Ashes and Dust (8 page)

17

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.”

18

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?”