The
night was alive with the low roar of the fire, occasional screams, and
gunfire. Everyone was on edge, looking
back and forth for enemy ambush. The
four men in front of Carli dodged the bundle of tattered clothing in their path
with scarcely a glance. Perhaps the
reason Carli noticed the whiteness of bone sticking out from the rags was
because her size put her so much closer to the ground. She uttered a small groan as she drew to a
halt next to it. Alerted by the sound,
the whole party stopped and looked. The
faces around her went grim in an instant.
Whoever
it had been was far beyond their help now.
They moved on.
The two
up front, Arner and one of his soldiers, came out of the alley to the main
thoroughfare. They immediately froze,
and everyone else followed suit. When
Arner and the other man faded back into the alley, everyone drew back and
pressed themselves against the walls of the brick building.
Seconds
spun by before the reason they hid was revealed. The night vision goggles Carli wore gave her
a perfect view of the half dozen creatures that walked past the alley. Her heart skipped several beats at the
horrifying vision. Seemingly melted
skins erupting in sores, misshapen heads and extra limbs, those gaping mouths
full of fangs … it was as if some long ago special effects department had gone
all out for a horror or sci-fi film.
That the creatures had once been human, that the Old Ones had tried to
transform them, was not in question.
What Carli wondered was at what point had it gone wrong? Had these monsters been humans inflicted with
radiation sickness when they were dragged through the nuclear wasteland into
the San Francisco Pyramid? Or had the
horrific mutations resulted after they’d been transformed and escaped the alien
stronghold?
Available
from Amazon, Barnes &Noble, and Smashwords.
You can get it in paperback too.
No comments:
Post a Comment