering.

But as the distant church bell rang faster and faster, he found himself standing still, waiting. Just like Price, he wanted to see what would happen. He wanted to see where they were going to end up next.

The air wavered around them.

Price lifted the branch out further, holding it with both hands.

The border of land and water began to shimmer.

Sanchez slipped his M16 off his shoulder and held it with both hands, the muzzle pointed toward the ground.

The distant church bell grew frantic, and just like before, the landscape before them disappeared. One moment it was an endless ocean, the next it was a…

“Holy fuck,” Price said.

The landscape was green and lush, stretching as far as the ocean had. Trees dotted the landscape. But they weren’t just any trees. They were massive. Taller than any tree Sanchez had ever seen, and he had hiked the Redwood Forest when he was a kid. Each tree stood as tall as a skyscraper. Both men craned their necks back to take in the closest tree, just beyond the border.

Price pulled back the branch and looked at the end. It had been cut clean through, the tip left behind to float in that water world. He dropped the branch and took a step forward.

“What are you doing?” Sanchez asked.

“I have to check this thing out.”

Sanchez knew better than to follow the man. Their orders had always been to stay inside the depot, until instructed otherwise. But they were already outside of the fence, weren’t they?

The grass just across the border was much taller, coming to their knees. Even the few plants were taller. What looked like seeding dandelions stood as tall as their waists.

Price stepped up to the border, paused briefly, then took another step into the taller grass. It was certainly a risk. Price knew it just as well as Sanchez did. If there was another jump, Price might be left behind.

Price stopped in front of one of the giant, fluffy dandelions. He started to extend the muzzle of the M16 toward it.

Sanchez said, “Don’t.”

Price glanced back at him. “Why not?”

“We shouldn’t disturb anything.”

“It’s a big weed.”

With his rifle, Price brushed off a clump of the seeds . They fell free, catching the breeze and drifting away.

Price tilted his face up at the tree that stood just three hundred yards away. Its trunk was as wide as a basketball court.

“The ten-year-old in me wants to climb that thing,” Price said through a pot-smoking grin.

Sanchez barely heard him. He was watching the seeds. They were drifting on the breeze, headed away from them, but then, as though being steered, they shifted in midair and headed back in Price’s direction.

“Price,” Sanchez whispered. “Are you watching this?”

Price turned, started to ask something, then saw the seeds swooping down toward them—against the wind.

“What the fuck—”

First, one seed landed on Price, followed by another, then another. Within seconds, he was half-covered in the dandelion seeds.

Price looked down at himself, then looked up at Sanchez. He had a bemused expression on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, when suddenly, his expression froze.

“What’s wrong?” Sanchez asked.

But Price didn’t answer. As more and more of the drifting seeds landed on him, he couldn’t answer. There were too many seeds now. Far more than the one dandelion would account for. Sanchez took a step back. Seeds from nearby, oversized dandelions were springing free and floating toward Price.

“Price?”

The man looked up at Sanchez. He opened his mouth but immediately one seed after another flew in between his teeth. He let out a muffled groan, what might have been a shout.

Spots of blood began popping up all over his body. The seeds tore into his clothes. Into his skin.

The seeds, Sanchez realized, are eating him.

The M16 was still in Sanchez’s hands, and for an instant he thought about using it to put Price out of his misery. But he noticed some of the seeds had altered course. Now they were headed toward him.

He turned away and started running. Shouldering the M16, unclipping the radio from his belt, he toggled the switch and shouted Boyle’s name. For a second or two there was silence, and then Boyle’s voice came over the line, asking what was wrong.

But Sanchez never got a chance to tell him. Before he could, something grabbed his leg. Suddenly he was no longer on his feet. He was weightless, watching the radio fall to the ground. Then he hit the ground, too, and the thing gripping his leg squeezed and started pulling him back. Sanchez tore at the ground, his nails clawing in the dirt, his fingers tearing out the grass, but it did no good. Whatever had his leg, kept pulling him back, and the seeds were landing on him now, burrowing into his body, eating him alive, just as the others had devoured Price.

His last thought was of Frey, the man’s legs gone, his bandages bleeding through, dying quietly and alone on a cot.

Lucky bastard.

51

“Anything?”

Cash didn’t answer. He stretched up as tall as he could on the stepladder, right up on his tiptoes, looking over the top of the bell.

“Well?” Griffin asked, crossing his arms as he stifled a yawn. He was more than exhausted, and he knew that this slight reprieve wasn’t going to last.

They were up at the top of the church, right beside the bell. Cash was inspecting it on Griffin’s behest, despite the fact that Winslow and Dodge had already given the steeple a once over.

Cash started down the stepladder, shaking his head. “Winslow was right. It’s just an ordinary bell.”

“How can that be possible?”

Cash shrugged. “You got me. But nothing’s rigged up to the bell. No wires, no cables, nothing. And you’d need some pretty sizable electronics to get this bell moving the way it has been. I checked the walls with a noncontact voltage probe. There isn’t a single electrical wire in the steeple.”

Griffin turned away and stared out over Refuge, at the endless ocean that surrounded them. Under different circumstances he might find the view breathtaking. Hell, it was breathtaking, especially since this world’s bright sun and high winds had all but scoured the ash away, but he didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty and awesomeness of the sight. He’d already snapped a picture of the view with his phone, but that was it. There was no telling when they would shift again. So far this world didn’t seem dangerous, so they needed to learn as much as they could before things changed again.

A hand fell on his shoulder, Cash giving him a slight squeeze.

“Are we good here? I want to get back to Laurie.”

Griffin nodded. “I appreciate it.”

“Wish I could give you some answers, but right now I’m at a loss.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. Every time before we shift, this bell starts ringing like crazy.”

Cash gave him a curious look. “Shift?”

“Winslow’s term.”

“Well,” Cash shrugged again, “like I told you, I wish I could give you some answers, but there’s nothing in this place that suggests it’s part of what’s been happening—if you ignore the whole bell ringing thing, of course. Who knows, maybe Dodge is right? Maybe it’s supernatural?”

“Ghosts then?” Griffin said with a shake of his head.

“I think Dodge would say demons. But I really wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that no one here can explain what’s happening. So maybe we shouldn’t rule out the unexplainable.”

Griffin released a breath. He nodded again. He appreciated everything the electrician had done so far, especially after what he had just gone through at the radio station and the diner.

They started toward the stairs, Cash carrying the stepladder, when something changed in the air. A slight trembling started beneath their feet, traveling into their bodies. The air around them became thinner. The bell that Cash claimed wasn’t connected to anything other than the usual rope started swaying.

With a flash of anger, Griffin gripped the bottom of the bell and attempted to hold it still. But the massive weight nearly pulled him out over the hole. He let go, but his right hand remained stuck to the bell’s surface. Not my hand, he realized. My wrist! He was wearing a watch. The metal band was stuck against the bell’s surface—the bell’s magnetized surface. He wondered briefly how a brass bell could be magnetized, but quickly decided a small town church probably hadn’t sprung for a pure brass bell. The metal likely contained iron as well.

As his body leaned out over the hole beneath the bell, Cash caught his belt and kept him from falling. As the bell swayed back, Griffin yanked his hand free of the watch. Cash tugged him back to his feet, and the pair stared at the watch, fastened securely to the bell, which was picking up speed. Griffin admitted defeat, decided his watch was a lost cause, and shouted, “Go!”

Cash hurried down the stairs without even a glance back. Griffin paused for a moment. He wished he could stay up here and see if anything happened to the bell during the shift, something that might clue them in to what was happening, but he also didn’t want to lose his hearing. Even if he clamped his hands over his ears, the loudness and pitch would be enough to burst his eardrums.

He started down the stairs, holding the railing as he went, so he didn’t fall and break his neck. And wouldn’t that just be great? After everything he had managed to survive so far—after taking the responsibility Rule had given him—to have it all end with a clumsy tumble? No, he couldn’t let that happen, not while he was tasked with finding out what was going on and not while he had Avalon to care for. He went as quickly as he could, watching his footing, while behind him the bell began to toll for them all.

Cash had dropped the stepladder at the bottom of the stairs. Griffin almost tripped over it coming down, but hopped over it, ducked through the door and sprinted toward the front of the church. Cash stood by the door, his hands to his ears as the bell’s chime became incessant. He pushed the front door open with his back and waited. Griffin didn’t realize he had also clamped his hands over his own ears until he nodded his thanks as he passed Cash and hurried down the steps outside.

Helena Frost, Pastor Ken Dodge and Julie Barnes—who was supposed to be watching over his daughter, Radar and Lisa—were standing outside of the church, all of them covering their ears. Already the world around them was starting to change. The endless ocean, a sliver of blue at the edge of town, now that he was standing at street level, began wavering and flickering.

Griffin turned and stared up at the church, convinced he would see something happening to it during the shift. But the bell kept ringing, becoming more and more hysterical, and by the time it began to slow, nothing about the church had changed.

A finger tapped him on the shoulder.

He looked down and found Frost standing beside him. He realized he still had his hands over his ears and lowered them.

“It’s like we’ve shrunk,” she said.

“What?”

But when he looked away from the church, he understood the comment. He looked past her, out beyond Main Street, and saw what the world beyond Refuge had become. The first thing he noticed were the gigantic trees. How could he not? They were spaced out maybe a mile or so apart from each other, but each stood at least a half mile tall.

Griffin pulled his phone from his pocket, held it up toward the view, and snapped a picture.

“Did you find anything up top?” Frost asked.

Griffin shook his head, pocketing the phone. “Well, it’s not ghosts moving the bell. It’s some kind of magnetic force.” He held up his bare wrist. “Stole my watch. Other than that, we’re still clueless. You?”

Frost had searched the first floor of the church, on the off chance Dodge and Winslow had missed something.

“Aside from expired grape juice on its way to becoming wine, not a thing.”

Cash cleared his throat. “Helena—sorry—Sheriff, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to check on Sam’s kid. See how he’s holding up.”

“Of course,” Frost said. “Thanks for the help.”

Cash nodded, looking like he wanted to say something, his eyes momentarily flashing toward Julie. Griffin understood the hostility Cash held toward the woman, and he couldn’t say he blamed him, but he was thankful that Cash was trying to be as civil as he could, under the circumstances. The woman tried to fit in at first, wearing flannel and shit-kicker boots, but she might as well have been wearing a zebra Halloween costume on the savannah. Griffin knew a lot of people like her, from the occasional art show in Boston or New York, and had given her a chance. But her presence here, rather than with Avalon, spoke volumes about her reliability.

“Where are the kids?” he asked her.

“Oh,” she said, like she’d forgotten about them. “They seemed fine.”

“They’re young,” he said, and he thought: and Ava’s coming down from an Oxycontin high.

The electrician started to head away when the radio on Frost’s belt chirped with static.

“Sheriff?”

It was Winslow Herman. He and Kyle Gardner—the old scientist and the young doctor—had inspected the dead flying creature from the first shift, before heading to the diner to inspect the bodies up there, some of which were neighbors, some of which weren’t even human. Gardner had been apprehensive about returning to the diner, but as the only medical professional in town, he had understood that his opinion was important. He hadn’t been a doctor very long, but he seemed competent and brave, despite an appropriate level of fear. The men hoped that comparing post mortems of the various dead would shed some light on where they were visiting and what they were encountering.

Frost pulled the radio from her belt. “Go ahead.”

“You might want to get down here. There’s something you need to see.”

52

Winslow and Kyle waited for them outside the diner.

Frost pulled into the parking lot, Griffin beside her in the passenger seat, Dodge in the back. Julie had been left behind, much to her chagrin, when Griffin asked her to go back and check on Avalon. Frost parked the cruiser beside Winslow’s SUV, cut the engine, and stepped out.

“Did you find—?”

Winslow shook his head. She couldn’t read his expression, or Kyle’s.

“Well?” she said, her patience waning.

Kyle hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s around the back.”

Winslow and Kyle led them toward the back of the diner. Immediately, Griffin murmured, “Holy shit,” and Dodge began whispering a prayer beneath his breath.

“What…what is that?” Frost asked.

The border of Refuge and this new world was no more than two hundred yards away. The grass stood tall, but it was the thing lying in the tall grass that captured everyone’s attention.

Without a word, they all started toward the object. One of those gigantic trees rose up into the sky, a half mile away, just beyond the town’s border. Even with the distance, the thing towered above them. Frost wondered about the size of its leaves. Maybe as big as her. Maybe as big as the cruiser.

Winslow spoke as they neared the object. “When the church bell started up, Kyle and I hurried outside. We knew what it meant and wanted to see it happen. This was already here when we circled the diner.”

They stopped fifty yards away. The sickening sight kept them at bay, but the smell was worse, like rotting fish and ammonia.

“Is that what I think it is?” Griffin asked. He already had his phone out, snapping a picture. Winslow gave him a bemused smile. “That depends on what you think it is.”

“It looks like a tail.”

“That it does,” Winslow said.”

“A dinosaur tail?” Griffin asked.

Winslow cleared his throat. “I’m hardly an expert. Paleontology shares very little with astrophysics. Not even an ‘ology’. But the size is all wrong. This tail alone is longer than anything that’s ever lived on Earth, since the beginning of time.”

“So Godzilla’s tail?” Kyle said.

Winslow frowned. “Sounds about right. But I don’t think we have to worry about its owner. Whatever it was must have been standing within the town’s border when we arrived. It was destroyed upon our arrival.”

Frost blinked her eyes and tried to remain focused. After everything they had seen and experienced so far, this was quite possibly the most fascinating thing yet.

A tail...yes, she saw it now. Its length was maybe one hundred yards long. Big and thick, nearly the size of a tractor-trailer at its largest end, which was cut clean through and cauterized.

Just like Sheriff Rule, she thought, and shuddered.

Winslow continued. “Every time we arrive in one of these new worlds, we’re destroying a part of it.”

“Which might help explain why we have yet to receive a warm welcome,” Griffin said.

“Well, whatever this thing was,” Kyle said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “it’s dead now. Don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m thankful for small miracles.”

“We should head back to town,” Griffin said. “We don’t know what the rest of this creature looked like, but we know it was huge. If this thing is still here, it’s a safe bet there are probably more nearby. If even one of them were to simply stroll through town, never mind attack...” He shook his head.

“We need weapons,” Winslow said.

Griffin patted the sidearm on his hip. “I don’t think handguns are going to do much.”

“I’m not referring to the handguns and shotguns everyone in town pulled out of their gun cabinets. I mean heavy artillery. Anything that will give us a fighting chance against something like this.”

“And not just one of these things,” Kyle said, “but whatever else we might face. We have to consider the possibility that these shifts aren’t going to stop anytime soon. That church bell is going to ring again and we’ll be transported someplace else, and only God knows what will be waiting for us there.”

They were quiet for a moment then, absorbing that thought, while the tall grass surrounding the impossibly large appendage swayed in a steady breeze.

“The depot.”

The voice came from behind the group. At first, Frost wasn’t sure who had spoken, until she glanced back and saw Dodge, who she’d all but forgotten about.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Weapons,” he said, looking flustered. “Mr. Herman referred to heavy artillery. Well, the only place you might find something like that in Refuge, is at the National Guard depot.”

Griffin was shaking his head. “The depot hasn’t been active in over a year. I can’t imagine there would be much of anything there, let alone weapons.”

“Still,” Frost said. “It’s worth a look.”

“And if we find nothing?” Griffin asked.

Frost opened her mouth to reply, but it was Dodge who spoke. “Those of us in the Churching business call that, ‘a good time to find God and get on your knees.’”

53

“Have you seen my father?”

A slight shake of the head from one person or another. They were strangers to Avalon but people she probably should have remembered—townsfolk just like her. There were a few of them out on Main Street, either gawking at their new surroundings or milling about outside of Soucey’s Market, where a temporary refuge within Refuge had been set up.

Avalon pushed forward, determination keeping her going, while behind her, the two kids tried to keep up.

“Slow down,” the boy said, while the girl, trailing him, didn’t say anything.

Avalon didn’t know why, but she distrusted the girl’s silence. It just didn’t seem right. Then again, Avalon was a vocal person...and on the tail end of Oxycontin withdrawal, one of the side effects of which was paranoia.

“Have you seen my father?” she asked someone else, a woman this time, her face familiar, but still a name wouldn’t come.

The woman looked her up and down, squinting at her. “Who’s your father?”

“Griffin Butler.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Lony? How have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages. It’s Mrs. Talley!”

Avalon did her best not to say something stupid. She didn’t want to let her emotions run unchecked. Still, she hated that nickname.

Before she could respond, the sound of engines roaring up Main Street drew her attention. She turned and saw the Sheriff’s car, followed by an SUV and a man on a motorcycle. Her father was in the passenger seat of the squad car.

“Dad!” she called, rushing forward. Radar and Lisa were directly behind her or they would have been trampled in her mad dash.

As Griffin stepped out of the car, worry filled his face. “Is everything okay?”

“Ms. Barnes bailed on us, but we’re okay,” Radar said.

Griffin frowned and nodded. “I saw her.” He turned to Avalon. His raised eyebrows asked the question.

“My head started to clear,” she said. “And, it’s just… I wasn’t sure where you went.”

He didn’t say anything at first, his eyes suddenly guarded, and Avalon thought: He’s hiding something.

“Where did you go?” She watched Sheriff Frost and Pastor Dodge get out of the Sheriff’s car, while a stranger stood from his black motorcycle. Mr. Herman climbed out of the SUV. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” her father said, though she knew he was lying. “Why aren’t you all back at the house?”

The question was directed at Avalon, Radar and Lisa. She resented the fact that these two tweens were being treated as equals to her, but she didn’t say anything about it. Her memory of the previous night—before things went nuts—was shaky, but what little she did remember was embarrassing enough that she didn’t need to be publically reminded. “I…I wanted to see you.”

“Well, here I am.” He forced a smile, then his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her. “Are you feeling okay?”

No, she wasn’t feeling okay. She was going through withdrawal. She had been subtle about it before, but now with the responsibility of watching Radar and Lisa, she didn’t know how she could handle it. She could barely watch out for herself, let alone two kids, though she suspected the arrangement might actually be the other way around. But again, she wasn’t about to embarrass herself further by pressing the issue.

Avalon touched her tongue to her lips, swallowed. “I’m scared.”

Her father stepped forward, pulled her into an embrace. She could feel him trying to speak, his jaw opening and closing, but he never uttered a word. In the end, rather than offering information, he told her something she already knew. “I love you,” and he finished with something she had a hard time believing. “We’re going to be all right.”

He was talking about what was happening in town. And while the insanity surrounding Refuge frightened her, it wasn’t nearly as scary as what was happening to her mind. Withdrawal was a cruel monster that hid in the mind’s shadows, waiting for the right moment. One minute you might feel fine, the next you’d be in a fetal position on the floor.

“Listen,” her father said, his voice quiet, “I need to do something right now. Go back to the house with Radar and Lisa. Wait for me there.”

She stared up at him, steeling herself, wanting to tell him what he wanted to hear. He was already doing so much for the town, overexerting himself, that the last thing he needed right now was for her to fail him.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she whispered.

He frowned at her for a moment before understanding began to fill his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Is it the...?”

Her lips tight, she nodded.

He gently squeezed her arm. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”

“But not right now,” she said. “You’re going somewhere, aren’t you?”

“We’re heading down to the depot.”

“Why?”

Before her father could respond, someone close by exclaimed, “The depot? Why would you want to go there?”

Avalon turned to find the real estate agent—Julie something—walking up to them. Avalon didn’t know much about her, but she didn’t like the look in the woman’s eyes, every time she was around her father.

“Why didn’t you go back to the house?” Griffin asked the woman, which surprised Avalon. She looked at Radar in her confusion.

“She was supposed to be watching us,” he whispered.

“I...got sidetracked,” Julie said with a pouty frown. Then she looked at Avalon, her eyes widening just a fraction. “But I did go. They were already gone. I came here looking for them.”

Avalon had met some good liars in her time. This Julie lady wasn’t one of them. But her father seemed to buy the story. Probably distracted by her cleavage, she thought, eying the woman’s top two undone blouse buttons.

“We’re just checking out the place,” Griffin said, answering Julie’s original question. “For supplies.”

“I can’t imagine what you’ll find there.” Julie played with her hair with exaggerated casualness. “The place is completely empty.”

“You seem pretty sure,” Griffin said, eyeing her suspiciously for the first time.

“I know every piece of property in this town,” she said. “It’s what I’m paid for. Tried to get the land from Uncle Sam. He wasn’t selling. So now it’s just useless real estate.”

Griffin smiled. “I think we’ll check it out anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Julie said, matching Griffin’s smile. “You want an extra hand?”

“No, I think we have more than enough help as it is. Besides, if what you say is true, we won’t need any hands at all.”

Julie laughed, touching Griffin’s arm in a way that Avalon immediately disliked. “Well, if you ever need an extra hand for anything, just let me know.”

Was that supposed to be a euphemism? Avalon wanted to puke, but decided she’d done that enough already.

Griffin kept smiling, though it seemed strained now. “Will do.”

The real estate agent lingered for an extra moment, as if willing Griffin to say something else, and then she smiled at Avalon and the kids and turned away. Was she putting a little extra swagger into her step? God...I hope she breaks a heel.

“You’re not really going to the depot, are you?” Avalon asked.

“Wait here,” Griffin said, his eyes now on a cluster of people near Soucey’s entrance—Sheriff Frost, Pastor Dodge, Mr. Winslow, and the stranger, who she noted, was a handsome one. “I’ll be right back.”

He started away from her. Avalon wanted to tell him to stop, to come back, to not leave her again. She turned and looked at Radar and Lisa, and both of them stared silently back, everyone likely wondering exactly who was in charge, the elder or the not-fucked-up-in-the-head.

A shadow passed over the kids.

Avalon frowned. She didn’t remember seeing any clouds in the sky. It was the first thing she had looked for—clouds and the sun—to see whether any of them were different from home.

Radar had noticed the shadow, too. He tilted his head up. Immediately his eyes went wide. His mouth fell open.

Avalon looked up, too.

And screamed.

54

Griffin spun around, Avalon’s scream igniting every fatherly cell in his body.

She appeared to be unharmed, but was just standing there with Radar and Lisa—staring up at the sky.

It was then the shadow fell over him, only for an instant, and he noticed that others were looking up, too, their attentions directed to the sky from Avalon’s scream.

Griffin looked up.

The thing was at least a mile up in the air. It was deep red in color and the size of a 747, gliding on two massive wings, which looked like a bat’s—thin, almost translucent membranes stretched over a boney framework. From his vantage point, it was difficult to say just what the creature was, but it had a head, a large body, a tail and those wings… It was like nothing Griffin had ever seen, and after the past day, that was actually saying a lot.

Avalon went to scream again, but her voice was cut short. Griffin looked down and saw Radar standing beside her, his hand over her mouth, whispering in her ear. Griffin turned back to the rest of the people in the parking lot, all of them still staring up at the creature in the sky.

Fortunately, none of them were screaming like his daughter had. Not yet. But there were murmurs, and he knew that the longer the murmurs continued, the quicker they would transform into shouting and then screaming. That, he could not allow, primarily because he didn’t want to entice the thing. He had no idea if the thing was an herbivore or a carnivore, but if the latter, they would be easy pickings for something that large.

Frost hurried up beside him, her head still tilted back. She reached out blindly, grasped his arm, and whispered, “What do you think it is?”

Dragon was the first thing that came to mind, but that was silly. Or was it? Was the existence of such a creature a stretch, after everything they had already seen? Whatever it was, it was huge.

“We need to get everyone inside,” he said.

“Do you think it sees us?”

“Can a hawk see field mice?” Griffin’s only consolation was that a creature of such vast size most likely fed on far larger prey. This thing stopping to attack them would be like a lion not hunting zebra because it found an ant mound. Still, no reason to invite trouble.

Frost looked at him, determination in her eyes, and then she nodded. She let go of his arm and started forward, clapping her hands quietly for attention. The murmuring had continued, its volume beginning to rise, just like Griffin had predicted, and Frost had to clap her hands even louder.

“Hey,” she whisper-shouted. “Listen to me. Everyone get inside Soucey’s. Now!”

By this point, the townspeople knew better than to question the new sheriff. Some had to be pulled away by their friends as they continued to stand there, gawking at the sky, but they didn’t put up a fight. Within seconds, everyone was headed toward the market—Avalon, Radar and Lisa included.

Winslow and Kyle stood side by side, watching the creature slowly flap its massive wings.

“Marvelous,” Winslow whispered. “Simply marvelous.”

“Let’s save the awe-inspired appreciation for later,” Frost said, directing the two men inside.

The place was packed. People were already talking over each other, asking the same questions, getting the same non-answers. If it continued, the panic would swell until there was no telling what might stop it.

Frost spoke loudly this time.

“I need everyone to settle down.” She held out her hands like Pastor Dodge did on Sunday mornings to quiet the congregation. “I know you’re all scared and confused, and that’s okay. I am, too. We don’t know yet what’s going on here, but we’re trying to figure it out. What I need the rest of you to do is stay calm.”

Immediately, this started a bout of questions.

“How can you expect us to stay calm?”

“What was that thing?”

“What’s happened to our town?”

Griffin stepped forward, raising his voice. “Folks! Sheriff Frost is doing the best she can with the situation, but as you can tell, things are complicated. Her number one priority right now is keeping all of you safe. But to do that, she needs you to listen.”

This seemed to have the desired effect. The townspeople quieted, many offering up consenting nods.

Griffin glanced at Frost, hoping she didn’t mind he had just stepped on her toes, but she gave him a slight nod of thanks.

“Right,” she said, “so here’s the deal. For now, I think it’s best everyone stays inside. If you want to move to your own house, that’s okay, but make it quick. We got lucky with the last…well, the last place we ended up. There didn’t seem to be any danger. Here, though, the danger is—” She shook her head, pointing her hand up toward the ceiling. “—you saw it there in the sky.”

This started another round of verbal worry.

“What was that thing?”

“It looked like a dragon.”

“I don’t understand why this is happening.”

“Folks, please,” Frost held out her hands again, “let me finish. When I know more, you’ll know more. For the time being, I just want everyone to stay safe. So stay here or head back to your homes, whichever, but just don’t be too long outside. Does everyone understand?”

An assortment of nods around the store.

“Also…” Frost swallowed. “Those with weapons, feel free to carry them around for protection. But do not—I repeat, do not—use them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Gunfire can draw attention, and it might not be the kind of attention we want. Understood?”

Most people in town had handguns or shotguns for home-protection, despite the fact that the last break-in was more than twenty years ago. There were also a good number of hunters in town, with high powered rifles and compound bows. Griffin doubted any of them were amateurs when it came to weaponry, so he had no concerns about the lot of them being armed.

Frost received nods all around.

“All right then.” She clapped her hands once, forced a smile. Then she turned to Griffin and tilted her head toward the door.

He stepped outside and checked the sky again, expecting to the see the giant creature swooping down on him.

The sky was empty. Only endless blue and the sun.

“It’s gone,” he said, and it seemed as if everyone released a collective breath.

“Head to your homes,” Frost said. “Lock your doors, close your windows and be safe.”

She stepped back, allowing people to file through the door. Griffin spotted Phillip Beaumont, aka Monty to locals, and his daughters. Monty had a hand on each girl’s shoulder, keeping them toward the back of the market. Both girls had a dazed look in their eyes. Griffin couldn’t blame them, after everything they had just been through. Losing their mother in the car wreck, after the first shift. Being abducted by those things in the desert world. It was enough to leave the most hardened person dazed.

Monty saw him coming and tried to perk up. “Griffin.”

Griffin shook his hand. “Are you headed back to your house?”

Monty cringed at the idea. “Think we’ll stay here for now. I don’t want the girls… We don’t want to be there right now.”

Griffin only nodded. He understood. He remembered how hard it had been to be in the house after Jess had died. Virtually everything he looked at had conjured a happy, but painful memory. Even her back issues of Martha Stewart Living had twisted an emotional knife in his heart.

“Do you need something?” Monty asked.

“I’d like you to look after my daughter, and Radar and Lisa, if you don’t mind. I know it’s a lot to ask, especially after what’s happened, but I don’t want them to be alone right now.” Griffin didn’t like the idea of leaving Avalon with anyone else, but Monty was a good father. He wouldn’t shirk his duties as easily as Julie had.

Monty glanced past him, noticed Frost talking with Dodge, Winslow and Kyle, then his eyes slid back to Griffin. “What’s happening?”

“We’re heading down to the depot to see if we can find any weapons.”

Monty nodded again. “Weapons are good.” He lifted his shirt just a bit, so Griffin could see the piece tucked into his belt.

Griffin offered a smile and gave Monty a pat on the shoulder. “We’re hoping to find something a little more...substantial.”

Monty returned the smile, chuckling a little. “Listen, I wish I could help, but…” His eyes shifted down at his girls. “They have to come first. I’m not sure I could—”

Griffin said, “I understand. Believe me, I understand.”

Movement shifted Griffin’s attention to his side. Winslow and his wife, Carol, were approaching. He caught the tail end of their conversation. “Don’t worry,” Winslow said to Carol. “We’ll find a way out of the Echo.” The tall scientist then seemed to notice Griffin’s attention and snapped forward, adjusting his glasses. “Griffin. A word?”

Griffin stepped away from Monty and the girls.

Winslow said, “Kyle is going to stay here and tend to some of the injured, so it will just be you, me, Sheriff Frost and Pastor Dodge on this latest errand.”

Griffin just nodded.

“Now with that out of the way,” Winslow said, his voice going low, “please pardon the intrusion, but if I’m not mistaken, you would like someone to help your daughter look after the boy and the girl.”

That wasn’t quite what Griffin wanted, but he could tell from the underlying meaning that Winslow knew the truth, but was being a gentleman by not mentioning it.

“That’s right,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“I’d be happy to look after them,” Carol Herman said. As always, she wore a pert smile. “There’s more than enough room at our place. There’s even enough room if Mr. Beaumont and his girls would like to join us.”

Monty, standing within hearing distance, said, “That would be very kind of you, Mrs. Herman.”

“Please, call me Carol.”

Winslow asked, “Does that work for you, Griffin?”

Griffin nodded, feeling a rush of relief. There was no one better suited to the job than Carol Herman. He’d been to their house several times after Jess’s death, and few people could help mend a wounded soul like the astronomer’s wife. “Thank you.”

“Our pleasure. Now let’s hurry. I don’t think we want to get caught with our pants down if one of those things comes back.”

55

Julie stood near the window at the front of Soucey’s Market, right near the stack of Kingsford Charcoal, watching Sheriff Frost, Griffin Butler and Pastor Dodge climb into Winslow Herman’s SUV. Winslow fired up the engine, said something to Frost in the passenger seat, and started south down Main Street.

She waited until they were completely out of view before stepping away from the window and heading toward the door.

“Excuse me, ma’am, didn’t you hear what the Sheriff said? It’s best if you stay here for now.”

It was one of the local yokels. Not the owner of the place, but one of the part-timers.

Julie tried to keep her cool. “Actually, the Sheriff said we didn’t have to stay here. She said we could return to our homes, if we’d like. And right now, that’s just what I want to do.”

The yokel didn’t seem like he knew how to respond to this. He just stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to figure her out. Finally he nodded. “Yes, ma’am, absolutely. You just be careful, okay?”

She turned away and pushed through the door, releasing an angry breath. She didn’t have much time. Not with the sheriff and the rest of them already headed to the depot. Fortunately, she didn’t have far to go. Not that she was positive she would find him at the Brick House, which was only a couple of buildings down from Soucey’s, but it was a safe bet.

She walked the distance with her eyes on the sky, each clack of her heels striking the sidewalk feeling more and more like the ticking of Captain’s Hook’s crocodile, reminding her that doom was near. She made a mental note to change her clothes when she had a chance.

As expected, she found him sitting at the bar, hunched over a beer and carefully peeling the label off the bottle. A few other people were in the Brick House, too, drowning away their fears the old fashioned way. Walter Harrison stood behind the bar, filling a pitcher like it was just any other day. His black hair was slicked back with gel. He was dressed in his uniform of blue jeans and a flannel. His face was neatly shaven. Of everyone in town, the recent changes seemed to be affecting him the least. Julie guessed she understood. When the world fell apart, it was a bartender’s job to keep everyone’s sanity together.

“Get you anything, Ms. Barnes?”

She didn’t know why, but his referring to her like that always made her uncomfortable. She could never tell if he was being sincere or using the formal nature to berate her. As was almost always the case, she managed to shake it off and forced a smile. “No thanks.” She steered herself toward Charley Wilson, sitting at the far end of the bar.

Sidling up next to him, she whispered, “I need to talk to you.”

He barely even acknowledged her, as he kept peeling the label from the beer bottle.

“How many have you had?”

No answer.

She asked Walter, “How many has he had?”

The bartender shrugged. “You think I’m keeping count?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding with wide-eyed annoyance. “If you want him to pay you.”

“I’m figuring money isn’t worth too much any more,” the bartender replied with a smirk.

Julie grunted her acquiescence and snapped her fingers in front of Charley’s face. “Hey!”

He blinked but didn’t look at her. “What the hell do you want now?”

She eyed the people nearby, even Walter, who started wiping down the bar top, acting like he wasn’t listening. Julie had done a good job of keeping her distance from Charley, and would have preferred to keep it that way, but things had quickly spiraled out of control. Screw social norms—she didn’t have time for that.

“I need to talk to you,” she repeated.

Still staring down at the bottle: “’bout what?”

“Not here. Outside.”

“We’re not supposed to go outside.” He smiled, barked out a half-laugh. “Haven’t you heard? There are monsters out there.”

She leaned in close to him, her lips less than an inch from his ear. To anyone looking it might appear romantic, which was the last thing she wanted people to think about her and Charley, but again, screw it. “They’re headed to the depot.”

He blinked again, this time with more focus, and slowly turned his head toward her. “What?”

She only nodded, hoping he was smart enough to fill in the rest.

Unsurprisingly, he frowned. “Who?”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “Out. Side.”

He took a breath, watching her, coming to slow conclusions, she hoped. Finally he nodded and slid off the stool. He took a step toward the door, paused, turned back and lifted the beer bottle to his lips, draining everything inside. Then he nodded again, wiped his mouth, and followed her out of the Brick House.

The moment they were outside, she said, “The Sheriff, Griff and a few others, they’ve gone down to the depot.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why. Once they get there, they’re going to find more than they bargained for. It’s going to create questions. Questions that might fall back on us. Do you want that, especially with what’s happened so far?”

“Why should I give a fuck? We weren’t supposed to be here for this, whatever this is. And now we are. And we’re fucked like everyone else.”

“You know exactly why you should give a fuck. This whole thing has gone too far. Eventually, once this all gets sorted out—if it gets sorted out—they’re going to look for someone to put all the blame on.”

“And what,” he coughed out another laugh, “you think that’s going to be me?”

“It sure as hell isn’t going to be me. And you know for a fact the old man isn’t going to take the blame. So who does that leave?”

Charley said nothing.

“That’s right,” she was nodding now, suppressing the urge to smile. “He’s going to need a fall guy. And who do you think that fall guy will be?”

Now he was starting to look scared. Good. That was exactly what Julie wanted. She needed him scared, because it made him more likely to follow her orders.

“So what do you want me to do about it? I can’t stop them.”

“No, but you can warn the old man.”

“I don’t…” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Why don’t you just call him?”

“With what? In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t any cell reception.”

“Then why don’t you go warn him yourself?”

“Because the he trusts you the most. Always has.”

She waited, wondering if he would call her bluff. Charley Wilson was a lot of things but stupid wasn’t one of them, despite what he’d let everyone else in town believe. The alcohol helped, too. If anything, he was unpredictable, and apt to lash out when backed into a corner. Only this type of corner wasn’t one he was used to, and Julie was hoping to use that to her advantage.

Finally he released a heavy breath. “Goddamn it,” he muttered, and started digging in his pocket for his keys.

“Are you even sober enough to drive?” she asked, caring less for his safety than for the fact he might not be able to follow through with the plan.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, waving a dismissive hand as he staggered off in search of his pickup truck.

56

Frost couldn’t take her eyes off the tree. She knew how close it was to town, but as they left Main Street and headed over the rise, the south of Refuge opened up, and she saw just how tall the massive tree stood. Refuge stood atop a three-hundred-foot-tall hill. The tree dwarfed them.

Winslow, both hands on the steering wheel, smiled at her. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“It’s incredible,” Frost said. “But how could a tree grow so large?”

“We know nothing about the ecological evolution of this world, but it’s certainly possible for trees to grow beyond what we’re used to. All they need is enough room and time to grow.”

From the back seat, Griffin asked, “But wouldn’t it take thousands—millions—of years to do that?”

Winslow gave the same amused expression at the rearview mirror. “Again, we know nothing of this world beyond what we can see. It would be like an alien visiting Earth, touching down in Amarillo, Texas and assuming the whole planet smells like cow piss. We’re only seeing the tiniest fraction of what’s out there.”

They drove on for another minute in silence, winding down the road. The normal sized trees, one-hundred-foot pines, on either side of them, looked like toothpicks compared to the monstrosity that towered ahead of them.

Griffin spoke again from the back. “What’s the Echo?”

Winslow glanced again at the rearview mirror. “Pardon?”

“Back at Soucey’s. I heard you tell Carol we’d ‘find a way out of the Echo’. What is it?”

Winslow didn’t answer for a long moment. Frost watched him from the corner of her eye, wondering if he was irritated Griffin had overheard a possibly private conversation.

Winslow cleared his throat and sighed. “It’s wishful thinking, is what it is.”

“Meaning?” Griffin asked.

“Meaning I don’t know if there is any way out of the Echo.”

Dodge leaned forward from the back seat. “Are you saying this will never end?”

“I honestly don’t know. But right now, I haven’t the slightest clue what is causing this ongoing shift between what appear to be...other Earths. Parallel Earths.”

“But what’s the Echo?” Griffin asked.

“Yes, the Echo. It’s a theory a NASA colleague of mine developed. His name was Markus Pätzel, and he posited that millions and millions of years ago, at the beginning of time—”

“The Earth isn’t millions of years old,” Dodge said.

“Tell that to the fossil records,” Winslow said dryly. “Anyway, Markus posited that at the beginning of time, the Big Bang created such a massive and devastating force, that it’s been echoing ever since. After all, our universe is still expanding, which helps to prove this theory. However, Markus went even further. He believed that not only did the Big Bang create our reality, but also countless other realities. Infinite realities. And the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics agrees. With the many worlds point-of-view, all possible alternative pasts, presents and futures are real. Every time we make a decision, a new universe is created. The differences between worlds might be subtle—in one I fold my toilet paper, in one I bunch—or they might be drastic.” He motioned to the large tree looming ahead of them.

“You’re joking,” Griffin said.

Winslow shrugged. “They’re not my theories, but Markus was quite brilliant. Eccentric, perhaps, but so were Einstein and many other geniuses. The problem for Markus, of course, was that there was no way to prove his theory. Now, however…”

He let it hang there, the foreign landscape beyond Refuge saying all that needed to be said.

“Okay,” Griffin said, “so let’s assume your friend’s theory is accurate, and there are infinite realities.”

“The Big Bang is just a theory,” Dodge said. “You can’t—”

“Pastor, please,” Griffin said, “let’s just say it’s real for argument’s sake. Assuming there are infinite realities, the next question is, why are we being tossed between them?”

“Again,” Winslow said, “I have no clue. But one thing has been bothering me since the beginning.”

“Only one thing?” Frost asked.

He smiled at her. “Yes, my dear. Certainly some terrible things have happened, but there’s one item in particular that seems to be an unreachable itch on my back. After all, the how is answered by the what—in simple terms, mind you, the actual mechanics of how is beyond my grasp. But infinite realities means that virtually anything is possible. So for me, the largest unanswered question is, why Refuge?”

“What do you mean?”

“Clearly only our town is affected. If Ashland was involved, too, that would be one thing. But only Refuge?” He shook his head. “This is no random act. Something is causing this.”

“Obviously something is causing this,” Dodge said.

“Yes, but why? In our reality, somethings are almost always created by someones. Which means there is a reason this is happening to us. Once we figure out the why, we’ll be able to determine the who, and we’ll have a better chance of finding our way out of the Echo. Right now, the how is the least of our concerns.”

Frost kept watching the tree as it grew larger and larger. She had been a small-town girl for most of her life. Once she had visited New York with her grandparents near Christmastime. They had gone to Rockefeller Plaza to see the giant tree lit up with all its bright colors, and then they had gone to Radio City Music Hall to watch the Christmas show. All of it had been spectacular—the Rockettes had been particularly exciting—but it was the buildings themselves that had awed Frost the most. She had heard of skyscrapers before, had seen pictures in books, but actually standing at the base of such a vast structure and craning your neck back until the top of the building began to look like it was starting to sway… It was incredible. And now she had the same feeling...with a tree. It was an immense reminder that she was just an ant among a billion ants—insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

The SUV began to slow. Frost blinked and realized they had come to the intersection. Right and they would head over to the National Guard Depot. A little further up and left, and they would head out to Lake Hudson, the Refuge Reservoir Station, a slew of cabins and at the end of it all, Renford Ellison’s mansion. Speaking of which…

“Has anyone checked on Mr. Ellison?”

Nobody answered her.

“I just realized, we don’t even know if he’s home,” she said.

Griffin said, “Maybe he was outside town before this happened.”

“And maybe he wasn’t. If no one has heard from him, he could be in trouble. His house would have been within the darkness. It’s close enough to the border.”

Winslow halted the SUV, right in the middle of the road. “Would you like to check on him first?”

Frost bit her lip, thinking about it. She glanced up at the tree toward their right, the tree that nearly shadowed them, despite the fact it stood a quarter mile away. She remembered that creature in the sky. Right now, weapons were more important. Protect the greater good and all that.

“No,” she said. “The depot first. We can check on Mr. Ellison later.”

Winslow nodded, spun the wheel, and lifted his foot off the brake. The SUV started down the drive leading to the depot. He went at a conservative speed, maybe twenty miles per hour, the wheels humming along the macadam.

Suddenly Griffin said, “Stop the truck.”

Winslow glanced at the rearview mirror. “What?”

“Stop the goddamn truck!”

57

Griffin opened his door and stepped out even before the SUV came to a complete stop.

“What is it?” Frost asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Stay here.”

He shut the door and hurried toward the trees. He had caught a glimpse of something he instantly wished he hadn’t, but also couldn’t ignore. Most of his attention had been on the massive tree towering over the depot, but then his eyes had shifted toward the normal-sized trees and the carpet of brown pine needles between them. Something had glinted in the sun. It was tiny. And brief. But something about the way it looked trigger a memory. A proposal at the beach. The sun, shining through a diamond had an unmistakable quality.

“Griffin!” Winslow shouted, stepping out of the SUV.

He threw a hand back behind him, signaling for Winslow and everyone else to stay put. Maybe, he thought, what he had seen was just in his imagination. Perhaps a fleck of mica fused to a chunk of granite.

Griffin’s nose twitched as the dark, deep rank of decay struck him.

Damnit...

He stopped, turned away, and looked at the others. They were out of the SUV, watching him. Frost had circled the vehicle and stood in front of the others, her face filled with worry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He held up his hand again, shaking his head, telling her to stay there, to not come any closer…without actually saying anything at all. It wasn’t the dead body behind him in the bushes, either; he had seen more dead bodies than he cared to remember, and he had become numb to the sight. But it was this dead body in particular that created a rumbling in his gut and a sour taste in the back of his throat.

“Stay there,” he said, as the others started forward. “Just stay there.”

They all paused for a beat. Then Frost started forward again, the others trailing behind her.

Griffin turned back around, his eyes closed. He told himself that it wasn’t real. That when he opened his eyes, what lay before him would be something other than what he knew for a fact it was.

Frost gasped behind him: “Oh my God!”

He opened his eyes.

Rebecca Rule lay right where he knew she would be. Or not Rule exactly, but what was left of Rule. The bottom of her had been cut in half during the second shift. Her legs had remained in the desert world. The top had stayed in Refuge for only an hour or so before it had disappeared.

Not disappeared, he thought. Taken.

The last time Griffin had seen her, everything above her waist had been intact. Now both of her arms were gone, her shoulders just ragged stubs covered in dried blood. And her head…some of it was still attached to the torso, but not all of it.

She still wore her uniform, or what was left of her uniform, much of it torn away. Around her neck was the diamond necklace her husband had given to her years ago, which she had worn ever since. The diamond was small, barely a quarter carat, and not the prettiest piece of jewelry. But it had been given to her by the man she loved, and so Rule had cherished it until her dying day.

The diamond was still with her, the thin white-gold chain still around her neck. It was the diamond that had caught Griffin’s attention and brought him here, and it was the diamond that he bent down and started to reach for before stopping himself and standing back up.

“What—what did this to her?”

Dodge’s voice, barely a whisper.

“Coyotes,” Winslow said. “At least, I hope it was coyotes. Because I don’t even want to imagine the alternative.”

“We’ve already seen the alternative,” Griffin said.

Frost stepped up next to him. Her body was trembling. Griffin looked at her and realized she was on the verge of tears. Only about sixteen hours ago Rule had given Frost her badge, telling her to protect the town. She might have been cut in half at the time, but at least there had been some life in her. Now there was only a mess of something vaguely resembling the brave, stalwart, former sheriff.

Frost was moving her lips, attempting to make a sound, her eyes going glassy.

“Hey,” Griffin said.

She blinked. Looked at him.

“We should go.”

“We…we…we can’t just leave her here like this.”

Griffin glanced back at Winslow and Dodge. Both men stood stock-still and silent, neither one looking at the body.

“We can bury her now if you want.”

Frost blinked again. “Here?”

“We don’t have any shovels, but we can do something. Maybe take her with us. I don’t know. I don’t want to just leave her here, either.”

Winslow cleared his throat. “I hate to interject, but it’s my understanding Sheriff Rule’s last request was that you protect the town. Isn’t that right, Helena?”

Griffin noted how the older man used Frost’s first name, speaking from a position of authority that could come only from an elder speaking to someone far younger. Frost didn’t seem to mind, the way Rule might have. Instead, she nodded slowly.

“If that’s the case,” Winslow said, “I’d say our main priority is checking the depot for weapons. I don’t want to sound cold, but we can mourn the dead later. And I’m pretty sure the good Sheriff here would prefer we not endanger the town on account of her remains.”

“Yes,” Frost murmured. “You’re right.” Clearly steeling herself, she turned away from what was left of Rule and began to march back toward the SUV.

Griffin watched her for a moment, stunned. Then he realized just how hard it was for Frost to walk away like that. The thought of leaving Rule here no doubt sickened her as much as it did him. But by walking away, Frost had proved both just how strong she truly was and Rule’s wisdom in choosing Frost as her successor. She would put the town before her own needs. It was commendable.

Without a word, the rest of them started back to the SUV. Griffin opened the back door, glanced once more over his shoulder, then stepped up inside. Moments later Winslow had the engine going and was moving them forward again.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The silence was lonely, but necessary. Confronting inner demons couldn’t be accomplished in the midst of conversation, only postponed. And they might not get another chance. Griffin used the chance to remember a moment, seven years previous. He’d returned from a rare date with Jess. Snuck in the front door and found Rule asleep on the couch, Avalon laid out over her, snoring. God, I’m going to miss that woman, he thought, wiping away a tear.

He was totally lost in his memory when the first bullet shattered the front left headlight.

“What was that?” Dodge asked.

The windshield was hit next. Dead center, near the top, a sudden pock splintering the glass.

“We’re under attack!” Griffin shouted, ducking low, drawing his gun and searching for targets.

Winslow slammed on the brakes. He jammed the SUV into reverse, punched the gas, and sent them careening back down the long drive. Frost had her gun out, trying to spot whoever was shooting at them through the windshield, while Dodge said a prayer.

Winslow looked back over his shoulder as they raced back toward the intersection. The gunfire had stopped, and Griffin turned back to ask if everyone was okay. They reached the intersection and before he could speak, something slammed into them from the side, sending the world into an uncontrolled spin.

58

Avalon stood in the Herman home’s parlor, staring at the shelves of Russian nesting dolls. There were over a dozen sets, lined up from the tallest to the shortest, each doll facing outward.

“Creepy, aren’t they?”

Avalon blinked, startled. She glanced over her shoulder and watched Mrs. Winslow—‘Carol,’ she wanted Avalon to call her—enter the parlor, a broad smile on her face.

“No,” Avalon said. “They’re not creepy at all. They’re just…interesting.”

Carol laughed. “No, they’re creepy. But they’re also beautiful in their own special way.”

“How did you start collecting them?”

“Winslow and I traveled around Europe maybe ten years ago, back when we were younger and had more energy. One of the places we visited was Sergiev Posad, an old Russian town not too far from Moscow. It was there that the first Matryoshka was made.”

“‘Matryoshka?’”

Carol smiled and shrugged. “Just another name for the nesting doll. It means ‘little matron.’”

“So what’s the appeal?”

Carol stared at the dolls for a long moment, as if lost in thought. Finally she said, “Honestly? Winslow bought me a set while we were on our trip. They’re the ones on the top, the ones that look like peasants. I thought they were the ugliest things I’d ever seen, but of course I didn’t tell him that. I said they were beautiful. And when we came back home, I made the mistake of placing them on the mantle—a place of honor in Winslow’s childhood home. He assumed I wanted even more, so every year since, he has given me a set for Christmas. Each, he said, were handmade and one of a kind. Like I told you, they’re creepy. And, well, I didn’t have the heart to tell Winslow just how much I disliked them. But now...despite their ugliness, they are a very tangible representation of his dedication to me. I cherish them.”

Is that love? Avalon wondered. She supposed it was. She had never been in love before—not true love—though she had been infatuated from time to time. She was typically drawn to the dangerous boys, the kind that she knew her father would never approve of. Hell, one of them had even gotten her hooked on Oxy, and look how that had turned out. At the time, she might have thought she was in love, but even then she had known better. Or at least she liked to think she had known better.

With neither one saying a word, the two women drifted out of the parlor and headed into the living room, where Monty sat with his daughters, watching the large, widescreen TV. It was a Pixar movie, Avalon knew that for a fact, though she couldn’t place the title off the top of her head. She was sure the girls had seen it countless times, but that wasn’t the point. They just needed to get their minds off what was happening to the town. And, of course, what had happened to their mother. Even still, the girls watched with a listlessness that made Avalon cringe. It was like they knew they were supposed to smile and laugh and enjoy themselves, but they couldn’t bring themselves to let it happen.

“Would either of you girls like a snack?” Carol asked.

Both girls looked at Carol, then at their father for permission. Monty nodded his head at them, and they turned and spoke simultaneously.

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll see what I can find.” She glanced at Avalon. “Care to help me?”

When they reached the kitchen, Avalon realized someone was missing.

“Where are Radar and Lisa?”

Carol opened the fridge. “They went to look at the observatory.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave those two alone.”

Carol pulled a bag of apples from the crisper tray. “Young love is such a precious thing, isn’t it?”

She withdrew a knife from the wooden block on the counter and used it to point at the cabinet behind Avalon.

“Could you get the jar of peanut butter out of there, dear?”

Avalon opened the cabinet. A jar of Jif was the first thing to stare back at her, just like the nesting dolls had. She put it on the counter, as Carol started slicing the apples.

Carol’s steady chop stopped suddenly. “I wonder if any of them are allergic to peanut butter. Children are often allergic to peanut butter, aren’t they?” She started slicing again.

Avalon shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe. Mrs. Herman—”

“Carol.”

“Right. Carol. I was wondering something.”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you and Mr. Herman ever have kids?”

The old woman was slicing the apple but stopped, staring down at the counter.

“I’m sorry,” Avalon said quickly. “It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s a fair question. The truth is, Winslow and I would have loved children. My mother used to tell me I was born to give birth, on account of these wide hips. But sometimes we can’t have what we want.”

Avalon grinned. “You mean like Russian nesting dolls?”

Carol allowed a small smile. “Something like that.”

She went back to slicing the apple, and Avalon looked out the window. She could see the observatory across the lawn. She knew Radar was a good kid, just like Lisa was a good kid, but they were teenagers, and Avalon knew teenagers oftentimes got themselves into trouble. They’d been caught in the church, after all.

“Use the intercom,” Carol said.

“What?”

“There.” Carol pointed with the knife at a black box on the wall. “After Winslow built the observatory, he spent so much time there, I made him install an intercom so I could badger him without freezing my toes off during the winter. Ask them if they’d like a snack, if you’re worried about them.”

Avalon considered it for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I’m sure they’re fine. Can I ask you something else?”

Carol set the slices on a plate and began on the second apple. “Certainly.”

“How can you be so…positive? I mean, after everything that’s been happening, you keep this smile on your face.”

Carol paused again, staring down at the apple. She looked up at Avalon, and the permanent smile had vanished.

“The smile isn’t for me. It’s for my husband. It’s for those children. You think I’m not scared? I’m terrified. Now here, help me with these snacks. If you and I have one purpose right now, it’s to help those girls forget their mother is dead.”

“I’m worried about my father.”

“I know, dear. But I’m sure he’s okay.” Her smile appeared again. “Everyone in town knows nothing can stop Griffin Butler.”

Avalon smiled, and forced the grin to stay on her lips. For the girls. But while she appreciated Mrs. Herman’s encouraging words, there was a flaw to her logic. There was one thing her father had shown himself incapable of conquering.

Death.

59

Frost gingerly touched the side of her head, looked at her fingers and saw blood. The spot was sore from where it had cracked against the window.

Winslow was hunched over the steering wheel, coughing.

She gently touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He winced, sitting up. “I think so. You?”

“A little bump on my head, but I should be fine.”

She turned around in her seat to check on Griffin and Dodge. Both looked shaken up, but otherwise alright.

Griffin squinted out the window at the pickup truck that had hit them. “Is that Charley Wilson?”

Frost opened her door. “Only one way to find out.”

She placed her foot on the ground and immediately had the sense the world was tilting. Was this another shift? No, she thought, it’s just me. She suspected she had a minor concussion.

She placed her hand against the side of the SUV, steadying herself. Taking a deep breath, she focused on the ground for a beat, then marched straight for the black Ford pickup.

The right front-end was smashed up a bit, but otherwise the truck looked decent. The airbag had deployed, and Charley was pushing it away when she flung open the door.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Frost asked.

“Me?” He was dazed, blood on his face from where the airbag had punched him. “You guys came out of nowhere.”

“What are you doing down here?” Frost asked. She knew he had a point, but she couldn’t think of a single good reason for anyone in town to be driving around on their own.

Something changed in his eyes. Frost couldn’t tell what it was at first. It was like he was trying to decide something important but didn’t want Frost to know. Not only that, he reeked of booze. The whole truck did.

She made a show of sniffing the truck. “Seriously? After we let you out? How much did you have to drink?”

“Aw, come on, Deputy—”

“It’s ‘Sheriff.’”

Charley looked confused for a moment, but he was no longer looking at her, he was looking past her. She turned and found Griffin taking up a defensive position behind a tree, aiming his handgun back down the long drive.

“Ignore him and answer the question,” Frost said.

“Okay. Sheriff. I only had a few. Not that many. But even if I was stone cold sober, it wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing. You guys shot out of there like a cannonball.”

By that point, Winslow and Dodge had climbed out of the SUV and joined her around the pickup truck. Both of them were carrying weapons. Griffin fell back and joined them, his eyes still on the road out to the depot.

Charley’s eyes grew big as he noticed they were all armed. “Whoa now. What are you going to do with those? It was just an accident!”

“Someone was just shooting at us,” Griffin said.

“Shooting at you?”

“On the way up to the depot,” Griffin said, and then eyed Charley. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Question of the day,” Charley said and then shrugged. “I came to help.”

Frost looked skeptical. “Help who?”

“You guys. I heard you were headed to the depot to find weapons and supplies or whatever. I came to help.”

“From the smell of it,” Griffin said, “you probably should have just stayed at the bar.”

Charley’s face tightened. “Look, I’ve been a fuck-up in the past. I know that. But the shit’s hit the big fucking fan, and I want to pull my weight. So, I’m here to help. And if you have a problem with that, you can just go fuck yourself, thank you very much.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Frost stood with her hands on her hips, thinking things through. “The real question we need answered is why someone was shooting at us. Actually, no, the question is who was shooting at us? I thought the depot was supposed to be empty?”

“That’s what Julie told me,” Griffin said. “But how could she know for certain?”

“Maybe they’re squatters?” Winslow offered.

“On military property?” Griffin replied.

Winslow rubbed his head. “Well, whoever it was, it seems they don’t want visitors.”

“Maybe not,” Dodge said.

They all looked at him, waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, Frost asked, “What do you mean?”

Dodged cleared his throat. “Maybe…whoever shot at us was actually trying to get our attention.”

“Well,” Winslow gestured at his vehicle, “they certainly got my attention.”

“You mean they were trying to warn us off?” Griffin asked.

Dodge nodded. “Maybe something’s happened up there. Something bad. It looked like part of the fence had been destroyed.”

They were quiet for a moment, thinking about it, the Ford’s engine ticking quietly.

Charley was still behind the steering wheel, sniffing back blood. “So what do we do now?”

“It depends,” Griffin said. He looked at the pickup’s front end. “Does this thing still run?”

60

This wasn’t a good idea. Charley knew it wasn’t. This whole thing, the more he thought about it, was completely fucked. But what was he supposed to do? Tell them about the men at the depot? That would raise even more questions, the first being how exactly would Charley know about the men at all? So, no, he wasn’t going to say anything. He might not be completely sober, but he was lucid enough to keep his mouth shut. He could even picture Julie pointing a finger in his face, telling him to keep his stupid mouth shut. So yeah, he could do that, no problem there. But this? This was insane.

“Buckle up.”

Griffin now sat behind the steering wheel, Charley in the passenger seat. Griffin gripped the wheel, getting adjusted to what it felt like with the airbag deployed.

Charley was in a daze. Thinking about his options. Knowing he didn’t have many. Tell the truth and cause trouble. Not tell the truth and let trouble happen. In the end it all came down to which trouble was worse.

Griffin snapped a finger in Charley’s face. “Hey, did you hear me?”

Charley blinked. Griffin was giving him a worried look. Swallowing, he nodded and quickly buckled his seatbelt.

Just tell the truth, a part of his mind said, the part he suspected was always sober. Just tell the truth and worry about the consequences later. Because this right here—this madness—is going to get you killed.

Maybe so. But what would Griffin and Frost and the others do if they learned the truth? Would they go so far as to kill him? No, Charley knew it would never go that far, but still he decided it was best to let things play out, see what happened next. Because the only way to improve his situation was to stay quiet, even if that meant risking his life.

Griffin turned the key in the ignition. The truck rumbled to life. Griffin glanced back through the rear window, gave a thumbs-up and then threw the truck in gear.

“Hold on.”

Charley closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see it happen. He didn’t want to see the bullets tearing through the windshield. He had no doubt that the men at the depot would open fire on them. They had before. Why not again? Even Griffin knew it, and that’s why he was taking the lead. The pickup out front, the SUV trailing, all with the simple hope that this kooky plan was somehow going to work.

So Charley kept his eyes closed, while Griffin took his foot off the brake and punched the gas. And he kept them closed while the pickup started up the drive, gaining speed. Even when Griffin started swerving the truck back and forth, his eyes remained squeezed together like a Venus fly trap with a cramp.

And when the first round hit the truck, he closed his eyes even tighter.

The bullet pinged off the Ford’s hood, much like a loose rock would. Charley wasn’t even sure it was a bullet, except that Griffin cursed under his breath and swerved even more, gunning the engine, the truck nearly screaming as they accelerated.

Charley finally opened his eyes when Griffin said, “Brace yourself,” and he saw the fence rushing toward them, the truck now going nearly fifty miles per hour. He noticed the bullet hole in the pickup’s hood a moment before the truck crashed through the gate.

The first building was maybe fifty feet away. Griffin was already coming at it too fast and had to slam on the brakes. The tires locked and the back of the pickup fishtailed as they swerved right toward the building. But Griffin, a competent driver, managed to regain control and brought the truck to a stop just feet from the long building’s metal side.

Griffin cut the engine, tore off his seatbelt, and opened his door. He had his gun out and was stepping out of the truck, as Charley heard the SUV’s tires screeching behind them.

“Come on,” Griffin shouted, “let’s move!”

Charley fumbled with his seatbelt. He got it off, yanked the door handle and pushed into it. But the door remained shut, and Charley smacked his head against the glass. “Fuck!” He’d somehow locked it during the drive. He pulled the lock, tried the door again and hopped out of the truck onto steady feet, the effects of his alcohol negated by a rush of adrenaline. By the time Charley rounded the back, the others were out of the SUV, weapons drawn. Even the pastor. Charley felt uncommonly vulnerable, being the only one without a gun.

The ground trembled, the cause unseen.

“Did you see where the shooting came from?” Griffin asked the others, his voice quiet.

Before any of them could answer him, the ground trembled again, this time with more force.

“Is this another shift?” Dodge asked, near panic.

“Don’t move!”

They all turned in the direction of the voice.

A big man dressed in black fatigues stalked toward them, despite an obvious limp. He held a rifle, but he wasn’t aiming it at them.

Frost aimed her gun at him, first, then Griffin, then Winslow, then Dodge.

The man stopped. He stared back at them, as if uncertain what to say or do. Then he lifted his finger to his lips.

It was such a strange gesture that none of them immediately knew how to respond.

Frost said, “I’m Sheriff Helena Frost. Who are you?”

“Shh!” the man said, still keeping the finger to his lips.

Frost looked at Griffin, as if asking for help. Griffin didn’t seem to know what to say. Frost started to take a step forward.

The muzzle of the rifle swung up toward her.

“I said, don’t move.”

“Who are you?” Frost asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Goddamn it, lady, shut the fuck up!”

Rising panic in his voice.

Not good, Charley thought. This man was a soldier, one of the best, hired for his expertise. Soldiers like this didn’t scare easily.

Beneath them, the ground trembled again.

Frost lowered her voice and asked, “What is that?”

The soldier just shook his head.

Frost started to take another step forward.

“I’m serious, lady,” the soldier said, keeping the rifle aimed at her, “you take another step, and I’ll drop you where you stand.”

Griffin extended his gun at the soldier. “Not if I shoot you first.”

The soldier shook his head. “You people have no fucking clue what you’re doing. I’m trying to save your lives.”

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Frost said, and began to take another step forward.

Charley had had enough. “Frost, listen to the man, damnit!”

But she didn’t.

“Stop!” the soldier shouted.

Immediately his eyes went wide, fear filling his face. Nothing happened for a second, and then the ground trembled once again.

“What is that?” Frost asked again.

As if in answer, something shot out of the ground. It was just on the other side of the fence, maybe forty feet away. It rose out of the grass, stretching up, high into the sky.

They all turned and watched it, none of them saying a word, as they stared in silence.

“Dear Lord,” Dodge said.

It looked like a giant rope, twisting around on itself, fifty feet in height, but perhaps three times that in total length, hanging suspended in the air.

Only, Charley realized, it wasn’t a rope. Of course, it wasn’t a rope. Nothing would ever be that simple or mundane again.

In an instant the thing shot forward, right at Dodge. It struck like a whip, wrapping around the pastor’s legs and yanking him off his feet.

61

For a moment Frost didn’t move. She couldn’t move, stuck in place, completely shocked.

What is this? Dear God, what is this? she thought.

Dodge screamed as the thing wrapped around his ankles and pulled him away. Frost had the sudden realization that she had never heard the man truly scream before. Shout out, yes. Cry out, certainly. It wasn’t uncommon for the man to get excited at the pulpit. But his voice filled with sheer terror? Never.

Movement to her side jolted her from her paralysis. The soldier rushed past them toward Dodge. He had the rifle out, aimed at the pastor, and for one insane moment, Frost thought he meant to shoot Dodge in the head. It would stop the screaming, that was for sure, but it was unthinkable, and Frost couldn’t allow it. She took aim, but the bullets that tore through the air weren’t hers. The soldier opened fire.

But not at Dodge. The bullets tore past Dodge and chewed up the rope-monster at its base, where it emerged from the ground.

The thing paused briefly, as its base was torn to shreds. It released Dodge’s ankle, then rose up in the air again, wobblier than before. By then, the soldier and Griffin had reached Dodge. They grabbed him together, like soldiers who had worked together before, and dragged him back toward the rest of them.

The whole thing had taken place in the matter of only seconds. Frost knew she needed to do something—she needed to act—but she wasn’t sure what to do. The proper response to this kind of situation wasn’t taught at the police academy. Then again, she doubted the military trained for giant monsters and alternate universes either, yet here were Griffin and the unknown soldier reacting with trained efficiency.

Frost hurried toward them as the creature rose higher into the air. The soldier kept firing at the base of it, but with one hand gripping Dodge, his aim was off.

The thing snapped forward again, right at Dodge and the soldier. It wrapped around the rifle and tore it out of the soldier’s hand. Frost and Griffin opened fire at the thing’s base. What they lacked in automatic fire, they made up for with accuracy. The thing rose up in the air a third time, but Frost had the distinct impression that it was weakened and unsteady.

Now with both hands free, the soldier yanked Dodge to his feet. They turned and started running, all four of them, Winslow and Charley only yards away and watching them, when suddenly they stopped.

A smattering of white motes drifted toward them. From all sides. Frost recognized them as dandelion seeds—much larger than normal, but in this new world everything was bigger.

“We won’t make it,” the soldier said, more to himself than to them. Then, his voice rising to a shout: “Get in the SUV!”

They scrambled forward. After what just happened, they weren’t going to question the soldier, especially when it was apparent he knew more about what was going on than they did.

Winslow climbed into the front passenger’s seat. Charley slid in behind him. Dodge and Frost leapt into the back from the other side while the soldier and Griffin squeezed into the front, Griffin behind the wheel. All four doors slammed closed, just as the dandelion seeds reached them, tapping frantically against the windows. The seeds had actually chased them into the SUV!

The windshield became covered in soft white, like they were stuck in a blizzard. Frost turned to the window next to her, leaning in for a closer look. The large seeds had fluffy tops for catching the air, but also what looked like delicate fins, perhaps for steering or even propulsion. Extending down from the fragile looking top was a long shaft, at the bottom of which was a quarter-sized bulb...with a mouth...and teeth. Sharp teeth.

“We can’t stay here,” the soldier said. “We need to move.”

The key was already in the ignition. Griffin turned it and the engine struggled but did not turn over.

“Oh my God.” Winslow said.

At first, Frost thought Winslow was commenting on the failing engine, but then she noticed where he was looking—the bullet hole near the top of the windshield. The seeds had found the opening. They were trying to push through.

Winslow started to reach forward, thought better of it, leaned over and opened the glove compartment and started rummaging through it. He came back out with the owner’s manual and held it over the bullet hole.

“Here,” he said to the soldier beside him, “hold this in place.”

As the soldier kept the owner’s manual in place, Griffin tried the engine again. Again it struggled but did not turn over.

“It flooded earlier,” Winslow said. “I think because of the crash.”

Griffin tried it again.

Once more the engine struggled but didn’t fire up.

The soldier said, “We have to move.”

Griffin tried the engine a fourth time.

It struggled again, but Griffin kept the key turned, and after a cough, the engine rumbled to life.

Griffin flicked on the windshield wipers. They struggled against the weight of the seeds, some of which burst and smeared creamy white fluid on the glass, but it was enough to give them a view of the outside.

“Head toward the second building,” the soldier said. “The hanger on the left.”

Griffin threw the SUV into gear and punched the gas. They jerked forward. The sudden jolt caused several seeds to disengage from the vehicle.

Keeping the owner’s manual against the windshield, the soldier reached over and leaned on the horn.

“What are you doing?” Griffin said.

“Just keep going.”

“The door’s closed.”

“Just keep going!”

They were moving fast, fifty yards away, forty yards, thirty, the soldier still leaning on the horn. When they were less than twenty yards away, the large door began to open. It wasn’t opening very quickly, though, and Griffin had no choice but to press down on the brakes to give it enough time so they could slip through.

Griffin slowed to a stop, threw the SUV into park. Behind them, the hanger door lowered, cutting out the sunlight. For a moment there was complete silence, all of them just sitting there breathing quietly.

Then the world turned to fire.

62

The flame came at them from the front of the SUV. For a moment, Griffin wondered if that creature in the sky really had been a dragon, and was now breathing fire over them. He couldn’t think of any other explanation for the sudden burst of flame—he no longer had the luxury of discounting anything as impossible.

The temperature in the SUV rose about twenty degrees. High pitched screeching filled the air. It wasn’t until the seeds began falling away from the windshield that Griffin realized the sound was coming from them. It was so high pitched it was barely even audible, but he could hear it well enough. He saw Winslow closing his eyes and turning his head away, and he knew the man heard it too.

The flame died out for a moment, and in that moment Griffin saw it wasn’t a dragon on the other side of the blackened glass, but a man holding a long hose out in front of him.

A flamethrower.

The fire started again, and the man began circling the SUV, coming toward Griffin’s side and working his way toward the rear of the vehicle, the whole time the seeds continued to scream and cry out as they burned to death. Eventually, the man had circled the SUV, and the flame had stopped long enough that they could all see him standing at the front again, the flamethrower now aimed toward the ground.

Winslow lowered the thick manual from the hole in the window. It was smoldering, a burnt crater nearly halfway through the text.

“Now what?” Griffin asked.

Beside him, the big soldier said, “Let’s get out.”

The doors opened, and they all stepped out, gingerly at first because some of the seeds were still alive and on fire. Their screams faded with the dying flames. Griffin hesitated a moment, then crushed several with the heel of his boot like they were ants.

The soldier pushed past Griffin and headed for his comrade, a tall black man with a bald head. After a quick exchange, the original soldier headed to a side room.

Besides the SUV, the rest of the hanger was empty except for two Humvees parked at the far end.

“Who are you?” Frost asked the man with the flamethrower.

The man grinned. “Who am I? Who are you?”

“My name’s Helena Frost. I’m the sheriff of this town.”

“And what are the rest of you supposed to be, the Three Amigos?” The grin lingered on his face for a moment, then started to fade as his eyes focused on the door through which his friend had left. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Frost said, “We should ask you the same question.”

The man looked at her again. “It’s none of your goddamned business what we’re doing here. Fact is, we tried to save your lives. We saw you coming and gave you warning shots. Tried to keep you away from this place.”

“Be that as it may,” Frost said, “that still doesn’t answer the question. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“The name’s Osterman,” the man said.

“You’re a soldier?”

The man sniffed. “Used to be.”

“What are you now?” Frost asked.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“This is my town.” Frost crossed her arms. “I can go wherever I please.”

Osterman shook his head. “You have no fucking clue whose town this is.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Winslow asked.

The soldier who had saved them outside exited the side room. “What are you telling them?” he asked Osterman.

“Nothing,” Osterman said, looking defensive. “Told them they fucked up, is all.”

The other man was nodding his head. “That they did.”

Frost’s voice was nearly a shout. “I don’t want to place you under arrest, but if you give me no choice, I will.”

“Arrest us?” Osterman snorted laughter. “For what?”

“Trespassing.”

“This is a National Guard Depot,” the second soldier said. “This property belongs to the U.S. government.”

“Not anymore,” Griffin pointed out. “We’re a long way from the good ol’ U.S. of A.”

“But for how long?” Osterman shrugged out of the flamethrower straps and placed the tank and thrower on the ground. He said to the other man, “So what should we do about this, Boyle?”

Boyle tilted his head back and forth, thinking about it. “I guess we don’t have much choice in the matter, do we?”

“No,” Osterman said, “I guess we don’t.”

The two men moved instantaneously, like they had practiced it a thousand times—pulling 9mm Berettas from their holsters, aiming them straight at the group, all in one quick, fluid motion.

Frost didn’t flinch. Didn’t go for her gun, either, though the instinct was hard to tamp down. “The hell do you two think you’re doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Sheriff? All of you need to drop your weapons and raise your hands, or we will drop you where you stand.”

63

Lisa didn’t hear the buzzing at first.

She was too preoccupied with thoughts of her parents, somewhere far, far away. Part of her wished she had taken them up on their offer and gone to Ashland, to watch the fireworks. That same part wished she had talked Radar into coming with her. If she had, maybe he would have agreed, and maybe the two of them would have been lying on a blanket, staring up at the sky, watching fireworks explode above them while the town disappeared. Maybe their fingers would have touched first, then their hands clasped together in silent union, but no more than that—not with her parents nearby. Would they have shared their first kiss in private, like they had in the bell tower? No, but maybe they could have sneaked away for a couple of minutes, using the excuse they both needed to use the restroom, and maybe they could have dashed into the shadows behind one of the buildings. Radar could have held her close and leaned forward and—

“Lisa?”

She blinked. Turned her head and found Radar giving her a worried look.

“You okay, Shadow Liar?”

Not trusting herself to speak, she forced a smile at his reference to the clever anagram he’d made of her name, when they had been in the church’s bell tower. When the world had gone haywire.

She nodded.

“Are you sure? For a moment your lip was quivering and you…”

He didn’t say it. Didn’t have to.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, and placed his hand on her back.

She closed her eyes at his touch. It made her feel at peace, despite her inner turmoil. After all, Radar was doing everything he could to help keep her mind off her parents. It wasn’t his fault she kept thinking about them.

“I just…” her voice cracked, “I just miss them so much. And not because it’s been so long since I’ve seen them, but...because...I might never see them again.”

Taking her into his arms, her whispered into her ear, “I know...”

“I don’t even think they realize I’m gone. Or that they’re gone. Or that—” She shook her head, knew she was on the verge of tears and tried to push them away. “Do you think they’ve even noticed yet? Like, not just my parents, but everybody else in Ashland? Or the world?”

“It’s been like eighteen hours,” Radar said. “I think they’ve noticed.”

“Assuming time works the same wherever we are. What if we’re experiencing the same moment in time on different worlds? Then no time at all will have passed.”

Radar squinted at her. “Did...you come up with that on your own?”

“Don’t look at me like you’re surprised I said something smart.” She gave him a half smile. She’d actually overheard a conversation in the grocery store. It was one of Winslow’s theories. But she wasn’t about to tell Radar that now. She sniffed back her tears. “Asshole.”

His eyes shifted up to meet hers. The serious look in his eyes stole away what remained of her smile. “Do you really want to know what I think?”

Biting her lip, she nodded.

“I’ve been thinking…” He cleared his throat. “What if everybody else is gone? That it’s not just us—Refuge—moving from world to world. What if the worlds are moving to us?”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He shrugged, tried on a goofy smile. “You asked what I thought. Though now that I’ve said it out loud, I think your theory is better.” He touched her cheek, wiping an errant tear away with his thumb. “Now come on, let’s check out this thing.”

They were in Mr. Herman’s private observatory, which proudly sat in the backyard. It wasn’t a very large structure—maybe the size of a giant shed—with a domed roof and an opening for the telescope. With Mrs. Herman’s permission, they had ventured out here to inspect it alone. Like many of the kids in town, they’d seen it on a field trip—it was the closest thing you could get to a science museum this far north—but they never really got to look at it up close.

The telescope itself was huge, much larger than the one Lisa’s parents had gotten her years ago for her birthday. Like a lot of kids, she had been fascinated with the moon and the stars and the distant planets. She supposed she was still fascinated to some extent—did that fascination with other worlds ever really go away?—but she couldn’t remember the last time she had looked through her telescope.

This one, however, was top-notch—no doubt about that. Mr. Herman had once worked for NASA, so it made sense he would have the best equipment for stargazing. Only it was daytime now, and there were no stars. Still, that didn’t stop them from opening the hatch—a button on the wall disengaged it, the motor quietly humming. Radar paused before turning on the telescope, but they had Mrs. Herman’s blessing. Lisa gave him a nod, and Radar grinned, turned it on and motioned her to the viewfinder. She leaned in and placed her eye against the soft rubber.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, stepping back and giving Radar a try.

He leaned down and squinted through the viewfinder. He stood that way for a long moment, hunched over, before he said, “I think I see the Death Star!”

She swatted at him, a playful swat, and he laughed as he caught her hand and pulled her to him. They were close again, their noses only inches apart. She tried to keep all thoughts of her parents from her mind, tried to lose herself in the moment and just forget about what was happening in town and to the people. How Sheriff Rule was dead and so was Mrs. Beaumont, and that her parents were somewhere or maybe they were nowhere, dead and gone in a void-like space, and maybe—

Lisa heard it then, the buzz, distant but gaining in volume, a sound like a lawnmower engine drifting on the wind. “Do you hear that?”

Radar opened his eyes. He’d been leaning in for a kiss. After what they had shared less than 24 hours ago—what now felt like days—Lisa understood the urge to continue with their desires. Teenage hormones, however, would need to be put aside for the time being.

She saw a flash of disappointment in Radar’s eyes, but then he cocked his head and nodded. He heard it too.

“What is that?” he asked.

The buzzing grew in volume and pitch. Now it sounded less like a lawnmower and more like an insect. A lot of insects.

Radar crossed the floor of the observatory, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” Lisa asked, her fear growing.

He placed his hand on the doorknob. “I want to see what it is.”

Her first thought was of that monster flying in the sky, the one they had seen outside of Soucey’s Market, and she wanted to tell him not to open the door. But then the light streaming in through the telescope’s porthole darkened. Radar’s eyes shifted away from hers, looking up. The half-smile on his face dropped away.

“What is it?” she asked, but her voice could barely be heard above the buzzing—which, she now realized, was coming from right outside.

Not from just outside—from above.

“Lisa.” Radar’s voice a faint whisper. “Do not turn around.”

64

The men moved them toward the far wall and had them sit down on the cold concrete. A thin pipe ran the length of the wall, and Boyle used several pairs of zip-ties to bind their hands behind their backs and around the pipe. Osterman took strips of duct tape and sealed each of their mouths shut.

Frost had never felt so helpless in her entire life. She had been placed in difficult situations in the past, certainly, but nothing like this. Having your weapon taken away from you, your pockets searched, then being tied up and gagged, and made to sit on the floor like a disobedient child—it was all so depressing that Frost felt as if a piece of her soul had been chipped away.

After dumping the weapons confiscated from Frost and the others in the still sizzling SUV, Osterman and Boyle moved farther back toward the center of the hanger, whispering to each other. Finally, Boyle nodded and Osterman approached them. He crouched down, rested his arms on his knees, and clasped his hands together.

“So here’s the deal,” he said, his voice soft. “We’re not sure yet what to do with you. The easiest thing would be to just kill you, but luckily for you, we’re not the murdering type. We have killed before, yes, but that was in service to our country.” He paused a beat, another grin spreading across his face. “And sometimes hired work on the side, but that’s a story for another time.”

Frost made a noise. It wasn’t a loud noise—she couldn’t make much noise at all with the tape over her mouth—but it was enough to draw Osterman’s attention.

He cocked his ear at her. “Something you’d like to say?”

Frost made the noise again.

Osterman said, “I’m going to save us all some time and energy and get the basics out of the way. No, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here. Yes, myself and Boyle and the rest of us work for a private security firm, Sidewinder, contracting our services to the U.S. military. We were told this was a mission of the utmost importance. We weren’t told what that mission was, only that it was a need-to-know basis and we didn’t need to know. Thing is, the others that were with us—eight more damned good men—are dead now. Half of us died in that fucking darkness. We were caught off guard. By the time the sun came out, most of our men were dead.”

He shook his head, staring off into a distance that only he could see in his mind.

“Anyway, we don’t know what’s going on here, what exactly this new world is, but we do know whatever Mother Nature is in this place, she’s a coldhearted bitch. That thing that attacked your friend here?” He motioned to Dodge. “Boyle and I think it’s a root from that massive tree just outside the border. Yeah, a fucking root. The plant life here seems—from what we’ve seen—to be predatory and carnivorous. The reason I’m whispering? The reason we take light steps? Because the tree senses the vibrations in the ground. That’s how it’s able to track us.”

He tilted his head to the side, said, “Boyle, what did you say it was like?”

“That Kevin Bacon movie. The one with the giant worms.”

“That’s right,” Osterman said, nodding, turning back to the group. “The only protection we have now is the concrete beneath our feet. But who’s to say just how deep this concrete goes? That tree gets pissed off enough, there’s a chance it could break through even here.”

Frost made another noise, this time more urgent.

Osterman eyed her for a long moment, then stood up and approached her. He leaned down and pinched the corner of the duct tape between his fingers, paused and said, “Don’t waste my time, okay?”

He ripped the tape from her mouth, and Frost immediately moved her lips, the taste of the tape disgusting.

Glaring up at Osterman, she said, “If you’re going to kill us, just get it over with.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? We have no intention of killing you. But we can’t quite let you walk around free, either, making a fucking racket. Not while that tree is out there.”

“People back in town know we came here. I’m supposed to call in on the radio every fifteen minutes. If I don’t, the deputies back in town are instructed to come look after us.”

Osterman snorted another laugh. “Lady, do you think we’re stupid? We didn’t come into this town unprepared. We know all about you. Besides you and Sheriff Rule, there isn’t much left of the Refuge police department. Speaking of which, why did you say you were the sheriff earlier? Did something happen to Rule?”

Frost bit her lip. She didn’t want to give this man the satisfaction of the truth.

“It doesn’t matter,” Osterman said. “The fact is, I’m calling your bluff, because I bet nobody is coming to your rescue. And even if there is, they’re going to have to deal with the tree. Boyle and I did you all a courtesy earlier, when we tried to keep you away. It’s not our fault you decided to ignore it.”

“Who brought you here?” Frost asked.

“I told you,” Osterman said. “Uncle Sam.”

“You must have a name. A real name.”

He thought and then nodded. “The man who’s paying us very well, whose name is on the checks, but I doubt he’s a real person.”

“All the money in the world won’t benefit you when you’re dead,” Frost said.

“This is true. That’s why Boyle and me don’t plan to die any time soon. Aren’t you paying attention?”

Frost knew that pointing out the fact that giant trees and ash monsters probably didn’t accept greenbacks wouldn’t get her very far. So she focused on getting an answer to the nagging question. “Give me the name,” she said. “If he’s not real, what does it matter?”

Neither man answered. “You both are clearly capable of protecting yourselves,” Frost said, changing tactics again. “You could help us protect this town.”

“Sorry, but that’s not part of our orders,” Osterman said.

“What are your orders?” Frost asked.

“Sorry,” the soldier said. “My turn to ask questions. What brought you all here?”

Frost said nothing.

“Seriously?” Osterman said. “After everything I’ve told you already, you can’t answer my simple question?”

Frost just stared back at him.

Shaking his head, Osterman replaced the strip of duct tape over Frost’s mouth. He stood up, stared down at the others, then lifted his chin at Winslow.

“How about you?”

Winslow just glared back at him.

To Griffin: “You?”

No response.

“What about you, Pastor Dodge? Don’t look surprised. Didn’t I say we came to this town prepared?”

Dodge just stared.

“Okay,” Osterman said, “now you’re all starting to piss me off. How about you, Boyle? You getting pissed off?”

Boyle, standing tall and firm with his arms crossed, said, “That I am.”

“How about you?” Osterman said, crouching down now in front of Charley. “Are you going to tell us what we want to know...Chuck?”

Charley made a soft noise, what could have been construed as a mewl.

Osterman peeled back the tape. “Say that again?”

“I don’t know anything!”

The shout echoed around the hanger. For a moment, silence followed it, then the ground shook.

“You stupid shit,” Osterman said, pushing the tape back on Charley’s lips. “You trying to get us all killed?”

Charley tried to say something through the tape.

Osterman stood back up, took a deep breath. “I’m tired of playing the nice guy. The fact is, we need to know what brought you all here. And if you’re not going to tell us willingly, then we’re going to have to force it out of you. And as of right now, I think it’s clear who the weakest one is.”

He nodded at Boyle, and Boyle stepped forward. Both men scooped Charley up with a hand under each arm. Charley made another mewling noise, kicking his feet, and the ground beneath them trembled slightly again.

“Knock it off!” Osterman breathed and slapped Charley across the face.

Charley stopped struggling, briefly, before starting up again.

This time Boyle rammed his fist into Charley’s stomach. Charley doubled over.

Frost watched as the men dragged Charley toward the doorway. He stared back at her with wide, desperate eyes, telling her that no matter how helpless she felt, he had now given up all hope.

65

It was a wasp, or what looked like a wasp, a giant insect, that was for sure, the size of a border collie. The colors were off, though. Instead of black and yellow, it was reddish all over, like it’d been dipped in blood, and the urge to scream became almost too much.

But Lisa didn’t scream. She held it back. The wasp was crawling through the porthole, its long antennae twitching, its massive black eyes staring back at her and Radar.

I should have listened to him, she thought. I shouldn’t have turned around.

Something touched her hand, and Lisa nearly screamed. She looked down and saw Radar’s hand, giving hers a tight squeeze. He was watching her, she realized, watching her from the corner of his eye, and there was something in his frozen gaze that he wanted her to understand. But what was it? All she knew was that they were trapped with this giant insect, and that totally sucked.

The wasp crawled just a little farther into the observatory. It buzzed its wings for a beat, the sound palpable. The beating wings kicked up a breeze strong enough to shift her hair.

Radar released her hand. She glanced at him again, slowly, not wanting to spook the wasp. She believed that if they didn’t move a muscle, if they became lifeless statues, the insect wouldn’t see them.

He was looking at something across the observatory. The space wasn’t far at all—barely fifteen feet—but it seemed vast with a giant insect invading it.

Outside the observatory came the sound of even more buzzing. It was impossible to tell just how many more wasps there were. The door was right behind them, but any chance of escape was gone. The moment they opened that door, they would be greeted with several more wasps. And what if they weren’t? The distance from the observatory to the house would take what, thirty seconds to cross? Radar was a fast runner, but Lisa’s top speed was closer to a jog. While the distance wasn’t immense, she doubted they could outrun the giant insects.

This wasp, however, was their main problem at the moment. It crawled in even farther, its long, needle-like stinger the only thing still poking out of the porthole. In another couple of seconds it would be completely inside the observatory.

Radar continued gazing at something on the other side of the room. She followed his eyes, at first not sure what he was looking at, and then it clicked.

A metal stool sat beside a small desk. It was the only thing in the observatory that they could use as a weapon. The desk, while small, was completely out of the question. So was the telescope, which was bolted down, and even if it wasn’t, she doubted either of them had the strength to lift it up over their heads to try to smash the wasp.

The wasp crawled even farther into the observatory, using the telescope as a kind of bridge. Lisa stared past it for a moment, at the blue sky outside…until another antenna moved into frame.

Lisa gasped.

Radar twisted his face toward her, giving her a warning glare. Then he noticed she was staring at something and followed her gaze.

He stood completely still for a moment, and then whispered, “Shut the porthole,” and he bolted toward the stool.

The wasp paused for a beat, then it turned and watched Radar for another beat, before its wings started buzzing and it launched right at him.

Radar dove at the last second, grabbing the legs of the stool, and as he pivoted on the ground, he swung the stool back at the wasp.

The seat of the stool connected with the wasp’s head. It fell on the floor, motionless for a moment, stunned, and then it started to buzz again—an angry buzz in Lisa’s mind, a very pissed off buzz.

“Lisa, now!”

She bolted toward the telescope. The button was on the wall. All she needed to do was push it. Once she did, the porthole would close. Simple as that. Only, based on how the porthole opened, it wouldn’t close very quickly. It would take a couple of seconds, and who knew just how long before the second wasp crawled inside.

She heard Radar grunt as he swung the stool again. The wasp’s buzz grew louder. The wasp outside, perhaps drawn by the noise, leaned over the open portal and peered down.

She punched the button.

Nothing happened.

“It’s not working!”

Radar didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. Currently he was trying to climb to his feet while the wasp twitched toward him. Its antennae, which had been straight before, were now crooked, bent in the middle where he’d struck them.

“Radar!”

He started to glance her way, but that was when the wasp rose up and flew at him again. He swung the stool a third time, harder now, knocking the wasp away. It hit the ground but immediately bounced back.

The second wasp, meanwhile, began crawling through the porthole. Radar was already having trouble fighting the first. He wouldn’t be able to manage two at the same time.

Lisa punched the button again, and again, and again. Each time nothing happened. Panic rose, but she looked for a weapon. Besides the stool, there was the desk and the telescope, and both were too large and heavy to—

The telescope!

She hurried forward, remembering Radar looking at the buttons that controlled the telescope. One of those buttons made the telescope expand, the top end moving outside the observatory. Which button that was,  she couldn’t remember, but that didn’t matter.

Lisa started punching buttons, feeling like Dee Dee let loose in Dexter’s Lab.

The third button did the trick. The telescope hummed as the top began to expand, just as the second wasp had started to crawl inside. The giant insect buzzed angrily as the telescope pushed it away. It appeared to be pushing back, but the telescope’s mechanisms worked against it. A few seconds later, the telescope was completely elongated, and while there was still space around it, it wasn’t enough for the wasp to slip through.

Radar had managed to climb to his feet, gripping the stool in both hands. The wasp came at him again, only this time it wasn’t as nimble. Its antennae weren’t just crooked anymore; they were snapped at ninety degree angles, barely connected. One of its wings was torn, as well. Radar paused, the stool cocked back over his shoulder. He feinted twice, making the wasp hop back. Stepping forward a third time, Radar swung hard, bringing the stool’s seat down on the creature’s head. It fell to the floor, legs twitching, one of its wings still buzzing. Radar raised the stool over his head and brought it down onto the wasp’s head, again and again and again.

“Radar!”

He stopped, the stool over his head, and glanced back at her. There was something different at that moment in his eyes, something that scared her. He blinked and that something disappeared. He was the Radar she had always known and now loved.

“I think it’s dead,” she said.

Radar glanced down at the motionless wasp, its head little more than a chunky paste. He nodded, his shoulders dropping, and he let go of the stool. It clattered to the ground.

“Now what?” she asked.

Outside, the buzzing swelled.

66

They took him into the back room, sat him down in a folding chair and ripped the tape off his mouth.

Charley said, his voice quiet, “What are you guys going to do?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Osterman said. “The fact is, we didn’t think we’d be seeing you so soon.”

“You can’t hurt me.”

“Who says we’re going to hurt you?” Osterman asked.

“If he finds out you hurt me—”

“Yeah,” Boyle said, “speaking of our mutual friend...”

Charley frowned. “What about him?”

“We need to talk to him,” Osterman said.

“Not possible.”

“Not possible?” Boyle smiled, and glanced at Osterman. “He says that’s not possible.”

“I heard what he said.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Not at all.”

“Guys,” Charley said, and he hated to hear the whine in his voice. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where he is.”

Osterman frowned. “That right?”

“I swear it.”

“See,” Boyle said, “the problem is, we both know you’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“But you are. Keep in mind, I was watching your friends out there through the scope of my rifle. From my vantage point, I could see all the way down to the road. You’re saying you came with the group, but I watched you run into them.”

Charley said nothing. He had been doing a good job so far of keeping direct eye contact with the two soldiers, but now his gaze shifted away.

“From what it looked like to me,” Boyle said, “you weren’t with them at all. In fact, it looked like you were headed somewhere else. Now, Chuck, I wonder where that could be.”

Charley opened his mouth. Closed it.

Osterman leaned down and stared hard at Charley until the bound man was forced to meet his eyes.

He said, “Don’t make us hurt you. I promise you, the very last thing you want is for us to hurt you.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell us how to contact him,” Boyle said.

“Why?”

“Why?” Boyle laughed. He turned to Osterman, “He wants to know why.”

Osterman used his hand to smack the back of Charley’s head. “Why do you think, dipshit? We want out of this funhouse.”

Now it was Charley who laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Boyle asked.

“You think you’re going to tell him what to do?” Charley asked. “He doesn’t listen to anybody.”

“He will to us,” Boyle said.

Charley nearly laughed. “He’s not scared of you.”

“He will be.”

“You’re nothing to him,” Charley said. “Just the hired help.”

“Speak for yourself,” Osterman said.

“Look, I brought you guys food and supplies because that was my job. That was my only job. The rest of this shit”—he shook his head—“you think I knew what would happen? Fuck no. If I had, I would have been halfway to California by the time that goddamn church bell started ringing. And for the record, I’m pretty sure our little jaunt through the thirteen levels of hell wasn’t sanctioned.”

Boyle crossed his arms, took a deep breath. “You realize you’re not making this easy on yourself, don’t you?”

“I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”

“Except we know you’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“Charley, please,” Boyle said. “If you’re not going to respect us, at least respect yourself.”

“The fact is,” Osterman said, “we don’t even know who he is. We’ve never actually met our employer...or the person posing as our employer. All we have is his name, and I’ve gone through all that shit and found nothing useful.” He threw his hand out at a desk set against the wall, boxes and papers scattered on top. “But you’ve met the guy. You can shake your head and try to deny it as much as you want, but we all know you’re lying. You know exactly who he is.”

“I don’t.”

“Bullshit.” Boyle looked at Osterman. “Guess we need to take a different approach.”

They moved so quickly Charley barely even realized it, at first. One moment they were standing in front of him, the next they grabbed him and pulled him out of the chair. Charley heard the snick of a switchblade popping open. The zip-tie fell away from his wrists. He was pushed back down onto the chair, and Boyle had his hand now, his left hand, squeezing Charley’s index finger.

“Who is he?” Boyle asked.

Charley started shaking his head, his eyes brimming with tears, knowing very well what these men intended to do.

“If I tell you...” His voice was a whimper.

“What?” Boyle asked. “He’ll kill you? You don’t think we’ll kill you?”

“Please, I have a son!”

Osterman said, “Like you give a shit about your boy.”

“I do! Please, I can’t—”

“Sorry, Chuck,” Boyle said.

And he snapped Charley’s finger.

67

The howling from the other room had just stopped, when the ground began to tremble.

It had the same earthquake quality as before—barely a two on the Richter—but it felt sharper, like the thing burrowing up toward them was getting closer.

Griffin glanced at Frost beside him. She just looked back. He tried reading her eyes, searching for some kind of silent communication, but all he saw was anger. They might die here, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Either these men would kill them or the roots would.

He gripped the metal pipe. It was thin but strong, not apt to bend easily. He looked over his shoulder and saw the pipe traveled the length of the wall. But was the pipe one long band or was it jointed? Surely there had to be a weak point. He thought if Cash was here, the man would know exactly where to find the weak point. But the man was back in town, trying to get the power going in the rest of the homes that hadn’t been retrofitted. His thoughts turned to Avalon, who was still craving Oxy—would no doubt crave it for quite some time—and he wished he could have spent a few extra minutes with her before leaving. He wished he could have at least hugged her and kissed her and told her he loved her. The thought that he might never see her again was enough to drive him crazy, and he didn’t realize he was gripping the pipe so tightly until he felt his nails digging deeply into the palms of his hands.

Griffin blinked and noticed Frost watching him. Her eyes shifted back to the pipe, and he saw she had her hands gripped around it, too. He glanced to the other side and saw Winslow and Dodge were doing the same. Both men were watching him, either waiting to see whether he understood or waiting for permission to proceed.

Griffin nodded, just once, and then they all began pulling the pipe forward a bit.

Nothing happened, at least not at first, but they kept pulling it and pulling it and… Was that movement? Griffin thought it was. There was a ping of straining metal, farther down toward the end of the hanger, where the pipe turned at a ninety-degree angle and headed toward the ceiling.

Through the door, the howling continued. Griffin could just hear Charley’s voice, begging the men to stop. Griffin had never been a big fan of Charley Wilson, but the man didn’t deserve to be tortured.

As the howling died away, the ground trembled once more.

They kept pulling on the pipe, but Griffin stopped. He grunted to get everyone’s attention. All eyes focused on him. He looked at Frost on one side, Winslow and Dodge on the other side, and then nodded forward. His legs were out flat in front of him. He raised his left foot and brought it down so the sole of his shoe slapped the concrete. He did it again, and again, and again, both feet now, and the rest of them understood and started stomping, too.

Beneath them, the ground trembled yet again, this time with even more energy and anticipation. Whatever was below, was coming up.

68

At Carol Herman’s insistence, they turned off the TV and went into the dining room, where she had set up a board game on the table.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have many games except this one. Do you girls know how to play?”

Both Alice and Joy nodded their heads, said they did, sat down and prepared to play the game. Avalon just stood there, not sure what to say.

“What about you, dear?” Carol Herman asked.

Avalon shook her head. She didn’t want to admit she had never played such a classic game before, but it was the truth. Growing up, neither of her parents had been much for board games. They had much preferred her to play outside, or read a book. Maybe if she’d had a sibling, things might have been different. They could have spent Saturday nights huddled around a table like this one, a bowl of popcorn beside them, laughing and having a good time.

“It’s been a while since I played it,” Avalon lied. “I might be pretty rusty.”

“That’s okay. It’s been a while for me, too.”

They sat down at the table—Monty and his girls, Avalon and Carol Herman—and Carol asked Alice and Joy if they would like to help explain the game. It was Scrabble, after all, one of those games Avalon assumed everyone but her knew how to play, and it made her wonder what else she had missed in her life. And it wasn’t just recent history, either, though she was sure she had missed quite a bit. Didn’t most strung-out junkies miss a lot?

Thinking about being strung-out made her think about Oxy, and she wondered where she could find some, whether there might even be some substitute worth trying in the medicine cabinet.

“Dear?”

Avalon blinked. Realized Carol Herman and everyone else were watching her.

“Yes?”

“Do the rules make sense?”

No, they didn’t, but that was because she hadn’t heard them, too focused on wanting another fix and telling herself she didn’t, but she smiled and said yes.

And so they began the game. Avalon forced herself to concentrate. Trying to keep up. Trying to act like she had been listening before. Because what if someone asked her why she hadn’t been listening? What would she say? Tell them the truth? Of course not. Never. So then what?

It didn’t matter anyway. Because not even five minutes into the game, Monty paused and cocked his head. “Does anybody else hear that?”

They all went quiet. A grandfather clocked ticked in the next room. Otherwise, the house was silent.

Except, no—there was something else, distant and faint.

Carol Herman asked, “What is that?”

They rose from the table and went to the closest window overlooking the front yard and down into town. There didn’t appear to be anything, at least as far as Avalon could see, but the sound was getting louder.

Then Alice—or was it Joy?—pointed without a word, and they saw it, flitting quickly over the yard.

“What in the world is that?” Carol Herman asked again.

Whatever it was, it was flying toward the other houses down the hill. There were others, too, first only three that Avalon could see, then five, six, seven.

“Are those bees?” Joy (or was it Alice) asked.

Suddenly, one of the things lowered into view, right on the other side of the window, hovering for a moment in front of them before starting away.

One of the girls screamed.

The thing outside paused, swung back around, and flew at the window.

It tapped against the glass several times, confused by the clear solid. It continued bouncing against the glass, never hard enough to break it, staring at them with large black eyes.

“A wasp,” Monty whispered, incredulous.

The thing—the wasp—backed away and hit the window harder. The glass rattled, but held.

One of the girls went to scream again, but Monty clamped a hand over her mouth and whispered, “Shhhh. Nobody move.”

Nobody did. They stood there, waiting, silent, until the wasp seemed to lose interest and flew away toward the rest of the houses.

The buzzing was even louder now. Closer. They could see more of the wasps down in town, and there was a gunshot, then several gunshots. One of the girls started crying.

Somewhere through the house, came a tinny sounding cry: “Help!”

The voice was coming from the kitchen. They hurried toward it as the voice kept crying for help, and it was only when they entered that they realized the room was empty.

Carol Herman said, “The intercom.”

Monty glanced at her. “What?”

She pointed at the intercom on the wall, and at that moment, another tinny cry came through.

“Help us! Please, anybody!”

Monty crossed the kitchen to the intercom and pressed the button.

“Radar, Lisa, can you hear me?”

A pause, and then Radar’s voice: “Yes we can, Mr. Beaumont. We’re trapped.”

They could see the observatory through the window. Nearly a half dozen wasps crawled up and down and all over it.

Monty said into the intercom, “Kids, listen to me carefully. We’re going to get you out of there. Can any of those things get in?”

Another pause.

“Not anymore,” Radar said.

“Good. That’s good. Now like I said, we’re going to get you out of there. But you need to stay quiet. Okay?”

Radar’s voice, barely a whisper: “Yes.”

“Just stick tight for now. Can you do that?”

“Yes. But please, hurry.”

Monty turned away from the intercom. He stared through the window at the wasps crawling around on the observatory.

Avalon said, “What do we do now?”

Monty was quiet for a long moment, facing the window. Then he turned to them, took a deep breath, and said, “I think I have a plan.”

69

They had finished with the left hand and were starting on the right. Charley had sobbed and begged them to stop, but he still hadn’t told them what they wanted to know. Despite his blubbering state, the man had the resolve of a highly trained soldier, and Osterman wasn’t sure the man would ever talk—not really out of commitment to their mutual employer, but out of spite. Osterman took Charley’s finger and prepared to apply slow, steady pressure until the joint gave. But he stopped short. The floor beneath them shook.

Osterman and Boyle paused, looking at each other. In the past couple of hours they had become accustomed to the trembling of the earth, while the roots moved through the dirt, seeking out the sources of various vibrations. But what they felt now was different. It was more insistent, more intense.

“What is that?” Boyle asked.

Osterman wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but then he heard it: out past the door, down the corridor, into the hanger, was that…clapping?

Without a word, both men turned away from Charley and headed for the door. They went down the short corridor and into the hanger. They found the group still tied up to the pipe, only they were all stomping their feet on the floor, as hard as they could.

Bam bam bam.

The group noticed them at once. Only the pastor hesitated, his feet pausing in the air. Then he brought them down just as hard as his friends did.

The trembling in the garage was out of control. The concrete was beginning to crack, as the roots kept trying to push their way through.

“Stop it,” Osterman said. Then, shouting: “Stop it!”

They didn’t stop. They just kept going. Griffin met his eye, and there was a coolness to the look, a smug acknowledgement that if they were going to die, Osterman and Boyle were going to die, too.

The rubber grip of his sidearm felt reassuring in his hand as he slipped it from the holster and aimed it right at Griffin’s head.

Griffin didn’t blink, didn’t even pause. He kept stomping.

Osterman cocked the hammer back.

Griffin kept stomping.

Griffin’s resolve and lack of fear unnerved him. Who the fuck is this guy?

The ground trembled even more, with such force that it nearly knocked Osterman over. Boyle shouted, “Shit!” A gunshot went off. Osterman glanced over his shoulder and saw a root had broken through the concrete. It was only feet away from Boyle.

Boyle fired again, but the root seemed to dodge the bullet. It snapped forward, right at Boyle, who managed to dive out of the way. As he scrambled to his feet, the ground trembled again. More concrete gave way, and two more roots tore up through the floor. One rose up on the other side of the garage, by the Humvees, but the other came up near Boyle.

Right behind him.

The man never had a chance.

The root behind him snapped forward. It didn’t go for his legs. Instead, it wrapped around his neck, squeezed tight, and jerked him off his feet. Osterman started toward Boyle, but he barely took two steps before the man was dragged down into the hole.

Just then, more roots shot out of the ground. Osterman saw one coming at him from the corner of his eye and spun, shooting at it. He backed away and shot at another root, then another. Six of them were in the garage now, while still more fought to push their way in.

The stomping, he realized, had stopped. He noticed the group were now pushing and pulling on the pipe. The end of the pipe tore away from the wall. The group scrambled to their feet, rushing toward the broken end. He raised his gun, meaning to shoot at them, to kill them, to do anything to pay them back for what they had done, but another root crashed through the ground right beside him, nearly toppling him over. He adjusted his aim toward the root and opened fire.

70

Alice and Joy sat on the couch holding each other, tears in their eyes, both quietly weeping. Carol Herman knelt down in front of them whispering words of encouragement. Monty stood beside Avalon, speaking to her until suddenly he stopped and waved his hand in front of her face.

She blinked, startled, and looked at him.

“Did you hear anything I just told you?”

She nodded, hesitant.

“Then repeat it.”

“You… uh… You’re going to draw the wasps out to the front of the house. Once they all leave, I’m going to get Radar and Lisa from the observatory.”

Monty nodded slowly, studying her. “And we need to hurry. Are you sure you can do this?” Before she could answer, he said, “Honestly, you don’t have a choice. We’re running out of time.”

Avalon swallowed. She knew he was right. Who else was going to go get the kids? Monty had already explained the plan to Radar and Lisa through the intercom. Radar said they could just run out once the wasps went away, but Monty didn’t want to take the chance if any of the wasps returned. If they did, they would come fast, and the kids would be out in the open with nothing to protect them. That was why Avalon would be there, armed with a gun, despite the fact she had never fired one—even though she had grown up in a gun town, and had an ex-Ranger for a father.

Speaking of guns, Monty hefted the silver handgun Carol Herman had retrieved from a lockbox in the master bedroom. She said it belonged to Winslow, and she didn’t know the last time he had cleaned it, but she assumed it still worked. Monty had his own handgun.

Monty held the gun out to her. Avalon just stared at it. He kept it there, waiting, and finally she reached out, took the weapon and held it at her side.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay with that?”

“Just point and shoot,” she whispered. “That’s what you said, right?”

He smiled, touched her arm and said, “You’ll do fine, Lony. I’m sure of it.”

“What if those…things don’t fall for it? What if you shout your head off, and they just stay where they are?”

“They won’t.”

“But how do you know?”

“I just do.” He forced another smile, but Avalon could see he was fooling himself. At the moment, there wasn’t much else they could do. “Now I want to talk to my girls first, before we do this.”

Carol Herman was still kneeling down in front of the girls, whispering to them, when Monty approached. She struggled to her feet and stepped aside, so Monty could take her place. He held his arms out wide and hugged the two girls tightly. Wrapped in their father’s arms, they both burst into tears again. One of them—Alice?—started begging him not to do this.

“It’s okay, honey,” Monty said. “I’ll be right back. It’ll only be a few minutes. Everything will be fine.”

Avalon watched them, wondering where her own father was at that moment. She glanced down at the gun in her hand and thought about the power she now had to take life.

Just point and shoot, she thought. It’s just that simple.

Yeah, right.

Carol Herman approached her. She wore the same damned smile she always did, the one Avalon had asked her about. The smile freaked Avalon out—she wanted to scream at the woman to stop, to just be normal for once.

The old woman held out her hand.

Avalon said, “What?”

“The gun, dear.”

“What? Why? I…I need it.”

“No. You don’t.”

Monty hugged his girls one last time. He kissed them each on a cheek, then stood up and headed toward the two women.

“Ready?” he asked Avalon.

Carol Herman said, “She’s not going.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m going in her place,” Carol said. “Actually, Monty, I’m going in your place. I’ll distract the wasps. You save the kids.”

Monty looked bewildered. “That’s out of the question.”

“I’m afraid it’s the only option we have. No offense to Avalon, but she can’t handle this. She’s still working herself out of whatever mess she was in when the world went sideways. You need to go in her place.”

“But…” Monty shook his head. “But there’s a very good chance you—”

“I know what the chances are. I also know those two precious girls just lost their mother. I’ll be damned if they lose their father, too.”

Monty stood quiet for a long moment, thinking about it. Finally he nodded. “Fine,” he said. Then to Avalon: “Keep an eye on my girls. We won’t be long.”

Before Avalon knew it, the gun was taken from her hand. It was Carol Herman, hefting it just like Monty had moments before.

Without a word, Monty started toward the rear of the house. Carol started toward the front, where she would push through the door, climb down the steps into the front lawn and start yelling and screaming, doing whatever she could to attract the wasps.

“Mrs. Herman?”

The old woman paused, turned back around. “I told you to call me Carol.”

Avalon opened her mouth, closed it.

Carol Herman smiled. “It’ll be okay, dear. You’re much stronger than you realize. You’ll see that soon.” The smile faded, and her eyes went glassy. “Make sure to tell my husband I love him. He already knows I do, but I’d like him to know I said it, at least one more time.”

Avalon felt a tear roll down her cheek. She wanted to say something, wanted to shake her head, wanted to rush forward and hold on to the old woman and never let her go. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. But before Avalon could do any of those things, Carol Herman turned away and continued down the hallway. She didn’t even hesitate at the front door. She just pushed it open and stepped outside.

71

Frost realized at the last second their plan was doomed. They were almost there—almost to the very end of the pipe—but there were way too many variables now, with the roots shooting up through the floor. This had been Griffin’s plan when he started the stomping, though she doubted he knew it would get this extreme. Or had he known? She would ask him, if they ever got out of this alive.

Winslow was on the far end, leading them to the broken part of the pipe. She loved the man but wished he would move faster. He was going as fast as he could, though. Being the tallest of them, he was hunched over pretty far, and at his age, it had to hurt.

With a final effort, Winslow pushed himself to the end and slipped free of the pipe. Frost, Griffin and Dodge followed in rapid succession. The ground trembled as more and more of the roots fought against the concrete floor. One of the soldiers—Boyle—was gone, but the other one—Osterman—was still alive, though it looked like he was having a hard time getting past the aggressive roots.

Their hands remained tied behind their backs. Tape still covered their mouths. Before anyone could hatch a plan or take action, the concrete right in front of them crumbled and broke apart. A root sprang up, nearly as tall as Frost.

She didn’t move.

None of them moved.

They just stood there, motionless, silent, and the root swayed back and forth for a few heartbeats before a gunshot turned its attention toward Osterman. It reached out for the man, but was held back by concrete rubble. It stopped moving for a moment, and then retreated back into the ground.

Frost looked at Griffin, Winslow, and then Dodge. She made an exaggerated tip-toeing motion, telling them to walk quietly.

Each man nodded, and Frost took the lead, headed toward the door through which Osterman and Boyle had taken Charley.

They had barely gone five steps when the window beside them shattered.

Frost jumped, startled, and looked up to find Osterman on the other side of the hanger, his gun aimed at them. It was one thing to try to get past the roots with as few vibrations as possible, a completely different thing to ignore a man with a gun.

She broke out running, hoping the men behind her would do the same. More glass shattered. She had no doubt that Osterman was a good shot, but the roots hunting him kept him off balance, fouling his aim.

Frost ducked down as she ran, making herself a smaller target. She quickly reached the door. It was closed, so she spun into it, grabbed the handle and lifted it up, pushing her body back against the door as it swung inward.

Griffin, Dodge, and Winslow hurried in after her.

She slammed the door shut, just as something—a bullet or a root—hit the other side with a loud thwack.

She turned to find the men had already dispersed. A few doors were lined up along the corridor. Winslow poked his head into one, as did Dodge. Griffin appeared from another room, turning slightly to show the knife he now held.

Dodge was the closest. He hurried over to Griffin, turned around, and waited as Griffin turned around. Standing back to back with Dodge, Griffin looked over his shoulder, glanced down at the knife blade, and yanked up once. Then the zip-ties fell away from Dodge’s wrists. The pastor took the knife and sliced the zip-ties off Griffin’s wrists, then Winslow’s and Frost’s.

Frost peeled the duct tape off her mouth. She whispered, “How are we going to get out of here?”

Griffin took the knife back from Dodge, wielding it like someone who knew how to use it. “We take one of the Humvees.”

“You want to go back through that?” Dodge asked.

“I don’t think we have much choice,” Griffin said. “Sheriff?”

She shook her head. “Not without weapons. No way. And keys would be good.”

“I have that covered,” Griffin said.

“The keys?” Dodge asked.

Griffin smiled. “All of it.”

He led them back into the room he had been in only a moment before, where he had found the knife. The place was an arsenal. Not quite the arsenal Frost had imagined, but there were M16s, Beretta 9mms and even grenades.

A metal box hung off the wall by the door. Griffin opened it and there, hanging from a series of hooks, were three sets of keys.

“Let’s hope one of these works,” he said, taking them and handing them to Frost.

She stared down at the keys in her hand, and then glanced up at Griffin, as he headed over to the wall of weapons. “What are you going to do?”

He strapped an M16 over his shoulder, took one of the Berettas and slammed in a fresh magazine. “I’m going to go find Charley.”

72

He found Charley almost immediately—checked two rooms and there he was in the third, trying to open the door. Griffin nearly knocked the man over, because he was standing directly behind the door. Charley cried out when the door collided with his injured hand. Griffin noticed the swollen red fingers and the tears on Charley’s face. He didn’t bother asking the man if he was okay, because clearly he was not.

“We’re bugging out,” Griffin said.

Charley only nodded. He didn’t ask where the men who had tortured him had gone, or how Griffin had managed to come to his rescue. Griffin turned to step back out of the room, but something caught his eye.

It was a desk, one of those large steel numbers found in old factories. The desk was covered in boxes, large envelopes and papers. Griffin stepped around Charley, momentarily ignoring the shaking ground and the distant noise of gunfire. Packages like these didn’t just randomly show up out of nowhere. They had a purpose, and more importantly, they had a sender.

The same name was on the labels of all the packages. The return addresses were different, but they were all mailed to a post office box in Ashland. And the recipient on the P.O. box was the same on each.

Nelson Florider.

“Griff?” Charley was slumped against the doorframe, his lip curled down as he tried to fight back the pain.

“Did you ever hear of a Nelson Florider?” Griffin asked.

“They broke my hand.” Charley’s voice quivered. “They broke my fucking hand.”

Griffin turned back to the desk. He considered taking one of the packages, at least one of the large envelopes, but he decided now wasn’t the time. Maybe later, if they managed to get out of here in one piece. If the depot was still standing from what was now attacking it.

“You might need this,” Griffin said, pulling the Beretta from his belt and handing it to Charley.

Charley stared at it for a long moment, as if contemplating what its purpose was. Finally he took it with his good hand and nodded.

Frost, Dodge and Winslow were waiting for them around the corner in the corridor. All of them were strapped with weapons. They looked at Charley with worry, but Charley shook them off.

“I’m fine.”

“Remember,” Frost said. “The trick is to walk slowly. Make as little noise as possible.”

She started toward the door, reaching for the handle. The door burst open instead. Osterman stood before them, his right arm torn off, blood soaking his uniform. He had his gun in his left hand and raised it at Frost.

Before he could fire, though, his face disappeared. His body slumped and hit the floor. The single shot echoed loudly in the hallway.

Griffin lowered his M16. He nodded to Frost, not shaken by the violent act. Most people in town knew his past, that he’d been an Army Ranger, but few understood what a Ranger actually did. Most associated the term with park rangers, protecting nature from hikers and hikers from nature. But the Army Rangers were one of the most skilled military forces in the world, and the motto, ‘Rangers lead the way’ wasn’t just a catchy saying. When the United States went to war, the first boots on the ground, sometimes long before a war had been officially declared, were Rangers, doing what needed to be done. What no one in town really knew, or thought about, was that Griffin had killed people. And he was good at it. The images had haunted him later on, but he’d managed to control his demons through his art.

Frost whispered, “Let’s go!”

They started out into the hanger, slowly at first, but it soon became apparent that wasn’t going to work. There were eight roots in total now, and they seemed to all sense the group at once. Many tried to stretch toward them, but they could only go so far, stretched to their limit underground. At least, Griffin thought, the town isn’t in any danger from the carnivorous trees.

Winslow whispered, “Allow me.” He pulled a grenade from his pocket, yanked the pin, and threw it toward the other end of the hanger. It hit the floor, seventy feet away and exploded, not a massive explosion like the kind you saw in the movies, but it pulled the roots’ attention like a swimsuit model strutting through death row.

Griffin put a hand on Winslow’s arm. “In case you decide to do that again, shout ‘frag out’ before throwing so we know to duck. Or cover our ears. And the effective kill radius of most frag grenades is about fifty feet.”

Winslow gave a nod. “Right. Sorry.”

They ran toward the Humvees. Griffin lingered, taking up the rear. As he passed Winslow’s charred SUV, he looked through the open driver’s door and saw his M4. He recovered it quickly, tucking it into his belt next to the Beretta. A few of the nearest roots sensed his movement, though, and swung back around. Griffin raised the M16 and touched the trigger, but something else caught his eye.

A root only yards away snapped out at him. Griffin sidestepped it, shouldered the M16, and bent to grab the flamethrower. He had no idea how much fuel was left in the tank. Judging by the weight, there was still some. He’d never used a flamethrower. They hadn’t been part of the U.S. arsenal since 1978, which made the weapon’s presence strange, but welcome. Between his vast weapons training and knowledge of how to use a backyard grill, he found the weapon very intuitive. He hefted it onto his back, ignited the pilot flame, slipped his finger around the trigger, and sprayed a steady stream of flame at the nearest root.

The other roots had sensed the group moving, and they were stretching out to reach them. Winslow shouted, “Frag out!” and then tossed another grenade across the wide hanger. The concussive force was deafening within the confines of the hanger, but none of the roots were fooled this time. Only Griffin seemed to have any luck, advancing toward the Humvee as he sprayed wide arcs of fire that repelled the roots, albeit only momentarily. He reached the vehicle seconds later, everyone else already inside. Frost was behind the wheel, the engine rumbling, Dodge in the passenger seat. Winslow kept the rear door open for Griffin, who shrugged off the fuel tank, tossed the flamethrower aside and climbed in.

The ground beneath them trembled violently. Frost floored the accelerator. The Humvee’s engine roared and they started forward—but immediately jerked to a stop.

“What’s wrong?” Dodge shouted.

Frost shook her head. She kept her foot on the gas. The engine roared even louder, but the Humvee didn’t move.

Only no—it was moving.

Backwards.

Griffin turned in his seat. He couldn’t quite see out the rear window. This Humvee was equipped with a machine gun mounted on the roof. He stood up and stepped between Winslow and Charley, poking his head through the ring mount. “Shit.”

Frost shouted, “What’s wrong?”

“A root has us! Probably gripping the axle!”

The root was thicker than all the rest, no doubt stronger.

“Use the machine gun!” Winslow shouted.

But it wouldn’t work. Griffin saw that immediately. The angle was wrong.

Griffin lowered his hand, shouted, “Give me a grenade!”

Winslow did him one better. He gave him two.

Griffin pulled the pins from each. He stared at the base of the root, at the space where it had torn up through the concrete. The chances of making one of the grenades into that slight space were low. Still, he would never know until he tried.

He tossed the grenades, one after another. They rattled across the concrete and bounced to a stop against the large root. Two points, Griffin, he thought, and he ducked into the Humvee.

“You didn’t say, ‘frag out,’” Winslow complained.

“It was implied,” Griffin replied.

Then the world exploded. The Humvee, released from the root’s grasp, jerked forward and careened through the hanger door, bending the flimsy metal and emerging from the other side like a newborn war machine.

73

Once they were past the gate, Frost kept her foot on the gas pedal. She was aware of a few other roots off in the grass, but they weren’t a threat. They could only reach so far.

The Humvee began to slow. She wasn’t sure why until she realized her foot had lifted off the gas.

Beside her, Dodge asked, “Everything okay?”

She blinked. Realized that they were passing the spot where the remains of Rebecca Rule lay. She considered stopping once more for her friend and mentor’s remains, but they’d been out of touch with the town for too long. Refuge comes first, she told herself, glancing at Griffin. Everything else is secondary.

Shaking her head to clear it, she said, “I’m fine,” and she pressed her foot back down on the gas pedal.

They didn’t speak for the next several minutes. Not when she made the turn at the intersection. Not as they climbed the road leading back into town. At some point, she knew one of them would speak, and that would start up a whole conversation, but she wasn’t sure what she could add to it. Not yet at least. Not until she had time to sit down and process everything.

Then, behind her, Winslow said, “It’s happening again.”

She eyed him in the rearview mirror and saw him staring out the window. She looked out the windshield again, not at the road but toward the sky. He was right. She slowed the Humvee to a stop and cut the engine. Off in the distance, the church bell was ringing frantically.

They waited and watched the green world behind them shimmer and fade. In its place was a wasteland. Brown dust blew across the landscape, shifting past fields of boulders, craggy stone outcroppings and a few scattered, burnt trees that rose up like blackened, one-hundred-foot tall flagpoles.

Dodge’s voice was a reverent whisper. “What—what is this?”

“Did you ever see pictures of Hiroshima after the bomb?” Winslow asked. “Looked a lot like this.”

Frost started the engine, placed the Humvee in gear, and they moved forward again.

They reached the outskirts of town two minutes later. Some people were out with guns and rifles. They even heard gunfire off in the distance.

“What’s happened now?” Dodge asked.

Someone spotted them and hurried over.

Frost rolled down her window. “What’s going on?”

“Bugs. Big, giant bugs. Like bees or wasps or something.”

“How many?”

A shrug. “Not sure, but we managed to kill most of ’em. A few others flew away. Sheriff, where do you think we are now?”

Frost decided to ignore the question for the moment. “Is anybody hurt?”

“A few people. Think they got stung. I’m not too sure, though. Hey, where’d you get the Humvee?”

Another question Frost decided to ignore for the time being. “I’m sorry, we need to go. Be safe.”

They continued into the center of town. More people were around, most of them carrying weapons of some kind. Not all of them were guns. Some of them were makeshift—baseball bats, rakes, hoes—a mob fit for Dr. Frankenstein’s castle.

Frost stopped the Humvee in the middle of the street. She glanced back at Charley. “How are you holding up?”

He grimaced. “Could use a drink.”

Frost raised a single eyebrow . “We’ll get Kyle to look at your hand.”

The sense of confidence she tried to convey rang hollow even to her own ears.

“Now we just need to find him,” Winslow said.

“Here comes Cash,” Griffin said. He opened his door and stepped out as the electrician hurried over.

Cash took in the Humvee. “Guess the depot wasn’t completely deserted after all, huh?”

“It’s a long story,” Griffin said. “Charley’s hurt pretty bad. Do you know where we can find Kyle?”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He ran a hand through his hair, then replaced his Sox cap. He was clearly nervous.

Everyone else was getting out of the Humvee now. Frost asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Well, um—” Cash shook his head. “Kyle’s up at Mr. Herman’s place.” He glanced at Winslow and then back to Griffin. “It’s best you head up there as quickly as possible.”

Griffin stepped forward, clutching Cash’s arm. “Is it Avalon?”

“Lony’s fine,” Cash said. “It’s—” His eyes shifted toward Winslow again, and at once the old man’s face paled.

“Carol?” he whispered.

Cash repeated, “You best hurry.”

Frost touched Winslow’s arm, tried to direct him back to the Humvee. “Get in. I’ll drive.”

“What’s happened to Carol?” Winslow asked.

But Cash only shook his head.

Griffin helped Charley out of the car. “Can you find Charley some help?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Cash asked.

“His left hand is broken.”

“How’d that happen?”

By then Frost had managed to get Winslow back in the Humvee. She waited at the driver’s door. “Griffin?”

He nodded to her, then said to Cash, “Just make sure he gets some help, okay?”

“Definitely,” Cash said. “No problem.”

Griffin hurried back to the Humvee. Dodge was still in the passenger seat. He climbed in next to the pastor as Frost started up the engine and tore down Main Street, turning a quick right into the residential neighborhood.

Cash took Charley’s arm and led him toward Soucey’s Market. “Hell, man, what happened to your hand?”

Charley said nothing. The pain still radiated up his arm, but the hand itself had become numb. He wondered if he would ever be able to use it like he had before. After all, this was his beer-drinking hand. The one he used to tip back countless bottles. The one he even used to choke the chicken on the occasions he had nowhere else to stick it.

Cash opened the door for him. Charley started to take a step inside, but something caught his eye down the street. Julie Barnes, now dressed in form-fitting jeans, a tight, pink flannel shirt and new-looking hiking boots, stood there outside the Brick House, watching him. He stared at her a moment, not sure what to say or do. Then he lifted his other hand, his good hand, and raised his middle finger.

Cash glanced down the street. No fan of Julie Barnes, he grinned. “What’s that about?”

“Nothing,” Charley grunted, turning back to him. “You think you can find me a beer? Because right about now, I could use a goddamn drink.”

74

Frost drove as fast as she could without careening off Winslow’s long, winding, uphill driveway. They arrived at his house squealing to a stop. Winslow had his door open before the Humvee stopped rolling. He jumped out, stumbled and nearly fell on his face. He managed to keep his balance, though, and hurried toward the front porch, just as the door opened and Avalon stepped outside.

She tried saying something to Winslow, tears in her eyes, but he pushed past her into the house. She turned then and saw her father getting out of the Humvee. She ran down the steps and threw herself into his arms.

“What happened?” Griffin asked, holding her head to his chest. Dodge had headed inside, but Frost was lingering. Griffin nodded at her to go on ahead.

“It’s all my fault,” Avalon sobbed.

“What is?”

“She should have stayed inside with the girls. But I—I—I was scared. She saw I was scared and she—”

Avalon burst into even more tears. Griffin held her close. He wanted to go inside, find out what happened, but he wasn’t going to let go of his daughter after the experience he’d just survived. For a time, he had been certain he was never going to see her again.

Finally, Avalon got herself under control. She wiped at her eyes, sniffed back tears.

Griffin said, “Tell me what happened.”

She did. It came out in fragments, but she told him about Radar and Lisa in the observatory, about the wasps, about how there were at least six crawling all over the observatory, and how they had needed to get the kids out. How the plan was for Monty to draw the wasps’ attention so Avalon could run out and bring Radar and Lisa back, and how Carol changed everything up at the last moment and took Avalon’s place.

“She went and got the kids?”

“No.” Avalon shook her head, wiping away more tears. “Monty did that. She went out front and started shouting and hollering and doing everything she could do get their attention. And it worked—it really worked. The bugs left. Monty went out, grabbed Radar and Lisa and brought them back inside. But then Mrs. Herman—I mean, Carol—she started screaming…”

Griffin then noticed two of the oversized wasps, dead on the lawn several yards away. He knew without Avalon telling him that after bringing the kids back inside Monty had gone out and found Carol being attacked by the wasps. Monty was good with a gun, and probably he had killed two of them, maybe injured more, enough so that the rest had split.

“Let’s go inside.”

He helped his daughter up the porch steps, a hand draped around her shoulder. Just before he opened the door, Avalon spoke again.

“Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not going to let something like that happen again.”

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Sweetheart, it’s not your fault. From what you told me, it could have been Monty who...” But he didn’t want to say it. Not knowing Alice and Joy had just recently lost their mother.

They went inside. Voices murmured deeper in the house. They followed the sound and found Frost standing with Monty outside an opened doorway. Griffin peeked inside. It appeared to be a guest bedroom. Winslow sat in a chair beside the bed. Carol lay across it, a quilt covering most of her body. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was discolored. Dodge stood off to the side, ready for when he would be needed to give a prayer. Kyle was cleaning up some supplies.

Frost touched his arm and led him farther down the hallway. In the living room, the TV droned on with some cartoon. Alice and Joy sat on the floor in front of it, while Radar and Lisa sat on the couch. The dining room was deserted except for the Scrabble tiles spread across the table.

“Radar and Lisa are keeping the girls preoccupied,” she whispered.

Griffin nodded. “How’s Carol?”

“She’s unconscious, but alive.”

“Does Kyle think she’ll pull through?”

The slightest shake of her head. “It doesn’t look good, but he said he was hopeful.”

“Why?”

“He said if there weren’t any human beings in that world, it was unlikely that the venom would work the way it was intended on human physiology. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be deadly.”

She rolled her neck and sighed. “We can’t just keep reacting like this. We need to get ahead of it somehow. But I have no idea what to do next.”

“Nelson Florider.”

“What?”

“Does the name ring any bells?”

“I don’t think so. What was the last name again, Florida?”

“No, Florider. I think.”

He turned to the table and began sorting through the Scrabble tiles until he had spelled it out:

NELSON FLORIDER

“Look familiar?”

Frost stared down at the name for a long moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think I know anybody named Nelson, let alone Florider.”

“I do.”

They turned. Radar stood in the doorway.

He saw their expressions and offered up a sheepish grin. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I swear, but I was wondering if either of you had seen my father? After what happened... I just wanted to see him. He’s still my father.”

Griffin wasn’t sure how to answer that appropriately. He had never cared much for Charley, but the man had just gone through a traumatic event, and Griffin wasn’t quite sure Radar needed to hear the details yet.

“He’s okay,” Frost said. “We’ll find him soon. But, Radar, how do you know Nelson Florider?”

“Oh, I don’t really know anyone named Nelson.”

Griffin frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s an anagram. Here.” Radar approached the table and started rearranging tiles.

“And you just looked at the table and saw the solution?” Griffin asked. He’d known Radar a long time but had never seen him playing a word game.

“It’s kind of a gift, or a curse if you’re a teenager.” Radar stood back. “See?”

Griffin said nothing. All he could do was stand there, staring down at the eighteen-point name. A name he knew very well. A name everyone in town knew very well.

RENFORD ELLISON

REFUGE

Book 4: Ashes and Dust

By Jeremy Bishop and David McAfee

Thou shalt be visited of the Lord with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

Isaiah 29:6

75

Griffin held the M16 in his hands, remembering times past when he wielded similar weapons. When he’d shot them. When he’d killed with them. Each pull of the trigger put a scratch in the record of his mind, causing him to mentally skip, as the memories occasionally jolted him. But now...those scratches seemed insignificant, like someone had come in and switched the records. The scratches were gone. The weapon in his hands now held promise. Its purpose was pure. If only the songs on this new record weren’t so God awful.

He looked up from the weapon and turned his gaze to the backside of Memorial Park. The view, framed by lush, green maples, was the hotspot in town for vacationer photo ops. The White Mountains in the background had made it a stunning view. Still did. Except the mountains in this world were not the ones he was used to. Sure, the peaks matched the view from home, but the skirt of pine trees surrounding the lower three quarters of the mountains had been scoured away.

It was the same everywhere.

This new world was a dull, grayish brown, and the only difference in shades was where the shadows made the grays and browns darker. Then there were the trees. What was left of them. Looking down the hill of Main Street, streaks of black lined the distant landscape, all pointed away from Refuge, as though whatever had killed this world had originated from their town. Some trees remained standing, but they were little more than burnt, branchless spires. Gravestones for a dead world. There wasn’t a speck of green or any other color outside of the town line, and no signs of anything living that might be crawling through the rocky crags. Just sand, rocks, gravel and the occasional burnt sentinel tree.

As he stood and stared down the street at the desolate landscape, a warm breeze added to the world’s intolerable heat. The breeze in town normally would have carried the smells of pine, honeysuckle and heather. And while some of that remained within the town’s circular border, the scent of the world around was overpowering. In this place, the only smells that the wind brought to his nose were those of ashes and dust.

And Griffin had already smelled, tasted and fought enough ash for a hundred lifetimes. He strangely felt himself missing the world of endless freshwater ocean. Nothing had tried to eat them there. The air had smelled clean. And the wind had mercifully removed the collection of ash from the dark world, though he spotted remnants now and again, stuck in cracks and crevices around town.

“Here,” Avalon said, handing him a magazine for the M16. She was fully sober now, and the cravings had become little more than dull aches, though she still suffered from the occasional full body sweats and stomach cramps. She looked a little bit more like herself, strong like her mother, but they say addictions are for life, so he kept a close eye on her.

He took the magazine, slapped it in, racked the slide and made sure the safety was engaged. He gave the weapon a onceover, looked down the sights and handed it to Radar, who laid it on a picnic table, where Frost was assigning weapons. “M-16,” Radar said to Lisa, who jotted the information down in a notebook.

They were creating an inventory to get a complete picture of what had been recovered from the National Guard Depot. They had uncovered two additional weapons caches at the depot, but the collection of documents bearing Renford Ellison’s scrambled name had all mysteriously vanished. Griffin had kept his discovery of the name between Radar, Winslow, Frost and himself, with the intention of visiting the old man, once the town’s safety had been secured.

The picnic table was covered in an assortment of assault rifles—M-16s mostly—handguns and grenades. While he inspected the weapons, Frost assigned people to emergency response teams and handed out rifles to the folks in town with experience...which included Jared Loomis.

While Griffin had a professional respect for the man—they both had served in the military, though Loomis hadn’t seen battle—Loomis’s heart belonged in Hollywood, where he and his good looks had worked as an actor for several years. He’d been in a few commercials, but he’d never scored a big role. Feeling dejected, he’d joined the military, served the minimum number of years and came home to Refuge. He taught drama at the high school in Ashland. His side job seemed to be flirting with every woman in town, including Frost, whom he had dated in high school.

Griffin eyed the man as he accepted a weapon from Frost, flashing his perfect teeth and giving her a wink. Frost seemed unfazed by his charms, until he said something that made her laugh. Either make it official or quit being a whiny bitch, Griffin told himself.

Maybe someday. Right now, romance took a backseat to survival. Not that Radar and Lisa were having any trouble. They seemed to grow closer every time he saw them. In a way, their strengthening bond gave him hope that things could get better. Or at least, that something good could still come out of Refuge, despite all they had lost. Becky. Sam. Dana. Jimmy. And Carol was still on the ropes.

Kyle was still with her, monitoring her health, but the doctor had requested that Winslow leave the house. The man’s nervous energy wasn’t helping. Winslow begrudgingly agreed, but kept a radio on his hip, so Kyle could keep him informed about any changes in his wife’s health.

“Griff?” Frost walked toward him. “You all right? You look like you swallowed a lemon.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just the dry heat. I prefer my heat humid.”

“You might be the only one in town that does,” Frost said, looking back at the groups of people surrounding them. Most were dressed for summer. Shorts and T-shirts. It looked like a busy summer day, if you ignored the array of guns. “We’re just about done here. I want to keep the rest of this—” She motioned to the picnic table holding what remained of their armament. “—back at the station.”

“Okay,” Griffin said.

“What I’m trying to say is, I can handle it from here.”

Is she asking me to leave? It seemed out of character for Frost, but maybe Loomis—

“If I recall correctly,” she said. “My job is to protect Refuge. Yours is... Well, I think it’s time you had a chat with our town’s elusive benefactor.”

“Why? Because of an anagram?” Pastor Ken Dodge approached, a gun on his hip and a rifle over his shoulder. Before Griffin could ask where he’d heard about the anagram, the pastor hooked a thumb toward Winslow, who was sitting on a picnic table, nervously tapping his feet. “Winslow told me. Do you really think he’s involved in...this?” The pastor glanced at the barren mountain range.

“Between the retrofit, his signature on the building plans for those obelisks and the anagram with the heavily armed, phony Guardsmen, I’d say he’s our prime suspect.”

“The old man?”

Griffin turned to find Charley Wilson standing behind him. His hand had been bandaged, and he appeared sober. Charley glanced at Radar, gave him a nod and said, “Boy.”

Radar replied with a half smile that appeared to take all his willpower.

As much as Griffin didn’t want to include Charley, the man had earned a bit of respect, having resisted torture at the hands of mercenaries pretending to be with the National Guard.

“Ellison isn’t much better than an invalid,” Charley said. “I’m not sure he can get to the shitter without help from that nurse of his. Turkette.”

“Maybe. But he can still talk. And he’s the only name on my list.” Griffin said.

“You’re wasting your time,” Charley said.

“Yeah, well,” Griffin said, “it’s my time to waste.”

Charley sighed. “In that case, mind if I tag along?”

Griffin looked at the man. Charley was the last person he expected to be helpful, but maybe the experience at the Guard depot had changed him for the better? Still, the man was injured, and that made him a liability, for now.

“Thanks for the offer, but no,” Griffin said. “You need to let that hand heal.”

Charley waived him off. “You don’t need to beat around the bush, man. We both know why you don’t want me along.” He motioned like he was drinking a beer.

“Things can change,” Griffin said. “That’s your call.”

Charley shook his head and turned to Radar. “Later, boy.” With that he started toward a group of locals chatting it up inside the gazebo.

“Winslow,” Griffin said, wasting no more mental energy on trying to figure out Charley.

The old scientist stopped tapping his feet and looked up quickly. “Huh? What?”

“You’re with me,” Griffin told him. It wasn’t a request.

“What? Why?” Winslow slid down from the table. “I need to be here in case—”

“Carol is stable.”

“For now.”

“We’re not going far,” Griffin said. “If we hear anything, I’ll drop what we’re doing and come back.”

“If we can come back,” Winslow added.

Griffin didn’t argue the point. It was valid. While they hadn’t seen anything living in the world around them, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t. “I need your brain. If we discover anything—”

Winslow waved his hands at Griffin. “Fine. Fine. But let’s make it quick.”

“I’m coming, too.” Avalon’s voice.

Griffin turned around to face her. “Why don’t you stay here and help Sheriff Frost? She could probably use a hand.” In truth, Griffin wasn’t sure what he would find when he reached Ellison’s mansion. It was safer in town—someone laughed, pumping an M-16 in the air—maybe.

“I’m coming.” Avalon crossed her arms and fixed him with a stern look. He recognized the look well; it was the same one her mother used to give him when she refused to compromise. He called it her Granite Face.

Thinking of Jess still stung, but not as much as it used to. Time heals all wounds, they say. Or maybe other things helped. He glanced at Frost. The momentary look softened him. “All right,” he said. “But you’re not leaving my side.”

Avalon nodded. “Deal.”

“Hey,” Frost said, tossing him a set of keys. “Take the cruiser. And make sure he sees the badge. Even rich people respect the badge.”

Griffin caught the keys and smiled. He’d heard Becky say the same thing once. He turned to Radar and Lisa. “Help out where you can. Feel free to crash at my place.” While the rest of the town organized, Cash had been tapping Griffin’s house into the new, local power grid. “Maybe take a hot shower when Cash is done.” He turned to Avalon and Winslow. “Montgomery Burns awaits.”

Avalon laughed at The
Simpsons reference.

Winslow frowned. “Who?”

“Never mind,” Griffin said, heading for the car. He glanced at Avalon walking beside him. He was glad that she was with him. That she was returning from her drug-induced mania. But he already regretted allowing her to come along. If he thought Ellison knew something, but was holding back... He wouldn’t want Avalon to see what happened next.

76

Frost watched them go. Part of her wanted to go with them, but right now, keeping the town safe meant getting organized while there was a chance to do so.

“Dodge, Loomis,” she said, making sure to use their last names. She wasn’t worried about the pastor, but she had a past with Jared Loomis. Using his last name would help him remember that their history was exactly that: history. If he hadn’t moved to Los Angeles when he had turned eighteen, things might have worked out differently. He had broad shoulders, gleaming teeth and a square jaw; he was as handsome as Julie Barnes was sexy. But when it came to love, Loomis loved himself first. Always had.

“Whadaya need, Sheriff?” Loomis asked with a wink.

Sheriff. That’ll take some getting used to.

“Get everyone with a weapon together. I want four groups of five.”

The two men split up without a word, wrangling the armed men and women into groups, keeping families and friends together. One of the groups formed on its own. She recognized the five men as all being on the Church softball team. For a moment, she thought the men were being silly, sticking together like this was a sport. But then she noticed their red-rimmed, tired eyes. They looked horrible. And she quickly realized why. For whatever reason, these five church-going family men had stayed home on the night of the fourth. They’d lost their families.

We’ve all lost someone, she thought. Even Loomis. His parents were gone, though he seemed to be handling it better than most. If she recalled correctly, he hadn’t been on the best terms with his parents. They’d thought him a fool for going to Los Angeles and a lunatic for joining the military.

Frost turned to face the crowd. There were four groups of five, all with weapons. Perhaps another twenty stood to the sides, some armed, but mostly not. This is what remained of Refuge. Maybe forty people total, closer to sixty if she included those not present or the small cadre that had emerged as leaders—Griffin, Dodge, Cash, Winslow, Kyle and even Radar. Frost gave a nod of thanks to Dodge and Loomis, who stood off to the side, not among the five groups.

She turned to the gathered townspeople. Her people. She looked them in the eyes, seeing a mixture of fear, confusion and good ‘ol Yankee determination. She’d never had to address a group before, if you didn’t count kids at the middle school, so she pictured Sheriff Rule. How would Becky handle this?
What advice might she give?

Get straight to the point, she heard Rule say. Don’t muck about. Tell people what you expect, and they’ll listen.

The advice had been given to her during her first year on the force, after dealing with a surly driver who wouldn’t cooperate. She’d fumbled for words. Shown weakness. The man had scoffed at her and driven away with a warning. It was just a traffic stop, but the lesson still applied.

She took a deep breath, stood a little straighter and asked, “How many of you know how to shoot?”

Thankfully, every hand in the four groups went up, along with half the hands from those not in a group. No surprise, there. In rural New Hampshire, hunting was almost a way of life. Almost every boy (and some of the girls) went out hunting for whitetail deer before their thirteenth birthdays.

“Look around,” she said. “Look at the person standing next to you. Look at the person standing next to them. Know what we are? We are it, folks. It’s pretty obvious that no one is coming to rescue us. We’re not anywhere close to home. If anyone is going to defend our town, it’s going to have to be us.”

A few of the gathered townsfolk smiled. One of them, a grizzled old-timer named Huck, saluted. “Live free or die!”

A cheer went up. This was why she loved New Hampshire. The state motto wasn’t just a motto, it was a belief. “Live free or die,” she said. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

She motioned to the four armed squads.
“You all will patrol the town. Check houses for anyone still in hiding. Make note of anything unusual, but do not approach. And watch out for...invaders. Keep at least a half mile from the border.” She looked at the remaining townsfolk. “The rest of you are on clean up duty. That includes repairing damages and removing wasp carcasses. We are going to do this together, in shifts. From this point on, no one walks the streets of Refuge alone. At least not until we—”

“What’s the point?” a woman’s voice asked from the rear of the group. Frost leaned over and was surprised to see the woman Dodge had introduced as Sally Field staring back at her with a wild look on her face.

“The point, Sally,” she replied, “is defense. Protection. We don’t want anyone else to die.”

“No one else to die?” The woman barked a laugh. Her voice had a slight hysterical edge to it. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re all going to die, anyway. Every last one of us.”

“Hold on, Jillian,” Dodge said. “You don’t know—”

Jillian? So that’s her real name.

“Don’t be stupid, Pastor.” Jillian threw her rifle on the ground, and Frost wondered who had given her the weapon. She certainly didn’t seem fit to wield a butter knife, never mind a semi-automatic rifle.

“The next shift is just going to dump us somewhere worse. There could be dinosaurs! Zombies! Maybe fucking vampires!”

She stormed to the front of the group and stood directly in front of Frost, her eyes wide, her skin sweaty and pale. Frost thought the woman looked like she might pass out at any moment.

“Calm down, Sal—Jillian,” Frost said. “That’s why we’re arming the town. Sticking together. No one will be left without protection.”

“Protection? Protection? You saw those wasps!” Jillian shouted. “They were bigger than my dog! You saw those trees! What happens when we shift to a world with wolves the size of buildings? Or spiders the size of the Sears Tower?”

Frost was glad she and Griffin had kept the carnivorous nature of those trees from the general population. No one they knew had been killed by them. Ignorance was bliss, though in this case, it might be the only thing keeping the insanity at bay. But that didn’t seem to be the case with Jillian.

“How are you going to protect us against that?” Jillian shouted. “We can’t fight those with rifles. We aren’t even people anymore, we’re just meat! Meat!”

“Jillian,” Dodge began.

“Meat! We’re just meat.” Jillian was laughing now.

Definitely hysterical, Frost thought. But the woman’s words were already having a demoralizing effect on the rest of the group. Several other residents were staring at her with expressions that suggested similar thoughts. She had to stop this. Now.

“Pastor,” she said to Dodge, “Why don’t you take Jillian to the library. See if you can help her rest.” It felt strange suggesting Dodge take someone to the library, but no one wanted to be in the church anymore. It also felt odd to suggest Dodge be alone with the strange woman, after most had assumed he was having an affair with her. But Frost no longer thought that was the case. Despite his fearful response to the first shift, Dodge had shown himself to be trustworthy, brave and aptly enough, righteous. She didn’t think Dodge would sleep with a married woman, though he had yet to reveal why the woman had been with him at all.

Dodge shouldered his rifle and moved toward Jillian, trying to speak in soothing tones. He held out his hand to her. “Come on, Jillian,” he said. “You just need to lie down for a bit. Things will look better after you’ve had some rest. The Lord knows, we all could use some rest.”

Jillian looked at Dodge’s outstretched hand and bolted.

“Meat!” she screamed as she ran. “We’re all just meat!”

Loomis tried to tackle her, but she sidestepped him and took off, heading down Main Street, screaming the word ‘meat’ over and over again. She was surprisingly fast, fueled by mania, and she disappeared over the crest of the hill a moment later. If she keeps going...

“Loomis,” she snapped. “Pick a team and come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

Frost pointed in the direction Jillian had run. “After her.”

Loomis hesitated. “But...”

“Everyone in this town is my responsibility now. If you don’t want to help us—”

Loomis held up his hands. “I’m on it. I’m on it.”

“Dodge, take the rest of the people and—”

“No,” Dodge said.

Did he just say no?

“Pastor,” she said, “I thought you and Rule had an agree—”

“Jillian was my responsibility, before she became yours,” he said. “Lucifer himself couldn’t stop me from coming.”

Frost looked at the distant, barren landscape and said, just loud enough for Dodge to hear, “If we run into him out there, he’s all yours.”

She looked at the man, reassessing him for what had to the be the tenth time since things had gone haywire. Like most in town, he was a dedicated hunter. During deer season, he led a men’s group out into the woods to pray and shoot. The season ended with a potluck of venison dishes. He was probably good at tracking, too.

“Fine,” she said. “But you do what I say.”

Dodge nodded. “You’re the sheriff.”

“The rest of you,” she said, “get started cleaning up the wasps. Set up a fire in the lot behind Jimmy’s.” She winced after saying it. Jimmy was well known and well liked. And while his death meant she could turn the lot into a bonfire, it might not sit well with some.

She was about to address the elephant she’d just allowed into the room, when old ‘live free or die’ Huck spoke up, saying, “Jimmy’d want it that way. Being helpful from beyond the grave.”

“Thanks,” she said, and then asked. “Mind keeping watch while I’m gone?”

“It’d be my pleasure,” Huck said, with a half-toothed grin.

With that settled, she turned to Dodge and Loomis, and their five-man group. She knew them all: Jarvis Brent, Matthew Silver, Bill Meeks, Anthony Grimm, and Tucker Marshall. All good men. “Okay, guys. Let’s get her back, quick.”

77

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Lisa said, looking over her shoulder. The driveway and the street beyond looked clear, but she always felt nervous being inside Radar’s house. Not that the garage was really inside the house, but it wasn’t unusual for Mr. Wilson to tinker in the garage, and she didn’t think he’d take too kindly to them messing around with his things. Not only that, Griffin had asked them to help out around town, but they’d just snuck away instead, which kind of meant they were doubly not supposed to be here.

“It’s my moped,” Radar said, pouring gasoline into the open tank.

“But it’s his gas, right?”

“It takes like a gallon,” Radar said, slowing the pour. “He’ll never kn—”

The scuff of a foot on pavement turned their heads back to the torn up driveway.

“Charley,” Radar said, standing up quickly and spilling some gas.

Charley Wilson stood silently in the driveway, eyeing them both. Lisa could tell that Charley was sober, in part because he hadn’t shouted yet, but she’d never really seen him lucid. She had no idea how this would go.

Charley nodded. “Boy.”

Relief swept through Lisa, as Charley took a step toward the side door.

“I have a name,” Radar said.

Lisa spun toward Radar, her eyes wide. What was he thinking?

Charley stopped short of the door. “‘Scuse me?”

Radar looked down at the rusty old green moped. Lisa recognized the face. He was going to back down. Apologize. And thank God for that. She didn’t think she could handle a Charley Wilson meltdown. Not after what they’d seen and survived. Not after losing her family. As much as Radar helped her feel safe, his father scared her more than any of the worlds they had visited.

But then Radar’s expression changed. He looked...angry. Straight at his father. Angry!

“I said, ‘I have a name.’”

Charley’s hand fell away from the door. He tried making fists with both hands, but when the fingers of his bandaged hand flexed, he winced, which only made him angry.

Radar approached him. “Do you even remember my name?”

Charley didn’t move, but his face twitched with raw fury. Radar had never spoken to him like this before.

“Radar,” Charley said. “I—”

“That’s not my name,” Radar said. “You ought to remember it. You gave it to me. It was your father’s name.”

The anger in Charley’s eyes softened. “Josh... I’m...I’m sorry.”

Lisa’s hand went to her mouth. She felt like she was witnessing some kind of a miracle.

“That’s the best you’re going to get out of me today,” Charley said, opening the screen door. He looked past Radar, into the garage. Eyed Lisa, and then the moped. “Wear helmets.”

He stepped inside the house and closed the door behind him.

When Radar turned around, he had tears in his eyes. His hands shook. Lisa hurried to him, eyes on the door, half expecting it to burst open at any moment. She took Radar’s hands and squeezed them. He sniffed and placed his head on her shoulder. The brief connection seemed to calm him. He lifted his head again and looked her in the eyes. “Maybe there’s hope for him?”

“Maybe,” she said, but she thought, I doubt it.

Radar screwed the cap back on the moped’s gas tank. He pointed to a large, white helmet that looked like half an egg. “You can use that.”

“What about you?”

“We only have one.” He shrugged. “I’ll drive carefully.”

He pushed the moped down the driveway and into the sloped street. Motion over at Griffin’s house caught his attention. It was Cash, putting his tools in the back of a car. After closing the trunk, he approached Radar and said, “Handled that well, kid. Not many people in town would stand up to your dad like that.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen worse now.”

“Ayup, ‘spose we all have.”

Lisa still disagreed. The monsters they’d seen, even the wasps that had stung Carol, seemed unreal and distant compared to Charley Wilson. He was the monster that wouldn’t go away each time the church bell rang. He’s the monster we’re stuck with.

“If you see Griff,” Cash said, “Let him know he’s on the new grid.”

“I’m not sure where he is,” Radar said, “but I’ll let him know, if I see him.”

Cash gave a nod and headed back toward his car. “Good luck with the moped, kid.”

“You shouldn’t have lied to him,” Lisa whispered. “It might be a good idea if someone knows where we’re going, in case...”

Radar swung his leg over the moped and sat down. Its old, spring shocks creaked under his weight. “We’ll be fine. I’m not the wimpy kid I used to be.” He turned the moped on, took his feet off the pavement and began furiously peddling. “Don’t I look tough?”

Lisa laughed. He looked ridiculous. But then the engine coughed a black cloud and buzzed to life. Radar drove down the street, turned around and came back. He stopped next to her, a cocky smile on his face.

“I’m totally badass, right?”

Still laughing, Lisa put on her helmet and climbed on the moped’s seat behind Radar. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, probably tighter than she needed to. “What if they catch us?”

“What are they going to do?” he asked. “Ground us? Besides, I’m the one who figured out the name. And we have a right to know what’s going on. They can’t exclude us, just because we’re kids.”

Lisa wasn’t sure if that was true, but if Radar wanted to find out what was going on, she’d support him. That’s what good couples did, right? Carol would do the same for Winslow. Probably for a stranger, the woman was so sweet. And Frost would support Griffin. They weren’t really a couple, but they had a better relationship than most of the married folks in town. And if Lisa followed their lead, she would follow Radar, wherever he went. No matter what.

78

Charley Wilson settled into his pea-soup green recliner. It was worn and frayed, but God-dang, it fit his ass like a glove. He sighed, lifted the cold beer in his good hand, fingernail digging beneath the can’s pop-top. But he stopped short of opening it.

He did stupid things when he drank.

He knew that.

Everyone knew that.

And if he drank one, it would quickly become ten. And then... At least I don’t have my truck any more. Can’t wreck what you don’t have. He shook his head, remembering the fate of his truck. Frost had recovered it from the depot, driven straight past him, parked in the Soucey’s parking lot and attached the sheriff station’s only wheel-boot to the driver’s side tire. She’d tossed the keys to him as she headed back to the station and said, “Stay sober, and maybe I’ll let you drive again.”

But there was still plenty he could ruin, even without the truck, starting with his son’s life. Near as he could tell, the kid had found some source of resilience that didn’t involve alcohol or treachery. Might have been the first Wilson boy in generations to pull that one off.

But if the boy could pull it off, why couldn’t Charley? Despite his obvious failings as a father, his notoriety as the town drunk, and T-boning Frost and Griffin on his way to Ellison’s, they had treated him fairly. More than fairly. They took his truck, but they could have locked him up again. He looked at his broken hand, wrapped in a bandage.

He’d paid his dues, hadn’t he? He had saved his son and Lisa, and Griffin’s girl, when that...giant bird-thing had attacked them. He wasn’t sure if he would have had the courage without the booze in his system. But he’d also stood up to those pricks at the Guard depot. Granted, his silence had been meant to protect his own ass, but to the others, he’d been tortured on their behalf and he’d taken it like a man.

More than a man.

Like a hero.

He looked at the beer again. It was an escape. A weakness. And it was going to get someone killed. Probably me, he thought. And while Charley was a drunk, angry man, he had no desire to die, primarily because he believed the pits of hell awaited him.

And that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?

A knock on the side door froze Charley’s thoughts.

Had the boy come back? He found himself feeling hopeful he’d see his son again. He’d tell the boy that he was turning over a new leaf. He stood quickly, leaving the beer on the TV tray. When he entered the kitchen, the silhouette through the door’s shaded window was clearly not Radar.

Only one person in town had curves like that.

“What do you want, Barnes?” he asked, as he opened the door.

Julie Barnes looked like a supermodel on most days, but today, her furrowed brow and cold eyes were enough to keep Charley’s libido in check. “You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

Charley held up his hand. “No, but I had a nice chat with his friends at the Guard depot.”

“And?”

“They were even more in the dark than us. But Griff went to find the old man with Winslow. Maybe they’ll—”

Julie’s face reddened. The lady was a powder keg. “And you didn’t go with them?”

“Tried,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not exactly a member of the town’s A-Team.”

“You and me both,” she muttered. “Then I need to know what you do.”

“Which is about the same as you.”

“C’mon,” she said. “You dug up dirt on most everyone who wasn’t playing along with the retrofit, except for Griffin—”

“You didn’t have much luck with him, either,” Charley said.

Julie rolled her eyes. “The point is, you did a lot of digging... Nothing stood out as unusual?”

“What about this isn’t unusual?”

“Look, you and I both know that there were...changes made to this town.”

“Doesn’t mean I know where to look, any more than you do,” Charley said. “But...it would have to be someplace far enough removed that no one would notice the work being done.” He really had no clue, but thought if he threw her a bone, she might get off his porch.

Julie’s forehead furrowed for a moment. “What about the farm?”

“Green Meadow? Never went there.”

She squinted. “Neither did I. Who owns it?”

“Hell if I know. The Byrnes sold it going on four years ago. Never met the new owner.”

“Then that’s where I’m headed.”

She turned to leave, but Charley caught her arm. She turned and leveled an icy glare at him. He released her quickly. He’d never been told, but he knew she was something more than a real estate agent. He didn’t know what, but that look in her eyes told him he didn’t want to find out.

He cleared his throat. “If you find the old man—”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“And the last,” he added. “If we can undo this shit, I’d prefer folks didn’t know we helped kick it off.”

“You mean you don’t want your son to know,” she said, and then grinned. “I don’t think there are any Father-of-the-Year awards in your future, Charley. If you hear anything in the next few hours, you’ll know where to find me.”

With that, she strutted down the steps and away from the house.

He let the screen door slam shut behind her. Back in the living room, the cold can of Coors called to him. He walked to the TV tray and plucked up the perspiring brew. Walking back into the kitchen, he expertly popped the top. His insides quivered at the smell. He’d been sober too long. The headache would set in soon.

“Fuck it, and fuck her, too,” Charley said, and he poured the beer into the kitchen sink.

79

Griffin’s eyes darted back and forth as he drove, scouring the woods around the car for danger. While he didn’t expect those ash creatures to make a return appearance any time soon, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they’d picked up a hitchhiker from another world along the way. And while their current surroundings appeared as dead as the moon, he wasn’t about to let his guard down. So he drove carefully and slowly.

“Just because we’re going to see an old geezer,” Avalon said from the back of the cruiser, “doesn’t mean you need to drive like one.”

“You used to hate how fast I drove,” he pointed out.

“That was before monsters were trying to eat people.”

“If we could talk less about monsters and more about anything else, that would be fantastic,” Winslow said.

“Sorry,” Avalon said. “I’m sure Carol will be... I’ll just shut up now.”

Griffin glanced at Winslow. The man’s legs continued to bounce nervously, but he seemed focused. And present. Despite his age, and his wife’s precarious condition, Winslow was doing what he could to help. Hell, most people in town were. New Englanders didn’t socialize much with their neighbors, but when disasters struck—typically blizzards or ice storms—communities came together and strangers were treated like family. And now, Refuge was coming together in a big way, thanks to people like Winslow, Cash and even Dodge, who were stepping up to take care of others.

Winslow’s legs stopped bouncing. He tensed.

“What is it?” Griffin asked.

“Don’t you hear it?” Winslow asked.

Griffin slowed the cruiser to a stop and put it in park. They were just a half mile from Ellison’s driveway, but he couldn’t ignore impending danger. He couldn’t hear anything, so he rolled down the window. A faint buzzing filled the car.

“It’s the wasps,” Winslow said. “They’re back. I need to get back to the house!”

“Carol’s inside,” Griffin said, reaching for the M-16 between the seats. “Besides, I think it’s coming this way.” He took the rifle, opened the door and got out. He stood behind the open door and aimed his weapon back down the road. The buzzing was getting louder, approaching fast, following the road.

Winslow got out on his side, rifle in hand. Following Griffin’s lead, he aimed over the window. “These have much of a kick?”

“Just don’t hold the trigger down,” Griffin said. “Might want to take the safety off, too.”

Avalon rattled the back door’s handle from inside. “I can’t get out.”

“Better if you stay put,” Griffin said.

She grunted with annoyance. “Why, because I might get shot?”

Griffin glanced at Winslow, who was searching for the safety. “Actually, yes.”

Avalon’s complaints were cut short by the buzzing, which grew suddenly louder. The road behind them curved away after fifty feet. Whatever was coming would be on top of them fairly quickly. Griffin looked down the sights, let out a breath and slipped his finger over the trigger.

Just a quick three round burst, he thought. That’s all it will take.

When the thing sped around the corner, Griffin’s finger squeezed instinctively, but his conscious mind stopped the twitchy digit before a single round was fired.

“Holy shit!” Griffin shouted, pointing the gun toward the sky and engaging the safety. “Radar. I almost shot you!”

“S-sorry,” Radar said, slowing the moped to a stop. Lisa peeked out from around him, looking very guilty.

Griffin took a breath, controlling his frustration. For a moment, he considered the possibility that the pair was here because something had gone wrong in town, but that couldn’t be right. Frost would have called him on the radio.

“Why are you here?” Winslow asked. “Did something happen?”

“I just wanted to see this through,” Radar said. “I found Ellison’s name.” He pointed to Griffin. “And you’re here because you found the envelope.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Griffin said.

“I know,” Radar said. “You’re here because Ellison might have something to do with the shifts. Because finding the answers to what is happening might help you protect the people you love. Avalon. Sheriff Frost.”

Three taps on the cruiser’s rear window. “Dad,” Avalon said through the cage separating the front and back seats. “Just let them come. I kinda missed the little brats, anyway.” She said that last part loud enough for Radar and Lisa to hear. They both smiled, in part because of the compliment, but they also had Griffin outnumbered.

“We’ll do everything you ask us to,” Radar said.

“Except go home,” Griffin said.

Radar nodded. “Except that.”

Griffin tried to stifle his smile. Radar had gone and grown himself a pair of balls. While he wasn’t the kid’s father, the new strength and resolve Radar was showing made him proud.

“You’re not getting a gun,” Griffin said. “And the moped stays here. You can get it on the way back.”

With a big smile, Radar parked the moped on the side of the road. He and Lisa hurried to the squad car as Winslow and Griffin got back in. The teens hopped into the back seat with Avalon.

At least, Griffin thought, I can leave them locked in the car if I have to.

80

When Frost had started after the frantic Jillian, whose true last name was still a mystery, she thought it might take five minutes to catch the woman. Jillian didn’t appear to be an athlete. She’d get tired. She’d have to stop. Reaching the town’s border and the potential danger beyond would take her half the day if she stuck to the road, longer if she didn’t. But as they’d moved down Main Street and discovered broken glass on the sidewalk, it became clear that the crazed woman had no intention of simply walking to the border.

She’d stolen a car.

“Anything you want to tell me about this woman?” Frost had asked Dodge.

“She’s had a rough life,” was his reply.

And now, they were at the town’s southern border—again—parked on the side of the road in Jimmy’s tank-like Phantom pickup truck, next to Jillian’s discarded vehicle, and the spot where Rebecca Rule had died. The memory of Rule’s demise made Frost pause at the clean-cut town line. She might share Rule’s fate. Worse, she could be left behind. All of them could. But Becky would have taken that risk. Would have sacrificed herself again, if she could.

She opened the driver’s door and dropped down to the pavement, while four of her passengers exited via the other doors and three jumped out of the flatbed. The truck could easily hold all eight of them, plus Jillian. While the others gathered around, she looked out at the bleak landscape, beyond the edge of town, which reminded her they were about to step foot into another world.

“Anyone hears that bell,” Frost said, knowing she didn’t need to specify the church bell, “give a shout and high-tail it back here. Do not wait for anything. If we haven’t found Jillian, and that bell starts ringing, she’s on her own.” She set her eyes squarely on Dodge.

He nodded and said, “I think she went this way.” He pointed to a rough outcropping of rocks just beyond the town border.

“What makes you think that?” Loomis asked.

Frost was wondering the same thing. Inside the town, the grass and trees were green and alive, with soft leaves shifting gently in the warm, dry breeze. But all signs of life ended at the town line. The green living world just…stopped, replaced by dry, dusty rocks and gravel strewn about a dry, dead landscape. The only aberrations in their view were the occasional spires of long dead trees and dark crisscrossing crevices in the rocks.

If that wasn’t strange enough, about fifty yards beyond the edge of town, the earth angled up as though they’d shifted into a giant rocky bowl, like a sinkhole, but large enough to hold the entire town, if only just barely.

How Dodge could be certain Jillian had come this way was a mystery, since there was no foliage to use for tracking and the dry ground gave no hint of her passage.

“Because it’s the way I would go if I were leaving town,” Dodge said, pointing up at the rise. “It’s the only place not covered in jagged rocks.” He pointed toward a rocky ledge about ten feet off the ground. Two large boulders sat atop it, but beyond that they could see blue sky. “That looks like a good place to climb out.”

Frost stared at the ledge and had to admit that Dodge had a point. It would be pretty easy to climb up there and squeeze between the two rocks. From their spot on the floor of the depression, it definitely looked like the easiest path. Even hysterical people probably follow the path of least resistance, Frost thought.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Frost stepped across the town line, going from blacktop to barren dirt, and took a few more steps before she realized no one, aside from Dodge, was following her. She turned to face the group, who were staring at the town border as though it could bite them at any moment.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, even though she knew. They hadn’t seen Becky, but they had all heard about it. They had all been warned about the dangers beyond town. She’d done the warning herself.

“Look, guys,” she said. “Becky gave her life to save one of our own. She’d do it again, and...so would I. For Jillian. For any of you. So either grow a pair or go home.”

“But Sheriff Rule—” Meeks, the short one, began.

“Is dead,” she finished. “And she was closer to me than any of you. I watched her die, right there!” She pointed to the pavement beneath Grimm’s feet. The red-headed man shuffled to the side, looking down.

“How many of you lost family in the first shift?” she asked.

Every hand went up.

“Well, this whole town is your family now, and if your wife or son, daughter or sister went running off into this world, would you just let them go?”

No one spoke. No one moved. “Fucking pussies.” She turned and started toward the rise. Dodge stayed by her side. “Sorry ‘bout the language, Pastor.”

“It wasn’t uncalled for,” Dodge said.

“Sheriff,” Loomis said from behind. She turned back and found him a few feet behind her. The other men followed his lead, stepping over the town line. “We’re with you.”

Frost gave a nod. “Stay within a couple hundred yards of the town line. If the bells start ringing—”

“We’ll haul ass,” Loomis said.

“Good,” she said. “Now let’s go find Jillian.”

As they set out from the edge of town, she sent Loomis and the two blonde, bearded men, Brent and Silver, to scout ahead, while she and the rest took the rear. As they walked, Grimm, Meeks and Marshall, who weighed in at close to 300 pounds, moved ahead of them, while she and Dodge lagged behind.

Once they were out of earshot, Dodge tapped her arm. “A few hundred yards? That’s it?”

Frost nodded. “When was the last time you sprinted the length of a football field, Pastor? How about three? Think you’d make it without stopping? Winslow timed the last shift. One minute twenty seconds. Would take a running back about thirty seconds, but you and me? Three hundred yards is probably our limit, and if you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly walking over a flat, green playing field here.”

“What if Jillian runs farther than that?” Dodge asked.

“Then she’s on her own,” Frost stated flatly. “I doubt she’ll get that far, honestly. In this terrain, she’ll be lucky to go a hundred yards without falling and breaking…a leg.” She’d been about to say ‘breaking her neck,’ but thought better of it, when she saw the look on Dodge’s face.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll find her.” I hope.

She heard shouting up ahead, and she and Dodge picked up the pace. They jogged up to find the other guys gathered around in a circle, staring at something on the ground.

Have they found her already?

“What is it?” Dodge asked, sounding as nervous as she felt.

“Bones,” Silver noted. He wasn’t related to Brent, but they looked similar enough they could have been brothers.

The group parted, revealing a swath of bleached white bones.

“Was it a dog?” Dodge asked.

It sure looked like a dog, or something similar. Whatever it was, when it was alive, it had walked on four legs and had a tail, along with a snout full of sharp teeth. Then again, maybe it was something else entirely, with a canine-like skeletal structure. But a dog would be a nice change to what they’d already seen.

The bones had an odd look to them. In most places, they’d been bleached by the sun, but here and there were long, dark marks that looked remarkably like burns.

Why would there be charred dog bones out here?

“What’s that?” Loomis asked, and he reached down. Just beneath the skull was a small, round piece of metal. Loomis picked it up. It looked like a dog tag. He used his index finger to wipe away a layer of ash. “Dexter,” he said.

It was a dog tag!

“Isn’t Dexter the name of ‘ol Tom Mungovan’s shepherd?” Grimm asked.

Frost nodded, but she knew this wasn’t the same dog. Cash had relayed Sam and Jimmy’s encounter at the Mungovan house. Dexter was dead, that much was true, but not here, and not long enough to look like this.

“What the heck is it doing out here?” Brent asked.

No one had an answer, so Loomis handed the tag to Frost. She pocketed it, deciding to keep her knowledge to herself.

After a moment, Dodge cleared his throat loudly. “It’s just an old dog tag,” he said. “But there’s a woman out here who could be in danger.”

He was right. “All right,” Frost said. “It’s just a dog skeleton. Let’s keep looking.”

“You got it, Sheriff,” Loomis said.

Frost really wished he would just call her by her name. Wished they all would. But that would require going back in time. Of course, it seemed that moving between worlds was now possible. Why not time? But she somehow knew that was impossible. At least for them. So she pushed forward before time ran out.

Loomis angled himself to the left, moving away from the group and up a ridge, but knowing a wider search area was going to get the job done sooner. He glanced at Frost, remembering a different time, when they’d been close. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but since the first shift took his parents away—or rather him away from his parents—he’d felt very alone. As a result, he felt himself drawn back toward the one person in town with whom he’d ever felt a deep connection: Frost.

While she wasn’t being as cold as her namesake, she wasn’t really responding to his flirtations. Partly because they weren’t entirely appropriate, given the situation, but he wasn’t a fool. He saw how she glanced at Griffin Butler after she had laughed at Loomis’s joke in the park. She was worried about what Griffin would think.

At least Griffin was a good man. A fellow soldier. A tougher soldier. And while Loomis knew how to fight and fire a gun, acting was what he did best, at least by New Hampshire standards. And for that, he was glad, because no one would notice his melancholy, meaning he wouldn’t have to talk about it with anyone. And that suited him just fine. Just because he was an emotional kind of guy didn’t mean he had to wear that shit on his sleeve.

Lost in thought, he didn’t hear the first crack beneath his feet.

But he heard the second. He stopped, now at the top of the ridge. Looked down.

Shit.

“I—I found something,” he said, eyes on the ground.

“What is it?” Frost asked. She was twenty feet away, her view blocked by several boulders. “Is it her?”

“It’s not her,” Loomis said, “but it’s someone.”

“Several someones,” Silver added as he stepped up next to Loomis.

Frost hurried over and looked down. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw all the bones. Then she looked up and saw the rest. She brought her hand to her face. “Oh my God.”

There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bones, all laid out in a dozen or so seemingly random piles, scattered among the rocks and gravel. Atop each pile sat a single human skull, grinning back at them.

While the macabre site was unnerving, it was the knowledge that someone had placed the skulls on top of the piles that was worse. Someone had survived whatever must have happened to this world.

81

Griffin continued at a leisurely pace, which was now a requirement, as the paved road had given way to a deeply pocked and washboarded dirt road. The car jostled back and forth through each unavoidable pothole. He thought it strange that a man with Ellison’s money and influence wouldn’t just have the road paved, but then again, the man liked his privacy. So did the few other homeowners in this part of town.

They passed Quentin Miller’s house. Quentin’s big, green monster truck sat in the driveway, sulking like an ogre in the wan light of this strange world. While it wasn’t a performing monster truck—the tires weren’t that big—it towered over every other vehicle in town, even Jimmy’s Ford Phantom, and its deep treads could sling mud like nothing else. The Millers were out of town when the shift had occurred, enjoying the fireworks in Ashland, most likely. But the truck remained behind, standing nearly as tall as the house.

And it probably cost twice as much to build, Griffin thought.

“Jeez, that thing is ugly,” Avalon said.

“I think it’s awesome,” Radar replied.

Griffin was inclined to agree with his daughter. Quentin’s truck stood on huge, knobby forty-four inch tires. It was lime green with orange and yellow flames on the hood and front fenders. From under the hood, a huge chrome breather poked up like a shiny tank. Quentin said it fed air to the supercharger mounted on the engine, resulting in a massive gain in horsepower.

Griffin didn’t know about all that, but he did know that Quentin spent almost as much time working on his truck as he did working. Not that it mattered now, since Quentin was back in New Hampshire and his truck was...well...wherever the hell it was.

Past Miller’s house, they circled around the lake and coming into the final stretch, where they saw the house ahead, its paved drive blocked by an ominous iron gate. Griffin pulled to a stop at the gate. He leaned forward and waved at a camera mounted to a nearby tree.

The gate didn’t budge.

“Be right back,” Griffin said, putting the car in park and stepping out. He strode up to the gate, looking for a call box. There wasn’t one. He tried to push the gates in, but a lock held them in place. Losing his patience, he drew his M9 sidearm and pointed it at the lock, which clicked open, as though in fright.

He glanced back at the camera. It had tracked him. He gave whoever was watching a sarcastic smile and holstered his weapon. He headed back to the car and got behind the wheel. “Sometimes you just have to ask politely.”

Everyone in the car stared as Griffin drove up the drive toward Ellison’s massive Victorian Gothic Revival home. The house was constructed of gray stone, and included several honest-to-goodness turrets, each with its own conical roof. A stone balcony ran almost the full length of the house, ending at the conical corners, which rose up to the roof. The roof itself was out of view, hidden by stonework facades on each side of the house that were suggestive of medieval crenellations. Numerous tall, narrow windows looked out on the lawn, strongly resembling ancient murder holes or archer slits, though admittedly wider. The whole effect was like driving up to a castle.

King Ellison, Griffin thought, as he stopped the cruiser in front of the massive stone porch. I wonder if His Majesty will be surprised to see us.

Given the fact that someone had removed what was likely damning evidence from the Guard depot, he thought it was more than likely that they were expected.

He parked in front of a large granite staircase leading up to a set of hardwood doors. He didn’t recognize the wood grain as anything native. Probably exotic. He looked at the kids in the back. “I really don’t want to let any of you out—”

All three opened their mouths to complain.

“But,” Griffin said. “I’m going to. You’ll stay by my side at all times, and when we find Ellison, don’t say a word. Not one word. Understood?”

Three heads bobbed up and down.

He got out with Winslow and opened the back door, allowing the three youths out. He then climbed the stairs to the double doors and knocked. In truth, he pounded on them, wanting to make sure he’d be heard inside the huge, sprawling castle-like structure that was Renford Ellison’s house. He’d seen the house from a distance on numerous occasions, but he’d never had the opportunity to visit. Now that he stood on the massive front porch, he suddenly felt very small and very poor. He didn’t particularly care for the feeling. He pounded again, louder this time.

“Ring the doorbell, Dad,” Avalon suggested.

His fist hung in the air over the door, ready to pound again. He glanced to the side and saw the doorbell. “Right.” Unclenching his fist, he pressed the button and heard chimes beyond the door, playing the Winchester Quarters, which to Griffin, sounded a lot like the tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

When the chime ended, he reached for the doorbell again, but withdrew his hand when he heard the door unlock. He stepped back as the door opened, and he saw a young African American woman standing in the doorway. She was dressed casually in a white blouse and knee-length skirt, with a wide, flat belt doing waist duty. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she wore a pair of large-framed glasses that made her dark brown eyes look just a bit too big for her face.

“Can I help you?” she asked, sounding more irritated than anything.

“We need to see Mr. Ellison,” Griffin replied.

“He’s not home right now,” she said. “I will tell him you stopped by, Mr. ...uh…”

“Deputy Griffin Butler.” He tapped his badge. “I really need to speak to him. It’s important.”

“I told you, he’s not here.”

“We’ll wait,” Griffin said, sliding past her and walking into the house.

“Hey,” she said. “You can’t just barge in here.”

“Call the police,” Griffin advised with a grin. He knew this wasn’t anything close to proper police procedure, but honestly, it was just a badge now. There was no government left to support his authority, just the respect of the people in town who trusted Frost’s judgment.

Avalon, Winslow, Radar and Lisa followed, albeit reluctantly. And as they walked into the entrance hall, the woman closed the door, none too gently.

“I told you folks,” the woman said, “Mr. Ellison isn’t here.”

“Then where is he?” Griffin asked.

“I’m his nurse, not his nanny.”

“That’s too bad, because we aren’t leaving until we see him.”

“Well, Deputy Butler, I—”

“Griffin, please.”

She sighed. “Griffin. As I said, Mr. Ellison is not here. I have no idea where he is or when he will be back. So if you could just tell me what this is about, I will be sure to relate as much to him, the next time I see him.”

“Look, lady,” Griffin snapped, believing that this woman’s ignorance was simply an act. “I’ve just about—”

Winslow stepped forward and put a hand on Griffin’s chest. “I’m sorry, Miss…?”

“Jennifer Turkette.”

“Miss Turkette,” Winslow said. “I assume you’ve looked outside recently.”

Jennifer nodded. Her eyes darted to the window, and the professional demeanor she’d maintained showed a crack. “Every time that bell rings...”

“So you know what’s going on,” Griffin said.

“How in the world would I know that?” she snapped, the last of her resolve fading. She sounded more like a normal person now.

“Easy, Jennifer,” Winslow said. “Griffin just means that you’re aware of what’s been happening, not that you know anything about it.”

“I’d have to be blind and deaf not to notice that,” she replied.

“Have you been safe here?” Griffin asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Though I haven’t felt safe. When it was dark...I saw some...some things moving past the house. But they stayed well enough away.”

Winslow put a hand on her shoulder. Made sure she was listening. “See, the thing is, we think Renford Ellison might be able to explain what’s happening, or at least part of it.”

“Why would you think that?”

Griffin told her about the packages and letters back at the depot and how they were addressed to Ellison, leaving out the fact that the name was written as an anagram. “Look, we’re just trying to figure out what’s happening, and if possible, get back home to our...Earth.” The woman’s eyes went wide, but she remained silent. “Right now, Mr. Ellison is our only lead.”

She turned back toward the door, a little too quickly, in Griffin’s opinion, and she motioned toward it. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, if that’s all you came here for, you’re wasting your time.” Her professional tone returned. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot of things to do before Mr. Ellison returns.”

“She’s lying,” Avalon said suddenly.

“How dare you!” Jennifer replied, whirling around.

“I know liars, Dad,” Avalon said. “Believe me. I’ve lived with them. Hell, I’m one of them. And if there’s one thing I can spot a mile off, it’s a liar. She’s been working hard at it, but I’ve seen better. If she doesn’t know where Mr. Ellison is, then I’m a Disney Princess.”

82

“There must be a dozen of them,” Loomis said, staring down at the nearest pile of bones. “But what are they doing here?”

Frost didn’t have an answer for that. They certainly hadn’t seen any signs of human habitation during their search thus far. There were no buildings, no cars, nothing to indicate that any people—or anything at all, other than trees...and a dog—had ever lived in this world. This world was barren. A wasteland. Yet the evidence was mounting that it hadn’t always been so. The dog tag alone suggested this devastation took place in the last ten years. She wasn’t sure whether this world’s Dexter was the same as theirs, but the shepherd in their world was ten years old.

A mystery not worth solving, she thought. They still had a woman to find, and it might not be long before they were somewhere new. Again.

“Let’s keep moving,” she said. “Jillian isn’t going to find herself.”

The eight people from Refuge filed quietly past the remains. As she walked by, Frost noted some charring on the bones that reminded her of the dog skeleton. Perhaps these people had burned to death. The thought brought too many questions with it. What burned them? Why? And perhaps more importantly, could it happen again?

She had no answers, and so she decided to keep her thoughts to herself. No sense worrying the rest of the group; they were jumpy enough already. Except for Dodge. After that first night, the pastor had calmed right down, keeping the doom and gloom to himself. Maybe it was his deathbed promise to Becky. Maybe he was questioning his beliefs. She certainly was. Whatever the reason, she was glad to have Dodge along. Most of the men had reserved spots in the pews every Sunday. She’d seen two of them in the choir last Christmas. The pastor’s calm presence, seemed to put the others at ease. Lord knew, she was having a hard time keeping her own thoughts from running wild. She wondered if Becky had ever felt this wired, while trying to calm down a bad situation.

Probably. But that didn’t help her figure out what to do. Jillian, she thought. Just find Jillian and get back to town before that damn bell starts ringing again.

She squeezed out every other thought, not wanting to be distracted. Jillian. Save Jillian. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until we find her. That’s it. Just like that. She had just reached a large group of rocks when she heard Dodge’s voice behind her.

“What’s that?”

She turned around just in time to see Dodge bend over and pull a slender, rectangular object from one of the bone piles.

He brought the object to his face and blew away a small cloud of dust, revealing a shiny black surface underneath. He rubbed the metallic surface with his sleeve and it shined brightly. “It’s a safe.”

“That’s an awfully small safe,” Silver noted.

“It’s a document safe,” Dodge said, holding it up.

“A what?” Loomis asked.

“A document safe,” Dodge repeated. “One of those little things that people use to lock up important documents: birth certificates, passports, and marriage licenses. Stuff like that. You can buy one at any department store. They’re usually fire proof.”

A document safe? Frost thought. Why in the hell would these people have needed a document safe? Just who were they? And how did they get here?

Dodge brought the small box up to his head and gave it a shake. Even from where she stood, Frost heard several things rattling around inside it. It was full. But full of what?

“Hold on,” Dodge said, peering at the top of the box. “There are some initials on it. Looks like…N and F.”

“N and F?” Marshall asked. “Who the heck is NF?”

“No idea,” Loomis said.

NF? Frost wondered. Nelson Florider? Could it really be…

Her thoughts were cut off by the sound of a woman screaming.

83

The six of them—Griffin, Avalon, Winslow, Radar, Lisa, and Jennifer Turkette—sat in a large, plushly furnished room with huge, plate glass windows looking out into the dark woods. The room was lit with this world’s eerie yellow glow, thanks to several large skylights above them. Jennifer had called it the ‘solarium,’ which Griffin knew was just a pretentious word for sunroom. But the light did little to lift the dark moods of the people within, mostly because the defuse illumination was yet another reminder that they were no longer home.

Jennifer sat, cross legged, on a cushioned deck chair. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. Radar and Lisa sat across from her on a wicker chaise, while Avalon and Winslow sat on an identical chaise to the left. Griffin alone remained standing, despite the fact that there were several other chairs in the room. He didn’t want to sit down. Didn’t want to relax. He just wanted to find out what the hell was going on in Refuge.

“How long ago did Ellison leave?” Griffin asked.

“He comes and goes whenever he wants,” Jennifer said. “As I said earlier, I’m just his nurse. I don’t keep track of him.”

“Does he have a secretary?”

“You ever know a rich white man who didn’t?” she replied.

“Is she here?”

“I don’t keep track of him, either,” Jennifer replied, emphasizing the gender.

“Great,” Griffin said. “So where does that leave us?”

“Unwelcome, in a house you have no business being in,” Jennifer said with sarcastic grin.

Griffin wasn’t sure if the woman was guilty of anything beyond doing her job, but without Ellison, she was his one and only source of potential information. She didn’t know it yet, but she was a prisoner.

“If Mr. Ellison were here,” Jennifer said, “he’d probably call the police.”

“Good luck with that. Have you even tried your phones?” Avalon asked. “And in case you have a short memory, he—” She pointed at Griffin. “—is the police.”

“Not according to my records,” Jennifer said, tapping the screen of a small PDA. “Sheriff Rebecca Rule has two deputies. Deputy Jim Sweeney and Deputy Helena—”

“Sweeney is missing,” Griffin said. “He was outside town when we shifted. Sheriff Rule died a short time after the second shift. Frost is the Sheriff now, and she appointed me a deputy yesterday.”

Jennifer didn’t seem to have a good response to that. She just frowned and sank deeper into her chair, her inner turmoil playing out in her facial expressions. She had impressive resolve, but the woman would crack. Eventually.

Time to change tactics, Griffin thought. He sighed loudly and sank into a nearby armchair.

“Look, Miss Turkette,” he began , “A lot of people have already died. Some were killed by the creatures you saw, in that world of darkness. But Sheriff Rule...she was the first. Did you know her?”

The woman nodded slowly. “She came out to the house once.”

“Nice lady, right?” Griffin asked.

No reply.

“When the town shifted a second time, Rule had been outside the town line. She’d just saved Phillip Beaumont and his two daughters. The town shifted while she was crossing the town line. Everything below her waist remained in the desert world, while the rest of her came along for the ride. The shift cut her in half. Chopped her into two big pieces, cauterizing the wound like a red hot blade.”

He watched Avalon squirm. She hadn’t heard the story in such detail before. When she started wiping away tears, he had to fight against his own. “She was one of my closest friends.” He motioned to Avalon. “Babysat my girl for most of her early life.”

“My wife was stung,” Winslow added. “By giant wasps. She might not make it.”

Jennifer’s head came up. “Carol?”

Winslow looked surprised. “You know her?”

“She brought cookies...at Christmas.”

Winslow nodded, his eyes closed. “Of course she did. Well, that woman that brought you cookies, who probably invited herself in to chat while you ate them… She was willing to sacrifice her life to save these kids.” He motioned to Radar and Lisa, who looked more than a little guilty.

“People are dying,” Griffin said. “But they’re also fighting. For each other. For this town. And for you.”

Jennifer’s stern expression faltered. Not much, but it was there. A slight twitch of the eye and a loosening of her frown. That’s what Griffin was hoping for. All he needed was a crack.

“They won’t be the last, either,” he continued. “If we can’t get a handle on this thing, sooner or later, everyone in this town will be dead, including everyone in this room. Even Mr. Ellison.” He stood back up. “If you know something, you need to tell us. It might be your last chance to save some lives. It might be your last chance to save your own life, too.”

The woman looked down at her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap again. “I don’t know much... But I don’t think Mr. Ellison can fix this.”

“Why not?” Avalon asked.

Before she could answer, they heard the unmistakable crack of distant gunfire.

“Shit,” Griffin said. “What now?”

84

Frost poked her head over the top of a large stone and looked down into a rocky crevice. Jillian was thirty feet below. And she wasn’t alone.

“Aww, fuck,” Loomis said as he looked into the crevice. His expletive was followed by a string of others as the group gathered and looked down.

“What are they?” Dodge asked.

Jillian stood in an open patch of dusty ground. Her pants and blouse were torn. A bruise was forming on her exposed right shoulder. Her knees were raw and bloody, and a single, long abrasion marred her left cheek. She was a mess, to be sure, but none of the injuries were life-threatening.

Yet.

Dozens of large creatures lurked in the shadows, swaying back and forth on the floor, clinging to the walls. Just out of clear view. But their hissing was eerie.

“Sound like Sleestaks,” Loomis commented.

Frost had no idea what Sleestaks were, and she didn’t really care. They had to find a way to get Jillian out.

The hazy clouds above shifted, allowing a spear of direct sunlight to pierce the shadows below. The creatures were revealed.

Dozens of large, reptilian beasts. They were stocky and thick, resembling giant Gila monsters—thick powerful bodies and knobby, scaled, orange and black skin. Most stood about two feet high at the shoulder. The largest of them was easily twelve feet from its nose to the tip of its fat, stubby tail. They circled around the woman, their tongues flicking in and out of their wide, toothy mouths. Perhaps more disturbing than the flicking tongues, however, was the fact that no two of the creatures looked exactly alike.

Several of them sported long horns on their heads. Some had three horns, while others had only one or two. Others had no horns at all. The largest of the creatures had three eyes; one on either side of its head and a third in the middle of its face. Another was cyclopean, a single eye right in the middle of its forehead. Two of them had no eyes at all, but turned their heads this way and that, in response to miniscule sounds. One of the creatures that stood farthest from Jillian actually had seven eyes, all scattered around its head, in no particular order.

Some of the creatures had fat feet, while others had thin, birdlike claws. One of them had two tails, while several had no tails to speak of and still others had only thick, stunted nubs. One of the beasts had a spiny membrane along the center of its back that reminded Frost of a dimetrodon, while another bore a foursome of bony spikes on the end of its tail a-la stegosaurus. None of the beasts walked upright, but a few had front legs that were significantly longer than their rear legs, giving them an almost upright posture. Frost even spotted one of the beasts with six legs instead of four.

It was a freak show.

Yet for all their physical differences, the creatures were similar in two ways: their overall reptilian appearance, and the fact that every single one of them was facing Jillian.

The creatures surrounded the woman, sniffing the air and making muted chuffing sounds. They reminded Frost of a pack of friendly dogs, moving in to sniff the newcomer. Jillian spun in slow, dazed circles, breathing heavily, like she’d just run a marathon. From Frost’s position on the rocky ledge, she could hear Jillian mumbling something, but she couldn’t make it out.

“What should we do?” Loomis whispered.

“We’ve got to go down there and get her,” Dodge said. “They don’t seem violent.”

Frost had to agree. The creatures didn’t appear very aggressive. They shuffled and chuffed, sniffing the air and watching Jillian, but they made no move toward her. They’re like big, scaly cows, she thought. She continued to watch them for a few more heartbeats, then made her decision.

“Okay,” she said. “Loomis, Dodge, you guys come with me. The rest of you, cover us from up here. If things go sideways, start shooting.”

Brent nodded. “Fish in a barrel.”

“And if you hear the church bell, do me a favor and shout a warning before you bolt.”

Brent paled a bit, but nodded.

She turned to look at Loomis and Dodge. “Let’s move.”

Looking for a way down, she found a ledge to the right that worked its way upward while thinning away to nothing about thirty feet up the slope. No help there. To the left, the ledge continued on for another twenty feet before ending abruptly in a pile of rocks. They might be able to climb down the rocks, but could they do it while holding on to their rifles? She had two options. Slide down with the weapon over her shoulder. Out of easy reach. Maybe get eaten. Or, slide down off balance and maybe sprain an ankle. She had her handgun, but she wasn’t sure how useful it would be against a mob of otherworldly lizard things. Either option would leave her unable to sprint back to town if the bell began ringing, but only one of them involved being eaten alive.

Cows, she told herself. They’re just reptilian—

“Holy shit!” Silver’s voice.

Frost turned around just in time to see one of the creatures—the biggest one—leap closer to Jillian and open its mouth.

A gurgling sound rose from its throat.

The gurgle became a hiss, as compressed, misty air sprayed out...and caught fire.

The next few seconds were the stuff of an Arthurian nightmare. While Jillian screamed, a thin jet of white flame shot from the creature’s mouth and engulfed her legs. Then a second jet of flame shot from the mouth of another of the creatures, which was joined by yet another. In a matter of seconds, no less than half a dozen of them were spitting fire.

Even thirty or so feet above the scene, half concealed by the rocky ledge, the scalding heat rose up and washed over the group, forcing them back and preventing them from helping the woman.

Jillian wasn’t dead. Not yet. Her screams echoed from beneath. Frost peeked over the edge, cringing as the heat prickled her skin. Jillian, now engulfed, writhed below, her movements slowing, but the creatures kept the flames on her, as the sickening smell of burning flesh rose through the air, mixing with the smells of heat and dust.

Frost heard one of the men throw up behind her.

Dodge tried to leap over the ledge. Loomis and Silver grabbed him and held him back. Frost stared, frozen in place, as the woman they had come to rescue slowly turned into a lump of charred flesh.

“Let me go!” Dodge was screaming. “I have to help her!”

“You can’t help her,” Loomis said. “It’s too late.”

“But I told her,” Dodge said, struggling. “I promised I would help her!”

But Jillian, the mysterious ‘Sally Field,’ was dead and gone.

Dodge fell to his knees, weeping in anguish.

The attack had taken less than thirty seconds, during which time Jillian’s body had gone from mostly healthy and whole, to charred and blackened. Still, the creatures kept the flames going.

“What are they doing?” Silver asked. “She’s dead, already.”

They had their answer thirty seconds later, as Jillian’s left leg crumbled into a pile of ashes. The biggest creature closed its mouth, cutting off its fire, and approached the corpse. The other creatures did likewise. Once they reached Jillian’s body, which was now nothing but a pile of oily ashes and charred bones, they began to eat.

“Ashes?” Loomis whispered. “These fucking things eat ashes?”

Could have used them in the dark world, Frost thought, as she watched the creatures devour the pile of dark gray ash that had once been a woman who meant...something to Dodge. She looked around at the bleak landscape, remembering the piles of scorched bones.

Now she knew what had killed this world.

Dodge shouted in anger, breaking free of Loomis and Silver. He grabbed one of the rifles, took aim and fired a shot, hitting the largest creature just behind one of its three eyes.

The creature dropped like a stone, with a puff of flame from the wound, but dozens of others turned their faces upward, looking at the rocky ledge. Dodge fired again and again, hitting several of the creatures and killing two more, before the rifle’s breech locked open on an empty chamber. He looked blankly at the rifle, screamed something unintelligible, and threw it hard, down at one of the monsters.

Below, several of the monsters squealed long and loudly, as blood poured from small bullet wounds. Those that didn’t die rolled around in the dirt, raising clouds of dust while they shrieked in pain. The ones who died were set upon almost immediately by their brethren, who all seemed to have no qualms about cooking and eating their own kin.

A few of the group joined in the shooting, filling the crevasse with deadly rounds. Several more of the creatures dropped. But many more were there to take their places.

“Stop!” Frost shouted. They were wasting ammunition. Jillian was dead. They could just leave, not waste bullets on revenge. “Hold your fire!”

Movement to her left turned her attention away from the action.

All across the barren landscape, the earth itself seemed to come to life. But it wasn’t the ground. The orange and black mass was alive. The gunfire had drawn even more of the creatures out from their hiding places among the rocky terrain. They began to pour forth from large holes and shadowy alcoves, looking like a nest of ants defending their hill. Everywhere she looked, an army of the things huffed and shuffled along, all heading toward the group of people on the rocky ledge and, she guessed, toward the smell of fresh food.

Fuck me, she thought. There must be hundreds of the damn things.

“We have to go,” she said.

Loomis looked up from the spectacle below and caught sight of the massing throng of Gila-things, as well. “Oh, shit,” he said softly. Then louder: “Oh, fucking shit! Guys! Look!”

But no one could hear him.

Frost drew her side arm and fired a few rounds around her team’s feet. That got their attention.

The sound of gunfire ended as the rest of the group took in the scene. By this time, the horizon was crawling with giant, orange and black lizards. Here and there, an occasional jet of white flame could be seen. The constant chuffing noises the creatures made merged into one long, scratchy sound.

“We have to go,” Frost said again. “Right now.”

It took a bit of wrestling to get Dodge under control. In his rage, he wanted to run down and batter the army of creatures with his bare fists. But eventually Loomis, Silver and Marshall reined him in. He fought and screamed and threw wild punches for a few more seconds, then slumped in their arms, his energy spent.

He blames himself, Frost realized. He’s the reason Jillian was in town when the shift happened. But why? That matter would have to wait for another day. And a psychiatrist. For now, they just needed to haul ass.

But they weren’t moving fast enough. Dodge’s dead weight was slowing them down. She hurried ahead, stopped in front of Dodge and slapped him hard across the face. “I know you feel bad about what happened—”

“I promised her,” Dodge said.

“Well it wasn’t the only promise you made, was it?” she asked, knowing the question would invoke the memory of Rule’s death. “We need you, too.”

Dodge bit his lips. Hard. And then he shrugged free from the men holding him. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

She turned around and started running back the way they’d come. She heard the footsteps behind her as the rest of the group followed.

Then she rounded a large boulder not far from where they’d found the bones. She choked off a scream and stopped in her tracks. There, no more than twenty feet away, a group of the lizard creatures charged toward her, choking off the exit route.

85

Cash sat behind the wheel of his borrowed car, finishing his warm Coke, and thinking about the meeting he’d just witnessed. He couldn’t hear what was said, but it was the second time he’d seen Charley Wilson and Julie Barnes act like they knew each other better than most people knew, which was not at all. Aside from the conversion of Charley’s house to the new town solar grid, he couldn’t think of any reason a woman like that—sexy and sophisticated—would have anything to do with that deadbeat. He’d known Charley a long time. They’d been friends on occasion, but since Charley’s closest friend became a bottle, they didn’t socialize much, other than the occasional story swap at the Brickhouse.

Normally, his Yankee sensibilities would tell Cash it was none of his business, but now, secrets could get people killed. Still, confronting Charley or Julie wasn’t something he wanted to do alone. Better to fill in Frost or Griffin. Let the law work things out.

He started the car, looking up at the hazy yellow sky. He didn’t like this world. The light made everything look flat. At least, he thought, nothing is trying to—

A scream.

His heart beat faster. In the past, a scream would have been little more than a curiosity. Kids playing. A prank. They rarely meant anything bad. But now... He leaned forward over the wheel, looking out the windshield.

A woman bolted out from behind a house, easily identifiable by her bright pink, plaid flannel shirt. But she moved differently now. There was no swagger. No purposeful shift of her butt. She was running, for her life, heading away from him, down the street toward town. Had Charley snuck out the back and attacked her?

He had his answer a moment later when a ten-foot-long lizard scrambled into the road, its claws clacking loudly over the pavement. It was a blur of black and orange, sporting three eyes on either side of its head and two wide tails that spun as it tried to turn. It slid across the macadam, trying to stop, and slammed into the curb along the sidewalk. But the thing wasn’t fazed. It was quick to its feet again, scrabbling after Julie.

And then—the fuck?—a ball of white hot fire burst from the creature’s mouth, billowing out around its body. The flames fell short of Julie, but the thing was gaining on her quickly.

Cash buckled himself in, threw the vehicle into drive and smashed the gas pedal to the floor. He’d wanted to leave quietly, without Charley noticing him, but if Julie died, they might never find out what the pair had been up to. Tires squealed as the car accelerated, passing the 30-mph residential speed limit in four seconds. Doubling it in another three.

Without her customary heels, Julie was pretty fast. She’d nearly reached Main Street. But she wasn’t going to make it much further. The creature was nearly on top of her. Luckily for Julie, Cash’s car was even closer to the creature. He hit the thing from behind, as it rounded the corner behind Julie. There was a hard jolt as he struck the thing, but he had no time to see if he’d killed it. He hammered the brakes, skidding across Main Street and careening into the woods on the far side of the street, narrowly missing a pine tree. With the car stopped, and in one piece, he threw it into reverse and peeled back out of the woods.

He spotting Julie still running, heading for the police station, which he knew wasn’t currently manned. He knew about the posses that had been organized, and he saw people looking his way from the center of town, but no one was taking action. He couldn’t blame them. Most hadn’t seen the things he had. First encounters with the otherworldly could freeze a person in place.

But the lizard, while missing both tails now, seemed undaunted as it continued after Julie.

Cash threw the car into drive and sped after it.

To his surprise, Julie ran past the police station and stopped in front of Sam’s hardware store, which had been left unlocked. Not only was Sam dead, but the town needed access to his cache of supplies. Julie ran inside and closed the door behind her.

The lizard crashed into the door a moment later. It tried a second time, shaking its head, looking dazed. Then it jaws sprang open. White flames burst out, engulfing the door.

Holy hell, Cash thought, and he braced for an impact.

There was a jolt when he hit it, but he never lost control of the vehicle. He skidded to a stop in front of the park, where a group of five armed men and old Huck, watched with slack-jawed amazement. Cash jumped out of the car, shotgun in hand and turned back toward the creature.

Its back had been crushed beneath the car’s wheels, but it hadn’t given up the chase. Instead, it was bashing its head against the burning door...until the door was kicked open from the inside. The monster flinched back in surprise, its six eyes going wide before being frozen that way when a pitchfork shot out of the door and impaled its head. The sharp spines shot down and out of the thing’s neck.

Julie exited the fiery door, pitchfork in hand, and shoved the creature away. It fell to the sidewalk, dead. She disappeared back inside for a moment and reemerged with a bright red fire extinguisher, which she turned on the door, unleashing a cloud of compressed carbon dioxide.

When the flames subsided, she dropped the tank, rolled her neck and kicked the dead creature with an angry grunt.

Huck stepped up next to Cash, “Thought she was a real estate agent.”

Cash frowned. “So did I.”

As impressive as Julie’s counterattack was, it was also disconcerting. It wasn’t an act of desperation. She could have snuck out a window, or out the back door. But she didn’t. She attacked. Ruthlessly. Cash saw her in a different light now. Julie Barnes was a dangerous woman.

She glanced over at him, eyeing him angrily. They’d never been friendly. She’d helped destroy his business. But then she softened her expression and said, “Thanks for the help.”

He didn’t get a chance to reply. Gunshots rose up all over town, mixed with shouting. But the sounds just punctuated the true horror Cash had only just detected: the scent of burning wood...and people.

86

A burst of static from Griffin’s hip cut through the room’s tension and made everyone jump. Cash’s voice followed. “Griffin, this is Cash, you read?”

Griffin plucked the radio up. “I hear you, Cash. Heard gunshots. What’s going on? Over.”

“Big fuckin’ lizards is what’s going on,” Cash said. “And there’s more than a few of them. Breathing fire! Could use some—” Cash’s voice was drowned out by a stream of gunfire and shouting. In the silence that followed, the echoing reports of the gunfire reached them.

“Sounds like a war,” Winslow said.

“Almost,” Griffin said. “But close enough.”

“…coming?” Cash said from the radio. “Lots of guns. No organization. We need—” More gunfire followed by, “Huck! Get back.” The boom of a shotgun. A shriek.

“Cash,” Griffin said into the radio, heading toward the door. “I’m on my way!”

He stopped when Avalon caught up to him, heading for the door. “You’re not coming.”

“I’m not staying here,” she said.

“Ava, I’m—”

Radar and Lisa headed for the door. “If they’re in town,” Radar said. “They might also be here.”

“This house is secure,” Griffin said. “A fortress.”

Winslow stepped to the front door without a word. After looking through the side window, he opened the door and stepped out. Griffin couldn’t stop the man from coming, but he wasn’t about to bring his daughter and two teens into a fight. “You’re not even armed. I can’t protect you all.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Jennifer said.

All eyes turned to the nurse, who stood behind the group. She was holding a pair of black AR15 rifles and a 9mm Ruger handgun.

“Where did those come from?” Griffin asked.

“Does it matter?” Jennifer replied. She walked to Radar and put one of the rifles in his hands. Then she handed the handgun to Lisa. “You know how to use those?”

Radar nodded.

Lisa said, “My father took us to the range a few times last year.” She pulled the slide back, chambering a round.

Radar pulled back the charge handle on his rifle and flipped the safety on. “I went with them.”

Jennifer gave her rifle’s charge handle a yank and looked at Griffin, “Well?”

He looked at the group, checking each face for a crack in their resolve, but he found none. He wasn’t going to win this argument. And, if he was honest with himself, he felt better knowing that the kids could defend themselves if need be. Normally, he wouldn’t have heard of it. But this was the world—or worlds—they lived in now.

He eyed Jennifer, realizing that he knew nothing at all about the woman. She could be helpful or she could shoot them all in the back. “You’ve been in this house since the first shift. Why are you helping now?”

“My job,” she said, “is to keep Mr. Ellison alive. That might mean saving him from a heart attack. It might also mean stopping fire-breathing monsters from burning down the town.”

“We could have used your help before,” Griffin said, and then he realized the truth. “Ellison was here, wasn’t he? For the desert and the darkness. But you were telling the truth. He’s not home now. If he was, you wouldn’t be leaving.”

She said nothing, but she didn’t have to. Jennifer Turkette might actually have a medical background, but he doubted that was all. The way she handled the rifle in her hands spoke of a military background. And right now, that could be useful to more than just Ellison.

Griffin lowered his guard. “Okay. Everyone in the car. And for the love of God, keep your safeties on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

87

After a barrage of gunfire, the path ahead was mostly clear. They’d torn into the approaching lizards without remorse, but they had used a good amount of ammunition in the process. And while nothing ahead was still trying to kill them, they would now have to run through, and over, dead and dying monsters.

Frost felt exhausted. The chase was wearing her down quickly, the desolate air and the rugged terrain sapping her strength. The fact that she had an army of fire-breathing lizard creatures closing in didn’t help.

She began mentally picking her path back to town, trying to find a way that would be quick, but also avoiding the still living lizards. But before she could finish, more of the things emerged from the ground ahead. It was like the Earth was bleeding the things.

She squeezed off a single shot, striking the closest monster between the eyes. It rolled in the dirt, squealing in a high pitched whine that sounded like a cross between a pig and an injured horse. By all appearances, this world had been burned to a crisp and devoured by these things, but they weren’t that hard to kill. How could these things have overrun an entire world? Perhaps they hadn’t. Maybe they were contained to this region of the world. But then, why here? Why Refuge?

It didn’t make sense. Why would this world’s government not just sweep in and exterminate the things? They weren’t even very smart. Frost had been able to dodge several of them with easy jukes and jumps, and sometimes the creatures set fire to their comrades because they were too slow to hit her. On those occasions, the creatures went ahead and fed, anyway.

She risked a quick glance behind her. The entire group was keeping up nicely. If they could just keep up this pace, they should be able to make it back to town without losing a single member of her team.

She turned around just in time to see the low, rocky overhang that smacked into her face. She hit the ground hard, and felt the warmth of blood spreading over her cheek, but she was still conscious. She felt a bit dazed, but then she realized she was looking straight in the open maw of a fire-breathing lizard. She scrambled back, but it was already dead. Its stomach had burst open, and a red, gelatinous ooze was spilling out.

Frost pushed herself onto her knees. Her head swirled, but she could see well enough to notice the hundreds of clear orbs stuck in the red ooze. Each sphere contained a single, three-inch long lizard. They wriggled madly for freedom. Small flames erupted from some of the eggs.

Babies, she realized. Hundreds of them. And already able to breathe fire.

That’s how they did it. They overwhelmed this world through sheer numbers.

Jared Loomis saw Frost go down hard, and he immediately made his way over to her. Already several of the creatures were turning toward her position. Loomis stopped, aimed his rifle, and popped the closest two before they could get near enough to hurt her. Then he launched into a sprint, hoping to make it in time.

By the time he reached her, Frost was kneeling, staring at the corpse of one of the creatures. She looked up at him, blood covering one of her cheeks. She was conscious, but she looked a bit dazed.

“There’s too many,” she said. “That’s what happened.”

She whacked her head pretty hard, he thought. But there was no time to be gentle. He reached down and grabbed her hand, then yanked her to her feet and shoved her back in the direction of town. “Move!

Frost did as he asked. She started running, but then stumbled right toward one of the creatures!

“No,” he shouted. “Stop!” He sprinted toward her and tackled her just in time to save her from the thing’s flame. The fire shot over her and hit him squarely on the shoulder. His shirt burst into flame, and then the creature, seeing it had a hit, poured on the juice.

The pain was intense, blinding. His whole shoulder began to melt away from the heat. It was soon joined by a fierce pain in his leg. A second creature had reached him. He screamed, trying not to black out. As he writhed on the ground, he saw Frost get to her feet.

She pulled out her sidearm and quickly emptied the clip.

He couldn’t see what was happening around him, just the yellow haze of a sky above, but since he was no longer being cooked alive, he assumed Frost had killed the creatures. At least the few that had been intent on eating his ashes.

Loomis turned his head to the side. His vision faded in and out, but he could see that more of the creatures were coming toward him, spurred on by the smell of ashes and death. He caught a whiff of something sticky and sweet, and realized it was the odor of his own roasted flesh. He yelped in pain when he felt pressure on his shoulder.

Frost was at his side, trying to pull him to his feet. Meeks was with her, grabbing his good arm and trying to pull him up.

He screamed. The skin peeled away from his burned shoulder, sliding off like so much barbecue. The pain was excruciating, and he almost blacked out. But he couldn’t let himself faint. If he did, Frost and the others would try to carry him out. They would never make it, he knew. They would die trying.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“Let me go,” he shouted, swatting her hands away. “Leave! Go!”

Frost looked horrified. So did Meeks and Dodge, who had just caught up. But behind them, he saw that Silver was nodding.

“He’s right,” Silver said. “We can’t carry him.”

Frost whirled around, her face as red as Jared’s shoulder felt. “You can’t be serious!”

Loomis lost track of the argument. Something in the sky caught his attention. The object was an aberration in this world. The straight line, soaring above didn’t belong. He tracked its arc through the sky, and became confused when the long, slender object shrank down to the size of a small dot.

Realization struck him hard. “Look out!” he shouted and shoved at the people holding him. The agony he felt from the sudden movement lasted only a moment.

Frost felt a jolt of anger when Loomis pushed her away and forced her to drop him, but it was suddenly replaced by abject shock, when a five-foot-long spear, like a javelin, fell from the sky and impaled Loomis’s head, pinning his partially charred body to the dead ground.

Stifling a gasp, she spun around. The creatures were closing in. They didn’t have long. But the creatures weren’t remotely capable of throwing a—there!

When everyone turned, she realized she’d shouted the word aloud. A man ran among the creatures, cloaked in their black and orange skins. He had a long shaggy beard and tangles of hair hanging out from under a lizard skull atop the man’s head. He was wiry and thin, but he moved with skilled grace and total comfort among the monsters. Was he guiding them or simply living among them?

The answers didn’t matter. What did matter was that a second spear had suddenly materialized in the man’s hand, and he was preparing to throw it. At her. She knew because their eyes met for a just a moment. Her stomach twisted with recognition.

She was yanked from her thoughts by Dodge, pulling on her arm. “Let’s go!”

They ran behind the others, hurrying to catch up, leaving Loomis behind. He’d meant something to her once. But this fucked up new reality didn’t give her time to grieve his passing. She only hoped his death would distract the monsters long enough for the others to reach town.

88

Dozens of fires burned throughout the town. Numerous trails of thick black smoke rolled through the air like an oily fog. For the most part, the town was devoid—of people. The only signs of human inhabitants were the nearly constant popping of gunfire up ahead.

They’d taken a beating, speeding over the rough dirt road leading back to town, but they’d completed the trip in record time. But now, the town’s new residents—massive, bulky, fire-breathing lizards—slowed their progress. Luckily, so far the monsters had shown no interest in the vehicle. They seemed fixated on attacking more flammable objects, including store fronts, shrubs, trees...and people.

“Oh my God. They’re eating him,” Lisa said, as they slowly passed a corpse that had been reduced to jet black ash. Three of the creatures were scooping up heaps of greasy ash, lifting their heads and then swallowing it down, their necks shaking with each gulp.

Griffin winced. These were the kinds of things that ruined well-trained soldiers for life. He’d seen this kind of horror before, sans the lizards, and it had taken years and hundreds of dark, therapeutic paintings for him to work through the post-traumatic stress. The kids shouldn’t have to see this, he thought, finding yet another reason to beat the shit out of whoever was ultimately responsible for this situation.

Griffin had to stop the car in front of the Brick House. The way ahead was blocked by creatures. There were too many to drive through. Hundreds of them. Probably too many too kill. The town was outnumbered. Outmatched. This could be the end, he thought, glancing back at Avalon. Part of him wished she’d stayed in California. Alive and addicted would be better than burnt and eaten in this hellhole.

But she wasn’t in California. And she was fighting to be free from her addiction. So he’d fight for her. Until the very end.

The area in front of the Brick House was clear of living lizards, though five had found themselves on the receiving end of a shotgun. The front door opened and Walter Harrison peeked out, shotgun in hand.

Griffin rolled down his window. Since leaving Ellison’s mansion, no one had answered his calls, not even Frost. “Where is everyone?”

Walter motioned behind him. “I got eight in here, but I’m the only one with a gun. Rest of ‘em are holed up at the sheriff’s station.”

“With Frost?” Griffin asked, hopeful.

“She ain’t back yet,” the bartender said.

Walter glanced around the cruiser, his eyes lingering on Jennifer for a moment. “You’re welcome to hole up in here. Sure wouldn’t mind all those guns.”

Griffin had already considered it for the kids, but he didn’t think they’d agree, and he didn’t want to waste time arguing. The only way to defeat a larger force was through a very organized assault, and he didn’t see that happening without him. He needed to get to the station.

He opened his door.

“Are you sure you want to go out there?” Winslow asked.

“It’s what we came here for. If you all survive, maybe next time you’ll do as I ask and stay behind.” He hated using ‘I told you so’ logic on them, especially in the face of their potential deaths, but if they did survive, he wanted them to remember that they could have avoided all of this by letting him go alone. “Winslow, you’re behind me. Avalon and Lisa, you stay in the middle. Radar and Jennifer, you two cover the rear.”

Jennifer nodded, and the group walked cautiously out into the street. Griffin led the way, assault rifle in hand. Rather than strolling straight up Main Street, where they’d be easily spotted, he headed for the rear of the bar. While the other side of town was surrounded by residential neighborhoods, fifty acres of forest to the west separated town from Northwoods Orchard. Moving among the trees, they might be able to make it to the station unnoticed. And that, he thought, will be the key to our survival.

Twenty feet into the woods, one of the creatures exploded out of a patch of smoldering brush. Reacting on instinct, he raised his rifle, squeezed off a three round burst and dropped the thing. It fell at his feet, dead.

At least they can be killed, he thought.

Cracking twigs and shaking branches announced the arrival of more lizards, likely drawn by the sound of gunfire. Before seeing them, Griffin shouted, “Run!” He led the way, charging through the woods with his rifle up and ready, propped against his shoulder.

Behind him, Winslow opened fire, but with far less success. Griffin counted seven shots from Winslow, before he actually hit the creature charging toward them from Main Street. A high-pitched squeal, like compressed air, came from the hole punched in the thing’s neck. Then, it exploded. Globs of flesh rained about, attracting more of the things, several of which stopped to charbroil their now dead comrade.

Whatever chemicals are used to create those flames, Griffin thought, are kept in their necks. “Try not to hit their necks at close range.” He fired two more rounds, dropping another lizard, this one still fifty feet away.

“Dad!” Avalon shouted. Her voice was followed by the rumble of gunfire.

Griffin flinched and spun, his rifle raised at a now dead lizard. He glanced at Avalon, holding the proverbial smoking gun. Gave her a nod. She smiled briefly, and then they were off, running and shooting. Even Radar and Lisa were firing away, as was Jennifer, whose aim made her the deadliest nurse Griffin had ever seen. But for the moment, she was helping keep him, and the kids, alive. And for that, he was grateful. But if he found out she was involved with whatever caused their trip through the universe’s most hellish worlds...

“Griffin,” Winslow said. The old man was sweating profusely, but he looked capable and alert. He held out a hand. “Give me the keys. I have an idea.”

Griffin was about to argue, but the old man didn’t give him a chance. “Now, damnit!”

Griffin handed over the keys. “What—”

“If I’m not back in ten minutes, you’ll know I didn’t make it.” With that, Winslow was off, heading back the way they’d come.

Griffin was torn. He didn’t want to leave Winslow, who wasn’t the best shot or the fastest runner, on his own, but he also couldn’t turn around now. The town needed an organized defense.

“I’ll go with him,” Jennifer said.

Griffin gave a nod of thanks, but added, “If you make it back alive, he better be with you.”

Then she was gone, chasing after Winslow, leaving Griffin to storm the police station with two kids and his drug-craving daughter. “The odds just keep getting better and better,” he whispered.

“Never tell me the odds,” Radar replied with lopsided grin.

When Griffin shot him a look like he had lost his mind, Radar explained. “Han Solo. In the asteroid field.”

Griffin sighed. “C’mon 3PO, let’s go.”

“3PO?”

“Yeah,” Griffin said, offering a smile of his own. “I’m obviously Han.” He pushed deeper into the woods unseen, thanks to a momentary reprieve in the attack. If they could get behind the station, they might be able to get through the back door. The sound of gunfire grew louder with every step. As he rounded the back of Soucey’s Market, he got his first glimpse of the station.

So much for the back door...

89

Turned out that Loomis’s death was just the beginning.

While Dodge and Frost led the charge back to the edge of town, the four men accompanying them had the misfortune of being a few steps behind. And that was all the difference. Frost had heard a joke, about how the best defense against an attacking bear was being faster than your friends. Turns out the punchline worked with giant, fire-breathing reptiles, too.

The man named Jarvis Brent walked into a wall of flame, as a lizard climbed out from a crevice beneath him. He emerged alit, stumbled over a rock and fell into the waiting jaws of a second lizard, which unleashed a torrent of flame as it shook him about.

Matthew Silver simply lost his footing, fell forward and slammed his head on a jagged rock. The sickening crunch and limpness of his body confirmed his death before the lizards fell upon him.

Anthony Grimm turned out to be the fastest of them, jack-rabbiting over and around the field of jagged stones, deadly gorges and writhing lizards. His substantial lead might be why he was targeted. Just fifty feet from where the earth fell away back to the border of Refuge, a spear fell from the sky, impaling the back of his neck, slipping four feet through his flesh. He fell forward, but the weapon lodged in the ground, holding him up at a forty-five degree angle. His body slowly slid down the long, smooth spear.

Frost’s heart ached with each man’s death, some deep dark part of her thankful that she wouldn’t have to face their families afterwards. It was the same part of her that felt a surge of hope each time the horde of lizards slowed to fight over the most recently killed prey.

She fired several rounds into a group of lizards closing in from the left. She’d lost her rifle when she struck her head, and now—click, click, click—the handgun ran dry. She holstered the weapon, focusing on running instead.

“Oh my God,” Meeks shouted. “He’s coming! He’s coming!”

She turned, knowing exactly who the ‘he’ was. She wished she’d never seen him. Those eyes. Familiar but not. The man closed in, slipping past the lizards barbequing Silver. Another spear was in the man’s hand.

And then it wasn’t.

Meeks turned around to fire, got off one wild shot and then clutched his gut as the spear pierced it.

He twisted and fell to his knees, then glanced back at Frost, desperation in his eyes. “If you get home...all the way home...”

He never got to finish. Another spear punched through his back. A mortal wound. The impact knocked him onto his side, his lifeless eyes staring up at the sky. But this time, Frost couldn’t continue on. She had no idea whether the man hunting them would be satiated with the kill or if he was set on murdering them all. So she decided to stand her ground.

Her hand went for her gun, when she remembered it had no ammunition.

The man leapt over a boulder, twenty feet away and closing. She watched as a fresh spear appeared in his hand. But it wasn’t magic. A bag hung from his waist, full of foot-long white rods. When he lifted one, it quickly extended in both directions, forming a double-pointed javelin.

She lunged for Meeks’s weapon, an M-16, but it was strapped around his shoulders and clutched in a death grip.

The man leapt at her, thrusting 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!”

90

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 didn’t just crush the lizard. The large, spinning wheels shredded the beast, flinging a rainbow of meat. When the tire reached the creature’s head, it burst, mixing whatever chemicals it contained in its neck. Flames burst out and ignited the driver’s side tire.

The truck sped into the middle of the park, tearing into the reptilian throng. Jennifer sat behind the wheel, a wicked smile on her face. Winslow sat in the passenger’s seat, mortified. While this was no doubt Winslow’s big idea, Griffin was glad Jennifer had gone along. Winslow was the town’s most notorious Sunday driver, forming lines behind him whenever he drove. Jennifer, on the other hand, drove with the confident assurance of someone trained to do so.

Despite the truck’s size and volume, the lizards didn’t flee. Instead, they charged, responding to the vehicle like it was wounded prey. Some leapt at it. Some attempted to scorch the tires. The result of every attack was the same—a spray of red guts and a burst of fiery death. As more of the creatures joined the assault and all four tires were set aflame, Jennifer cranked the wheels and hit the gas. The giant truck began spinning in circles, doing donuts in the slick, burning flesh of an ever-growing number of dead.

When Griffin finally managed to tear his eyes away from the gruesome scene, he looked at the kids and saw three smiles. He realized that he was smiling, too. Radar noted Griffin’s attention and said, “So awesome.”

Griffin agreed. It was awesome. “But it’s time for us to move.”

The smiles disappeared. “Stay close. Stay quiet.” With that, Griffin started out across the park, heading for the police station.

91

The savage version of Griffin Butler staggered back as though slapped hard in the face. Frost was relieved by his distraction, but also disconcerted by his identity. This is Griffin? It didn’t seem possible that the man she knew could become this—a brutal murdering...cannibal. She hadn’t seen him eat another person, but what other reason could he have for hunting them?

“You know me, don’t you?” she asked, hoping to keep the man confused. She slowly stepped back, running her fingers over the baton, hoping to find a way to return it to its former, deadlier shape. She didn’t know if she could kill this world’s Griffin, but she wasn’t about to let him kill her.

“My name is Helena,” she said, but maybe this world’s Griffin didn’t know her. “I work with Becky. Becky Rule.”

The man’s muscles went slack.

“I’m a friend of Jess,” she said, pushing further.

“Jess,” he whispered. His voice was scratchy and raw.

“Your wife, yes.”

He slowly tensed. “Dead.”

Frost was about to explain how she knew about Jess’s bout with cancer, but she didn’t get the chance.

“Murdered!” Griffin said.

Murdered?

“Griffin,” Dodge said. He stood at a distance. “Do you know me?”

Griffin’s eyes snapped up. Narrowed. “Pastor...” His eyes traveled downward and stopped at the object clutched in Dodge’s hand—the metal safe. He gasped and stumbled back. “No!” He pointed his spear at Dodge. “I warned you. I warned you all.” He turned back to Frost. “I know Frost. You’re not her.”

“Look at me, Griff,” she said. “It’s me!”

“No,” he said. “You defended him.” He thrust the spear toward Dodge again. “I killed you before. I’ll do it again!”

With that, Griffin hauled back the spear and flung it at Dodge. With a yelp, Dodge flinched back and raised the safe. The spear struck and punctured the metal skin.

The savage Griffin dug into his reptile-skin pack, no doubt for a fresh spear. Without thought, Frost took action. She swung hard with the baton, striking the inside of Griffin’s leg. He shouted in pain and dropped to one knee.

A spear appeared in his hand.

Frost clubbed the man’s head. When he pitched forward, she grasped the lizard skin hanging over his body and yanked it up over his head like a hockey fighting pro. With her adversary dazed and blinded, she struck again, hard. He fell flat and dropped the spear.

“Sheriff!” Dodge shouted. “They’re coming!”

Finished consuming their fallen comrades, the lizards were once again focused on the pair. She slipped the baton into her belt, took hold of the lizard skin and yanked. The man fought, but was too dazed to hold on.

She pulled the black and orange cloak away from Griffin. He reached for it, screaming, “No!”

This was the confirmation Frost needed. The lizards were stupid, and this skin was enough to protect the wearer from their interest.

She ran, cloak in hand, leaving this world’s Griffin behind. Dodge waited for her, hurrying her forward with an extended hand. Then his eyes went wide.

“Frost!” Griffin shouted.

She glanced back as the man took aim with a spear. His arm came forward, but the throw never completed. A lizard lunged up and caught his throwing arm. It was immediately engulfed in flame. Griffin screamed in pain, but drew a knife from his belt and stabbed the creature’s skull. He shook the creature free, threw Frost a final, hate-filled glance and broke to his right. While some of the lizards headed after him, the rest continued forward, toward Frost and Dodge.

Frost glanced to the town border. Even if they made it back to their own world, what then? Even if they made it to the car, the monsters would just keep coming, and she couldn’t very well lead them to town...if they hadn’t already found their way there. With so much to burn inside the town line, she didn’t see how the creatures could not be drawn to it.

“Let’s go!” Dodge said.

Frost shook her head. “No, get down!” She shoved him down and threw the cloak over them both. Peering out through a hole, she watched the pursuing lizards slow, and then stop. They did a double take, glancing between the now concealed pair, and the fleeing Griffin. They might be stupid, but they didn’t take long to make decisions. The group turned and headed after Griffin, their flicking tongues no doubt tasting the scent of the man’s smoldering forearm.

“Give me your weapon,” Frost said, taking the M-16 from Dodge’s shoulder. “Stay low and move together.” They turned around awkwardly, stood and shambled off toward town. When they arrived at the top of the incline leading back to the town border, they paused.

When they’d left town, Frost had been so focused on finding Jillian that she hadn’t really looked back. Now that she did, the truth of this world’s Refuge was clear to see. “It’s a crater.”

“This Refuge was destroyed?” Dodge asked.

“I don’t think so. The crater is a perfect fit.” Frost turned to him, looking at Dodge’s dimly lit face. “I think whatever happened to our Refuge happened here, too. Except that, for whatever reason—maybe those lizards—people were outside town when it happened. Of course, that’s just a guess and it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Dodge lifted the document safe, which now had a hole in it. “It might.”

92

Cash spotted Griffin and the others through the station’s side window. They were crouched low to the ground and moving quickly, but there was no way they were going to make it to the station without being noticed. “He’s crazy.”

Huck, standing beside him, gave a whistle. “That boy sure has a set. Gotta give ’im that much.”

Motion below the open window caused Cash to spring into action. He twisted the barrel of his shotgun down and pulled the trigger without looking. A lizard twitched and fell back, half its face removed.

Cash had killed nearly a dozen of the things outside the window. The brick building was defensible and holding up against the flames, but the bodies were piling up. Soon, the creatures would be able to run right up the dead and lunge inside. And the situation was the same at the other windows, each manned by members of the various defense teams. The front doors, now sheets of plywood, were the real problem. They couldn’t see the burn marks through the quarter inch ply yet, but the wood was hot. Wouldn’t be long before holes emerged and smoke filled the station. Lizards would follow. It was only a matter of time before they were all cooked.

And here Griffin was, trying to get inside the oven with them.

At least he’s loyal, Cash thought. Can’t say the same for everyone in this town.

With a break in the assault thanks to the arrival of Quentin’s green monster truck, operated by a woman he didn’t recognize, Cash leaned out the window and shouted, “Back door!”

Griffin gave a nod and headed for the door.

But they weren’t going to make it. They’d been spotted. A single, massive lizard was barreling toward them, its legs splayed wide, sweeping over the grass with each frenzied step. And at this range, Cash’s shotgun was useless. The best he could do was warn them. “Griffin! Incoming!”

The former military man reacted like he was still on active duty, rolling forward into a crouch, sweeping his weapon around and squeezing off three rounds, each finding its mark.

The attack gained the attention of five more creatures who had yet to join the assault on the monster truck, which was now slick with burning guts. As they charged, Griffin stood and ordered the others to run, which they did.

“Get that back door open,” Cash said to Huck, and the old man hobbled away quickly. When Huck revealed he’d been left in charge, Cash had taken the weight off the man’s shoulders and began barking orders. Perhaps because he was well known in town, or perhaps because he’d been working closely with Frost and Griffin, no one had questioned his authority.

Griffin was a sight to behold as he calmly stood his ground. With steady skill, he fired at the approaching mass of creatures, which now numbered ten. One by one, the lizards fell and slid to a stop in the grass. By the time the creatures closed in, their numbers had shrunk back down to four.

Unfortunately, that was the precise moment Griffin’s assault rifle ran out of ammunition. But he just calmly discarded the weapon and dove away from a lunging creature. When he came back up, his M9 handgun was out and aimed. Two quick shots into one creature’s neck created an explosion that engulfed and set aflame a neighboring lizard. Griffin turned to fire at the two remaining attackers, but one of them leapt up and caught his arm in its mouth.

Cash flinched, expected a geyser of fire to melt Griffin’s arm, but no sooner had the creature latched on than the man had produced a knife and stabbed the beast through its skull. The thing flailed and let go, just as the final monster leapt up, mouth agape and ready to chomp down on Griffin’s head.

Griffin saw the attack coming. But he didn’t leap aside.

He leapt forward.

At the creature.

They were nearly equals in size, if you didn’t count the thing’s two, five-foot-long tails. Deflecting the lizard’s head upwards, Griffin didn’t have to worry about being bitten or being set on fire, but the creature locked onto his shoulders, digging its talons into his flesh.

With a shout of pain and anger, Griffin stabbed the creature’s gut over and over, until the fight went out of the thing. He shoved it away, bleeding from his shoulders, but covered in the monster’s blood. He looked positively savage. But he had gotten the job done, and he raced toward the back door.

Cash stepped away from the window, ordered someone to guard it and headed toward the back hall. He arrived just as Griffin barreled through, stinking of gore. The men guarding the solid metal door slammed it back in place and locked it down. Griffin moved to the kids first. “Everyone okay?”

“Are you okay?” Radar replied.

“Dad!” Avalon peeled back Griffin’s shirt, revealing rows of small, bleeding puncture wounds. “You’re hurt!”

Griffin seemed to notice the wounds for the first time, cringing for a moment.

“We need to take care of this,” Avalon said.

Griffin shook his head and closed his shirt. “Later.” He turned to Cash.

“What’s the—”

“The truck is on fire!” someone shouted from the front room.

Griffin followed Cash to the station’s main office. The place was a wreck. People were trampling about, defending the building from the windows, but paying no head to what was around them. All the work he and Frost had put in to getting the place in order had been undone.

They hurried to the window looking out over the park. The truck was engulfed in flame. The wheels were turning to sludge. If they didn’t get out soon... But how could they?

“Oh my god,” one man said. “They’re comin’ this way!”

He was right. The truck barreled toward the station, showing no signs of stopping. But Griffin had seen how Jennifer handled herself. How she drove. This wasn’t an act of panic or confusion. It was the act of a skilled combatant. So Griffin asked himself what he would do, then prepared for it.

“Back!” he said, opening the window as far as it could go. “Everyone back!”

The truck spun around, smearing several creatures and adding fuel to the fire. With the truck now approaching in reverse, Griffin could see in through the back window. Winslow had his M-16 pointed at the glass. He clenched his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The window was quickly reduced to a mash of loose glass that Winslow pushed himself through. He fell into the truck’s flatbed.

Twenty feet from the station, the truck slowed, then stopped on a dime. The front end lifted off the ground.

Winslow spilled out of the hatchless truck bed looking confused until Griffin shouted his name. The old man ran for the open window and was yanked through by Griffin’s waiting arms.

Before the truck’s front end came back down, the engine roared. The fiery wheels spun madly. And then Jennifer dove from the shattered rear window, slid down the angled bed and toppled to the ground. Instead of getting up and running, she laid still, watching the truck drop back down, still in gear, the gas pedal somehow pinned.

Mud, grass, guts and melting rubber sprayed against the side of the station before the wheels found traction and the driverless truck sped off across the park like an angry fireball. The remaining lizards in the park took off in pursuit, but they were joined by hundreds more from the woods. From Main Street. From Soucey’s parking lot.

For a moment, Griffin feared the truck would plow into the super market, setting the building on fire. But it struck, and decimated, a park bench instead. The jolt altered its trajectory, sending it straight into a tall, immovable oak tree. The impact must have ruptured the gas tank, because the truck lit up like it was reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, flames stretching fifty feet into the sky.

The truck did its job, distracting the creatures, but they would be back. Griffin and the others would need to use the reprieve to plan a counter-attack, but he wasn’t hopeful. From what he’d seen, this world had been overrun. If the people living here couldn’t fight the monsters off, what hope did the town of Refuge have?

Bong!

Griffin’s breath caught in his throat. A shift was coming. That wasn’t really surprising, but the lizards’ reaction to the sound was.

Reacting as one, the lizards seemed to have massive panic attacks, writhing and flailing for a few seconds before sprinting away, reaching speeds Griffin wouldn’t have thought possible. They ran in different directions, but as the park quickly cleared of living lizards, one thing was clear—if the creatures kept up their pace, they might reach the edge of town before the shift.

Bong!

The lizards he could still see bounded into the air as though shocked and then actually picked up the pace, running like cheetahs with burning tails, straight for the edge of town. Griffin’s brow furrowed. He turned to Cash.

“Have you heard from Frost?”

93

The feeling of even, flat macadam beneath her feet was a welcome change from the crumbling, dry surface of another world. In part because it was familiar, but also because it meant that the town of Refuge wouldn’t be going anywhere without her. Not that their trip into another world had been all sunshine and roses. Refuge now had seven fewer residents, all of whom died horribly, some at the hands of one of their own.

Well, not really one of their own, but a Griffin Butler nonetheless. She kept telling herself that he wasn’t the same man. It wasn’t the same world, after all, but they had the same eyes. The same deadly skills. Given the right circumstances, could the Griffin she knew become that man? That savage?

She didn’t want to think it was possible, but she’d also begun to have an ‘anything is possible’ outlook on life, though for her, that ‘anything’ typically sucked.

With the patchwork lizard skin wrapped around herself and Dodge, they walked back to the Phantom. She noted Dodge’s quiet sadness. He hadn’t said a word since returning to their pie-shaped reality. Then she realized why.

“Who was she?” Frost asked. “Really?”

“Her name was Jillian Howard,” Dodge said.

“Were you two...?”

“As much as everyone in this town would love a good pastor scandal, I’m afraid that’s not the case. If it was, do you think I’d be dumb enough to have dinner with her at the Brick House? In front of Walter? Which might as well be on a stage in the center of town?”

Frost allowed a small grin. “Good point.”

“She was...” He shook his head. “She was a battered woman. I was helping her leave her husband, but not for an affair. I was trying to get her someplace safe. If not for all this—” He motioned at the world behind them, crawling with lizards. “—I would have brought her to Sheriff Rule. Her husband was a real devil. You should have seen her scars... I promised I would help her. That I would keep her safe. And now...”

Frost understood. They had all thought the worst of Dodge for his secrecy, but he’d been keeping secrets for all the right reasons. She was about to apologize when she heard the distant bong of the church bell.

They stopped beside the truck and looked toward town, which they couldn’t see through the miles of tall pines.

“Never thought I’d be so glad to hear that sound,” she said. “No offense.”

Dodge chuckled. “I never liked it, either.”

She turned toward him, disbelief in her eyes.

“Public speaking is one of my greatest fears,” he said. “For years, that bell has been an alarm clock for my nervous diarrhea.”

Frost laughed hard. “But you’re a pastor!”

“The Lord prepares some of us for service better than others.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, from where I’m standing, you’ve been doing just—”

A scratching sound brought her eyes to the road. One of the lizards came peeling around the corner, its claws scratching over the pavement as it frantically scrambled toward them. Dodge started to move, but Frost held him in place. “Just don’t move.”

The creature sped past them with a burst of speed. It hit the incline at the edge of town and shot up the slope.

“It looked...afraid,” Dodge said.

Bong.

They looked at each other, sharing a common realization. These creatures had been here when this world’s Refuge had disappeared, church bell and all. And while not smart, they could have been trained to run from the sound. Pavlov’s Lizards.

The woods around them shook with life. Branches broke. Trees shook. The sound of approaching scratching on the pavement grew louder. A lot louder.

Dodge lifted the skin. “I don’t think this is going to be enough.”

Frost nodded and opened the pickup truck’s door. They jumped in and slammed the door shut just as the first lizard scrambled past. It must be moving close to ninety miles per hour, Frost thought. If the world outside Refuge hadn’t been full of all those jagged stones, we wouldn’t have made it fifty feet.

The truck shook as a wave of lizards rushed past. They climbed over each other, leaping and bounding. For nearly a minute, the creatures continued past, racing out into the foreign world. They couldn’t see more than their small stretch of road, but the noise in the woods told her the mass exodus could be happening all around town. If there were this many here, how many made it to town?

For a moment, she worried about Griffin, but then she remembered this world’s savage Griffin. If that man could survive in this world, her Griffin could too. But at what cost?

The air around them shimmered.

The distant bell grew frantic, turning into one long, high pitched tone.

The last of the lizards shot past, an injured leg slowing it down. When it reached the town border, it leaped.

The rocky incline disappeared, replaced by a flat, grassy plain.

The back half of the lizard fell to the pavement, still twitching.

Frost got out of the truck. She walked back to the edge of town, stopping in front of the carcass.

“What are you doing?” Dodge called after her.

“It doesn’t belong here,” she said, and kicked the half-a-corpse into the grass, which was short and tight, like a neatly trimmed football turf, only this stuff didn’t look cut. It looked uniform. Almost like a moss. But nothing exploded or tried to eat them when the lizard body flopped over.

She took a deep breath. This new world even smelled like grass.

And then, not grass.

After a second long breath through her nose, she turned and hurried back to the truck. “I smell smoke.”

94

“Where is she?” Griffin asked a second time.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Huck said. “That lady, Sally Field… She went apeshit nutso. Took off running. Frost and some of the boys went after her.”

“Which way did they go?”

“South, I think,” Huck said. “But they coulda gone anywhere since I seen ’em last.”

South didn’t lead too many places other than out of town, and Griffin hadn’t seen any sign of them on his way back from Ellison’s house. “I need a car,” Griffin announced to the group gathered in front of the police station. His first order of business had been to organize crews to check on and fight fires. Luckily, many of the men in the three remaining defense crews had been volunteer firefighters at some point. There wasn’t a fire truck in town, but the hardware store and Soucey’s both carried extinguishers. Now he stood among the remaining, shell-shocked locals.

“I’ve got one,” Cash said, motioning to a brown sedan that looked like it had seen better days...in the 1980s. But it was car.

Before Griffin could accept his offer and demand that Avalon, Radar and Lisa stay inside the station, the roar of an approaching vehicle drew his attention to the south side of town. As the truck—Jimmy’s Phantom—grew closer, he saw Frost behind the wheel and Dodge seated next to her. He felt a mixture of relief and fear. He turned to Huck. “How many people went with her?”

The old man was frowning. “Six more besides the Pastor.”

“Shit.” He stepped out of the group of people and waved the vehicle down. Frost pulled the truck over in front of the station. When Griffin approached, Dodge got out. Their eyes met. He’d never seen the pastor look so defeated. Afraid, angry or hopeful, sure, but the man looked wounded. Haunted.

“If you need me,” Dodge said. “I’ll be in the church.” He started across and down the street, eyes on the pavement.

Griffin hurried to the truck as Frost stepped out. When he reached out for her and she flinched away, he knew something bad had happened. But it wasn’t the fire-breathing lizards. It was something else. She looked...afraid...of him.

He withdrew his hand. “What happened?”

She just shook her head, arms crossed.

“Is everyone—”

“Dead,” she said. “All of them. Even Jillian.”

“Who?”

She pointed toward the retreating pastor with her thumb. “Sally Field. Her real name was Jillian. She was an abused woman Dodge was helping.”

Griffin shook his head. He felt horrible that the woman had died, but also for doubting the pastor’s intentions with her.

“But...” She looked him in the eyes. “It wasn’t just the lizards hunting us.”

Griffin hadn’t seen anything else in town, but if Frost and the others had been beyond the border... “What was it?”

“Who,” she said. “Who was it?” She leaned into the vehicle and pulled out a foot-long, silver baton. She then took his hand and positioned it so his thumb was on top. “Hold this.” She held out the baton.

He took it. “I don’t understand. What is—” The baton sprang to life, rapidly expanding into a five foot long, double ended javelin. “The hell? How—”

“Dodge and I both tried to open it,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure it only works for you.”

“For...” He looked in her eyes again. Saw the fear. “Oh my God, it was me?”

“Not you,” she said. “Not really. But, yes. This world had a Refuge. Had a you, and a me. But from what I could see, you were the only one left alive, living among those things.”

Cash stepped up behind Griffin and said, “You should have seen the way this guy handled those assholes. He was a savage.”

Frost seemed to notice Griffin’s torso for the first time, her eyes widening at the sight of lizard gore and his own blood. The fear crept back into her eyes until Cash added, “Those kids wouldn’t have made it without you, man.”

With that, Cash was off to reconnect with the other still living townspeople.

“It wasn’t me,” Griffin said. “Whatever happened in that world... I’m not him. I never will be.”

Frost nodded, snapped out of her fear and lifted Griffin’s shirt. “How did this happen?”

“Hugged a giant lizard,” Griffin said, and he was glad to see Frost smile. “Helena... What happened to the other me? Did you...”

“Almost,” she said. “One of the lizards bit his arm. Burned it pretty good. He stabbed it in the head and took off running.”

Griffin looked down at his own arm, where an arc of small puncture wounds revealed he’d nearly met a similar fate. He held it up for Frost to see.

She traced her fingers around the wounds. Despite the stinging, her touch felt electric. “Do you think there’s hope for us? We lose more people with every shift. Everyone is dying.”

Griffin wanted to give her a positive answer. He was desperate, too. The sound of a parking car pulled his eyes up, and he found his answer. “Not everyone.” He pointed to the car. The passenger’s side door opened and Carol Herman got out.

Winslow let out a shout of joy, burst from the gathered crowd and embraced his wife, weeping loudly, uncaring about who witnessed his unabashed adoration. Carol squeezed him back, burying her face in his shoulder.

Kyle Gardner got out of the driver’s side looking a little bewildered. When he saw Griffin and Frost, he approached. “Geez. What’d we miss?”

“Fire-breathing Gila monsters,” Griffin said.

“Shit...” Kyle said with a smile, but then glanced at Frost and saw her still sad eyes. “It was bad?”

Griffin stepped aside, allowing Kyle a view of the gore-covered park and the still smoldering monster truck.

Kyle paled. “Are we any closer to finding an answer?”

“Actually,” Griffin said, searching the crowd for Jennifer Turkette. But she was nowhere to be seen. “We don’t have a clue.”

“That might not necessarily be true,” Frost said.

When Griffin turned to her, she was holding up a document safe with a hole in it—a hole that matched the size of the spear still in his hand. He handed the spear to Kyle. It shrank back to a baton the moment Kyle wrapped his hand around it, causing him to flinch and drop the weapon to the ground. He picked it up, inspecting the strange weapon. “Where did this come from?”

“Same place as the safe,” Frost said. She motioned toward the south with her head. “Out there.”

Griffin took the safe and turned it around. “Have you opened it yet?” Frost shook her head. “Not yet, but flip it over.”

Griffin turned the safe around. The initials N.F. were engraved in the smooth, slightly scorched surface. Nelson Florider. “Renford Ellison.” He turned and struck out at a brisk pace.

“Where are you going?” Frost asked, keeping pace.

“Hardware store,” Griffin answered, and held up the safe. “It’s time to get some answers.”

Kyle caught up with them. “What if the safe is empty?”

“Then I’m going to tear this town apart until I find what I need to know.”

“What...do you need to know?” Kyle asked.

Griffin glanced at the doctor, his voice grim. “Everything. Every God-damned thing.”

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Luke 12:5

95

Griffin Butler was angry.

Too many days, he thought. Too many days and no answers.

It had been nearly two weeks since the entire town of Refuge, New Hampshire had suddenly and inexplicably shifted off of a familiar Earth and deposited the remaining frightened residents into a bewildering array of hostile and alien landscapes.

A desert world. A jungle world. A land of falling ash and terrible darkness. The worlds flicked past, one after another like the town was stuck in the Devil’s bright red View-Master toy.

Click, an endless ocean.

Click, giant carnivorous trees.

Click, fire-breathing lizards.

The newest world in the Devil’s slideshow was a savannah; a brief and tantalizing breather, where nothing had attempted to kill them. Despite the alien presence of four small moons in the night sky, they could have been in Africa somewhere, based on the look of the landscape. Although they’d seen no lions, thankfully.

But while the week in the savannah world had been free of dangers, it had been lacking in answers, too. When they had first arrived, Griffin had stalked off to the hardware store with the recovered document safe Frost had found beyond the town’s border, in the world of ash and bones. He, Frost, and the doctor, Kyle, had cracked the slim thing open with the tools in Sam’s store. To Griffin’s surprise, inside the safe they found a battered leather-bound journal, some loose documents, a blueprint-like diagram and even a hand-drawn sketch on a cocktail napkin.

But the information those documents contained was in some kind of coded language, with great looping squiggles and arcs resembling some kind of Arabic. It was the drawing that really pissed off Griffin. A pylon, tall and archaic looking, like the one he and Frost had seen at the edge of town, had been sketched out. He felt certain that the diagram had been drawn by Renford Ellison’s own hand, and it was probably part of the original design for the mysterious mechanism propelling the town between worlds. But the image had been the only thing that made sense. The bizarre coded language kept them from gleaning anything more. Whatever secrets the documents held, he couldn’t crack them.

Discouraged at the trove of information just out of his reach, Griffin had wanted to tear the town apart looking for Ellison. But with the brief respite provided by the savannah world, Frost had convinced him—rightly so—that they needed to organize and prepare the town for whatever might come next.

“Prepare for the worst,” Frost had said. “Hope for the best.” It might not get them answers, but it would help keep people alive. Tracking down Ellison and uncovering his secrets had to wait.

Townspeople not actively patrolling the streets had been put to work, converting the Sheriff’s station into a fortress. The building had done itself proud in the latest attack, but the temporary plywood doors had needed to be replaced, and Griffin wanted the building to be a fortified stronghold, where everyone could weather any more dangerous attacks.

Sandbag walls sheltered the front and rear doors. Fire damage had been fixed. On the roof of the building, standing thirty feet tall and nestled between the array of solar panels, stood what Griffin called ‘the roost’—a tower of metal scaffolding and wood.

A lookout tower.

Without an ear-splitting bell.

From the roost, he could see clear to the borders of town in most directions, except past Domenick Ridge, over by the radio station. He could see the station and its tower, but not beyond it. That area was a blind spot.

Leaning against the roost’s railing, he scanned the green and yellow grasses and the distant, thick trees resembling the African Baobab. He shook his head in frustration. He wasn’t angry because their defenses had a blind spot, but because they were no closer to fixing the problem. At some point, they would have to embrace the cliché and turn their defense into an offense.

Kyle had performed post-mortem exams on the strange creatures that had invaded the town with every new shift, but he’d found nothing linking the creatures to each other, or anything else that made any sense. Radar and Winslow had been working on deciphering the coded documents with no luck, so far. And Griffin had led a team out to Ellison’s castle-like home, but they had found neither Jennifer Turkette, nor the elusive Ellison himself. The mansion had been empty. He’d known that as soon as he had forced his way past the huge front door. Despite the lavish furnishings, the place had felt empty. Abandoned.

Bong.

Griffin’s stomach lurched at the sound of the bell. He turned toward the church steeple across the street and laid a hand on the barrel of the .50 caliber machine gun they’d taken from the Humvee and installed on the tower.

Footsteps clanged up the ladder behind him. Without looking, he knew it would be Frost. First by his side. First to the town’s defense. She had taken to her role as the town’s defender like she’d been born for it.

He looked over the side and saw Pastor Ken Dodge standing on the roof below, making his way through the solar panels to the ladder.

Frost topped the ladder. “I had kind of hoped we’d stay here longer. Lulled me into a false sense of security.”

“Me, too,” Griffin said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. They looked out over Main Street and saw people rushing toward the sheriff’s station, their sanctuary at the heart of Refuge. The Humvee—recovered from the National Guard depot and used for patrols—came roaring up Main Street from the south, just as the church’s bell started clanging like a frantic Salvation Army Santa. Soon the peal would just become one long drawn-out droning, and they would shift again.

To God only knew what hell.

Dodge scrambled up the ladder, and clambered onto the platform. “Looks like most everyone is following the game plan.”

Griffin gave a nod, then his two-way radio crackled to life.

“Last one’s in,” Cash said. “We’re locked up tight.”

“Everyone?” That surprised Griffin. “Even Barnes?”

“Yep. All except our missing town benefactor and his NASCAR nurse.”

Griffin’s scowl returned. The reference to Jennifer Turkette, the mysterious woman who had claimed to be Ellison’s personal nurse, didn’t help Griffin’s mood. The woman had saved a lot of people, using Quentin Miller’s lime-green monster truck and driving skills that spoke of military training. But she had then disappeared, and they’d seen no sign of her since. And if she wasn’t in Ellison’s fortress-like home across the lake, which was well stocked and had power, where could she be?

He looked over to the stone monstrosity in the distance, which resembled a castle more than a house. But then the clanging of the bell became a steady whine, and his eyes couldn’t help themselves. They went out to the border, to witness whatever horror the new world would sling at them.

The air around the edge of town shimmered, and the bell stopped abruptly. The grasses and trees of the world that had been their home for over a week slipped away, replaced by something new.

Something hideous.

“Oh no...” Dodge whispered.

“Oh my God!” Frost said, not making any attempt to keep her voice down.

But Griffin was the one in for a bigger shock than the others. He knew this world.

He had created it, after all.

Click, Hell.

96

Frost gripped the railing hard enough to hurt, but her mind, distracted by the view, barely registered the pain. Refuge had materialized on the top of a huge, gently sloping hillside. Tan, rocky soil led away from the town in all directions, leading down to strange formations of white stone—or was it bone?—and great globs of twisted flesh-like material.

Immense curved towers rose up in rows, resembling the rib bones of long-departed behemoths. She saw what looked like gigantic teeth erupting from the soil, and then slowly sinking back under—huge molars rising and falling, as if the entire landscape were the inside of a giant’s masticating mouth. Large bonfires dotted the landscape, their roaring flames stretching high into the sky and filling the air with a putrid, burnt scent and a thick choking smoke.

Bat-winged creatures swooped and ripped through the air, but their bodies were odd and twisted, their long, skinny limbs dangling at obscene angles. Distorted, like a surrealist painting. At this distance, she couldn’t tell exactly what they were, though she doubted a closer look would help clarify things.

Two miles to the south, the structures on the ground formed a city-sized circle. A long avenue extended out from the formation’s core, leading straight toward Refuge. The more Frost looked at the city, the more she realized that it wasn’t a city at all—it was a labyrinth. Within the massive circle, the white stone walls twisted back and forth. Huge curtains of flesh colored canvas looked like they had washed over the walls of the labyrinth in a tidal wave, and then frozen in place.

The visual effect was chilling.

But it was the sound that truly terrified her.

The labyrinth stretching below was probably ten times the size of Refuge—and it was populated. She could hear its residents screaming. More screams than her mind could process. Some long and shrill, some short and gruff like barked insults. But there was no mistaking the sound—they were people, in agony and anguish, terror and despair.

The sounds rose and fell in volume with the wind, as it swept more and more of the thick black smoke their way.

“What…what is it?” Frost asked aloud.

“Nothing we want to see,” Griffin answered, his tone grim.

Dodge bent forward and peered out at the labyrinth through Winslow’s telescope, which they had mounted at the center of the roost, allowing for a full three-hundred-sixty-degree view around town.

“Nothing you want to see, again, you mean,” Dodge said, and stood up. He looked pointedly at Griffin, and Griffin hurried over to look through the telescope. After a quick look, he stood up, his face drawn and ashen.

“What is it?” Frost asked.

Griffin said nothing.

“If you don’t tell her, I will,” Dodge said.

Griffin turned back to look out at the hellish place to which they had come.

“I painted this,” Griffin said softly.

“What? When?” Frost asked. She’d seen many of his paintings in the past. They were frequently printed in the local paper whenever he had a show. They were dark and shocking. Nothing like this. But it had been a while since she’d seen anything new.

Griffin turned around, his face still drawn and haggard.

“The paintings I don’t show.”

“How many?”

He shrugged. “Fifty. Sixty, maybe.”

“He showed one to me,” Dodge said, “years ago when he was questioning his faith, or lack thereof.” He turned to Griffin. “How did you come up with the images?”

“Nightmares.” Griffin said. “After I left the Rangers… I painted what I dreamt.”

Frost was stunned. The hellscape before her was horrible. That Griffin was capable of imagining something like this reminded her of the alternate Griffin—savage and violent. Despite what she knew about him, he was clearly capable of great darkness.

“You need to get some better dreams,” she said, attempting to quell her rising distress.

Griffin offered a sad smile. The darkness no doubt scared him, too.

Dodge headed toward the ladder. “People will want some comforting if they’ve seen what’s out there.”

Griffin stepped aside to let Frost descend before him.

“Aren’t you going to take a snap of this world?” she asked him.

“No point. I have plenty at home.”

The remaining population waited inside the office of the Sheriff’s station. They sat on every available surface and on the floor. If they spoke, they did so in quiet, hushed voices, fear filling their eyes at the occasional wailing from outside. Griffin saw all the people he had come to know better through this ordeal, after having known them only as acquaintances for years. Phillip Beaumont and his daughters. Mary Soucey-Bartlett and her husband, Brian, from the market. Widowed Tess and the boy, Wyatt. Laurie Whittemore and Julie Barnes. They were all waiting for their leaders—Frost, Dodge and Griffin—to come and tell them what would happen next.

Griffin looked at the expectant faces and wondered how he would tell them the world they’d come to, this new terrifying landscape, looked like the nightmares of his paintings. Then Frost saved him from needing to do so.

“Okay, everyone,” she said. “We’ve shifted again. We discussed this. We don’t know the dangers this new world might present, but we know what our town looks like and how best to defend it. Let’s start with what we know. Recon Team One? The Phantom. Check the road to the north and out by the diner. Team Two? The Humvee and the road south. Like we discussed and prepared for. We can’t stop threats coming from the air or the woods, but the three easiest ways into town are the roads. If the danger looks too tough, you run. Remember, your job isn’t to fight the threats, but to warn us of them. Go.”

When she finished, two teams of five men got up and left the station. Two men by the front doors, where they had attached iron bars from dismantled jail cells to act as defensible barricades, closed the gates after the teams departed.

“The rest of you go about your assigned tasks. Remember, we only need to stay here until we’ve assessed the dangers. If, like in that last world, things are calm, then you can go outside again or back to your homes.”

Griffin wandered to Frost’s office, where Winslow was hunched over the desk, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. Radar and Lisa sat on the side of the office, Radar likewise scribbling on a pad sitting on Frost’s credenza. Lisa was flipping through the punctured journal from the document safe.

“Any luck here?”

Radar looked up. “We think it’s a substitution cipher. Mr. Ellison liked anagrams, so we think he’d like a good sub cipher, too. There’s just a lot of possibilities to try.”

Winslow merely grunted from the desk.

“Alright. Keep up the good work, and thanks.”

Griffin moved over to the conference room, where Avalon sat with Cash Whittemore and Kyle Gardner. Dodge entered and sat at the table. Frost came in behind Griffin. She moved and sat at the table with the others.

“Dad,” Avalon said. “This place. It—”

Griffin stopped her with a raised hand. “I’m about to get to that.” He leaned on the edge of the table. “I have no way to explain this. None at all, so don’t ask, but the world out there, it looks like a lot of my paintings. If that’s true, if this place is somehow a reflection of what I put in those images, then there are going to be some dangerous things out there.”

“What are we talking here?” Cash asked, sitting forward. Griffin appreciated that the man didn’t try to lay any blame and took the revelation in stride. He just got down to business.

“Pretty much everything from the landscape to the flora and fauna will try to kill you. It’s basically the most hostile environment imaginable. We have two things going for us. First, most of the dangers are rooted in place and are unable to move into town. Second, this world seems to begin a few miles out, so there’s a good buffer. Our best strategy for this one is to keep inside town, stay quiet, and hope we shift again soon.”

Cash cleared his throat. “You said, ‘most of the dangers are rooted in place.’”

“Yeah, well, let’s just hope the ones that aren’t don’t notice us,” Griffin said.

“A magically appearing town might be kinda hard to miss.” Cash’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “Don’t ya think?”

Griffin nodded slowly. Cash was right, but he had no intention of detailing the mobile dangers he’d created in his paintings. It would only increase the panic. Better to wait and see what, if anything, decided to visit town. The response to all of it would essentially be the same: shoot the shit out of it.

“What about figuring all this out?” Avalon asked. “Have they made any sense of that code?” She looked much better these days. The cramps, cold sweats and shakes had all subsided. Whatever personal horrors she’d endured through the Oxy withdrawal, she seemed to be over them all. There were a few bad nights at the start of the week in the savannah, but for the first time since she had come home, her eyes were clear.

“They’re working on it. And before you ask, there’s been no sign of Ellison or his nurse.” He punctuated the word, ‘nurse,’ with air quotes.

“Seems to me, you guys are going about this all wrong.” The voice came from the open door, behind Griffin. They all turned to see Julie Barnes leaning on the frame in her designer redneck apparel. “I mean, I’m just a real estate agent, but it seems to me you should focus on those pylon thingies you mentioned—the ones we saw on Sheriff Frost’s map? They have to be powered by something, right?”

Seeing she had everyone’s attention, Julie stepped into the room. “Now, we all know the retrofit to the town put in a ton of solar panels on the roofs of most of the structures, and you can see the occasional windmill in the woods on the hills around town.”

Cash leaned back in his chair, eyeing her suspiciously. “What’s your point?”

Julie shrugged. “Well, seems to me that those pylons would need more power than what all those solar panels can generate, especially with the town still drawing power. The old airfield out behind the orchard has rows and rows of solar panels and windmills. Wouldn’t it be possible to follow the electricity from there to the pylons, and—I don’t know—shut it off? For when we shift someplace safer, obviously.” She turned to look at Cash. “You’re the electrician. Back me up here.”

Cash leaned forward in his chair. “Lines are underground, but she has a point. There’s a substation over there, and there should be diagrams showing the flow of power. Maybe not to the pylons themselves, but to whatever is controlling them. There’d need to be a hell of a lot of juice going that way.” He looked up at Griffin. “We should check it out.”

“I’ll go with you,” Julie volunteered.

Cash was about to protest but she pulled a big ring of keys from her pocket and jingled them at him. “Real estate agent, remember? I have the key to the front gate of the airfield.”

Cash looked at Griffin, but he just shrugged. “Alright, you two go check out the airfield. I’m not sure shutting the pylons down is the right play, though. That might leave us stranded—permanently—wherever we are, instead of returning us home. But if we can find the controls for the shifts, I’d wager we’ll find Ellison and our answers.” He turned to the doctor. “Kyle, we’ll need you to stay here at the station, coordinating and helping the injured.”

The young doctor nodded and said “Of course.”

Griffin turned to Frost. “I’m thinking of having another go at Ellison’s place. Tearing it inside out, looking for any kind of clue or maybe a panic room where the old guy might be holed up. What do you think?”

“That’s hardly legal,” Frost said. Griffin frowned, but then she smiled at him. “But we’ve got extraordinary circumstances here, and we’re not exactly part of the United States...or Earth. We’ll do what needs doing to keep this town alive.” She looked at the others around the table. “Anyone have any objections? Pastor?”

Dodge just shook his head.

“Okay,” she turned back to Griffin. “Why don’t you take Lony—sorry, Avalon—with you. I’m going to take a look at the old abandoned power station, out behind Winslow’s place. It’s supposed to be empty, right?” She looked to Julie for reassurance.

“It was empty the last time I was there. They took everything out—even the wiring in the walls. Place is just a concrete husk.” Julie crossed her arms as if she was expecting Frost to doubt her.

“So it’s probably still a husk. But Ellison—or Turkette—could be holed up there…and it would be the perfect place to assume no one would come looking. When was the last time you were out there?”

Julie looked uncertain. “A year or more.”

Cash stood up. “With money like Ellison’s, he could have had the inside turned into a Hilton by now, and we’d never know.” He headed for the door and nodded at Julie as he passed her. He paused at Kyle’s side, and leaned down. When he spoke, Griffin could just barely hear him. “Shit hits the fan, you keep Laurie by your side.”

“You know I will,” Kyle told him.

Then Cash and Julie left.

“Pastor,” Griffin said. “Mind tagging along with the Sheriff?” He looked at her. “No one goes anywhere alone, right?”

She nodded at Dodge. “Meet me out front in five minutes.”

Frost left while the others stood up from the table. Griffin stopped the pastor as he moved to leave the room. “No unnecessary risks. I want both of you back in one piece.” He regretted the phrasing. Rebecca Rule, the town’s previous sheriff, had been cut in half during the first shift. At least he hadn’t said it in front of Frost, and Dodge seemed not to notice.

The man gave a knowing nod. “One of us more than the other.”

Griffin smiled and released him.

Kyle stepped out next, and then Avalon was by Griffin’s side.

“You worked that out with him beforehand, didn’t you?” she asked. “With Pastor Dodge. He already knew he was tagging along with Frost. You’re sneakier than I thought.”

“You have no idea,” Griffin said. He hoped she wouldn’t have to witness any of his much darker secrets, especially the ones that might wander into town.

97

Cash was surprised that Julie had wanted to come along, but he was strangely glad to have her with him. She not only had the key, but was able to point him to the new, small substation building. It was a flat, concrete structure, one story and probably no more than thirty feet long, but between the profusion of windmills lining the edges of the old air field, and the hundreds of massive solar panels, he would have been stumbling around for a while before he found the low-profile structure.

He’d been keeping an eye on the woman whenever he could in the last week, after her out-of-character and violent combat with one of the fire-breathing creatures from the lizard world. He knew there was something more to her than the real estate gig, but he still wasn’t sure what. He’d shared his concerns with Griffin, and the man had told him about the similar proficiencies of the missing nurse, Turkette. They’d agreed that both women were more than they seemed. Cash had been tasked with trying to surreptitiously discover more about Julie, so he was secretly pleased she had wanted to come out to the airfield. But he was also being cautious. It hadn’t escaped his notice that her suggestion about the power—hell, her critical reasoning skills regarding it—were also out of character with her previous façade as a ditzy, clueless land peddler. That also made him suspicious of her desire to accompany him. He even found himself wondering whether she was on to his task of keeping an eye on her.

Have to play it careful, he told himself.

“You have keys to the door, too?” he asked, as they stepped up to the entrance to the substation. The air in town was still pretty clear, but here on the western edge, the thick smoke from the distant bonfires was spreading in long tendrils.

Julie shook her head, her blonde ponytail flipping back and forth over her black fleece jacket. Even though it should have been July back home, on this world it was probably early winter. It hadn’t started to snow, but there was a wicked chill in the air. The shrieking they’d heard from the Sheriff’s station was lessened by the wind heading to the south—toward the distant cityscape.

Cash grunted and tried the metal door, but it was locked. He moved along the wall to the sole window in the front of the concrete building.

“Do we even need to get in? Can’t you just follow the cables coming out of the building?” Julie asked, looking up at the thick black power lines running from one point of the roof out into the field of solar panels. Cash could hear annoyance creeping into her voice.

Once again, warning bells went off in his head. The woman knew more than she was letting on about what had been happening to Refuge. And he was getting the sense that she was after something particular on this little expedition. Interesting.

He just looked at her for a minute, then bent to pick up a large rock from the overgrown tall grass at his feet.

“Those lines go to the panels. I need to see the schematics for everything inside. There should be charts, probably in plastic, right on the walls.” Cash pulled his arm back and lobbed the huge chunk of gray granite through the window. The shattering glass was far louder than he thought it would be, and he instinctively looked around, then mentally berated himself for thinking anyone might be watching. Then he noticed Julie had done the same thing, and he felt a little better.

He pulled off his plaid flannel shirt, leaving himself just a faded yellow t-shirt in the cold. He balled the flannel around his fist, then swept away the remaining shards in the window frame, until the way was clear. He went to unravel the shirt and put it back on, but he spotted a lot of tiny glass slivers embedded in the fabric, so he just tossed it to the grass.

“Now what, MacGyver?” Julie asked with a thick layer of sarcasm. She appeared to dislike their only method of entry.

Cash just shrugged at her, then held onto the window frame and vaulted in through the opening, his work boots crunching down on the glass fragments on the other side. She’d either find her own way in or not, but he didn’t need her for this phase, and he was growing tired of her company. While he understood that she wasn’t personally responsible for the downfall of his electrician business, she had brokered the deals that retrofitted the town for a self-sustainable solar and wind platform. She’d made a convenient target for his wrath.

Julie Barnes was about at the end of her rope with this hick. She could easily have leapt through the damaged window, like he had, but she needed to maintain her cover at least a little. So she walked along the exterior of the building like a helpless child, waving a hand in front of her face to redirect some of the smoke that was crawling into town on the breeze.

She looked around at the eerily abandoned airfield and its array of power-sucking protuberances. She’d brokered the deal, yes, but she’d known all along what it was for. Ellison’s deals and contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had all been cancelled. So what was the old man doing, installing cutting-edge technology, and retrofitting an entire town in Nowheresville, New Hampshire with alternate energy? Sent by DARPA, she was supposed to have been keeping an eye on his progress. The real estate gig was a perfect cover. Until it wasn’t, and the crazy bastard somehow did what DARPA couldn’t and teleported them all to some distant place.

She didn’t know how the tech worked, but she knew the man was here somewhere, and he would be her only hope of getting home. She might have been a spy before, but now she would be Ellison’s new best friend. If only she could find the man.

Charley Wilson had been useless as an associate. She had checked out the farm, at his suggestion, but she hadn’t found anything useful there either. So her plan to enlist Cash Whittemore and his electrical expertise was the next best thing. Maybe he could figure out where the juice was going, and that would lead her to Ellison.

She looked again at the oncoming smoke spreading over the sky, and wondered what Ellison’s endgame was. Obviously he’d arranged for the town to shift to new worlds, but what was he seeking? Some things at DARPA had been classified beyond her level. They’d have some explaining to do when she got back—if she got back.

A loud creak turned her around. Cash stood in the doorway. He’d opened the door from the inside for her.

She started for the door. “Thanks.”

“We’re done here,” he told her, as he stepped out and let the door close and lock behind him.

Julie just stared at him.

“Got what we need,” the man explained. “No power running to the pylons, far as I can tell, so they must be getting their juice from somewhere else. But there’s a wicked shit-ton of power running in a conduit out to Green Meadow Farm. Way more than there should be.”

Julie nodded. So it was out at the farm somewhere, and I missed it. Damn. “Let’s go check it out,” she said, jingling her key ring.

Cash started walking back toward the gate, and she followed him, touching the Ruger LCP she had concealed under her fleece jacket in the waistband of her jeans. Once she knew where Ellison was, Cash would become a liability.

98

Winslow Herman ran a hand through his gray, messy hair and shivered in the cold. He peered through his telescope again at the hideous monstrosity of a city down in the valley, past the edge of Refuge. He focused on the thick tan sheets stretched over the walls and towers.

It looks like leather, he thought.

He was glad again that Carol had opted to stay downstairs inside the station. The wailing shrieks that rose up out of the distant structures were bad enough, but if she’d seen this... He shook his head. She had only recently recovered from her ordeal with the giant wasps. She was well enough to help out with the others downstairs, but neither of them were spring chickens anymore.

At 64, he felt like he might not be able to deal with too many more of these shifts. He’d worked a full career at JPL, dealing with arrogant asses and unstoppable bureaucrats, and his former status as backyard astronomer had been a hard won victory. Now he was this town’s only possible hope for scientifically explaining this mystery, but Griffin had been turning to him more and more for a role in leadership too. He could do it, he just didn’t want to. He was tired. He’d done his time.

Now after days of staring at those damn coded documents, he was ready to tear what was left of his hair out.

He stood to his full 6’4” height and stretched his lower back, while looking past the barrel of the telescope at the labyrinth beyond. It was clearly a functional maze. Structures stood on the sides and around the fringe that looked like homes or storefronts, but it was difficult to see through the smoke rising up from the towering bonfires.

What chilled him more than the unseasonably cold weather was the source of those fires. While he’d been unable to get a good look at the few moving figures he’d spotted on the ground, he’d been able to focus on the bonfires. Piles of human bodies mounded at least twenty feet in height, but also other things—part human and part something else. As if multitudes of animals and humans had all been ground together in a vortex mixer, like the one they’d had in JPL’s chemistry lab. There were people with small rodent ears growing from their chests, and others with limbs missing, which had been replaced by other odd appendages. One looked like an elephant’s trunk.

All the strange chimera creatures had one thing in common though—they were all dead, and someone or something had heaped them onto the blazing pyres. Whoever, or whatever that was, worried him the most.

That and the coming night. They sky had been growing darker as he’d stood in the roost. He’d thought it was just the smoke at first, but the daylight was definitely receding.

How much worse will this place be at night?

The shrieking on the wind had died down at least, and Winslow took the opportunity to descend the ladder from Griffin’s observation platform, down to the station. Inside he found Carol helping Laurie Whittemore with some of the children. He didn’t want to disturb her, so he simply ran his hand along her back as he walked by. She looked up and gave him a glowing smile, but he could see in her radiant blue eyes that she was tired.

He moved through the throng of people taking shelter in the station, and headed toward the Sheriff’s office, where he had set up shop with Joshua and Lisa. The more time he spent with them, the less he thought of them as kids. He also made an effort to think of the boy by his proper name, because he’d heard Lisa use it, and saw how the boy liked it. Nicknames, especially in a small town like Refuge, could be impossible to shake.

“Anything?” he asked, as he walked through the door.

Joshua, sitting behind the desk, smiled up at him. Lisa was by his side, looking ecstatic.

“What is it?” Winslow asked.

“I did it. I cracked the code.”

Lisa nodded her head furiously, beaming brightly. “He did!”

Winslow rushed over, around the desk and looked down at the scribbled paper the boy had been working on. He couldn’t make much out of all the letters and numbers scrawled over the page in Joshua’s handwriting, except for a small phrase:

Confiden…

“What was it?” he asked.

Joshua pointed at the partial English word. “From the inside cover of the journal. I’m sure it was Confidential.” He held up the journal and poked his finger through the hole. “Some of the text is missing. I was right, though. It’s a substitution code…but there’s an extra layer. Remember how Griffin had found the Nelson Florider name? The man likes anagrams and puzzles. I should have thought of it before. It was a substitution, but then everything was written right to left.”

“Backwards?” Winslow asked.

“Yep. Look.” Joshua quickly jotted out a sentence from one of the pages in the journal:

The construction of the array will be rather expensive, but ultimately worthwhile.

“Now all we have to do is translate what we can,” the boy said, smiling.

“Not that we should trust everything in here,” Lisa pointed out. “It came from that horrible dragon-creature world, not ours.”

“They were Gila monsters,” the boy said.

“Fire-breathing Gila monsters,” Lisa said. “Whatever. Not everything on that Earth is going to be the same as on our own, right?”

“Absolutely correct,” Winslow said. “But this information might shed some light on what has happened on our world.”

“And maybe help us find a way home,” Joshua said.

Just then a fresh bout of screaming and wailing came into town on the breeze. Outside the window, it was nearly dark.

“Let’s hope so,” Winslow said, shivering.

99

Charley Wilson hadn’t been sober this long in probably a decade. It was actually starting to feel pretty good. He leaned against the side of a rusted-out Ford pickup he’d taken from Jimmy Stanley’s garage. They hadn’t quite been friends, but they’d tossed a few back together, and Charley had known the man well enough to know where he kept the keys to all the clunkers at the garage. The Ford wasn’t as good as his, which Frost had taken from him, but it would do.

Now clean and sober for over a week, he wasn’t about to go around town on foot. Most of the town’s population was gone—they’d been over to Ashland when the first shift had occurred. Of those that remained, many had already been killed by the horrors the town had encountered. He wasn’t going to be one of them. And if he was going to live—and sober no less—mobility was key.

Night was falling, and hazy smoke hung in the air. It wasn’t so thick he couldn’t breathe, but it might be soon. This crap needed to end, and he knew the one person who had answers.

He looked through his old battered hunting binoculars and watched as Cash Whittemore and Julie Barnes tromped through the overgrown grass on the abandoned Green Meadow Farm. They had already taken a cursory look at the main structures on the farm, but now they were walking away from the slowly turning windmill, and heading over a rise.

Stepping away from the truck, Charley paralleled them, heading further down the gravel driveway at the south end of the farm. Soon it would be too dark for him to see through the binoculars—if this crazy world’s sunset was in any way normal, that was.

It had taken sobering up completely for him to really grasp what a pawn he’d been for Ellison. He’d thought of going out to the monstrosity by the lake, but he’d overheard that the man was missing. Probably got out of town before the first shift. He’d only really done errands for Ellison. He’d had no clue that the old man had figured out a way to send the entire town to some other world or other dimension, or whatever this shit was.

All he knew now, was he wanted no more part of it. He needed to get himself and Radar out of here. But to do that, he needed to be sober and he needed to be informed. He’d been left out of the loop by the town’s self-appointed leaders, but that was typical. And could he blame them, really, after spending the better part of the decade with his pals Bud and Weiser?

He was pretty sure Cash wasn’t in on whatever Barnes was up to. But he’d also dealt with her enough to know she wouldn’t be on this little trip if it didn’t serve her needs. He peeked through the binoculars. The pair stomped through a field, heading down toward a small lump of concrete—probably an old junk pile.

But as he watched the two of them in the dimming light, he could tell from Cash’s expression, and the way the man pointed on the other side of the concrete, that they had found something unexpected. Curious, he lowered the binoculars and started across the field. As he closed the distance, a structure resolved. What he had thought was a pile of concrete or cinder blocks, was actually a curved concrete wall built into the side of the inclined hill. A concrete wall—with a door. Anyone looking this direction from the main farm buildings would have seen nothing but a field and a sloping hill. The door was only visible from this new angle.

Looks like a root cellar. Or a bunker.

Cash tugged on a thick iron handle on the door, but it didn’t budge. As Charley watched, unseen and from a distance, Julie Barnes stepped back, as Cash messed with the door. She reached behind her and pulled a small handgun out her jacket.

Oh shit!

There was no way to warn Cash and nothing Charley could do from this distance in time. He had a little .38 on him, but there was no way he could stop the woman. She leveled the gun at Cash, and at the last second, he spun around.

But she fired anyway. Hitting him in the chest. Cash fell backward as the report from her gun echoed across the field. Charley was frozen in a state of shock. He knew she was a bitch, but this... This was a whole new level of nasty. She’d almost shot the man in his back. Would have, if Cash hadn’t turned.

Now the woman stepped forward, past Cash’s body in the grass. She pointed the weapon again, this time at the rusted lock on the door, and she fired twice more. The lock shattered, and bits of it hit the ground, before the sound of the shots had finished filling the air—far louder than the weeping, anguished shrieks drifting to the farm from the edge of town.

With the last shred of twilight, Charley watched the woman tug open the metal door to the strange structure buried in the hill. She stepped inside.

Then night fell like an anvil. One second it was twilight, the next it was pitch black.

The smoke was suddenly oppressive in Charley’s nostrils, and the howling screams from this new world sent a chill up his spine. What the ever-lovin’ hell is that bitch up to?

He stood in the dark and thought about what he should do for just a minute, before rushing toward Cash’s body. He didn’t know any first aid, but he knew Cash had one of the few two-way radios that Griffin had given out to a handful of key people. He couldn’t call anyone for help without it. So he pulled out his .38, lit the small LED keychain light he had on him and sprinted across the dark field toward the strange door.

As he ran, a new sound grew louder over the yowls and terror-filled screaming. It was the sound of flapping wings, as if the smoky sky behind him had filled with bats. Large bats. He ran faster.

100

Helena Frost was lost in her thoughts as she pulled her cruiser up to the old brick power station. Their situation in town was growing worse every day. She had made a good show of shoring up defenses with Griffin, but they both knew it was only a matter of time until they shifted to another world, where some kind of hostile incursion would sweep through town, killing off the last few residents.

She parked the cruiser on the crunchy gravel, cringing at how loud the car sounded—even over the chorus of howls on the smoky wind. Anyone out here knows we’re coming. No point in being coy about it.

The former power station was a four-story brick building. Even from the light of the cruiser’s low beams, she could see the orange brick needed repairs and a few coats of paint. Gaps were visible in the mortar, and some kids had spray-painted a parade of phalluses along the wall. She smiled briefly, imagining what Becky Rule might say. She’d been a stern, by-the-book woman most of the time, but when it was just the two of them, Becky’s rude humor had known no bounds.

It was unlikely that Ellison would be out here—the last anyone had seen the man, he had been wheelchair-bound. This building had been built prior to the laws requiring public buildings be handicap accessible. Despite that, there were few better places in town for someone to lay low. While Ellison would have had a tough time of it here, she imagined that the Turkette woman—whom she’d never even seen—would have little problem. Especially the way Griffin had described her behavior. As if the woman had military training.

A hand waved in front of her face, and Frost turned sharply toward the pastor in the passenger seat.

“Sorry,” the man said. “You were out of it for a minute there. I said ‘Are we going to go inside?’”

Frost smiled at the well meaning man. She was coming to like Ken Dodge more and more. After the first shift, when his own panic had taken root, he’d nearly worked the remnants of his congregation into a Devil-blaming tizzy. But he’d reigned in his fear, and now he gave comfort to the people who looked to him for guidance. He’d become a useful resource in the past days. Seemingly whenever people started to get riled up, he was there with a calming influence and sensible words. She knew he felt remorse over the loss of the woman—Jillian—who had been under his care, as she escaped an abusive domestic situation. Dodge had held a small ceremony for the woman and the men lost in the attempt to rescue her. He’d been sad, but never morose. And always helpful. Frost felt terribly guilty that she had assumed the worst about the pastor and Jillian.

“Sorry, Pastor. My head was miles away.”

“I could tell,” he said, handing her a long-barreled flashlight, and clicking on one of his own. They’d stocked all the vehicles with several flashlights. You could never tell when night would fall on these worlds. Once it fell, the sun might never rise again. They had no way of knowing.

They got out of the cruiser and splayed their lights around, ensuring they were alone. Frost crinkled her nose at the smoke in the air.

“I hope those fires don’t spread,” Dodge said, walking toward the building. He ran a hand through his short brown hair and then looked down at his palm. “I keep expecting to see ash.”

Frost chuckled. “I know, me too.” The thought of the dark world, where ash had continually fallen from the sky was unnerving.

Stepping up to the front door of the building, she could see that the pine boards across the frame hadn’t been disturbed, and there was no way anyone could have slipped past them.

“Let’s check the back and the windows.”

An overgrown lawn surrounded the building, bordered by a thick grove of birch, maples and pine. The darkness sent a chill through Frost. She whipped her light around the clearing again as they walked along the building’s side. When they got to a huge bank of block-glass windows, even though the glass was opaque, she could tell there were no lights inside the building. A small set of concrete steps and a metal handrail with peeling blue paint led to a back door. Dodge slipped his flashlight into his belt, like it was a police baton, then he aimed his M-16 at the door.

Frost went up the steps first, and kept her light trained on the door. She would open it and step to the side, allowing the pastor to cover her, then she would draw her pistol.

As she got closer, she could see scratches on the edge of the door, which wasn’t fully closed.

Someone’s been here. Question is, how long ago? And are they still here?

She pulled the door slowly, in case it creaked. It did, but not as badly as it might have if she had yanked the door open quickly.

No sounds and no light from inside.

Dodge stepped onto the stairs.

Frost pulled her pistol and slipped inside and to the side of the door. She turned her flashlight in a full arc through the huge space. Most of the ground level was one giant room with a concrete floor. Rusty bolts stuck up from it where equipment and big machines were once attached. There was a rectangular pit in the corner, that had filled with murky green algae-coated water. Piles of disintegrating empty cardboard boxes were scattered around the room. Old newspapers and a few beer cans broke up the monotony of the cardboard.

Place has probably been unlocked for years. Never thought to come round here and have a look at it myself.

She took a few cautious steps further inside. A bundle of cloth in a far corner looked like a sleeping figure.

She hissed to Dodge and pointed. He saw the strange mass and nodded. They tip-toed across the space as quietly as they could.

As they got closer, the lump was easily identifiable as a pile of rags and more cardboard boxes that had gone flexible and fabric-like from wetness. But the arrangement made it look like someone had been bedding down here.

“Well,” Dodge said aloud, startling her. “Whoever was here is long gone now.”

Something glistened in the pile of fabrics. Frost squatted and pulled a sheet of crinkly plastic from beneath a moist chunk of cardboard. The object was revealed under the glow of her flashlight.

Not plastic.

Skin.

Orange and black, and mottled like bubble wrap, belonging to one of the fire-breathing reptiles two shifts back. Like the skin the savage Griffin in that world had worn.

She held the skin up for Dodge to see, and his mouth opened in shock. The man clearly leapt to the same conclusion Frost had.

Just then the door behind them slammed hard, making them both jump and turn back toward it. Frost swept the area with the beam of her light, but nothing moved. She hurried to the door and Dodge followed her. She started to step outside, when something fell from above and crashed to the concrete steps.

She let out a small shout and backed into Dodge. The man let out his own startled cry. Then they were moving forward to see what had fallen.

“Look!” Dodge urged.

The creature that had just missed them was the strangest thing Frost had yet seen. It had long dangling simian arms. The hands looked almost human, but the rest of it resembled a bat, with long leathery wings folded and canted at strange angles. But where it should have had a body, it had only a massive mouth full of pointed teeth, like a Venus fly trap or a huge deadly taco. With arms and wings.

Frost could barely wrap her head around the idea of something like this even living. But as horrifying as the creature was, it frightened her far less than the javelin sticking out of its body. The weapon glinted in the beams of their flashlights.

She swung her arm wide, the light stopping when she found him. Standing on the edge of the woods, one arm blackened and shorter than it should have been. He was dressed in rags, his scraggly beard all tangled. But even across the wide lawn, she could see his mouth of rotting teeth, exposed in what she was sure was more a snarl than a smile. Then the savage alternate of Griffin Butler melted back into the trees and disappeared from view.

“We seem to have picked up a hitchhiker,” Frost said.

“Man’s crazier and deadlier than a toilet full of scorpions.”

“At least this time he was trying to protect us,” she said, heading toward the cruiser.

“God bless you, Helena, for thinking the best of folks. I’m betting he’s simply acting like a good predator, killing the competition.”

Frost looked at the dead abomination. “Competition?”

“Why else do you think he was killing our people out in that wasteland? To him, we’re just food.”

101

Griffin looked around the foyer of Ellison’s mansion, a deep frown on his face. Each additional visit to the estate did nothing to improve his sense of disgust at the overwhelming wealth. From the look on Avalon’s face, she felt the same.

“Where should we start?” she asked.

“Everywhere we didn’t look the last time we were here.”

Griffin headed for the main staircase, a huge thing with banisters that looked like they held more coats of wax than a used car lot. The steps were covered by thick red Persian carpeting that was fitted to the tapering width of the ascending case.

“At least there’s no suit of armor on the landing to make the stereotype complete,” Griffin said as he walked. Avalon snickered. She wore a small backpack, and Griffin noted the tip of a silver cylinder sticking out the top of it.

She took the javelin, he thought. Interesting choice of personal weapon. He considered asking her why she’d taken it, but he couldn’t figure out a way to broach the subject without sounding disapproving. She was carrying a lot of guilt around, after her withdrawal. He didn’t want to make it worse. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. He was glad she was armed with something, despite the emptiness of Ellison’s home. Then he realized—the baton might not extend for her. It had worked only for him and not for Frost or Dodge. Maybe she had brought it along for him as a backup weapon or something.

“Let’s start at the top and work our way—”

“Wait, Dad.” Avalon had stopped on the stairs and had a look on her face like she was working out a puzzle. Her nose scrunched up and her eyes squinted like they always did when she was thinking really hard or working out a math problem in her head.

“What is it?”

“We’re either looking for him or information on how he did this—whatever this is,” she swept her arm around in an arc, but he understood she meant the shifts and the world around them, beyond the walls of the mansion. “If he’s hiding something, it won’t be in the bedrooms upstairs. It’ll be where people won’t think to look. So, not in his study or library or whatever passes for it in this huge place, and not in his master bedroom. Maybe…”

She glanced over the balcony at the wood paneled wall that covered the space under the stairs. Then she pointed. Griffin stepped to her side of the staircase and looked down. A panel extended just a quarter of an inch from the rest of the woodwork.

“…we should start in the basement or wine cellar or whatever.”

Griffin smiled at her. “Good thinking, Sherlock.”

She shrugged. “I’m an ex-junkie. We’re good at hiding stuff.”

“This mean I need to search our basement?” Griffin asked as they started to descend the main stairs.

“Only if you want to find my stash of Playgirl magazines from high school.”

“And… You have officially killed my last shred of innocence.”

Avalon laughed as they rounded the massive cherry-wood newel and walked to the loose panel. Griffin gripped it and tugged. A door opened silently, revealing a carpeted staircase winding down under the main stairs. He reached inside and flipped on a light switch. It was dark in the stairwell, but now that he thought of it, it was dim in most of the house.

He turned from the stairwell and strode across the foyer to a tall rectangular curtained window, and yanked the drapes aside.

It was pitch black outside.

“Did we shift again?” Avalon asked him, stepping up next to him.

“We would have heard the church bell. And no one radioed to find out where we are.” He looked down at the two-way on his belt, then pulled it off, about to make a call.

Just then, the radio crackled to life in his hand, and he almost dropped it in surprise.

“Griffin, do you copy? Over.”

Frost’s voice. In the background, the faint howling and shrieking of the screams. She must be outside. Ellison’s thick walls blocked out the horrid din.

“Here,” he replied. “What’s up? You seeing the darkness? Over.”

“Yeah, think it’s just whatever passes for nightfall in this world. But it happened fast,” she started, sounding slightly worried. “Pastor and I had a—well, not necessarily a run-in, but let’s say a sighting—of S.G. Over.”

Griffin stared at the radio in his hand, unable to process what he’d just heard.

“Griff, did you copy that last? Over.” Frost asked, the sound of her cruiser’s door slamming closed finally muffling the background screams carried over the radio.

“Copy,” Griffin said. “S.G. Are you both okay? Over.”

“We’re good. Heading back to town. No sign of Ellison or Turkette. How about at your end? Over.” she asked.

“Still checking out the place. Be careful, Helena. Over.”

“And you. Out.”

They had used intentionally vague language about their locations and who she had seen, in case someone else in town was helping Turkette and Ellison.

Griffin lapsed into silence for a moment.

“Dad?” Avalon asked eventually. “Who’s S.G.?”

Griffin stiffened, debated telling her, and then decided that they weren’t in a TV show where everyone kept silly secrets. He turned to her and pointed to her backpack. “The former owner of your baton-javelin thingie. Frost called him ‘Savage Griffin.’”

“No way! I thought he was all burnt up. She said the lizards got his arm and she took his camouflage…”

“Looks like he hitched a ride.” Griffin walked back to the basement stairs.

“Creepy,” Avalon said. “So he was here all last week, when we thought we were safe…” Avalon pulled her backpack off and looked inside the pack at the collapsed telescoping javelin inside. “You don’t think he’s after me to get his property back, do you?”

Griffin shook his head. “She said he had dozens of them. I doubt it. If he’s after anyone in particular, it would be her, for revenge. Or me, for… Hell, I don’t know. Maybe he’s just taking his best shot at surviving. Either way, he’s an unknown and a danger. I haven’t seen the guy, but the way she described him, I doubt you’d mix the two of us up. Just in case though, we should have a secret phrase that only the two of use would know, so you’ll know I’m the real me, if we ever get into a doppelganger situation.”

“If the guy’s an alternate version of you, then any phrase you come up with, is one he might come up with, too,” Avalon said, reslinging her backpack, as they came to the bottom of the stairs. Ahead of her was a long, clean hallway that ran straight for a few feet and ended at an elevator. To the right was a door.

“You’ll have to think of the pass phrase then.”

“Sam Jacobs is a vaginal dickface.”

Griffin laughed. Hard. “What? Who?”

“That’s the secret phrase,” Ava said as though it was obvious. “He was a guy I dated in California.”

Griffin shook his head. “I’m not saying that.”

“Sorry, dad. Like it or not, that’s the phrase.”

“Seriously, you are murdering my inner child, girl.” Griffin, still shaking his head, opened the door and reached in for a light switch. The room was a vast rectangular space with an unfinished concrete floor. He could see a massive electrical station with networking modems and wires, as well as a gigantic gray fuse box. The other end of the room had an old oil tank for a furnace, and several hot-water boilers.

He stepped out of the basement and closed the door, turning his attention back to the elevator. It had a panel to the side of it with arrow buttons for both up and down.

Griffin looked at Avalon and then pushed the down button.

“We go down.”

The doors opened to a typical elevator, except that the plush carpeting of the hallway extended into the elevator as well.

They boarded and looked at the options. B for basement, was where they were. Above that on the control panel were simple 1, 2 and 3 buttons, presumably for ground floor and the two upper floors of the mansion. Below the B button was an extra space, as if a floor had been left without a button, and finally, there was one more button labeled T.

“T?” Avalon asked, as Griffin reached out for the button.

“Hopefully it doesn’t stand for ‘torture chamber,’” Griffin said, as the elevator lurched downward, rapidly picking up speed.

Griffin’s ears popped as the elevator’s speed decreased and they came to a slow halt. He looked at Avalon.

“Not just a sub-basement, then,” she smiled.

The elevator dinged, and Griffin pulled out his M9, ready for action. The doors parted.

The opening revealed a long, sloping, carpeted hallway, with no doors on either side. Recessed lighting above gave the utilitarian corridor a more upscale feel, but as far as Griffin could see, the corridor went on forever.

“Up for a walk?” Griffin asked, scratching his left arm, which had just developed an itch.

Avalon took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s do it.”

As they walked down the relatively straight hallway, Griffin could feel more pressure changes in his ears. Behind them, he noticed the lights back by the elevator went out, but looking forward again, he saw that those lights further in the distance came on. He searched the ceiling and the walls and saw some cleverly concealed motion sensors, that must have been activating lights as they walked.

After about twenty minutes, Griffin guessed they had walked a mile or so, underground. As far as he could see, the corridor continued on for another mile or more.

“This thing just doesn’t end does it?” Avalon said, putting her long brown hair back in a ponytail. She was slightly out of breath, and her skin was still far paler than it should have been. Griffin assumed her color would come back once she had been off the drugs long enough.

“Have you been keeping track of our direction?” Griffin asked her.

Avalon just looked at him, the question in her eyes, waiting for him to finish his thought.

“We went under the lake. We’re heading into the center of town. Under it, really. Way under.”

“This is nuts. Where do you think we’ll come out?”

Griffin looked at a compass feature on his wristwatch. “Should take us right under the church. Considering how the bell has been acting during the shifts, that’s where I’d guess this hall stops.”

Fifteen minutes later they came to another elevator, identical to the one two miles behind them. The brass plate had only one call button. Up.

Avalon pushed the button, and Griffin, who had re-holstered the pistol on their long walk, withdrew it again.

The doors opened to a normal elevator again, this time with only three buttons. T for their level, which Griffin guessed stood for Tunnel. The next floor up was B, and the top floor was G.

He selected B, and the doors shut. The elevator shot upward, and the ride felt close to as long up as the one at the other end of town had felt going down.

“I’m going to be disappointed if this doesn’t come out under a volcano, or something equally Bondian,” Avalon quipped.

“Hope for Moneypenny, but be prepared for piranha,” Griffin said, as the car slowed to a halt and dinged.

As the doors parted, Griffin raised his M9. They heard a voice yell at them.

“Freeze! Out of the elevator, slowly.”

Griffin peeked around the edge of the elevator car to see Jennifer Turkette sitting on the floor, across a ten-foot wide concrete room. Her back was to a huge vault door, like Griffin had seen in old banks. She sat cross-legged, as she had back in Ellison’s house, when Griffin had first seen the African American woman. But her nurse’s uniform was gone now. Instead she had her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she wore a thick, hooded gray sweatshirt, tan slacks and hiking boots. She also had a holster on her hip, and a Glock in her hand, pointed at the elevator door.

The only thing in Griffin’s favor was that the woman looked like she had been crying.

When she saw Griffin and Avalon, she lowered the gun. She looked like a woman who had nearly given up on life.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, dejected.

Griffin cautiously stepped out of the elevator, with Avalon following him. He kept his M9 trained on the woman.

“Miss Turkette, are you alright?” he asked, while surreptitiously glancing around the bare concrete room, looking for other threats or doors or even cameras, but the room was bare except for the elevator and the vault door.

Turkette stood up and looked Griffin in the eye, sniffing back her tears.

“That sonuvabitch left me behind.”

102

Kyle Gardner slowed his Ducati. Laurie Whittemore, sitting behind him on the bike, pointed over his shoulder to their turn. The gravel road ran straight, and dipped down to a parked pickup truck. The bike’s headlight illuminated the weather-beaten sign at the entrance to the gravel drive:

Green Meadow Farm

Eggs, Cheese, Apples.

Best in Tow

The N at the end of ‘town,’ had long since faded to a murky yellow, the same color as the rest of the sign. Kyle brought the bike down the lane and parked behind the battered truck, the emergency call he’d received on the two-way radio repeating in his head.

Uh, this is Charley. I’m out to Green Meadow Farm, and Cash’s here. Somebody shot him. We need that doctor feller. Fast. There’s a bomb shelter or something, down the slope of the property. He’s awake, and we’re keeping pressure on the wound, but I don’t know what else to do.

Kyle had jumped on the two-way at the station, and told the man—apparently the town’s drunk, Kyle had later learned—to continue keeping pressure on the wound. He’d be there shortly.

Laurie had overheard and insisted on coming with him, which was fine, really, because he hadn’t known the farm’s location. Plus, he enjoyed her company. When he’d first met her at the diner, he’d seen past her timidity and her badly applied makeup. He’d seen a spark inside her that was dying to get out. He thought she might be a poet or a writer or something.

Through the last two weeks, they’d talked more and he’d finally gotten her to open up. She was a songwriter—but a songwriter with no confidence. He wasn’t sure what she’d been through in the past—neither of them wanted to discuss their exes—but he believed the challenge of their shifting to crazy worlds full of terrifying danger would either make her or break her. He was going to try his damndest to make sure it was the former.

They got off the bike and Laurie started running across the field, a flashlight in her hand. Kyle raced after her, carrying a giant first aid kit he’d found in the hardware store. All the ointments and pills in it were long out of date, but the gauze pads would still be sterile, and it had scalpels and hemostats, needles and thread, bandages and even a few Chux pads. It was the best he was going to find in this town.

Kyle started coughing as he ran after Laurie. The smoke from the fires on the edge of town was thicker now. Smelled of barbequed meat. Winslow had mentioned the bodies that fueled the blazes. The thought made Kyle’s stomach queasy.

“Cash! Are you okay?” Laurie called.

“I’ve been shot in the chest. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I think I’ll live.” Cash’s voice came out of the dark, over the sound of the distant screaming and wailing that had set Kyle’s nerves on edge, even back at the station.

Kyle found the tall man on the ground, his back leaned up against a metal door, in a concrete bunker-like structure that hadn’t been visible from the gravel driveway. He wore a t-shirt, but held a flannel shirt over the wound. Kyle gently lifted the shirt away, just for a moment, and stole a quick glance.

Probably missed the lung. Good.

A jacket was stuffed behind Cash’s shoulder and pinned in place between his back and the metal door. Laurie knelt in the dirt next to him, holding his hand.

As Kyle set to work opening the First Aid kit, Laurie said, “ I can’t believe Charley shot you!”

“Charley?” Cash said shocked. “Nah, Laur, you don’t understand. Charley saved me.” He indicated the blood soaked flannel he held against the wound. “This is the man’s shirt. It was that loony bitch Barnes that shot me.”

Laurie sat back on her heels, stunned. “Julie Barnes?”

Kyle leaned in and pulled the flannel back, going to work on the wound as blue and red flashing LEDs cut through the smoky field. The police cruiser parked behind Kyle’s bike. He could see Frost and someone else hurrying over to them. Kyle would pack the wound and then they would have to take Cash back to the station, where he had some light to do a better job.

When he looked up again, Kyle could see that Frost wasn’t watching them as she approached. She was waving the beam of her flashlight in the air around them, and she had her gun out.

“Lookout!” she yelled. Kyle whirled around and then dove to the side, crashing into Laurie, and knocking her down to the soil, just as something flew past where his head had been seconds before.

He heard a gunshot, and then something fell to the ground nearby with a loud thump.

Frost fired again, and more things fell from the sky around them. One looked like a set of human legs, with thick feathered wings at the hips...and that was it. No real body to speak of. Another had a beak like a raven’s but the size of a man’s arm. The rest of the creature was wings with small white bumps around the edges. As Kyle looked closer, he saw they were human teeth. And maybe some canine teeth as well.

“What the hell?” he asked.

Frost and Dodge arrived and took up positions on opposite sides of Kyle and Laurie and Cash.

“Can he be moved?” Frost asked.

“In a minute,” Kyle said, pushing Cash forward and looking at the man’s back. He started tearing away Cash’s shirt as Frost started in with the questions.

“Where is he?”

“Charley didn’t shoot me. Was Barnes that did it. Then she went inside.” Cash gestured to the bunker’s door with his head. “Charley saved me. Made the call and gave me the shirt off his back. He was sober too. Then he went in there after that broad.”

Dodge fired his M-16 rifle—a single round—and brought down a creature the size of a turkey vulture, with five spindly, spider-like arms, each with a foot-long talon on the end. The limbs twitched madly for a moment, and then fell still.

“What are those things?” Cash asked, grunting as Kyle packed his wound from behind.

“Not the worst things that are out here tonight.” Frost answered.

103

Winslow stood from his chair and leaned down over the punctured journal. He’d been translating it long enough now that he could perform the substitution decoding in his head and read the journal as if he were fluent in the language.

Getting the whole picture with a chunk of the book’s center missing was tricky business. Joshua and Lisa worked on the diagrams and blueprints, while Winslow poured over the journal, always getting a partial picture of events on each page.

He had to remind himself that the book had been picked up on an alternate world—not his Earth, or the Prime Earth, as he was coming to think of it. Things on the world this journal had come from were likely radically different from their own. The burned out husk of a landscape and fire-breathing lizards were proof of that. It was possible that nothing in this book applied to their Refuge. Their Ellison. But his gut said there was some overlap. If even half of what he was reading turned out to be true, he would be able to piece the rest together.

The theory was very similar to what he’d come up with on his own. The technology was beyond his grasp, but between him and Cash, they might be able to make a go of it. The thing he really wanted, and wasn’t getting, was the motivation behind putting the technology in place. He understood now, how you could take an entire town and its inhabitants and shift them to another reality or plane of existence. The theories—if not the practical application—on that had been viable since Einstein’s day. The true question was why. Especially after DARPA had pulled their support from Ellison’s project.

The journal discussed Ellison’s anger over DARPA pulling out of the project, but then he had decided to continue on without them, and in secret. The project itself was referred to as J.L. Winslow couldn’t figure out what those initials referred to yet. The only other details about the purpose of the project were oblique, like with Ellison constantly referring to himself being on the ‘straight path’ with regard to the project.

With each page, Winslow’s frustration mounted. He felt sure he would have all the answers if the middle of the book wasn’t missing. Plus he was getting really tired. He’d stopped trying to keep track of Earth days and nights, because the hours on these other worlds didn’t correspond. All he knew was he felt exhausted, and stressed, like he hadn’t felt since leaving JPL. His body ached and his thoughts grew loopy. He’d even started to think of the journal as a big paper donut.

He ran a finger through his messy gray hair, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead as he did so.

“Anything new, Joshua?”

“Well,” the boy scribbled furiously in a document. “It’s a lot of technical terms for parts of the pylons—what these documents call ‘Repeater Elements.’ I only understand about half of what I’m reading and writing. None of these things is a clear instruction manual for Jacob’s Ladder.”

Winslow’s eyes snapped open. “What did you say?”

“I said there’s no easy operation manual. Everything is really technical—”

“No, no,” Winslow cut the boy off. “That name. Jacob’s Ladder. What’s that about? Was that written somewhere?”

“Yeah, it’s the name of the project. Where is it?” Joshua started looking through the stack of pages.

Lisa, seated next to him, found the page in her pile. “Here it is.” She handed the paper to Winslow. It was a memo from someone at DARPA authorizing the start of Project Jacob’s Ladder, and requesting an update after a period of five months. The document was dated five years ago.

Winslow grabbed the two-way radio from the desk and sat on the edge of the surface. He thumbed the toggle switch and called for Griffin.

After a few seconds, the man came on the line.

“What’s up, Winslow? Over.”

“We have it,” Winslow said. “The why. You’re not going to like it. I think I have the theoretical how, and we have enough of the technical how to maybe shut it down, but I’m not sure we can get us home yet. I’m being vague like you told me, but you need to get back to the station now.”

“I’ll be right there. I’m just across the street.” Griffin said. “Out.”

“What is it, Mr. Herman?” Lisa asked. “What did you figure out?” She pulled a long strand of her blonde hair away from her face and sat forward to hear the answer. Joshua was also paying rapt attention.

Just then a louder wave of the shrieking and screaming from outside town came over the breeze, causing everyone in the room to cringe. They sound like tortured souls, Winslow thought, and given the newly discovered why, that might be exactly what they were. “I know where Renford Ellison wanted to go, but I think he found the other place.”

104

“I still can’t believe he had an elevator in the gardening shed of the church,” Griffin said, looking back at the weathered shed on the edge of the church’s rear parking lot. The doors to the elevator inside the shed had been cleverly concealed by a fake wall, with a bunch of rusted gardening tools and a lawnmower in front of it. Those things were easily moved by the wall itself, which moved on well-oiled, recessed hinges.

Turkette nodded, still looking dejected. “He was sneaky. And he has more money than God. That’s how he got everything built, I guess. I haven’t been here that long. I knew about the elevator and the bunker under the church, but like I told you, I didn’t know what all of it was for. I assumed it was a fallout shelter. That the guy was just crazy and security conscious. One of those survival nuts.”

“And when he didn’t come back you figured he went underground to his shelter?” Avalon asked.

Turkette nodded. “Obviously, I suspected he was involved in all this once the first shift happened. When I couldn’t find him after the lizard incursion, I knew where he went.”

They walked through the parking lot, serenaded by the sounds of distant squeals and shrieks. As they crossed the street toward the station, Turkette fell silent. Sullen.

Guards let them past the bars and into the station. Only a few lights were on inside, most people gathered in the main room trying fitfully to sleep, while the hellish lullaby of tortured voices slipped through the air. Carol Herman, looking tired and frazzled, her gray hair a mess against her deeply tanned skin, came rushing up to Griffin.

“They all want to know whatever they can to ease their minds. The soundtrack to this place isn’t helping keep everyone calm.”

“I’m sorry, Carol. We don’t know much about this world yet, but we’re not taking any chances. Better to keep them all inside for now. Try fans.”

Carol was thrown by his last comment. “What?”

“Box fans. I think I saw a few in the storage closet. The white noise from a few of them should drown out the...” He pointed into the air.

“That should help,” she said, “but we can’t stay in here forever.”

Griffin knew she was right. They might end up stuck in this hellscape for another week. Maybe more. There was no way to know how long they had between shifts. “Winslow radioed that he’s found something that might help us make sense of all this. We might know something solid soon. For now, just try to keep them calm.”

The woman nodded, and Griffin patted her back as he passed with Avalon and Turkette in tow. As he approached Frost’s office, his arm started itching again, and his shoulders felt sore where he had been attacked two weeks ago.

“Dad, I’m gonna go lie down for a bit. I’m wiped.” Avalon yawned.

“Sure,” he hugged her and whispered in her ear. “Don’t go anywhere on your own. Probably best if you stayed at the station.”

She nodded and walked off. They had put her with Joshua and Lisa in a small office on the second floor, that they could all call their own. He’d brought a cot and sleeping bags over from the house. If nothing else, he’d feel better knowing she was safe in the station, while his alternate self was running around out there.

He looked at Turkette. “You know of any other ways into that bunker? Any other places he might go if he leaves it?”

She shook her head as they moved into the office, where Winslow studied the punctured journal. The man looked worse than Carol did. Haggard, with red rims under his eyes.

“Winslow. You remember Jennifer Turkette.” Griffin said, taking a seat in the chair usually filled by Radar.

“How could I forget? One part polite hostility, one part Dukes of Hazard.”

Turkette smiled, and sat next to Griffin.

“So spill it,” Griffin said. “What did you find out?”

Winslow stood and stretched his arms back, groaning like a man far older than he was. “We need to talk fast. You didn’t hear the radio traffic before I called you, did you?” Griffin shook his head. “Helena is on her way with Cash. He’s been shot.”

“What?” Griffin sat forward. “By who?”

“Julie Barnes, apparently. Kyle and Helena are bringing him in, and then she’s heading back out to Green Meadow.”

“So it was her.” Turkette said.

“Who?” Griffin asked.

“Ellison was concerned that one of the town’s residents might have been here undercover, sent to spy on him. He wasn’t sure who it could have been.”

Griffin looked at Winslow. “Is Cash going to be okay?”

“No idea yet.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently, there’s a tunnel of some sort out at Green Meadow farm. They think it might lead to wherever Ellison has been hiding, and based on what I’ve read, I’m inclined to agree.”

Griffin turned to Turkette, and the woman held up her hands. “If it’s another way in, I didn’t know about it.”

By way of explanation, Griffin turned back to Winslow and said, “We found a tunnel from the mansion that ran under the lake and ended beneath the church, if you can believe it. He has a bunker down there with a door like a bank vault. No chance we’re getting in that way.”

Winslow gave a quick nod, as if that information dovetailed with what he knew. “Barnes shot Cash and then went into the tunnel.”

“Barnes.” Griffin shook his head, mentally cursing her, but holding his tongue in front of the kids. “Cash said she was acting weird, and he suspected she was more than she was letting on, but to pull a gun and shoot him? I should have seen it coming.” Griffin scratched absently at his shoulder.

“It gets stranger. Charley Wilson showed up. Saved Cash’s life. He’s the one who called it in.”

Griffin just raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“The drunk?” Turkette asked.

Radar frowned at this, but didn’t correct her. The kid was getting thick skin.

“This whole thing is more complicated than we suspected,” Winslow said. “Joshua cracked the code. We’ve been deciphering the contents of that safe all day. If—and it’s a big if—what’s happened to our town parallels the Gila-monster world’s Refuge, then this was all a DARPA-funded project. They got cold feet and pulled out before the implementation stage. Ellison was furious and went on to fund the last stage himself. The pylons are connected to whatever it is that shifts us to new worlds. The church bell is a warning system. The actual machinery is underground.”

“So you’re saying one man did this? That Ellison high-jacked our town? On his own?”

“He had help at first, from DARPA, but it was all his design. He’s a genius. And money to complete the project was no problem. There were certainly other people involved. Scientists. Laborers. But they wouldn’t have known exactly what they were a part of. And none of them lived in town. So none of them came with us.” Winslow looked at Turkette. “Well, almost none.”

“But why?” Griffin asked, exasperated. “What’s it all for?”

Winslow rubbed his temples, then looked at Griffin. “Renford Ellison is trying to find Heaven.”

105

Charley Wilson knew something was deeply wrong with this world. He felt drunk, but that was impossible. He’d been sober for over a week. He knew the crisp focus of the one and the soft blur of the other, the way every New Englander knew the Yankees and the Sox. You went in for one or the other, but never both at the same time.

This is wrong, he thought. Something about this new world must be making me feel this way. Even if I had tossed some back, I’d remember it. But I haven’t looked sideways at a single can of Coors.

He had made it a long way into the pitch black tunnel, following after Barnes. At first he had been concerned that she would be lying in wait for him in the dark. Her icy glare filled his thoughts. He’d heard her far ahead of him in the echoing chamber, when he’d first come in, but then her sounds had receded, moving quickly. She was far off. He was pretty sure of it. And she had no idea she was being followed.

He wondered where the tunnel went, as he felt his way along the wall with his hand in the dark. He had the keychain light, but he didn’t want to use it, in case it gave him away. The sounds of screaming had been left far behind him, outside the entrance with Whittemore. He’d given the poor man the shirt off his back—literally—and called for help, but that was the best he could do. He was a lot of things, but a medic wasn’t one of them.

And only one person could get to Barnes before she did whatever it was she was after.

So he had charged into the tunnel like a hero. The hero he wanted to be. He had thought his days of drinking were all behind him. But now, he felt the smoothed out feeling of having started to tie one on. A slight stagger to his step. He could walk, but he needed to keep a hand on the wall. He wondered if it was the sensory deprivation—he’d been in the dark for close to twenty minutes.

As far as he could tell, the tunnel just kept on going. And he felt like he needed to sit down. Or lie down. Or at least have another beer. Except he hadn’t even opened his first one.

He was getting cold without a shirt on, and despite the comforting presence of the gun in his pants, he was concerned that whatever Barnes was up to, he might not be in shape enough to deal with it. Doubt chewed at his mind like a terrier with a rawhide. Was he sober enough? Was he feeling some kind of delayed withdrawal effects from the years of alcohol in his system? Was cold turkey the way to go? Maybe he needed just a few to steady his nerves.

No, he thought.

Whatever else happened, he wouldn’t take a single drink. He’d decided that, and he’d stuck to his decision. So where was this feeling coming from?

Then an idea struck him. It was logical, and realistic, all other wacky world-changing aspects to the side. He was deep underground. A place he’d never been, and from the looks of the lock Barnes had shot out…a place no one had been in a long-ass time.

Gas.

Some kind of natural gas pocket or leak, making him feel like he was drunk. That could be it. It was possible. It gave him the excuse he needed to shed his heroic attempt and turn around. Someone else would have to deal with Barnes. He could barely walk. He wanted to do the right thing, but if he asphyxiated down here and no one even knew? How would that be helping Radar—Joshua.

No, he would go back and inform Frost about what Barnes had done. He’d leave the tunnel to Griffin, and he’d find another way to help. There would be a way for him to be a hero, without risking his already damaged relationship with his son.

He didn’t see it as cowardice. He’d charged into the tunnel, hadn’t he? When no one else was around to even see it, he’d chased down that homicidal whore with nothing but a .38 and a damn keychain light.

But gas was gas.

No one could ask more of him.

He staggered back along the dark passage, hoping that when he got to the end, he’d see some kind of ambient light at the door, before he bashed his drunk face into it.

If nothing else, he knew he would hear the screaming as he got closer to the door.

But it wasn’t screaming he heard first.

It was the flapping of those wings. Whatever had chased him across the field was in here with him.

His blood grew cold and he could suddenly sense things with clarity. The adrenaline dumping into his system sobered him right up. The heavy beat of wings filled his ears, but he was still blind.

With the .38 now held awkwardly in his broken and still partially splinted left hand, he pulled the keychain LED out of his jeans pocket, and slowly raised his arm up in front of him. His finger fumbled to find the button. Drawing a deep breath, he depressed and held the rubber nub down.

The corridor was suddenly awash in a harsh white-blue light, throwing everything into a hideous high-contrast.

And Charley Wilson screamed.

106

Frost and Laurie rushed into the station. Kyle followed close behind with Cash, who had an arm slung around Kyle for support and looked like he might keel over. Dodge, who had followed the cruiser in Cash’s car, came in behind them. The whole group hurried to the conference room, where they laid Cash down on the table. Kyle quickly went to work cutting off Cash’s torn t-shirt.

Laurie stayed and helped Kyle, as Frost and Dodge withdrew from the room. Griffin waited for them just outside the door. Their abrupt appearance and race through the building had wakened several of the people trying to sleep around the room, despite the loud hum of several box fans. A sea of expectant faces greeted them.

Frost spoke to them, but in a hushed voice, so as not to wake those who had managed to sleep through the calamity. “We’ll make an announcement soon, but for right now, Cash Whittemore is hurt, but not dying. The Doctor is with him. Best thing you can all do is get some rest. I’m waiting to hear back from the scout teams on what kinds of dangers this new world contains. When I know, you’ll know.”

With that, she took Griffin’s hand and pulled him with her toward the office, and Dodge went with them. Winslow had moved to the small loveseat-like sofa in the room, and was sleeping, stretched out on it. Frost left him where he was and went around the desk to sit. Griffin and Dodge remained standing.

“We need to go back out to the farm,” she was talking to Griffin. “Julie Barnes went down that tunnel out there after shooting Cash. And, apparently, Charley went after her. I think that must be where Ellison is hiding.”

“Yeah,” Griffin said. “We found Turkette. She’s here in the building. Ellison bailed on her and locked himself in the bunker. But I’ve got bigger news.” Griffin turned to look at Dodge, then back at Frost behind the desk. “Ellison is trying to get to Heaven.”

“What?” Dodge said. “That’s not possible... How?”

“According to Winslow, the journal explains the project, moving the whole town through wormholes in space, from dimension to dimension. Ellison thinks one of them will be Heaven.”

“As in ‘Our Father who art in’?” Frost asked. “That Heaven?”

Griffin nodded.

“That’s ridiculous,” Dodge said. “Even if Winslow’s idea of different dimensions was true, Heaven isn’t a place you can just hop on an intergalactic bus to. It’s—”

Griffin held up his hand to cut the pastor off. “I get it. Christianity teaches that there is only one way to Heaven. But Ellison apparently believes—or at least the alternate world version of Ellison believed—that by cycling through dimensions, he can eventually hit the right one. Heaven with a capital H. And honestly, I’m not sure I see a flaw in his reasoning. If Winslow is right, and there are an infinite number of dimensions, then why can’t one of them be Heaven? Maybe someone, like the Biblical prophets, somehow got a glimpse of the place, the same way I somehow painted this world without ever seeing it.”

“What do you mean by ‘cycling through?’” Frost asked, a grim look on her face. “How many more dimensions do we have to stop at before we reach this Heaven?”

“I had trouble with that bit too,” Griffin confessed. “Winslow seems to have a handle on it. The way he described it is like a giant Ferris Wheel. Imagine that our town, when we were on our world, was like the gondola on the bottom, and the ground, where we’d be touching, was our world.”

The others nodded, the image easy enough to visualize.

“This is where it gets weird. Well, weirder. Each of the other gondolas on the wheel is a town like us—a Refuge, or maybe just undeveloped land, or an ocean, depending on how that world developed. The wheel moves, shifting us from our world to the first position up the wheel. The big difference in the analogy is that every gondola is also touching ground—but in a different dimension. So when we’re on the desert world where Becky died…some other Refuge is back on Earth, occupying our place on the wheel.”

“Strange,” Frost said, “but okay, I’m following you. How many gondolas are there?”

“That’s the problem. Winslow says the journal is hazy on that part. Might be only a few or there could be thousands…or millions. Maybe more. We’re not sure if Ellison is hopping us all between dimensions at random, or if he’s identified some sort of path through universes.”

Frost stood up slowly and ran her hands down the front of her wrinkled uniform. The motion was so automatic for her, she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “So, what? His big plan is to take a cosmic joyride and hope that we stumble upon Heaven? If we find that lunatic, he might get there sooner than he planned. No offense, Pastor.”

Dodge scowled and looked up at them. “If it were somehow...possible, it would be amazing. A gift, especially to those undeserving. But even if this is possible, I don’t think we would be greeted with open arms. Treated as hostile invaders is more likely. There are plenty of stories in the Bible of God getting ticked off at the hubris of man. The Tower of Babel comes to mind. If we’re lucky, we’ll be sent on our way, unable to understand each other. If we’re not lucky, well, we might find ourselves right back in this hellish place.”

“There’s one shred of good news here,” Griffin said, rubbing at his elbow. “Winslow is pretty sure that with Cash’s help, he can disable one of the pylons, the next time we get to a relatively tame world.”

“Don’t want to stay here and listen to the screaming philharmonic?” Frost quipped.

“Thanks, but no. If they disable a pylon, Winslow believes that one of three things will happen. It will stop the shifting and we’ll stay put on that world, or we might just get flung back to our world. Like a reset.”

“What was the third thing?” Dodge asked.

Griffin frowned. “The imbalance in the pylons might rip the town and everything in it into molecular shreds. Winslow’s not sure we could prevent that even if we disabled all five pylons. It’s all uncertain. Remember, we’re operating off an instruction manual that’s really just the rantings of a madman. The journal is damaged. And it’s from another world, so maybe not a lick of it pertains to our Ellison.”

“So where does that leave us?” Frost asked.

“Worse off than you thought,” came a voice from the door.

Everyone turned to find Kyle, his shirt spattered in Cash’s blood.

“I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“What—” Griffin started.

“I can’t stop any bleeding. I nicked my own finger earlier, when we arrived in this world.” Kyle held up his thumb, which had a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid on it. “Nothing is healing.”

107

Avalon Butler felt like crap. She thought she was over the worst of the cramps and sweats. In fact, she’d felt fine for days now. But suddenly, she felt terrible. The screaming outside was creepy, but the feeling of being cooped up inside the station with everybody else, all huddled in fear, overwhelmed her.

She got up and headed out of the room where Radar and Lisa lay snuggled up on a sofa, whispering things to each other. Ahh, to be a teenager again, she thought. She headed downstairs first, to a refreshment area, where the woman from the market—Avalon couldn’t remember her name, but, like everyone else in town, she called Avalon ‘Lony’—had brought in several cases of bottled water.

Avalon took a bottle, then thought better of it and took a second, before heading back to the stairs. Carol Herman was there, heading her way. The woman was amazing and nice, but Avalon really didn’t want to stop and talk.

“Are you alright, dear?” Carol’s permanent smile was present, if a little lackluster. The woman looked tired.

“I’m good. Just need some fresh air. Heading up to the roof.”

“Be careful up there.”

Avalon smiled her own fake smile. “There’s a .50 caliber machine gun up there. It’s everyone else who needs to be careful.”

Carol laughed and then was on her way. Ugh. I hate the chit-chat. That’s why I got out of this place.

Taking her bottles with her, Avalon climbed the stairs to the roof. The wailing shrieks in the distance were still there, and the air was full of thick charred smoke, like from a pot roast gone wrong. But the night air was also cool, and the chill helped her clear her head a little. She walked past the rooftop solar panels, and then slid the two 22 ounce bottles in the rear pockets of her jeans. Then she grabbed the ladder and started the climb to the little lookout tower.

She got to the top and looked south to the numerous bonfires lighting the dark night sky. Despite the solar-powered streetlights in Refuge, there were pockets of shadow all around the town, but the weird labyrinth in the distance was lit up like a Halloween version of a Christmas tree, with dancing orange light from the fires flickering over its walls. Huge curving rib-like towers could be vaguely seen further in the distance. Then there were lumps and bumps all over the ground that rose and fell like the waves of an incoming tide. They were probably the size of boulders. Winslow had said they looked like molars. Creepy.

She took her water bottles out and set them on the low parapet wall around the platform. Then she tried to angle and focus the big telescope toward the labyrinth. She wanted to know where all the screaming was coming from. It sounded like it could be different people in agony at times, but at other times, it sounded nearly mechanical.

The telescope was a bit more complex than she would have liked. She found part of a wall. It looked like it was made from round white stones, affixed together with pinkish mortar. But then she bumped the scope and the focus was off. She fiddled with the electronic controls, attempting to bring it into more focus, but the result was the opposite. In the end, she gave up and just leaned against the low wall. Her head buzzed, almost like she was high. It was a weird sensation, and her mouth felt dry, her tongue like a bloated piece of bread in her mouth.

She cracked one of the water bottles and chugged the liquid in one go. Then she screwed the plastic cap back on and set the bottle down on the edge of the wall. Except she missed the wall entirely, and the empty plastic bottle sailed away. It bounced off a solar panel, and skittered across the roof of the station.

“Oooh,” she said in a sing-song voice, as if she was both thrilled and sarcastically mocking her miss.

What’s wrong with me? I’m acting like I’m high…

But then a strong gust of wind came her way, blowing a fresh burst of smoke in her face from the distant fires. She started choking on the noxious fumes, and then she started laughing and coughing, and laughing some more.

Eventually the coughing subsided, but she had a fresh burst of giggles, tears streaming down her face. Any last semblance of rational thought disappeared. She shoved the expensive telescope and stood back, watching it slowly swivel like a tubular mobile sculpture. The idea made her laugh harder, and suddenly she was vomiting over the wall of the lookout tower. A steady wretch emptied the meager contents of her stomach, but then the next wave of dry heaves came and kept coming, like she was in full withdrawal again.

She started to panic, feeling like she’d never get a chance to catch a breath in between the convulsions. Her body involuntarily lunged forward, and she felt herself tipping over the edge of the wall, unable to arrest her fall, as her muscles locked up for another burst of snot and drool.

But then her mind did a strange cartwheel, like the world had started spinning. It felt like a tremendous hangover. She could close her eyes but that only made things worse. So she kept them open.

Someone had grabbed her arm from behind, the hand gnarled and muscular, the grip tight. She wasn’t falling to the roof of black panels below her. Instead she felt like she was floating. There was a hand on her other forearm too, but it was a black man’s arm. She didn’t think there were any black guys in Refuge.

She wanted to giggle at the thought, but her stomach lurched again, and her throat made that hideous Hawwww noise she always made when she vomited. Nothing came up, but she couldn’t talk past the reflex. As she looked up at the body attached to the arms holding her, her desire to talk and giggle turned to a sour desire to yell for help.

The...thing holding her wasn’t remotely human. And it wasn’t holding her back from falling. Wasn’t saving her. It was flying away with her. Her mouth was locked open in a helpless silent scream, as her stomach muscles desperately tried to empty her already empty body.

Below her, the town sailed past. Another creature descended from the dark sky and clasped onto her legs. But the creatures didn’t fight over her. They worked together, carrying her out toward the bonfires, past the edge of Refuge.

108

Brian Bartlett wished he’d stayed at the station house with Mary. Or better yet, that they’d both barricaded themselves in their market and waited out this mess. Although the place was called Soucey’s after Mary’s deceased father, and as a result everyone always thought of it now as her place, the store had become Brian’s home, too.

Mary had wanted to leave Refuge, and if she had, Brian would have followed her. But they had stayed and made a life here. And now something—some crazy thing that sent their town to horrific places—was threatening their lives and home.

Brian liked the life they’d made, even if he didn’t much care for his fellow New Englanders. He’d never told anyone—not even Mary—but he’d always planned to get out of town, too. But not without Mary. Not a chance.

Now, looking out at the dark night ripped alive by the soaring flames of the bonfires, he wished he’d grabbed her by the hand and dragged her off to California or Hawaii. Hell, Siberia would be an improvement.

He stood on the town line with four other men. He’d known them all his whole life, but he’d only ever really been friends with Jim Calloway. The others were guys he’d known, but never liked much. Frank Billings, Ted Drake and Billy West had all been jerks in school. As adults, they’d gotten worse. The only good thing about each of them was that their present circumstances had made them all serious and quiet.

The asphalt ended just past Brian’s toes. Below him, the eerie city of this world 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 the puncture wounds.

All of that was ghastly and intimidating. But something was off. The scale, he thought. He focused the telescope on the eyes of the skull-helmet. Rammed into the eye sockets of the monster skull were smaller skulls.

Human skulls.

Oh shit…

Brian pulled the telescope from his eye again and looked down the slope at the thing approaching them.

“The guy is at least fourteen feet tall. He’s massive,” Brian muttered.

“What are you talking about,” Billings snapped at him.

“He has human skulls for eyes. We don’t stand a chance.” Brian turned, looking at the road leading back to town. “We should leave. We’re supposed to leave. Not fight.”

“Like hell,” Drake said, then he swung the barrel of his M-16 up and fired at the approaching monstrosity.

The others took the cue and raised their own weapons, opening fire with a storm of bullets. Brian and Jim joined in, all of them firing in uncontrolled bursts.

Their target merely raised his free arm, the snake gauntlet acting as a shield and deflecting the oncoming storm of lead.

And then he started running up the slope.

Each footfall shook the ground beneath their feet.

The giant man emerged from the smoky haze and hefted his long pike, raising it up like a sword. The man—if he was a man—stood twice Brian’s height.

Magazines ran dry, and the barking of the M-16s stopped.

Then the slaughter commenced.

As the men fell apart, literally, all Brian could focus on was the man’s fearless skull eyes.

109

“What are those?” Frost asked Griffin, inclining her head toward the keys he jingled in his hand, as he sat in the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“Oh,” Griffin said, as if just realizing he’d been playing with the keys. “Kyle asked me to bring his bike back from the farm.”

Dodge and the Turkette woman were silent in the back. They were heading back out to the farm, an unlikely group ready to confront Ellison, and if they found her, Barnes. Frost still couldn’t wrap her head around the notion that Julie Barnes even owned a gun—let alone shot Cash with one.

They were armed to the teeth, but the weapons didn’t give Frost any comfort. The recent revelation that no one could heal from their wounds in this world, meant that any wound could be fatal. She felt fine, herself, and she was glad that she didn’t have any injuries. But she’d noticed Griffin scratching the still-healing lizard bite on his arm. She wanted to ask him how the wound had been faring before the recent shift, but she dreaded hearing a truthful answer from him.

We have to get home. We’re all dying on this cosmic Ferris wheel. Some just faster than others. It’s time to get off the ride.

She turned the cruiser onto the gravel drive of the farm. The last time she’d been out here, she noticed a beat up pickup parked on the side of the drive. It was gone now. She knew it didn’t belong to Laurie, Kyle or Cash and had assumed Charley had somehow gotten a hold of another truck. She didn’t think he could have made it out here on foot.

She wondered where the man had gotten another truck, but then her thoughts turned to the idea of him charging blindly into the tunnel after Barnes. Where did Charley Wilson suddenly find courage, if not in a bottle?

She recalled his feat of withstanding torture out at the National Guard depot, and decided to give the man an easier time of it, the next time they met. There was more to Charley than met the eye. Frost glanced in the rearview mirror at Dodge, as she put the car in park and killed the engine. She’d misjudged him, too.

If there’s one good thing coming out of this mess, it’s that people are showing their true colors. Although with Barnes, that hadn’t been a good thing.

Griffin got out of the car, rubbing one of his shoulders. “So where’s this bunker?”

Dodge slid out of the car on Griffin’s side and pointed across the field.

Suddenly there was a brilliant flare of illumination, and everyone threw their hands and arms up in front of their faces to ward of the hideous glare. When Frost lowered her hand, the smoky air was white instead of dark.

“Holy crap, I think that was just dawn,” Turkette said. The woman squinted and peered across the hazy field.

“As abrupt as nightfall,” Dodge commented.

“But that was just a couple of hours ago,” Frost looked at her watch. “Two and half hours, to be exact.”

“The answers are this way,” Griffin said, gun in hand as he stalked across the field, taking the lead. Frost didn’t mind. She was still getting the hang of filling Becky’s shoes, but she definitely felt more comfortable organizing people than she did on the hunt. She had known all along that she would take a back seat to Griffin when it came time to confront whoever or whatever was behind the shifts.

She raised her service pistol, and walked after him, Dodge and Turkette joining her, each armed with an M-16. It was cold, and despite the smoky haze, a light snow began to fall. At first Frost cringed at the thought of it, after the falling ash in one of the previous shift-worlds, but a flake landed in her outstretched hand and she was sure it was normal snow. The cloud of her breath was more assurance.

Griffin stopped, and Frost caught up with him near the tunnel door. The rusted metal slab was ajar, the mouth to the tunnel yawning open in darkness. Spewed around the area in front of the door were several splotches of dark crimson blood—some of them where Cash had been sitting—but most were new additions to the landscape.

Hideous chimera creatures, part bat, part human and who knows what else, littered the overgrown grass around the concrete structure. Human limbs were merged with three-foot-wide bat wings. The bodies in the center, where the wings came together, resembled feathered birds. Long gums, like raw red meat, pushed through the dark feathers. An odd assortment of oversized teeth—some sharp, others not—erupted from the gums. It was like a wide open mouth that attempted to swallow a giant bat, a raven and two full grown men.

Each creature was different, but each, wounded and crumpled in on itself, occupied no more than a four foot radius. There were seven of them. All dead. One looked like it had been bashed against the inside of the metal door. The others all had small bleeding wounds. She thought of the savage version of Griffin, but the injuries didn’t look like the wide puncture wounds of a javelin. No. Except for the one against the door, the others all had gunshot wounds.

Someone had killed seven of the creatures.

“Charley couldn’t have done this, could he?” Dodge asked.

“Truck is gone. Maybe he made it to safety,” Frost said.

Griffin squatted down, and pulled a black knife from a sheath under his jacket. He flipped over the body of one of the dead creatures. It had two white human legs, about two feet long, like the legs of a short woman. Or maybe a child. Where there should have been genitals and hips, the legs were joined to a spherical mass of black feathers. On one side, a three-foot-long brown bat wing stretched out. The wing on the other side was missing. Like a Mohawk up the center of the thing’s body, was a single row of rotted fangs or claws. It didn’t seem to have any eyes or ears, or even a nose. As far as Frost could tell, it didn’t have a mouth either. Just the spikes.

Griffin looked up at Frost. “When I painted these things, I never thought they could actually fly.”

“Not funny,” she replied.

“Wasn’t trying to be,” Griffin said. “These things are either all dead or if there were more, they bolted.”

He stood up, and the radio on his belt crackled to life. Frost’s did the same, and hearing the stereo burst of static made everyone jump.

“Griffin, come in.” Winslow’s voice, and he sounded panicked.

Griffin holstered his gun, and quickly sheathed the knife, before snatching the radio from his belt. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry, Griffin. We think something took Lony.”

Frost stopped breathing. Oh no.

“What?” Griffin said. “Tell me. Where is she?”

“She had gone up to the tower on the roof. But the telescope is smashed, and we found her water bottles. Something took her. The guards at the station’s front door saw her...in the sky. She was being carried. Toward the city. I’m sending more men to meet you at the border…”

But Griffin had already dropped the radio and started sprinting across the field. Frost and the others watched as he mounted the Ducati, jammed the key in the ignition, and brought the engine to life with a roar. The back wheel slid around, spraying gravel at her cruiser and into the field, and then he was gone.

110

“Should we go with him?” Dodge asked.

Frost turned toward the rusted door. “We’ll never catch him, and I think we’d just slow him down anyway. As much as I’d love to help him, and Avalon, we’ve got a whole town to save. Let’s go.”

Suddenly Frost whirled back on Turkette. The short woman took a step backward. Frost stepped forward and right into the woman’s face. “I don’t know you. But I’m telling you, I have had enough of this bullshit. Do you read me, lady? You’re either with us, or I’ll put a bullet in your face myself. I want everything. Everything you know—about Ellison, this tunnel, and all this—” Frost waved her hand in the air behind her, “—this hellish frikkin mess around us. Spill!” She was gratified to see that Dodge had actually raised the barrel of his rifle and pointed it at the woman.

Turkette raised her hands, motioning for calm. “I was hired as his nurse and his bodyguard. As you might guess, there aren’t too many of us with the right kind of qualifications for such a job. I had no idea what he was up to. Only that he was working on a project with DARPA and it fell apart, but he kept working on it anyway. He’s in his seventies, and he’s in a wheelchair—I didn’t think he was a threat to anyone. I knew he had a bunker under the church, but I thought it was a paranoid survivalist thing. I didn’t know about any of this.” Turkette’s eyes filled with tears.

“Were you in the military?” Frost asked.

The woman nodded. “Army.”

“Can you kick some ass?” Frost was practically spitting in anger.

Turkette’s head bucked up, almost as if she had accepted the question as a challenge. She frowned and took a deep breath. “More than you can imagine.”

“Then you kick ass for my team now. For the people of Refuge. For the last of us. We need to find that old man, and get the fuck out of here, or we’re all going to die. Do you read me?”

The women silently locked eyes for a moment.

“Let’s go get that prick, Boss.” Turkette said. “You going to deputize me?”

Frost turned back to the door and walked in. “You have a rifle. You’re deputized.”

Turkette followed her into the tunnel, and Dodge took up the rear, stepping over the chimera corpses as he went. There were three more of them inside the tunnel.

Frost turned on a long Maglite flashlight, filling the tunnel with a cone of yellow light. The walls of the tunnel were bare—no lights, no pipes, no electrical cables. As far as she could tell, the tunnel floor just sloped slightly. The end of the tunnel was farther ahead than she could see with the light.

“So, what? This probably goes all the way down into town, and that bunker under the church? Will this door be locked too?”

“I didn’t know there was another door. I haven’t been in the bunker; I just knew it was under the church,” Turkette said quietly.

“What I can’t figure out,” Dodge added, “is how he could build a bunker under my nose, without me knowing about it.”

“Mr. Ellison said it was built as a fallout shelter in the 50s, but he’s had people keep it updated and modern.”

“Huh,” Dodge said. “I’ve been pastor here for twenty years now. I never would have suspected.”

Thirty minutes of walking later, they reached a wide room with a huge, shiny metal vault door. Up in one corner of the room, looking down at them, was a single CCTV camera, with a small red LED illuminated, indicating they were being watched.

Frost turned to the camera, pointed the flashlight under her face, and said out loud, “Mr. Ellison! Sheriff Helena Frost and company. I think it’s time we had a talk, don’t you?”

Nothing happened, but Frost waited, staying in the same position.

A deep thunking sound echoed through the tunnel. Both Dodge and Turkette snapped their weapons up at the vault door. The huge circular slab of metal budged outward away from the wall by an inch, then slowly began to swing open.

Frost stepped back and pointed her light at the door, but there really was no need. Warm amber light flooded the chamber, seeping out of the bunker on the other side. She quickly switched off the flashlight and slipped it into a holster on her police belt. She holstered her gun, but kept the heel of her hand on the butt of the weapon, just in case.

When the door finally came to a halt, she cautiously stepped inside. What she saw made her so angry she wanted to pull the gun and start firing.

111

Griffin Butler took the last looping turn on South Main Street slowly, even though every part of him cried out for more speed. The snow had started to pile up, and he’d already had two near crashes. So he would take it slowly until the straightaway, and then he would speed up to the edge of town. He wasn’t sure what he’d do then, because there was no way he could take the bike off road. It was all power and style, but was meant for glass-smooth roads.

He needn’t have worried. As he came ripping down the last straight piece of road, he saw a group of four men standing near a pickup truck with ramps leading down from its bed to the ground, and Radar and Lisa standing near a blue four-wheel ATV. Radar frantically waved at him.

Griffin slowed to a stop and killed the engine on the bike.

“What happened to her?” Griffin heard himself shouting at Radar, even though he knew it wasn’t the kid’s fault that something had taken Avalon.

“We don’t know; Carol says she went up to the roof for air, but when we went up to find her, she was gone. Come see this.” Radar turned and walked toward the Humvee, which was parked at the very edge of the road. The four men stayed over by their pickup watching the scene but saying nothing.

As Griffin got closer, he could see something black sticking out of the front of the Humvee. It stood almost ten feet in height. When Griffin got up close to it, he thought it looked familiar—a three-sided black lance tapering to a point, similar to the one the alien creature in the desert world had, when it had tried to kill Rebecca Rule. But not exactly the same.

Someone or something had plunged this thing vertically down through the chest of one of the men from the Humvee patrol, and straight down through the hood and the engine block. The lance effectively pinned the torso to the hood of the vehicle. The man’s head and limbs were gone, so Griffin didn’t know who it had been. The top of the torso was ragged, making Griffin suspect the head had been ripped off, instead of sliced away.

He glanced around but saw no sign of the head or the missing limbs. The other men posted here were missing, too, either scattered, dead or taken. The blood on the road suggested the more dire of those options.

He turned his head back to the destroyed Humvee. Across the rest of the vehicle’s hood, a message had been scrawled in five-inch swaths of streaky blood. It was instantly apparent to Griffin that whatever had done this had used the dead man’s head as a brush to paint the gruesome note:

COME GET HER

“We, uh, we brought the ATV for you. We can all go if you want,” Radar started.

Griffin turned on the boy, about to lash out again, his blood seething with anger over the horror of the scene and panic for Ava. But he caught himself at the last second. None of this was Radar’s fault. “I’ll go alone. You did fine, Joshua. Here,” Griffin handed him the keys to the Ducati. He nodded his head toward Lisa. “Get her back to the station and stay in there. Too many things in this place are trying to kill us.”

Lisa stood back by the ATV, and Griffin got the impression she hadn’t seen the front of the impaled Humvee. He hoped for her sake she hadn’t. “All of you, get back to the station. I’ve got this.”

Radar handed him the keys for the four-wheeler. Griffin rushed over to it and climbed on. Lisa hesitantly handed him a small backpack. It had the handle of the collapsible javelin sticking out of it. Avalon’s pack. He nodded and quickly slung it over his shoulders. Then he revved the engine of the vehicle and was about to take off.

“Griffin! Wait!” Radar ran over and spoke softly into Griffin’s ear. The information was unusual, but just might be helpful. The boy’s way of helping, the best way he knew how. Griffin patted the kid’s shoulder and then launched the vehicle off the end of the road and down the sloping scree and rock, heading toward the labyrinthine city and whatever monster had taken his daughter. He was going to show it what a true monster was.

112

Griffin made it most of the way to the labyrinth unimpeded. The bonfires roared on the sides of his path, and up close, he could easily see the charring bodies of chimera creatures and human beings alike, sizzling in the flames of each inferno. The fires were scattered around the landscape like decorative boulders in a Zen garden.

The screaming wails of anguish and pain grew louder as he neared the white walls of the labyrinth’s entrance. As he passed one of the fires, the heat prickling his skin, he realized that most of the people and creatures nearer the top of the burning conflagration were still alive. They were the source of the mysterious screams. None of the bodies moved or flailed, but all of their mouths hung agape, howling in terror and agony. They were all too far gone for him to try to save anyone.

Further away he could clearly see the curving rows of towers for what they were—the rib bones of long-dead leviathans that would have made Godzilla crap his lizard drawers. Between the fires, Griffin could see the huge tooth-like boulders rising and falling in the soil. They only moved up and down, but he gave them a wide berth, while keeping the ATV on track for the labyrinth’s entrance. He knew that was where she would be.

A figure suddenly stepped from behind a fire and into Griffin’s path. When he saw who it was, he was tempted to gun the throttle and run the figure down. Or to pull his pistol and start firing indiscriminately.

But he did neither.

The man standing in front of him wore a blue t-shirt, and ratty, torn, canvas painter’s pants. His feet were bare, but the soles were so thick with dark callous, it looked like he had painted a thick slab of liquid rubber on the bottom of them. The man’s right arm was withered and black, the hand missing entirely. Strapped across his back was a makeshift quiver holding four of the collapsible javelins, like the one Griffin had in his own backpack. A scraggly beard covered the man’s face, but Griffin knew the features. He’d been looking at them in the mirror for forty-five years.

The only thing that stopped him from trying to kill this savage incarnation of himself was what the man held.

A scrap of cotton from a t-shirt or something similar, torn asunder. The fabric was white. The man waved it in the air as Griffin approached.

A white flag of surrender—or a request for parley.

It was a tradition almost two thousand years old, and while Griffin was in a hurry to rescue his daughter, he wasn’t about to break the tradition by firing on the man, especially if there was a chance the savage knew what had taken Ava. Then again, it could be a trap.

He rolled the ATV to a stop a good thirty feet from the doppelganger, keeping his hand on the throttle.

“Talk!” he shouted.

The savage snarled what might have been a smile, showing rotted teeth and black stumps where teeth had once been. The mouth might have been smiling, but there was murder in the man’s eyes. Griffin knew the look.

“He took her in there,” the savage indicated the labyrinth over his shoulder. “She’s not my daughter. I know that…” the man seemed confused, like maybe he didn’t know that. “You won’t be able to face him alone. He’s too big. Plus, you’re bleeding.” The savage pointed at Griffin’s chest and he glanced down, seeing the blood that had seeped through his shirt at the shoulder. It was nothing. The punctures from the lizards. He must have popped one of Kyle’s stitches. He looked back up at the man.

“Who?” Griffin asked, already tiring of the savage and the conversation. Every nerve in his body was yelling at him to move, to get in there, to find Avalon. “Who took her?”

The savage grinned again, but this time there was no mirth in it. “You know who I mean.” He slid his blackened stump up his other arm, pushing up the sleeve of the pilfered blue t-shirt, revealing a tattoo on his arm. The same tattoo Griffin had on his. “I painted him, the night I got this.” He squinted at Griffin. “I can see it in your eyes. You have the tattoo, as well. You know his name.”

“Are you offering to help me?” Griffin asked, revving the ATV’s engine, indicating he needed to go.

The savage smiled again, this time as if he knew some private joke. “I might be…”

“What do you want?” Griffin asked, cutting him off.

The man’s face turned sour. “I can’t go home. My world is...destroyed. Once you get her back, you’ll be trying to get back to your world. Take me there.”

There’s no freakin’ way, hobo-me, Griffin thought. “Done,” he said.

“Where is she?” Griffin asked again.

“I climbed one of the towers. He’s got her in the center of the labyrinth.”

“Get on.” Griffin advanced the ATV toward the man.

The savage shook his head. “I’ll make my own way.”

“Anything else?” Griffin asked starting the wheels rolling.

“The night will return soon. Drive fast.”

Griffin took the savage’s advice and cranked the throttle, racing toward the yawning entrance to the maze.

When he passed the edges of the twenty-foot-high walls leading into the twisting passages, he saw what the walls were made of, and finally understood the true danger. He’d seen the walls up close in his dreams, of course, but this was one detail he’d refused to paint. The city stretched for a few miles, with hundreds of passages in the maze. If the walls were laid out end to end, they would run a few hundred miles or more. And each wall stood twenty feet high. The towers punctuating the grounds were twice as tall.

He glanced at one of the walls as he passed. The mortar between the building blocks was clearly flesh. Great padded wads of the stuff, slipped between the cracks and joints. Griffin had no idea how it remained lustrous, like living flesh. Nowhere did the skin and meat look withered or dying. But the blocks that made up the walls, were even more gruesome.

They were all human skulls.

And in his dreams, they had all been his.

A city built from countless corpses.

Copies of himself.

After waking from the dreams, he wrote the vision off as his psychology telling him something. But now he knew the place existed.

He glanced back at Refuge.

And he knew how they all got there. How many Griffins had followed this path before him? Only one way to find out, he thought, and he pushed forward, through the city constructed of him.

113

Charley Wilson raced his stolen pickup truck around the last bend on South Main, heading for the border, when he suddenly saw people at the end of the road. The rear wheels of the truck fishtailed in the thin layer of snow, as he brought the truck to a halt.

Son of a bitch. Literally. That’s my kid.

Radar—Joshua—and his girlfriend sat on a hot rod motorcycle. A truck with two guys riding standing in the bed drove past, heading back to town. The guy behind the wheel, Chuck Preston, nodded at him. Charley nodded back, and the truck moved onward. Joshua advanced the motorcycle up to the open window, and stopped.

“Dad? What are you doing out here?”

“I was looking for you,” Charley lied. “I heard what happened. You okay?”

The boy nodded. Lisa avoided his gaze. Charley knew she was terrified of him. Besides being shouty when he was drunk, he’d never really given her a reason, but whatever.

Then Joshua leaned toward him. Looking deeper into the cab of the truck. “Dad, you’re bleeding all over. Are you okay? What happened?”

Charley waved it off. “Was some of those flying things. Nothing to worry about. I got the bastards. They don’t like bullets none.” He wasn’t going to mention anything about how he couldn’t stop the bleeding from the claw and bite marks, or the fact that he still felt drunk, despite never having taken a drink. It was hard enough for him to speak without slurring. It took all his concentration.

“Are you taking her back into town?” he asked.

Joshua nodded. “It’s the doctor’s bike. I’m taking it back into town for Griffin.”

“Where is he?”

Radar nodded toward the distant hell. “He went out to get Avalon.” The boy explained, full of guilty looks, as if he had done something wrong.

“He’s a brave man,” Charley said, peering out into the smoke and flame. Then he turned back to his son. “You are too, Joshua. You done good. Get Lisa back to the Sheriff’s station now, and stay inside. Stay safe. I’ll wait here for Mr. Butler to come back.”

The boy looked at him as if he’d suddenly delivered the Gettysburg Address after a lifetime of being a lush, which he supposed wasn’t far from the truth. “Go on, now. Love you.”

Charley turned his head back toward the distant city, so Joshua wouldn’t see the tears welling in his eyes. He couldn’t see them, but he could hear in the tone of his son’s voice that the boy had started the water works, too.

“Love you, too, Dad.”

Then the slick bike’s engine roared, and the kids raced away, leaving Charley Wilson alone with his thoughts, and the realization that his son had finally called him ‘Dad’ again. It had been a long time. Well, there had been that one time, that first night at the station when he’d drunkenly killed that insect thing that was attacking Joshua and Lisa and Avalon. But then the boy had said it out of plain old shock. This time it was said with a tinge of love.

It was all the tonic he needed to summon the last of his courage and bravery. He gunned the battered truck’s engine and slapped the transmission into drive.

The truck bumped off the last of the asphalt and onto the rocky slope of the new world. The shocks on the truck were shot, and Charley felt the rattle in his bones. Clutching the steering wheel, he repeated a single mantra over and over again. It was the same message that had gotten him through the tunnel, beating the shit out of the flying terrors with his bare hands after his .38 had run out of bullets.

Gonna make you proud.

114

“What on Earth do you think you’re doing?” Frost shouted.

The room was a state-of-the-art, high-tech control center, with electronic monitors covering most of the walls. There were tall, potted plants in the corners, helping to oxygenate the room. Computer desks and terminals lined the far wall. Near the center of the room was a digital conference table—the glass surface of the table doubled as a computer monitor. Seated in an electric wheelchair at the table, and raising a champagne flute in toast to Julie Barnes, who stood nearby with her own glass of bubbly, was Renford Ellison.

The bottle of Champagne sat on the electronic surface of the table, its contents having spilled over the edge of the bottle’s narrow neck, the fluid running jauntily off the edge of the table to the floor. The man paused in his toast, a frown creasing his face at the interruption.

“We are toasting the start of a business arrangement, Sheriff Frost,” Ellison said. He looked far older than his years, with a head withered of hair and covered in dark blotchy liver spots. The flesh of the man’s face hung loose in folds, as if it was about to slide off into his lap. But his eyes were a piercing light green, showing a penetrating intelligence.

Frost raced around the table toward the two of them and pulled her pistol.

Julie Barnes reacted in a flash, grasping Frost’s wrist and twisting it, while tugging her arm upward and spinning Frost around and down onto her knees.

“Let go of her!” Dodge had leveled his rifle at Barnes, and Frost was delighted to see Turkette had taken up a bead on Ellison. Barnes released her and took a fluid step back. Frost scrabbled to her feet and whirled back around on Barnes and Ellison, gun still in hand.

“You will have to forgive Ms. Barnes, Sheriff. She is, after all, performing her new position, as my bodyguard.” Ellison spoke nonchalantly, as if nothing much had happened. Then he looked across the room to the others. “Ms. Turkette, you will understand, of course, that your employment is terminated. No hard feelings, but Ms. Barnes can provide a better service, and at a better rate.”

“No, I understand,” Turkette said. Then she fired a round into Barnes’s leg. Barnes flew backward across the room, crashing into a bank of monitors, shattering glass and causing a shower of sparks. “You went with the lowest bidder. But you get what you pay for.”

Barnes was on the floor, howling in pain from the bullet wound, which passed through the meat of her thigh. She was bleeding, but not profusely, so all major veins and arteries had been missed.

Ellison chuckled. “Really, Ms. Turkette. How very gauche.”

“Gauche?” Frost shouted. She raised her pistol at Ellison’s face “You’re lucky the next one doesn’t go through your head. People are dying out there, and you’re in here drinking champagne?” She swept her arm out, smashing the bottle off the table. It toppled to the floor and shattered.

Dodge moved around to the sprawled form of Julie Barnes. The woman was cursing under her breath, her hand over the wound. “Is there a first aid kit here somewhere?”

“In the back room, Pastor Dodge,” Ellison called from his chair, ignoring Frost and the gun in her hand.

Frost leaned on the glass tabletop, glowering at Ellison. “What is wrong with you?”

The man turned his green eyes up at her, and there was a fire in them. “I am dying. What is your excuse?”

Frost was flabbergasted. “My…my excuse?”

“Yes, Sheriff. Your excuse. You, like almost everyone else, were supposed to be in Ashland for the fireworks. But, as I understand it, you were put on shit detail because you slugged a kid. Apparently you and Ms. Turkette share some of the same impulse control issues.”

“You’re telling me it’s our fault we’re stuck with you on this joyride through time and space?”

“Not exactly through time, nor even space. But dimensions? Yes. Oh, I knew a few people would end up stuck here in town, but there were far more of you than I ever anticipated. Must be the lowest attendance of Refugers to the fireworks in the last five years. But yes, basically, I was hoping most of you would be away.”

“And that would give you the right to take the entire town with you on your crazy quest for Heaven?” Frost lowered the gun, but she was still fuming mad.

That got Ellison’s attention, but he quickly crushed the startled look out of his eyes. “Who figured that out? Mr. Herman?”

“You have your secrets,” Frost said. “I have mine.”

Dodge returned from the back room with the first aid kit. Barnes tore it from his hand and went to work on her own leg.

“It won’t work,” Dodge said, looking back at Ellison. “There’s only one way to reach Heaven, and this isn’t it.”

“Oh yes?” Ellison raised an arch eyebrow. “Do tell us, Pastor.” In a sing-song voice, the old man crooned lyrics from Jesus Loves Me, “For the Bible tells me so.” After a brief laugh, he continued. “I have sat in on a few of your services. I noted you used the New King James Version of the Bible. Are you prepared, as a God-fearing Baptist, to fully put your faith in the works of a drunk Frenchman, who as a former Roman Catholic, decided to print his Greek version of the Bible in Paris on a shoddy press? Because that version was used to translate to the original King James Version, among others. Are you prepared to believe that one hundred and thirty Christian pastors and scholars gathered in an auditorium in the 1970s, were able to agree on absolutely everything, and spend seven years recrafting that text into what you use on Sundays? Really? Can you find me a hundred Christians today who can come to an agreement on a single sentence?”

Dodge looked at the man with his mouth open, unable to form a reply.

Ellison reversed his wheelchair back and arced it in a semi-circle so he was facing the pastor. “You read the NKJV. I have read all the versions of the Bible in English. I have read it in Aramaic and Hebrew and Greek, too. Have you? Your argument is invalid. You know as well as I do, even from your flawed translation of the Good Book, there are many references to Heaven as a material place.”

Finally Dodge found his voice. “You’re forgetting that Grace is always conferred by God upon man—not the other way around. You can’t just barge your way into Heaven, even if you could find its correct dimension. And I’m led to believe you’re playing cosmic Russian Roulette just to find it!”

Ellison smiled slowly. “Ephesians 2:8 says you might be wrong about that.”

Dodge paraphrased. “By Grace you’ve been saved through faith—not of yourself, but by God.”

Ellison nodded.

“2:9, the very next line, reminds you it’s impossible through your own works, and not to be a smug prick.”

Ellison laughed. “Hah! Well phrased. I bet that drunk Estienne wished he had translated it that way. But you misunderstand me, Pastor. I do have faith. I am humble about my scientific achievement, and the works are not mine at all. I am following the very instructions of God.”

115

Griffin raced the ATV along the wide lanes of the labyrinth, keeping the quad close to the left wall, and making turns to the right when he saw a dead end ahead. If there was the chance to go left, he took it. Radar’s unusual advice was the secret to how to navigate a maze—follow one of the walls, and not the paths between the walls. Eventually, you’ll find the exit. Griffin was grateful and would remember the advice when it was time to try to find his way out of here.

The lanes stretched ten feet wide between the soaring high walls of skulls on either side. Occasionally the walls would be interrupted by a door shaped opening, but these were never flush with the ground, and they were always covered by a sheet of hanging skin, each one punctuated in the middle by a dark tattoo of a skull, sitting on a wooden table, a candle burning behind it. In the skull’s eye sockets were smaller human skulls. Inside the eye sockets of those skulls were yet more.

It was the same tattoo Griffin had seen on his savage twin. The same one he had drawn and had done on his right delts. It had been a year before Jess had died, when he had had the dream of this place. He had been wandering—on foot, not an ATV—through the labyrinth and eventually faced the massive creature with the skull helmet and the smaller skulls for eyes. He had seen this world, and the only explanation he could think of was that somehow, while his mind wandered in sleep, he had caught a glimpse through the eyes of some closely parallel Griffin already lost in the maze, and now hanging as a sheet, holding together a wall, or fueling a fire.

The confrontation with the skull-eyed creature had not gone well in the dream. Griffin had died. At the time he had chalked it up to a fear of Jess eventually losing her battle with the disease that ate her up. His subconscious had anthropomorphized the cancer, and had substituted him for Jess. He had designed the tattoo as a way of refusing that outcome. He had substituted the weird dragon skull of the creature with a normal human skull, and the human-sized, ocular-implant skulls with smaller skulls in the tattoo, no larger than marbles. The entire piece sat on a table near a candle, indicating his and Jess’s victory over the disease.

But now here he was, going through the maze again, Jess had already succumbed to the disease, and an entire town was poised to plummet into a cosmic abyss if he failed. Skull-Eyes had taken Jess, and now had taken his daughter. He’d found love again—he believed—with Helena, and this creature, this whole damn world, threatened that, too.

In the dream he had lost the fight.

This time it would be different. He had an ATV, a jerry can of extra gas on the back, a pistol, a knife, a weird javelin in a backpack and a twisted version of himself as an ally. Maybe. It wasn’t much, especially with darkness coming in less than two hours. But maybe it would be enough to avoid an outcome millions of other Griffins had failed to avoid.

The ATV bounced over the uneven path. Griffin refused to look too closely at it. He knew if he did, he would see that the rounded cobbles between the gritty dirt under the gently falling snow were yet more of the skulls. His skulls.

Rounding a corner to the right, the next lane had something new. Spaced evenly every fifty feet were tall gray street lamps like Griffin had seen in Boston. The old kind he associated with the seventies and early eighties—long curving arms ending in flatish sodium lamps, shaped loosely like a cobra’s head.

The lamps were not lit. Hanging from the first four poles were dead black cats, tied on to the poles by white string, which was knotted in several places. The dead felines dangled from a rear leg or from their tails. The fur looked matted and old.

The fifth pole had something else hanging from it. A human body, hung from a noose around its neck. The corpse was on fire, and swaying slightly back and forth, with large snowflakes landing on the licking flames.

The smell was overwhelming, and smoke from the blaze was pushed down by the air current above the labyrinth. Griffin held his breath and raced the quad under the corpse as quickly as he could. He approached one of the massive towers of flesh. Like a sweeping tidal wave had crashed into the side of the structure, long strands of stretched flesh arced up and over walls, and into the next alley. The one ahead had such a gentle slope he could probably ride it to the top of the wall.

He contemplated the path. It would give him a better view of the whole labyrinth, and possibly point him in the right direction. But he decided against it. He’d save that as an escape option, once he had Avalon. Besides, he was pretty sure the burning bodies were for him, lighting his way, like sign posts, deeper into the abyss.

That decision made, he sped up, taking turns as fast as he dared, and driving ever deeper into the heart of the maze. On the straightaways, he brought the quad close to its top speed. The jolting of the low PSI tires on the cobbles under the snow nearly rattled the rib cage out of him.

After another thirty two burning bodies, he exited the endless lanes and entered a huge circular clearing, a couple hundred yards across. Several other alleys led to this central space, but each was currently blocked by twenty-foot-high metal gates with crisscrossing bars, each as thick as Griffin’s arm.

A booming crash came from behind, and Griffin skidded the ATV to a stop, the rear wheels spinning him around.

Another gate had dropped into place, sealing Griffin in. He hadn’t seen where it had been concealed above the walls, as he’d come in. His eyes had been captivated by the clearing. He knew he was being led, but he had continued to believe—perhaps foolishly—that he was the hunter, not the hunted.

Behind him came another crashing noise, this one softer than the falling gate. Griffin turned to see that Skull-Eyes had leapt from the top of the wall and into the arena, landing in a crouch on his reptilian, clawed feet, his long tapering tail extended backward for balance. In his massive snake-armored hand, he held a long black lance, which he let fall to the ground behind him, as he stood to his full height. He was easily twice as tall as Griffin, his white dragon skull stretching out in front of him and casting his neck in shadow. As he stood and stretched, the skull’s long teeth slipped out of the giant’s chest with a slurp, oozing blood. Then he relaxed, and the massive canines slipped back into place, stemming the blood flow and holding the skull in place. Just like in Griffin’s dreams and paintings, the creature had human skulls placed where his pupils should have been.

Griffin stepped off the ATV, and reached back, into the backpack, his eyes never wavering from the towering foe in front of him. His hand found the collapsible javelin and he pulled it out. In seconds, the javelin expanded to its full five foot length, wickedly sharp metallic tips snapping into place at either end.

With a degree of practiced calm that would unnerve most foes, Griffin strode toward the monster.

116

Helena Frost had heard all the theology she could stand. “Listen, Ellison. I really don’t care who has a bigger Bible. I want—”

“I know, Sheriff. I know what you want. You want to stop it. To turn it off, and send us back. I know.” He shook his head with a grin.

Frost didn’t understand. She had the upper hand. Barnes was down, and the old man wasn’t armed. “If you think I won’t shoot you—”

The man held up a hand. “I believe you. But I cannot stop the—what do you all call them?—shifts between dimensions. I do not know where we are going next. I do not know if it is even possible to get back. Nor do I know how many more shifts there will be before we reach our glorious destination. It is all uncertain, which is why the US government pulled their support. They could not control it.”

Now it was Dodge’s turn to be outraged. “Are you telling me you have no idea what you’re doing?”

Ellison’s grin was subtle, but unnerving. “Now you begin to understand. Even if we could return to the dimension from which we departed, would you recognize it? How would you know for sure? I have been watching. You have encountered things and even people beyond the borders of town. Some of these dimensions are very similar to our own. How would you know for sure that you were home?”

Turkette leaned against a wall, her rifle leveled toward Ellison, but her eyes minding Barnes, on the floor.

Frost began pacing around the room. “Can we disable the shifts? At least control when they happen, so we’re better prepared for them?”

“No,” Ellison shook his head and folded his hands on his lap on top of a blanket covering his legs. “The process is completely random. The shifts happen when the computer decides to make them happen. I hope you appreciate the magnetic leash on the church bell. You at least have that warning. I do not control the machine. I barely understand it. I am intelligent, yes, but dozens of scientists worked on different parts. It was all compartmentalized knowledge, you see. I do not run it from here. I just watch what happens.”

Dodge shook his head at the madness of it all.

“What if…” Frost began, “what if we dismantled it. Took apart one of the pylons? Would that snap us back home?”

Ellison looked at her. “Considering that where I want to go is not back, why would I tell you such a thing?” He paused, looking at Frost’s gun, considering her silent answer. “As it happens, I have no idea what that would do. If you took down one of the array’s towers the effect might be nothing more than a rocky landing at our next destination. Or it might rip the town to bits. Or it might do nothing. I do not even know if there are redundancies in place.”

Frost shook her head. She wasn’t buying it. Everything they knew about the project pointed not just to Ellison’s involvement, but to his masterminding the project.

“Remember,” Ellison said. “Compartmentalized governmental knowledge. All I did was steal the final plans and implement the construction. I knew how to turn it on. Not how to turn it off. And frankly, off was never a concern. When we reach our desired destination, we simply step off the ride, allowing the town to continue on its journey without us.”

“And how will you know when we get there?” Dodge asked.

“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” Ellison paused, his smile growing wicked. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

“Revelation 21,” Dodge said. “But you shouldn’t ignore the last verse. ‘But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.’ Call me crazy, but I’m starting to think that bit might have been written just for you.”

Behind him, her leg now bandaged but still soaking the bandages with blood, Julie Barnes struggled to her feet and leaned against a desk. “There’s always a way to break the rules.”

Everyone turned their attention to her.

Frost realized it for the distraction it was, but a moment too late. When she turned back to look at Ellison, he had a remote control, like a TV remote in his hand.

He pressed a button.

The room plunged into darkness. A rifle fired once. Something loud crashed across the room. There was grunting and shuffling. Before Frost could get her Maglite out of the holster on her belt, something plowed into her, knocking her sideways onto the conference table. Her body rolled along the surface until the table suddenly wasn’t there anymore. She tumbled over the edge and fell head first. She raised her arms up and slammed into the floor. The impact drove the air from her lungs.

Her head throbbed. She didn’t remember striking it, but she could have blacked out on impact. She reached for the Maglite but it was gone.

She tried to sit up, but nausea and pain brought her back down to the floor. The last thing she heard before passing out was a deep metallic clunk. She understood that Ellison and Barnes had gotten away, but worse than that, they’d been locked in the vault.

117

Charley had seen Griffin drive hellbent for vengeance into the mouth of the labyrinth. But shortly after that, he’d seen a flock of the winged abominations.

While Griffin was clearly heading for the center of the maze, the flapping monstrosities massed around a series of low buildings on the western wall of the twisting structure. Charley, still feeling like he’d tied one on, was massively suspicious—like he always was when he was drunk.

He stopped the truck half way down the embankment, and thought. It was hard. Whatever made him feel plastered also muddled his cognition. Even worse, the cuts and scrapes all over his body were slowly draining his energy, as the flow of blood had never stopped. He felt rattled. He felt scared. He hurt. He knew this feeling well. He’d lived in it for years.

Shame.

It simultaneously fueled and drowned him. And it had reared up anew, without the aid of a bottle, claiming Charley’s will.

Then a new emotion rose to greet and combat the discomfort and confusion.

Pride.

Not for himself. For his son, who had become, in just a few weeks time, more of a man than Charley had ever been. While he hid behind a bottle, Joshua had faced the unimaginable and become an important part of keeping this town alive. It wasn’t supposed to work this way. The son was supposed to aspire to the father. Charley figured the very least he could do now would be to make the boy proud.

Of him.

If only just once.

Charley stamped the gas pedal to the floor and cranked the wheel hard to the right. He raced for the cluster of buildings and the last place he’d seen the swarm of flying ‘flappers,’ as he’d started to think of them.

He pulled the truck up just shy of the first building. The walls were made of human skulls, and there was a pasty pinkish-white mortar holding it all together. The structure stood two huge stories tall, with arched windows on the second floor, and a twenty-foot-tall oval doorway. There was no door, just a yawning open space. The flappers flew in and out of the windows on the second story.

Something was going on here. The creatures were agitated. Excited. Coming and going like demented flying tourists. Whatever it was, he thought it might be important. Something worth putting a monkey wrench—or shotgun—into. And if it wasn’t? Well, he would just kill as many of the bastards as he could.

He could live with that.

Charley got out of the truck and climbed into the rear bed, moving slowly to not draw attention. He reached down and picked up his shotgun, a Remington 870 with a 7 + 1 feed system, meaning he could unleash eight rounds of lead pellet-infused hell. He planted his legs wide in the bed, finding his balance.

“Come get me, you little flying peckers!” he shouted. Instantly, a swarm of thirty of the creatures raced out of the second story window. Charley thought they looked like angry hornets, but huge...and with gaping mouths, and human limbs and...

Shit, they look nothing like hornets.

Charley waited a beat and then unleashed with the shotgun, pelting and blasting the flappers from the sky. Stray pellets shattered the skulls embedded in the structure’s wall.

The remaining flappers quickly dispersed, flying in erratic, wild twisting patterns like bats startled by a sudden noise. Charley adjusted his aim and kept shooting, until the last of them plummeted to the ground with a wet splat, spraying thick red blood onto the skull fragments littering the ground.

He lowered the muzzle of the gun and looked—not at the dead flappers, but at the destroyed walls. He’d not even been shooting at the building, and he’d taken down a corner of it. It gave his muddled mind an idea, inspired by a memory of the first time he’d lost his license for a DWI.

He dropped out of the bed, kicked aside the corpse of a flapper near the driver’s side door, and climbed into the truck with the shotgun. He loaded eight more shells and set the weapon aside, started the truck and shifted into drive. He nudged the truck up and then rammed his foot on the gas, and quickly switched to the brakes. The front corner of the truck hit the wall of skulls, just under the second story window through which the flappers had come for him. He’d shattered a good part of the second story window frame with the shotgun, but now, with the truck impacting the support wall, the whole façade crumbled.

He shifted to reverse and backed up a good thirty feet as the building slid down like a slithering, crumbling house of cards.

“Oh hell yes.”

Charley backed the pickup for another forty feet. Then shifted into drive. A hundred yards further along the tall outer wall of the labyrinth was another small building, like the one he’d just demolished. It too had a massive oval doorway.

He drove parallel to the maze until he was lined up with the doorway, seventy feet away. He aimed straight for the door, then stepped on the brake pedal with his left foot. With his right, he stamped the accelerator to the floor. The truck’s engine revved into a high-pitched whine.

“This is more like it,” he said, and released the brake pedal. The truck’s rear tires scrabbled at the grit under the inch of accumulated snowflakes, then caught. The truck raced forward, quickly reaching sixty. The truck’s headlights illuminated the inside of the doorway.

He shot right through the room, which was empty, and smashed head-first into the far wall. The skulls and their flimsy mortar shattered and spread like little more than tearing tissue paper. One of the less brittle skulls put a spider-web crack in his windshield, but he didn’t let off the gas until he’d gone through three more walls.

When the truck stopped moving, he saw he was in a wide lane of the labyrinth. The walls stretched up twenty feet high, and the lane went to his left and his right.

In the rearview, he could see the tunnel he’d created and the crumbling heaps of bone fragment lining the way. His truck bed was filled with skulls.

He started laughing.

Looking forward, he realized he didn’t have just two choices. Left or right. He had three.

Left, right or ‘break shit up.’

He laughed harder, his foot hanging over the gas pedal. But his foot remained locked in place. A high-pitched sound tickled his ears. Screaming. A woman.

“Lony,” he whispered and opened the truck door. Outside the vehicle’s cab, her voice came into focus. A tower rose up, just twenty feet away. He craned his head up. Flappers circled the tower.

A fresh scream spurred him into action.

Leaving the truck running, Charley charged to the tower’s open entrance. Inside was a staircase of skulls, carpeted with leathery skin twisting upwards. He tried the first few steps cautiously, but threw caution to the wind when Lony screamed again.

He nearly called out to her, but held his tongue. If she’d been carried here, they could move her again. When he reached the top, Charley was winded. His body screamed for a breather. But when he saw the room full of fluttering monsters harassing Lony, who was curled up in a corner, he charged forward with a battle cry.

Aiming high to avoid hitting her, he fired again and again, spreading an arc of lead through the tower. When the shotgun clicked empty, the floor was littered with twitching bodies. Some of the flappers were dead. Others, merely wounded. The rest were uninjured, but wary. As Charley strode across the skull floor, the still living monstrosities shrieked at him, but kept their distance.

Lony screamed when he took her by the arm.

“I got you, kid,” he said.

She flinched and looked up at him. “Ch—Charley?”

“To the rescue.” He looked in her fear-filled eyes. They were dilated. Her speech was slightly slurred. “Are you high?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” he said. “But yes. I think it’s this shitty world.”

He pulled her to her feet. She made it two steps with him, and then collapsed.

“Dang it, girl.” With a sigh, he hefted her over his shoulder, nearly toppled over. Then he hurried for the steps.

118

“You!”

The creature’s voice boomed like thunder rolling over distant hills. Skull-Eyes, as Griffin had come to think of him, took a step forward, his massive clawed foot sending a shock wave through the ground.

“You did this!” it shouted.

“Did what?” Griffin stopped his advance. That the thing could talk surprised him. He took a ready stance and held the javelin aloft. He wouldn’t throw it—it was too valuable a weapon in this fight. Skull-Eyes towered over him, and would have a far greater reach. Griffin hoped the javelin’s length might give him a chance.

Well, that and the M9. He’d twisted his body, so his free left hand was hidden behind his side, and his right arm with the spear was pointed at the creature.

A few more steps.

Skull-Eyes charged, screaming. “You did this to me!” The monster sounded furious, but also wounded.

Griffin pulled the M9 and fired a tight cluster of three rounds toward the monster’s heart. The huge slab of a chest made an easy target. Two of the bullets found their mark, but Skull-Eyes twisted, his left shoulder moving into the line of fire. As a spray of blood arced from his chest wound, the top edge of his coiling armor took the third bullet. The armor—if that’s really what it was—glistened like wet dark concrete or rock, but the bullet’s impact shattered it as though it were ceramic. The round ripped into the underlying skin and destroyed a large portion of the upper part of the armor.

What lay underneath stole Griffin’s breath.

It was the tattoo.

The same one Savage Griffin had.

The same one he’d seen hanging of sheets of flapping skin around the maze.

The same one on Griffin’s own arm.

Skull-Eyes stopped his assault when the bullets struck. He turned now to face Griffin, and slowly reached his injured arm up. He grasped the front of his boney helmet and lifted. The long teeth slurped out of his chest.

He let the helmet fall to the ground.

Griffin staggered back a step.

No...

The monster shared his face.

He was Skull-Eyes.

The nearly fifteen foot tall, five-hundred-pound version of himself had no beard, like S.G did. His hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail at the top of his head, like a samurai.

“You never stopped the shifts!” the creature bellowed. Its reptilian tail swished behind it. Skull-Eyes lifted the lance, hatred filling its eyes. “Why didn’t you stop it!”

It wound up to swing with the lance, and Griffin fired five more rounds, aiming for the same spot on the thing’s already wounded chest.

But Skull-Eyes twisted again, allowing the other arm’s snake-armor to absorb most of the shots, while continuing to swing the lance.

Griffin dove to the side as the lance swooped down. He rolled with the javelin in one hand and the M9 in his other.

Skull-Eyes had allowed the violence of the swing to turn him in a full circle. He was lost in fury. As much as he looked like Griffin, the giant had clearly lost his mind—and the fighting skills that came with it. Not that it seemed to matter much. Millions of other Griffins had already lost this fight.

Griffin popped back up from his roll and fired off three more shots, this time into Skull-Eyes’s back, but still targeting the heart. All three bullets ripped into the giant. The creature turned again, trying to ward off the pain with its fragmented and crumbling arm gauntlets.

Griffin took the momentary reprieve to back up and away from the ATV. He’d need that to get Ava out of here, and he’d need more space. If this thing got in close, he’d be done for. He’d save the last bullet in the magazine for that—not for himself, but for a good headshot through one of Giant Griffin’s eyes. A 9mm round through the massive beast’s brain should put it down.

Should.

So far, the bullets didn’t appear to be having too much effect. Maybe his twisted self’s heart wasn’t where it should be? Maybe it didn’t have a heart at all? His monstrous twin roared to the heavens, and resumed his assault.

Scrabbling backward, Griffin raised the M9 and fired his last three shots, not counting the one he would keep in reserve. The bullets found their targets in the monster’s chest, but the mammoth kept coming, until suddenly, he stopped, and the tenor of his roar turned to an agonized high-pitched scream.

The giant turned, revealing a shaft of glistening silver sticking from the side of its left scale-covered leg. An arc of the giant’s blood sprayed from the wound, littering the fallen snow with glistening crimson jewels.

Griffin glanced upward and to his right. Savage Griffin stood atop a wall of skulls, holding another collapsible silver javelin. His charred and shortened arm smoldered and oozed a viscous black fluid. Had the man been burned again?

Giant Griffin’s scream tapered off into a growl. “Always another! You never stop coming!” The monster’s furious glare fixed on Savage Griffin. He used his free hand to grasp the javelin and tugged the silver spear free, spraying yet more of his blood onto the snow. “I’ll kill you both. Like all the others. You always come. You always die!”

He flung the javelin up at the wall. The spear fell short and burrowed into the skulls and flesh, a few feet below where Savage Griffin stood. A foot of the javelin was still exposed from the wall, but Griffin knew it would retract into itself in a few seconds, lost inside the bone.

Savage Griffin leapt off the top of the wall and landed on the end of the spear. He balanced on it with his thick calloused feet and flung the other javelin in his hand. The weapon came close to hitting Skull-Eyes, but the giant stepped back, avoiding the throw.

“Never had to face two of us before, have you?” Griffin taunted, throwing his own javelin. The giant twisted away, but the spear pierced its side. As the monster was turned in pain, Griffin raced for Savage Griffin’s javelin, sticking out of the ground. He reached for it, but the weapon suddenly retracted.

Griffin’s swiping hand missed.

Without removing the spear from its side, the giant swung its long reptilian tail, swatting Griffin’s side, beneath his arm. He hit the ground hard, momentarily at the mercy of his monstrous self. But there was no mercy in its eyes as it raised the long pike.

Before Skull-Eyes could swing, another javelin struck the monster from behind. The spear’s tip slipped through the creature’s back and emerged through its gut. The monster howled, then spun hard and threw its long black triangular lance like a spear, up at the wall. Savage Griffin dropped down and clung to the shaft of the spear stuck in the skulls. He pushed on the wall with his feet, trying to pull the weapon free.

As the lance came closer, the stuck javelin pulled free from the wall. Savage Griffin started to fall the seventeen feet to the ground. The massive lance struck the wall like a Mack truck. Skulls exploded in all directions. Nearly half the wall toppled outside the arena, the rest tumbling inward. Savage Griffin’s body hit the floor hard, as a cascade of skulls rained down on him.

Griffin staggered to his feet and picked up the inert javelin he’d missed. It snapped out to its full, five-foot length. He was on his own again. The savage wouldn’t be getting up.

The giant turned slowly, limping with its punctured leg, one hand covering its wounded chest. It was breathing hard, but it still had a lot of fight left in it.

“It doesn’t matter how many come!” the crazed giant bellowed. “I always kill you!” He swept his free hand around at the area walls. “Millions of you. All bricks. That’s all you are.”

Griffin’s right arm itched furiously. His shoulders ached where they had been punctured. His left side hurt from the fall, and his right ribs would be bruised where the tail had struck him. He was breathing as heavily as the giant. His savage twin’s assistance had helped even the scales, but it was now just the two of them, and Griffin knew he would lose. The giant had too much mass. Too much meat. One javelin and one bullet just weren’t going to be enough.

He needed a tank.

Behind him, a wall detonated. Skulls flew like ballistic missiles and fleshy mortar spattered all around. A rusted pickup truck rammed through the wall of skulls, and as Griffin raced aside, he could see Charley Wilson at the helm behind the fractured windshield. His daughter, Avalon, was seated in the passenger’s seat, unconscious—maybe dead.

The giant looked on in shock as the battered pickup raced across the arena floor. He started to dodge, but Charley turned the wheel and hit the gas. The truck plowed into the huge beast of a man, carrying him twenty feet and then crushing him through a wall. A cascade of skulls buried the truck and the giant alike.

Griffin ran for the truck. “Ava!”

119

Griffin dug through skulls like a madman. His fingers were raw and bleeding by the time he reached the giant. He found the creature’s head first. He couldn’t tell if it was dead or just unconscious, but he didn’t care.

He held the M9 flush with the giant’s left eyelid and pulled the trigger. The shot sounded incredibly loud in the silence. The giant’s skull didn’t detonate from the shot, but the dark red wound in the eye socket was reassuring.

Part of Griffin said the execution was cold, especially since he was, in essence, shooting himself. But it was also a mercy. Whatever happened to this different version of himself, to turn him into a monster, there had to be a normal man in there somewhere that wanted to be released.

Griffin holstered the weapon and continued digging. He soon reached the truck’s driver-side door. The cab of the truck was still intact, except for the windshield, which had fallen in and now lay like a blanket over Charley and Avalon. Charley was bleeding in a number of places and had a huge knot on his forehead, but he was awake. Avalon looked slumped in her seat, held in place by a seatbelt.

“She’sh alive,” Charley said, and Griffin felt a huge surge of relief wash over him. “She’sh acting like she’sh all drugged out, but it’sh not for real. Jush like I’m not really plastered.”

Charley’s words were slurring hard as he spoke.

Griffin pulled skulls away from the door so he could get it open, while Charley kept talking.

“It’sh thish world, Griff. None of my cutsh are slowing down. Feelsh like I’m drunk, but I’m not. I…haven’t taken a drink in almosht two weeksh.”

Griffin felt the sting of his own wounds—where his arm and shoulders had been punctured by lizard teeth in a previous world. Every part of him was sore. And Kyle had said he couldn’t stop Cash from bleeding. Maybe the world was making Charley’s blood intoxicated again. He’d seen the man around town in the last week, and knew he was off the sauce.

“I know, Charley,” Griffin said, pulling the last of the skulls free and then kicking at a few with his feet as he struggled to get the truck’s door opened. The door wouldn’t budge. The front fender was crushed in.

“Undo your belt and lean away. I’m going to break the window.”

Charley did and slid over to the middle of the bench seat. Griffin raised his booted foot up and kicked through the glass. It fell in a liquid sheet on top of the windshield, broken, but still taped together by the tinted plastic.

Charley reached over and unclasped Avalon’s seatbelt. “I found her for you. They had her in one of the buildingsh. She’ll be okay.” He started to pull her body toward him, under the blanket of the windshield.

“Just get out, then I can get her.”

But Charley didn’t. He pulled Avalon across his chest, so her head was near the open window. Griffin reached in and slipped his hands under her shoulders. He pulled, and Charley tugged her pants toward him, until Griffin got her out of the truck, through the window. He staggered back, and the both of them fell to the bone covered ground.

“You tell ‘im,” Charley said. “You tell him hish ol’ man wassun drunk. I reshcued her.” Then Charley’s head fell forward and he stopped talking.

Griffin checked Avalon’s pulse. It was weak, but it was there. He scrambled to his feet and gently leaned Charley’s head back with one hand, while checking the man’s neck for a pulse with his other.

Griffin felt two strong kicks under his finger.

And then nothing.

Charley was dead.

The man had turned himself around just in time to give his life. For Ava’s. Tears filled Griffin’s eyes. He rested his head against Charley’s, whispering in his ear. “Farewell, Charley. And thank you. I’ll tell him.”

As Griffin slipped his head out of the cab, he noticed Charley’s shotgun resting against the seat. He leaned forward and snagged it. Checked the chamber. Empty. But he took the weapon anyway.

Moving quickly, Griffin picked up his daughter and carried her to the undamaged ATV. She woke as he lowered her down near the quad.

“Dad?” she asked, sounding strung out. “W—where are we? You look...funny.”

“We have to get out of here,” he said more to himself than to her. He pulled his belt out of his jeans and dropped the M9’s holster to the ground, tucking the spent weapon into his waist. “Come on.”

He wrestled her onto the ATV behind him, and wrapped his belt through the one on her waist, then around himself, effectively tying her to his back. She groggily wrapped her arms around his chest and said, “I love you, Daddy.”

He was just about to kick the ATV into life when he heard skulls skittering down a mound behind him. He glanced back.

“No. Way.”

The giant was on his hands and knees, his head hung low.

Griffin kicked the ATV to life and raced for the hole Charley had torn in the wall. He glanced back just before he reached the makeshift door, and saw that Giant Griffin had climbed to his feet. The monster looked up then with one ruined hole and one functioning eye, which followed Griffin.

The monster bellowed in rage.

Avalon looked back too, and held on more tightly.

Griffin exited what he now knew was an arena and swung left. He wasn’t sure if he could find his way back out of the maze quickly—even with Radar’s tip, but then he noticed a path of destruction cutting through the wall ahead. He didn’t need to leave the same way he’d come in. Charley had blazed a trail for him.

As Griffin turned through a freshly carved hole in the wall, the arena wall behind him exploded. The giant stumbled through, caught sight of them again, and roared.

Griffin raced through the maze, following Charley’s swath of damage, cutting through walls and headed toward the city’s fringe far faster than he would have by following the maze.

But still, the monster chased. Each footfall felt like an earthquake under the ATV, and they came faster and faster, as if the giant had no upper limit.

Griffin glanced in the small, shaking, handle-bar mounted rearview mirror. The giant was closing on them.

They passed under a familiar street lamp. The dead cat had fallen from it to the ground, and Griffin steered the ATV away from the corpse. He took the next right where he saw skid marks from Charley’s truck, pointing the way to freedom. “Thank you, Charley,” Griffin whispered again.

The monster was still giving chase, but Griffin had left the lumbering beast a turn or two behind. He could feel the thumping of the giant’s feet though, in between the manic beats of his own heart. Charley’s path had sped their retreat, but the monster no doubt knew the maze’s secrets. So he wasn’t about to slow the pace, even if the skulls littering the path made for a bumpy and dangerous ride.

Griffin rounded a corner, and the labyrinth’s exit lay dead ahead. He gunned the engine and raced toward the snow-covered sloping hill that led back to town. Before he reached the exit, two things happened.

The giant pursuing them burst through the wall behind them and roared with such hatred that a chill shot down Griffin’s back.

Then—night fell. Boom. It was black, just like that. The monster disappeared in the darkness.

The quad raced out of the last of the stone walls and into the open. The bonfires around the front of the structure lit the way, but they had died down while Griffin had been inside.

Avalon, shocked into wakefulness, clung to him tightly. “Hurry, Dad. I can’t see him yet, but he’s coming.”

“I know.” Griffin raced the quad up the hill, through the fine blanket of fallen snow. It wasn’t thick, thankfully, and the flakes had stopped falling from the sky.

Bong.

The sound was so distant and so out of context that it took Griffin until the next one for him to process it.

Bong.

His shouted curse started out with the proper consonant, but devolved into a growl of frustration. They were almost a mile from the town border. And they had less than three minutes.

The town was going to shift.

Refuge would be gone.

Bong.

“Dad!” Avalon had realized the significance, even through her overdose-like symptoms.

“I know!” he screamed.

A roar answered them from behind as the giant gave chase up the hill.

Bong.

The ATV slowed.

“What are you doing?”

The engine ground to a stop and died. Griffin tried to get off the quad and almost fell, his growl becoming an unending string of grumbles and curses. “Out of gas!”

He tore at the leather belt tying him to Avalon, and freed himself. Leaping off the vehicle, he ripped the jerry can from its bungee-corded home on the back.

He spun the cap off the can and let it fly away into the snow, and ripped the ATV’s fuel cap off and likewise let it fall to the ground.

The giant ran up the slope toward them, less than a quarter of a mile away, lit by the bonfires. Griffin dumped the jerry can upside down over the gas tank, letting fuel splash all over the bike and the ground before the neck of the can rammed into the opening.

“Hold this!” he shouted. Avalon twisted around on the bike and took the can.

He climbed back into the saddle and kicked at the starter.

Bong-Bong.

With the double chime, the giant increased its speed, now no more than forty feet away.

“Hold my pants!” Griffin yelled, and Avalon grabbed the back of his jeans with one hand, still holding the can over the gas tank with her other hand.

Griffin popped the clutch and the quad sprang forward, nearly throwing her from it. A fine spray of snow and grit shot up and launched backward, arcing out twenty feet and hitting the giant in the face as he closed the distance.

The wheels found purchase, and the ATV lurched up the hill, the engine protesting against the open throttle.

The quad sped up the incline.

Bong-Bong-Bong.

Despite the slippery slope, the giant continued to gain ground. He was just fifteen feet behind now, and Griffin was giving it all he had. But he was more concerned about the shift. If they made it into town, all he had to do was tear ass up Main Street. The smooth road would allow him to easily outrun the giant. If the crazy bastard followed him all the way to the station, someone could blast him to pieces with the .50 cal.

But if they didn’t make it to the border in time…

Griffin wasn’t sure he could kill the monster. Bullets to the heart hadn’t done it. Getting run over by a truck hadn’t done it, and a point-blank, 9 millimeter slug in the brain pan hadn’t done it either. The thought occurred to him that the hellish giant might be immortal. That scared him more than anything.

Bong-Bong-Bong-Bong-Bong.

The staked Humvee was just up ahead. Less than twenty feet. The vehicle grew hazy as the air around town shimmered. Griffin held the throttle cranked to the max, leaning forward. Avalon had dropped the empty jerry can and wrapped both arms tightly around him.

The monster was right behind them, reaching a hand for Ava.

Griffin swerved right a notch, not enough to slow them down, but just enough so that the monster’s hand swept through open air instead of Ava’s head.

BongBongBongBongBongBongBongBongBong.

Griffin aimed for a slab of granite that sloped up toward the paved road. The front wheels of the quad hit the stone and Griffin said a prayer.

A wave of glittering bright light flared in his face, and Griffin squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the ATV launched into the air.

The church bell stopped ringing.

120

A powerful jolt knocked Griffin’s hands from the ATV’s handlebars and he lost control. Knocked free, he tumbled through the air, Avalon no longer clinging to him. When he opened his eyes, everything was bright. And spinning.

The whole world was spinning.

Then he landed on a bed of snow-covered pine needles, the scent crisp and clear in his nose, as if his sense of smell had come back after a long cold. He rolled and tumbled, and he came to stop against a tree.

He groaned as his mind imagined the injuries he’d sustained.

But there was no pain.

He opened his eyes and looked up at a clear, bright blue sky.

He turned to his side and saw trees. He’d been flung into the woods lining the road, just inside the town border. The Humvee was still pinned to the end of the road. The ATV lay on its side in the grass, by the edge of the pavement. And Avalon, clear-eyed and aware, was sitting up and looking around.

“He’s gone. He didn’t make it!” she said.

Griffin quickly looked around and saw she was right. The world beyond the border was a smooth sea of swaying green grass, brilliant arctic blue lakes and ponds and beautiful blowing flowers and trees. Far off, Griffin could see snow-capped mountains. The air was fresh and clear, with not a hint of smoke from the previous world. And Giant Griffin, who might have been the Devil himself, was gone.

Griffin stood and hugged Avalon, looking down at the ATV on the ground. One of its rear wheels had been sliced cleanly in half.

Wrapped in Ava’s arms, Griffin felt good. Not just because his daughter was alive. He felt physically good. Rejuvenated. The pain and itch in his arm was gone. His shoulders felt fine. All the beatings he had suffered—from the largest ache to the smallest bruise was gone. He hadn’t felt this good in years.

He tore his shirt down at the neck and looked at the place where his shoulder had been bleeding. There wasn’t even a mark. No scar, no puncture. He’d been completely healed... By this world, he thought, looking out at what looked like paradise.

He wondered if he’d been able to get Charley back, would the man have been revived? Then he wondered about Savage Griffin. If he had been able to get back, would the man’s arm have been healed? His missing hand regrown? Would he have been sane?

And what about Skull-Eyes? Would he have shrunk, and developed human feet? Lost his prehensile tail? Would he have been healed, body and soul?

As Griffin looked out at the new world, he believed that would have been the case. Knew. While the name Refuge had never been more fitting, this new place could be called Redemption. Not just because it fixed the body, but it also mended the soul. The crimes of his past, the trauma of battle, the loss of his wife and Sheriff Rule… He felt at peace with it all.

Reborn.

He squeezed Avalon and turned his glance up the road into town. Into Refuge. Home. “Up for a walk?”

She smiled, bouncing on her feet. “The way I’m feeling, I think I could run.”

As they started back toward town, Griffin put his arm around her and said, “So who is this Sam Jacobs, what did he do and do I need to punch him in the face if we ever get home?”

Halfway to town, a car came creeping down the hill. Cash was behind the wheel. He stopped the car when he got level with them, the window already down. “Need a lift?”

“Cash!” Griffin said. “How’s the…?” He tapped his shoulder, mimicking where Cash had been shot.

“Not even a scratch,” Cash said. “Kyle said the gunshot just disappeared. Since the shift, we’ve all been feeling pretty good. Seems like this world has healed everybody of everything that was wrong with ’em. I heard where you’d gone. Came to see if you made it back.”

Griffin and Avalon got in the car, and Cash turned them back toward the town. Griffin filled him in on what had happened as they drove. But just before they reached the Sheriff’s station, three figures walked out into the road from the church.

Frost, Dodge and Jennifer Turkette waved them down. Cash slowed the car to a stop. Griffin got out of the passenger seat and Avalon climbed out of the back.

Griffin ran up to Frost, and seeing him, she ran to him as well. When they embraced, everything was suddenly right. He leaned down and kissed her.

“You’re okay,” he said.

“Me? I was worried about you.” Avalon walked over to them. “You got her,” Frost said.

“Safe and sound,” Avalon said. “Apparently, sounder than ever.”

“What happened here?” Griffin asked.

Frost told him, as they all walked toward the Sheriff’s station. When she finished, she explained how they had gotten out of the bunker.

“It took some time, but we found the lights, and eventually, the locks. But we found something else too.”

Griffin looked at her, one eyebrow raised as if to say, don’t hold back on us now.

“We found the security camera feeds for the tunnel to the mansion. We saw Ellison and Barnes hightailing it away from the bunker at one end of the tunnel, but at the other end, she was with someone else.”

“What do you mean?” Griffin asked.

“I mean, at one end of the tunnel he was an old man in a wheelchair. At the other end of the tunnel, after the shift, he was...new. Remade. Same face, same clothes, but thirty years younger, and with a full head of hair. No wheelchair in sight. He was running beside Barnes, who had no more limp.”

Griffin stopped walking. “That’s...impossible.”

Cash stepped up and tapped his chest. “Is it? I had a hole clean through me, remember?”

“I think,” Frost said, “that whatever healed us, healed him too. Of whatever was killing him.”

The Sheriff station door opened. Radar exited with Lisa not far behind.

“Josh,” Griffin said, and something in his voice made the boy stop in his tracks.

Emotion swept through the young man. “My Dad?”

Griffin never knew how to deliver this kind of news, but he knew beating around the bush never helped. “Gave his life saving Ava. Wanted you to know he did it sober.”

Radar sniffed, wiped his nose and gave a nod.

Griffin reached back into Cash’s car and pulled out Charley’s shotgun. “This belonged to your father. It’s yours now.”

Griffin tossed the shotgun to Radar, who caught it, looked it over once and slung the weapon onto his back.

“Your father was proud of you, Josh,” Griffin said. “He died wanting to make you proud, too.”

Radar gave a nod. “He did.” Lisa arrived, embraced the boy and led him away.

“So did we make it?” Griffin asked. “Is this...Heaven?” He looked to Dodge for an answer, but the pastor just looked bewildered, staring out toward the edge of town.

Frost shrugged.

Dodge cleared his throat. “The one thing we know for sure is that this place isn’t home. But...” He looked at Griffin. “Maybe it could be.”

Griffin looked at the man and knew what he was thinking. “Let’s wait and see if anything here tries to kill us first.”

Epilogue

“It’s done.”

Cash stepped out of his car on the driver’s side, and Winslow got out of the passenger’s side. They were returning from the pylon north of town. Carol approached from the group of people waiting on the sidewalk in front of the station and hugged Winslow.

Cash’s sister, Laurie, and Kyle went to Cash. Laurie gave her brother a crushing hug.

The men stepped up onto the curb in front of the station, where the small group waited. Frost and Griffin with Avalon. Dodge and Turkette. Joshua and Lisa. A few of the other town residents like the bartender, Walter, and widowed Mary Soucey-Bartlett.

They had been in the healing world for a week, and no danger had presented itself. They had searched the town, the mansion and the bunker for any sign of Ellison or Barnes, but the two were nowhere to be found. Griffin had led recon patrols out into the new world, looking for dangers and threats. All they had found was more natural beauty.

The evenings were filled with round-table discussion, and they had finally decided their course of action. Each day, Cash and Winslow had poured over all the information they could get from the computers in the bunker. They figured out how to disable one of the pylons, and if necessary, reactivate it later.

The only question was whether the next shift would rip the town apart, killing everyone. Would the imbalance of the pylons somehow send them home? No one was expecting that possibility. Instead, they’d decided to call the healing world home. The land was clear and fertile—they’d found fruit trees and naturally occurring vegetables. There were animals roaming the plains. Deer and elk and bison.

Most importantly, nothing had come into the beleaguered town.

The decision made, Cash and Winslow had gone north of town and deactivated the pylon. Now they had come back, the conquering heroes.

The small group stood on the curb near the building, looking up at the church across the parking lot, down the street.

Frost, now wearing civilian clothes (but a gold badge on her belt reminding people of her rank), leaned under Griffin’s arm. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”

“Don’t know,” Griffin said. “The longest we stayed in one place was a week and half.”

Avalon leaned into him on his other side, and he put his arm around her, too.

“Maybe it just won’t ever ring,” she said.

Griffin hoped she was right. They all stood there a few minutes, as if they expected it to ring any second, but he knew it wouldn’t. Cash and Laurie were the first to turn to go back inside the building.

He heard Avalon snort out a derisive breath, as if chastising herself for thinking it might happen now.

Frost turned to look up at him and said, “Let’s go back insi—”

Bong.

They all stopped and looked back up at the church in silence, breath held.

Bong.

Now they would know. Death, home or stranded.

Bong.

Dodge began to mutter a prayer.

Griffin squeezed his girls tightly.

Bong-Bong-Bong.

END OF SEASON 1

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS

Dear Reader,

We wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading REFUGE. We hope you have enjoyed the journey into the dark recesses of our imaginations and that you will come back for more of our stories. If you did enjoy the book, please show your support by posting a review online. Online retailer websites work on algorithms, meaning the more people review our books, the more the retailers will recommend them to other readers. And the more people buy our books, the more we get to write them, which is a good thing for all of us (assuming you enjoyed the book). If we can get REFUGE moving off the virtual shelves, there will be many more worlds to visit, and many more horrors to uncover.

Thank you!

—Jeremy Bishop (aka Jeremy Robinson)

Daniel S. Boucher

Robert Swartwood

David McAfee

Kane Gilmour

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JEREMY BISHOP is the #1 Amazon.com horror author of THE SENTINEL and THE RAVEN, published by Amazon’s 47 North imprint. He is also known as Jeremy Robinson, the bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including SECONDWORLD, ISLAND 731, PROJECT MAIGO and the Jack Sigler Thriller series. His novels have been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.

Visit him online at www.jeremybishoponline.com
or www.jeremyrobinsononline.com.

DANIEL S. BOUCHER lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, but grew up in Southern Maine, where he developed an extreme dislike of snow and became heavily influenced by the writings of Stephen King. When not in front of his computer writing code, he can be found with his nose stuck in a great book, working on his new Maine-based supernatural series, playing video games or writing reviews alongside his compadres, Pete and Rachelle, at their online blog, The Novel Blog.

You can connect with Dan on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/daniel.boucher
and on Twitter (@WordSlayer), and you can check out his blogin’ at
www.thenovelblog.com.

ROBERT SWARTWOOD is the USA Today bestselling author of THE SERIAL KILLER’S WIFE, THE CALLING, MAN OF WAX, and several other novels. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Chizine, Space and Time, Postscripts, and PANK. He created the term ‘hint fiction’ and is the editor of HINT FICTION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES IN 25 WORDS OR FEWER. He lives with his wife in Pennsylvania.

Visit him online at www.robertswartwood.com.

DAVID McAFEE is the author of ten books, including the 2010 Amazon bestseller 33 A.D. and its award-winning sequel, 61 A.D., both of which have recently been optioned for film by Winkler Films in Hollywood, CA. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and children, and is currently putting the finishing touches on 79 A.D., the third book in his Bachiyr series.

Visit David on the web at www.McAfeeland.wordpress.com

KANE GILMOUR is the bestselling co-author with Jeremy Robinson of RAGNAROK and OMEGA, the fourth and fifth novels in the Jack Sigler/Chess Team series. He also writes his own thriller novels, including the popular Jason Quinn novel, RESURRECT. In addition to his work in novels, Kane works with artist and creator Scott P. Vaughn on the sci-fi noir webcomic, Warbirds of Mars. He lives with his family in Vermont.

Follow him at kanegilmour.com and on

Facebook at www.facebook.com/kane.gilmour.author.

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In Solemn Shades of Endless Night

Spooky Nook

In the Land of the Blind: A Zombie Story

The Man on the Bench

At the Meade Bed & Breakfast

(with David B. Silva)

Refuge: Book 3 - Lost in the Echo

(with Jeremy Bishop)

As Editor

Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer

Omnibus

Two Shot: The Serial Killer’s Wife and No Shelter

ALSO by DAVID McAFEE

Bachiyr Series

33 A.D.

61 A.D.

After – Taras and Theron: Beyond Jerusalem

Standalone Novels

Saying Goodbye to the Sun

Nasty Little F!#*ers

Old Sins

Collections

The Lake and 17 Other Stories

Devil Music and 18 Other Stories

Collaborations and Contributions

Callsign: Bishop

(with Jeremy Robinson)

The Dead Woman

(The Dead Man Series #4)

Refuge: Book 4 - Ashes and Dust

(with Jeremy Bishop)

Dante’s Disciple

(with Marty McKay) (coming in 2014)

Nonfiction

Livin’ La Vida Papa

ALSO by KANE GILMOUR

The Jason Quinn Series

Resurrect

Frozen (2014)

Nostalgic Horror Novellas

The Crypt of Dracula

Collaborations

Callsign: Deep Blue

(with Jeremy Robinson)

Ragnarok

(with Jeremy Robinson)

Omega

(with Jeremy Robinson)

Refuge: Book 5 - Bonfires Burning Bright

(with Jeremy Bishop)

Edited Anthology

Warbirds of Mars: Stories of the Fight!

(with Scott P. Vaughn)

Webcomic

Warbirds of Mars

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Map of Refuge, NH

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Epilogue

A Note from the Authors

About the Authors

Also by the Authors

Copyright ©2013–2014 by Jeremy Robinson (aka Jeremy Bishop)

All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Jeremy Robinson at
info@jeremyrobinsononline.com

Cover designs copyright ©2013 by Jeremy Robinson

Visit Jeremy Bishop on the World Wide Web at:

www.jeremybishoponline.com