Stepping Stones 2: Flesh Puppets

By Alex Harbinger

It has been a few months since Rex’s confrontations with Bathory and Vlad. Having recuperated her strength, she is now ready to focus on her next target, an alpha that hides in the shadows better than any other: Mary.

Miles from civilization, the elusive dweller lies in wait. However, the branches of this evil are far easier to find than its roots. With help from a previous acquaintance, Kaleb Isaacs, as well as his team of hunters, Rex becomes ensnared in a downward spiral of manipulated human corpses, dweller hybrids, and a beast of terrifying power.

From cloud covered streets to labyrinths of tunnels and a town forever cast in darkness, Mary seems to be a coward who attacks only from a distance. However, Rex will soon find that her white whale, Inferno, may not be in a league all his own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Harbinger
• Release date: Nov 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578331195

Alex Harbinger

Alex Harbinger is the pseudonym for a Michigan based storyteller with a passion for monsters and mayhem. The introverted aspiring writer primarily focuses on horror stories with action set pieces but has other ideas in the realm of science fiction/fantasy blends. After graduating with a B.A. from Western Michigan University, he has been honing his craft in writing with the hopes of expanding into other mediums such as film and video game design. Maybe one day he will pry himself away from his writing and brainstorming sessions long enough to actually devote some time to marketing his works.

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STEPPING STONES 2: FLESH PUPPETS

by Alex Harbinger

Copyright © 2021 by Alex Harbinger. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover by Alex Harbinger.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Twitter: @alex_harbinger

For my best friend, the overworked gamer, and his zombie-killing SO

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

— Arthur C. Clarke

With so many strings and so many shadows, it’s not always easy to tell who’s the puppet and who’s the master.

— >:-)

Table of Contents

Chapter One—A Look Back at Things to Come

Chapter Two—Messages

Chapter Three—Road Trip

Journal #1—Rising Darkness

Chapter Four—Wrong Address

Chapter Five—House Call

Journal #2—Silent Locusts

Chapter Six—Catching Up

Chapter Seven—Night Shift

Chapter Eight—With the Flow

Chapter Nine—Meeting New People

Chapter Ten—A Different Kind of Puppet

Chapter Eleven—Labyrinth

Chapter Twelve—Relocated

Chapter Thirteen—Urban Explorers

Journal #4—Raw Materials

Chapter Fourteen—Safehouse

Chapter Fifteen—High Walls

Chapter Sixteen—Neighborhood Watch

Chapter Seventeen—Darker than Shadow

Chapter Eighteen—Over and Under

Chapter Nineteen—The Marionette

Chapter Twenty—Misery Loves Company

Chapter Twenty-one—Toolbox

Journal #3A—Leeches, Needles, and Clones

Chapter Twenty-two—Short Breather

Journal #3B—Manifest Destiny

Chapter Twenty-three—Long Road Home

Chapter Twenty-four—No Rest for the Wicked

Chapter Twenty-five—WWID?

Chapter Twenty-six—Express Line

Chapter Twenty-seven—Boiling Point

Chapter Twenty-eight—Monochrome

Chapter One

A Look Back at Things to Come

17 Months before Vlad and Bathory.

The last thing Arnold Trammell remembered was having a fever. Exhaustion had forced him into bed after several hours of feeling like shit since swallowing that dweller’s blood. He had cut a deep gash in one of its arms during its early morning raid, but it had knocked him to the ground and forced the bloody wound over his mouth. Then it fled.

What was that about? Why did it let him go? But most importantly, why was he standing on the stadium lawn?

His concerns dulled to an afterthought as his hazy view focused on the pandemonium before him.

People fled in all directions screaming. It looked random at first, but he soon noticed a pattern. Everyone who fled… did so away from him.

Arnold heard the crackling of fire to his left. A nearby tent was ablaze, the flames battering the fabric in waves. As he soaked in his surroundings, the horrors compounded.

Several bodies were strewn about. Four, no five... six. Six bodies in various stages of failed escape spread outward from him, their blood cooling on the grass.

What’s going on?

His head felt cloudy, his vision a distorted tunnel. He figured it was somehow linked to the fever which had caused his earlier collapse. How long ago was that?

It hurt just to breathe. However, that was probably the fault of the iron pipe sticking through his chest, syphoning the blood out from his back.

He attempted to remove the bar with his left hand. His strength faded when he saw the deformed mess of black claws extending from what he knew was his own arm. That’s odd. Shock forced his mind to take the situation in stride. Rather than fret about his mutated limb, his lightheadedness caused him to find it stranger that he used his left hand when he was right handed. Why did he…? He tried to lift his right arm, but it was heavy: …occupied.

He had never held one before, but there was no mistaking it. The heft, the feathery strands wrapped around his wrist: his fingers dangled a severed human head.

Judging by the hair length it was probably a woman’s, but there were a few men at camp who had grown theirs out. He didn’t want to check. To admit what he had done. To see a face twisted in agony.

Please don’t let it be her. Arnold thought of the pretty blonde. He was terrified that if he gazed down, he would see that silky, golden chestnut hair. As his consciousness waned, he looked behind him.

Oh, good. The blonde stood there gripping the metal bar. Her face was somewhere between fear, grief, and intense rage. But it was not solely one of those.

At that moment he really wished he wasn’t still holding the head. To just drop it seemed disrespectful. Casually bending over to set it on the ground seemed awkward. What a conundrum. What was the best way to set down a human head?

In the early weeks of the invasion, the camp had functioned fine. The stadium was unpleasantly crowded, but the military saw to security and helped with the more technical daily operations and maintenance. More people arrived by the day.

The first rainfall kept their population from inflating beyond control. A few days after the monstrosities, later named dwellers, had burrowed up through the ground, a brief shower had passed over the city. The globe-encompassing clouds levitating thirty feet above the ground concealed the approaching storm. Anyone without a roof over their head was dissolved in the corrosive rain. The high walls of the stadium blocked out the ominous cloud layer allowing rain to safely fall on the residents within, and on better days, even give a clear view of the blue sky.

The armed forces tried their best, but there were too many people to feasibly guard. Then new orders came in. There was a dweller infestation on the west coast dwarfing that of the one on the east. All soldiers were recalled and told to lead an exodus of survivors.

Only around a hundred decided to stay behind. They barely met any resistance from the soldiers, who just wanted to vacate the stadium immediately. Anyone who didn’t readily follow would likely cause issues on their long journey to the opposite coast.

One individual who stayed was a tenacious blonde with a grudge against a specific alpha that had taken up residence on the east coast. To run away to the west would have been a violation of everything that she had been preparing for. Rex knew the meaning of her existence in the new world wasn’t hiding behind others’ strength on the opposite side of the country.

Since then, almost ten months had passed without incident. During that time Rex helped salvage equipment from the surrounding city, and the community slowly made the stadium their own.

Half the field was converted into a garden. The brave souls who dared to travel to distant farms brought back crops and seeds. One of them owned an orchard. He had no desire to flee out west, but he couldn’t afford to stay at home. He had two young daughters who would be orphaned if he died. Once the youngest was old enough to take care of herself, they intended to return home. Until then, he decided to use a crane truck to transplant several of his trees into the back of the garden, to bring a piece of home. They gave the bland area a forest vibe while allowing for the safety of modern built walls.

The remaining field was fashioned into living spaces. The surplus tents were whittled down to a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement for those who preferred not to bunk inside the stadium’s stuffy interior rooms. With the trees, maintained turf, and personalized living arrangements, the area had become a pleasant commune. On brisk mornings, Rex would sometimes remember her school camping trip as a teen: waking up at the break of dawn, groups of sleepy classmates stumbling over each other preparing for a long day of basic survival activities. Bet her teachers never imagined those skills coming in handy in her late twenties to survive the monster apocalypse.

The stadium exterior had been strengthened around all exits with all but one being completely sealed. To create such a bottleneck was a risk, but the meager community simply lacked the ability to defend multiple entrances.

There was also the stadium interior. Locker rooms. Gift shops. Showers. The refuge was gradually becoming a self-sustaining ecosystem. They had running water, food, and decent security. And with solar panels having been fitted around the stadium’s partial dome only a few years prior, the modest community was never in want of power. Things were progressing smoothly.

Then the disappearances started.

Every few mornings they would greet the day with one less member. It was always silent. No witnesses.

One night Rex heard what sounded like a swell of lawn darts rapidly landing closer toward her tent. The sound veered right and continued past. As it did, something brushed across the canvas. Everyone else inside slept through the whole thing; the action too quiet to wake one up, but too loud not to notice when awake.

Rex shook a few sleepers. Wake up; something’s wrong, she whispered. Get everyone else up.

She quietly exited the shelter and pursued the earlier noise, weaving through the network of tents. Clumps of excavated dirt lay strewn around tiny pits, forming a trail. She heard the rapid pitter-patter ahead and entered a small clearing.

Under the moonlight she saw it.

She had seen several dwellers already, but most were betas, pups. The thing before her somehow reminded her more of her first encounter with the invaders, her main enemy: Inferno. This creature had nowhere near his size or presence, but it exuded an air not to be taken lightly. It was an alpha.

The dweller had an oddly lazy posture, with a body only a few degrees thicker than emaciated. What kept Rex from approaching was how it appeared to levitate several feet off the ground. Below its chest, a pair of short arms held what could best be described as two bundles of sticks. Each two-foot stick-like section was connected end to end, with little serrated claws protruding from every joint.

A few of these sections had spilled to the ground and propped the creature up like a zigzag of stilts. Each section was barely a quarter-inch thick but evidently could support some serious weight. The claws on the joints dug into the ground, providing traction.

The creature probably weighed less than two hundred pounds on its own. However, above the shorter arms at its chest was a larger set that held outward an unconscious person. The thick, balding man in his mid-forties had to weigh twice what Rex did, and this alpha was still supporting both the man and itself with ease.

The monster shifted focus from its quarry to the frightened woman staring at it. Rex could feel it weighing her with its gaze. Was she to be the first case of two disappearances in one night?

What the hell is that? a man shouted behind her. A few other members of the community exited the safety of the tents to join her in the clearing.

The alpha quietly glided backward on its moving platform of appendages, looking like an organic roller coaster. The sounds of its motion were masked by gasps and screams as it lightly bobbed on its supports, watching the community gather. It calmly retreated when the group had it greatly outnumbered.

In a flash, the dweller had gracefully slinked back to the stadium’s only exit and fled into the night. It was almost majestic how it could maneuver all those parts without stumbling.

The following morning a stadium resident gave the alpha a name: Cane. He said the body parts unfolded like a blind person’s walking stick. For an outsider, the name probably sounded lame, but for those in the bowels of the arena, the name had come to incite visions of the Boogeyman.

They knew what he looked like. They knew how he moved. However, for some reason they could never predict attacks. Then one evening, the hit-and-run pattern changed.

Cane had infiltrated their sanctum and took control of the unsealed exit. No one dared go near it with the alpha always hiding just out of sight. The inside corridors were barricaded to keep Cane from using the building’s interior to penetrate their defenses further. However, the dweller could still sneak into the bleachers and pick them off from the outskirts of the field. He could send out dozens of sections from each chest bundle and drag back prey without ever entering danger. They were fish in a barrel.

Weekly disappearances evolved into daily. Cane had tested their defenses and found them easy prey. Emboldened by his superiority, his siege was relentless. With the increasing frequency of attacks, Rex knew something big might be coming.

Here it was.

Arnold lay dead on the soft grass. Red blood infused with a murky black seeped into the green below.

Rex stepped back from the scene she helped unfold. Christ! It was Arnold T… something. He had disappeared two months ago. She remembered him specifically because he was one of the first to vanish. They had chatted once about the state of things; he seemed like a kind enough man. She grimly stared at his deformed body. Soon after his disappearance, too many others had followed to keep track. She even found herself forgetting who had been taken. She’d ask about a survivor she didn’t spend much time with only to find he or she was one of the missing. What had happened in those two months? Were the rest Cane abducted going to return in the same fashion or was this a side project? Some humans were for turning into obedient dweller hybrids while most were for food?

Around Arnold lay the bodies of several of the most trusted with the camp’s leadership. They had been discussing plans for their community only moments before the attack. Had Cane just conducted a political assassination? A few others had gathered to control the fire spreading through the camp. Some tents were salvaged, but those alight from end to end were left to burn to the ground.

Great. Grab buckets and leave me to murder Arnold. Thanks.

Rex looked at the entrance that Arnold had sneaked in from earlier. She stared with a bated breath, waiting to see if Cane would soon follow. Flickering flames warped the shadows. A sharp breeze steered the heat from the burning tents toward her, forcing a reaction. She would be trapped if she waited around. She would be trapped if she hid. She had built the resolve to fight the invading threat the first night at the stadium, but she had become stagnant in her training. This is it. It’s time to push back.

Rex had spent many of the prior months performing light strength training and following drills that the initial military presence had passed on to her. All her previous beta hunts had been successful. Now she needed a weapon. At the first sign of commotion, she had rushed from bed without thinking, and now the gun by her cot was behind a wall of fire. There was no time to dwell on the burning camp or panicking survivors. Or Arnold, slumped on the ground at her feet.

There was a convoy of school buses parked off to her left by the edge of the field. After the first mass evacuation, all remaining buses were driven inside the stadium confines and stocked with guns and other supplies as a means for quick escape. She sprinted to the front vehicle and pushed through the collapsible doors. She glanced over the shotguns, preferring greater precision and a higher magazine capacity. She snatched the M4A1 carbine resting on a stack of rifles. Rex tugged on the breach lever enough to reveal the brass sitting in the chamber. She released the slide, catapulting the round back into position with a metallic clack.

Returning to the field, Rex raised the weapon, scouring the area through the sights. The survivors dousing the flames had disappeared along with those gawking from the bleachers. Rex circled the outer rim of the tent-filled space. The heads of a few cowering survivors poked over seats in the stands. She resisted the urge to call out. There was danger close.

Farther ahead she could see people ducking behind the corner of a tent. There were a middle-aged couple, another man around the same age, and a handful in their twenties, one wearing a hoodie; his attention was on the buses. His posture suggested he planned to dash for the getaway vehicles.

Rex checked left and right, but there was still no sign of Cane.

The one in the hoodie sprinted for the buses. Before he could reach the door, Cane’s appendages shot out like a net of harpoons, trapping the man against the side of the bus. It looked like a carnival attraction where a knife thrower pinned an assistant to a wall, narrowly avoiding injury. Several links meticulously repositioned themselves to create a stronger grip on the trapped victim. Cane seemed to have a degree of control over every single link in his chainlike limbs.

From out of sight, Cane floated up to the young man. The sections pinning the man were systematically removed as Cane’s larger set of arms roughly handled the youth while hogtying him with scavenged rope. Unlike Cane’s usual hit-and-runs, he was on the lookout for other targets. He still had several strands of rope. He was stocking up.

Before the hoodie’s group could flee, Cane dropped to his feet and launched his two bundles outward. They bounced off the ground, building momentum while unraveling toward the group. The swirling links expanded into a spherical cage then contracted, restricting the preys’ movements within. A couple people evaded entanglement, but the rest were restrained. The different sections had worked in unison to create as many points of contact with the captured humans as possible. Chaos into instant harmony. The ease in which he caught prey; the way his links moved just enough for unhindered access to the victim; it was more like he was plucking them from a vine than hunting them.

Cane was grounded. Unobstructed.

Now! Do it! Fight back!

Rex coaxed a step forward and aimed while squeezing the trigger. The first flash caught the alpha off guard, but not as much as the grouping of holes punching through his right shoulder. The links dropped to the ground before twisting upward into a wall. Rex tried a few more shots, but they were deflected off the collection of angles forming a shield. She might as well have been shooting through a jungle gym. The prey was abandoned, and Cane dashed for the exit. His retreat via the main entrance was effortless.

Rex called out to the people gathering to free the hogtied man. We have to go after him!

Are you crazy? one of them scoffed.

This one’s not bulletproof. I know I landed some good hits. He’s injured.

Dan Vanderveen walked into the commotion. With their motley council murdered, he was now the de facto camp leader and voice others would heed. A wounded animal can be more dangerous.

And a wounded animal can learn! He’ll come back fully healed and know our attack patterns. He won’t be careless next time. We can’t let him go! We might not get a chance like this again.

Dan sighed. God, I need a cigarette. He hesitated then nodded to a few bystanders. Four joined him while the others stayed to watch over the camp and remaining survivors. The five men grabbed weapons and followed Rex out the main entrance.

A few blotches of murky liquid speckled the parking lot leading off to the left. This way! She dashed away from the stadium to the large street that ran alongside. Across the road was a row of several indistinct buildings; their vending machines had already been raided, leaving nothing else of interest.

Rex raced down the street splitting through the rows of structures, which in turn led to even more branching paths. Walls of glass acted like mirrors, creating an overwhelming sense of clutter. She felt as if she had three times as many places to search. Another splotch of blood had her in a frenzy. She had to prove these things could die. Even if it was only to herself.

The men who had followed her were falling behind. Over their many months at the stadium, they hadn’t found it pertinent to stay in shape, an oversight that caused them to spread out based on their fitness.

Rex hurried around a corner. Ahead was a T junction with a large insurance firm at the end. More windows. She was starting to feel as though she was in a funhouse. She recklessly charged up to the T junction and checked both ways. No signs of Cane. Shit!

She eyed the mirror finish of the insurance firm’s doorway. Dan and three others were jogging closer, breathing heavily. She turned toward them.

Wait, how many followed me? The four men assessed their out-of-breath peers.

Rex doubled back at a sprint. She stared down the street they had all come from; there was no one else. Dan came running up. Slow down will you, he forced out between gasps.

The remaining two men joined them, and Rex gawped at the weary pair. Christ! She looked around frantically; two taken in less than a minute and she hadn’t heard a thing.

We’ve got to get out of here! Dan exclaimed. The group wandered into the center of the intersection and stood at each other’s backs.

The gun in Rex’s hand vibrated. It wasn’t long before she realized it was she who was shaking. This was a mistake. Stay back to back. We’re going to work our way back to the stadium.

Smartest thing you’ve said so far, one of the panicked men said.

As they clumsily moved through the city streets, Rex noted all the nooks and crannies Cane could hide in. He was insanely versatile in his movement, and they basically just stumbled into the best-case scenario for him.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She glanced to her right just in time to see one of Cane’s bundles unpacking in their direction at top speed. The dwindling bundle bounced off the street and collided with one of the men’s stomach. He bent over in pain as the bundle retracted and disappeared behind a corner. Red fluid seeped from the man’s abdomen as he screamed.

Rex joined Dan and the other man in their attempts to stop the bleeding. They had all tuned out their surroundings. Put pressure on it, Rex said, searching for something to hold over the wound. There was nothing. The punctures in the man’s gut looked severe.

In her anxiety-induced panic she caught her appearance in a storefront window. She squinted. Higher up the pane of glass another reflection dangled menacingly above hers. Legs!

She turned to face where they all had exposed their backs. Ten feet overhead Cane was propped up on his strange, linked appendages.

Just as he eerily hurtled toward them, Rex raised the carbine and held down the trigger. Casings sprayed like a fountain as glass panels disappeared from the building behind the creature, unveiling the darkness within. In all the confusion, a few bullets found their mark and Cane dropped to the ground.

The alpha broke from his daze quickly and hoisted himself back into his towering position. This time his elevated stance was not to intimidate, but evacuate.

The steadily creeping fear vanished when Rex saw the retreating dweller. She had done little more than graze him at the stadium; now, several better placed hits accompanied the small grouping of wet holes near his shoulder.

Forgetting about the men, she swapped out her empty magazine and raced after the alpha. Cane sounded like a giant centipede stampeding through the streets as he fled. He weakly swayed with each jerky movement, no longer concerned with stealth. Rex planted her feet and squeezed off a few more rounds. Cane’s flowing appendages whisked him behind a nearby building.

No you don’t!

Her calves throbbed, but she stayed in pursuit. Ahead, the mass of moving parts skittered into the safety of a gas station. A lair? Regardless, Cane was trapped. She aimed at the building and cautiously advanced.

Dan caught up, the uninjured man joining shortly after. Henry, she thought his name was. Maybe she hadn’t been as personable at the stadium as she remembered. He’s dead, Henry said, referring to the injured man. Bled out. This is too much for us.

Are you shitting me? Rex barked. Cane’s on the run! This is our chance!

She pressed forward, crossing under the overhang that shielded the pumps from the weather. The canopy extended nearly all the way to the shop’s roof. When she stepped close to the clearing between the pumps and store, a zigzag of links shot at her from the open doorway. She arched backward landing squarely on her spine, almost whacking her head against the pavement as Cane’s attack sailed over her.

She gasped. The ground was cold and hard. The burst of motion above her was dizzying.

Cane had extended both appendage chains out of the store and was wrapping them around the fueling stations on either side, blocking her in. She had to escape before the snare closed.

Rex coughed from the shock of standing swiftly. There’d be time to breathe later... if she lived.

Cane tugged on his serrated whips. The pumps buckled, unleashing a torrent of gas.

Rex ran wildly toward the open door, firing blindly. One outstretched bundle released its grip on the pump and flailed as it reeled back toward the store. It fell to the ground and attempted to coil around Rex’s leg. She narrowly dived out as it squeezed shut. As she returned to her feet, the chain made another attempt. This time it managed to hook over Rex’s wrist. She slipped her hand out but had to relinquish her weapon. It was aggressively flung clear of the station grounds.

The tipped end of the jagged chain suddenly poised itself for another strike. She hopped onto the ice chest against the brick storefront and proceeded to climb up the neighboring cage of propane tanks as Cane speared the wall behind her. She leapt up, hooking her fingers on the ledge. She had done physical conditioning back at the stadium; still, dragging herself up the steep wall proved more challenging than expected. She crossed the summit and fell onto the roof of the gas station. She allowed herself a few seconds to rest then was promptly on her feet, glancing over the ledge.

Just darkness below. No sign of Cane; his limbs had retracted inside. She sprinted around the borders of the roof but still detected no movement.

Five feet overhead the cloud cover cast a permanent shadow. Its proximity was mildly comforting but, even if it could rapidly eat away at dweller cells, it wasn’t as though she’d be able to deadlift Cane up into it.

She checked the back of the building to see if there was a safe way down; there wasn’t. However, she did see something interesting. A large circle of stacked cars had been arranged behind the gas station. Miscellaneous items filled the gaps in the ring creating a twelve-foot-high, inescapable wall. The haphazard design was reminiscent of a bird’s nest. Perhaps Cane was originally going to make his home here but elected to act like a nest-stealing cuckoo and clear out the stadium, which already possessed sturdier walls.

Rex raced back to the opposite end of the roof and jumped the eight-foot gap onto the pump overhang. She ran to the other end and looked over.

What the hell are you doing? Henry angrily yelled up. He and Dan had hidden behind the farthest pumps from the store, trying to stay out of range during her whole ordeal.

Shh! She motioned with her hand for the two men to get away. It was too late.

A spiraling symphony of clicks and rolling limbs burst from the open gas station doorway as Cane launched himself out. This time, instead of tactically trapping his prey, Cane sent one chain of limbs straight through Henry. The limbs then mercilessly bound him and tightened. Even from her vantage point she could hear his body breaking under the intense force.

The second set of limbs dropped the injured alpha off near Henry then erratically sprang up at Rex’s face. She rolled behind the safety of the canopy roof as the links shot over her head and curled back down toward her. She continued rolling as they crashed onto her previous position. The links’ configuration became rigid and dragged across the surface until they gained traction. Cane quietly rose from the unseen depths below. The bastard sure liked his intimidating entrances. He lowered himself onto the roof before her. The creature attempted to maintain a threatening posture, but Rex noticed the spattering of holes ejecting spurts of blood. There was still a chance; she had to believe that. The problem remained of the limbs striking from a distance faster than she was confident she could react.

The sections that hoisted Cane up returned to the rack on his chest and his smaller arm held them close. The other extended chain elevated above the roof before casting aside the mangled body of Henry and returning to the chest rack as well. He was getting ready to throw everything at her. The area was too open for a last stand. She wished she had brought more weapons.

Think! Think!

The smell of gas wafted up, carrying with it a horrible idea. Light it! she shouted, maintaining her visual on the creature.

Cane lunged at her. She had no options left; she thrust forward and swung her fist as hard as she could. The pain in her knuckles was immense, but it was a solid hit. A flurry of light shot up as fire spread below the overhang. The alpha stumbled back, and she used the gained seconds to race to the ledge. She kicked off before she could doubt her plan more.

She hit hard and instantly forgot the pain in her right hand, her knee overwhelming all other sensations. She let it bend to lessen the impact, but her kneecap had grazed the unforgiving pavement. She was surrounded by heat and noise. The fire crept up at her back. She struggled to her feet and hobbled as fast as she could before her legs gave out and she crashed to the street. She was exhausted and in too much pain to go on.

She looked around but Dan was nowhere to be found. He had already run away.

Above the gas pumps Cane was preparing his next attack: his final strike. Lying on the street, Rex could see his reflection two stories up cast onto the building opposite the road from her and the gas station. The bright flames etched the scene vividly into her mind. He planted several of his links into the roof before him like a runway. He was about to slingshot himself right at her!

The world below the clouds glowed an intense white as the pumps finally gave in and erupted into a massive fireball. Cane was launched straight up, his supports ripped from the roof one after the other like octopus suckers. In an instant he disappeared in the clash of light and clouds.

Rex tried to prop herself on her elbows, but everything screamed in pain. She couldn’t move. Off to her side, a flaming, melting blob of meat squelched on the pavement. Cane was cooked through, the fire and cloud residue competing to dissolve the beast faster.

She looked up and smiled. Alphas could be killed!

The gray ceiling became darker; the thick black smoke of the gas-fire rolled along the clouds and forced its way down. Her smile faded. The smoke wasn’t strong enough for all the rising particles to escape through the gray curtain. The black haze was consuming the area and she couldn’t move. Every action was an exponential drain of her energy. She had managed to roll onto her stomach as the blackness covered her. She coughed as the burning mist invaded her lungs.

Just ahead was a small hill that wrapped around behind the building to her front. She crawled off the pavement and turned to her side, letting the slope pull her limp body downward. She bought herself another few minutes as the smoke continued its slow expansion. Her breathing stabilized as she forced herself to remain awake. She’d collapse within the hour for sure, but the extreme fatigue was easing enough for one final push back to the stadium. The pain finally subsided enough for her to stand. She had just facilitated the death of an alpha, yet merely standing seemed a harder task as her legs wobbled and throbbed in pain.

The black haze had already covered the entire gas station and continued its slow creep closer. Rex took a second to marvel at her work before limping back home. After walking on pins and needles for several minutes, she was back in the once-again-safe confines of the stadium walls. She wanted to rest, but she knew that fortifying the entrance would have to come first. She’d get a few of the other survivors together and…

All the stadium residents were rushing to scrounge together everything of value they could. One after the other they piled onto the buses.

Near the door of the first bus, Dan was standing firmly, barking orders. Bring only what we can carry on the buses! I want us gone in five!

The man’s eyes widened when Rex came limping up. She probably also wore an expression laced with surprise, but anger was currently feeling like the dominant emotion.

What the hell are you doing?

I saw an opening and I’m taking it. We were fools to stay behind. We need to get out west before anything else happens. We can’t do this on our own.

Can’t do this on our own? We just took down a fucking alpha! Something that until twenty minutes ago everyone here thought was impossible!

"And it only cost us four lives. Is that what you’re