They got stopped at the light like they had before. This time, thankfully, there weren’t any groups of men lingering. What they did see, however, was something tall in the bushes to their right. Kane recognized it as one of those humanura creatures; it had a different hairstyle, so it couldn’t have been the same one, though. This one had a high, almost man-bun hair; its hair was a green-ish brown color like the other one.

  There were just enough vehicles going north and south that they couldn’t blow through the red light and continue heading east; they had to wait. Kane told Phillip to keep his eyes on the creature. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to be moving from its spot, but it was looking around. What it was looking for, they couldn’t tell.

  Then suddenly, on the opposite side of Academy, coming out of the housing division, they saw a bur go racing across the street. It was followed by some humans firing their rifles at it. Kane turned to look at the humanura right as it opened its mouth at the sky.

  Its mouth opened wider than it physically looked able to and let out the most horrific and loud scream Kane had ever heard. Everyone in the truck immediately covered their ears, and the kids in the backseat started crying. The creature then stood to its full height and leaped out of the bushes, running straight at the humans. In a split second, it had a human in each hand and was squeezing. Kane could hear the men screaming.

  The north and southbound lanes’ lights were yellow. Kane was debating whether he should keep going east when suddenly, from behind, a military vehicle came racing from the west out of nowhere. It blew through the intersection and hit the humanura broadside. The creature threw the men it was holding as it was hit. One of the men hit the windshield of the military vehicle, and the other went wide and hit the curb on the side of the road.

  Kane was shocked and just sat there; he hadn’t figured out if he should move or not. Then he felt it. An electrical, static type of energy went through his body, making all of the hairs on his body stand upright. Then the shock came. It felt like the time he thought the circuit on the light switch was off and touched the exposed wire, but ten times stronger, and like his entire body had touched it.

  Kane couldn’t help himself and cried out slightly. From the backseat, he heard his kids cry in pain and start sobbing. Callie and Phillip had cried out at the same time as Kane. Callie was sobbing in pain like their daughters. Phillip was muttering something in the back seat, but Kane couldn’t tell what he was saying, and it didn’t sound happy.

  “DETECT!” Callie suddenly cried out, “Oh my god! It’s huge! It's over there!!!!”

  Callie was pointing to Kane’s 10 o’clock. A look of sheer terror was on her face. Kane followed her finger.

  “Callie, I don’t see anything,” Kane grunted through the electrified pain he was still feeling.

  “Callie, there is nothing there!” Phillip screamed clearly, still in pain himself.

  “It’s there!” Callie screamed, still in a panic.

  Kane reached over to his wife and gently shook her, “Callie! Callie! We don’t see it! You have to describe it!”

  Not sure whether it was the words or the touch that seemed to wake Callie, but she took a big breath and then, “It, it looks like a rhinoceros, but it is bigger! And it has sharp teeth and claws. It is giant! Its head is at the top of that dealership! Kane, there is something riding it! It is glowing horrible red! Oh my god, it’s looking at us!”

  Josie reached up at that moment and touched her dad’s arm. Kane felt the electrification ease and then felt the familiar tingle. Josie must have cast RESISTANCE on him.

  “Go, Dad, go!” Josie cried through her own pain.

  Kane took a quick look around and then floored the gas pedal, lurching the vehicle forward towards the humanura and the military-dressed people in the road in front of them. Kane swerved at the last minute to not hit the people fighting the creature. Right after they passed, he heard the familiar sound of a tire rupturing. The truck started to lose control due to the blown tire and the speed they were going. Kane looked around quickly and then took a hard right, hoping Stern was following.

  Kane had pulled into the housing development and quickly slowed down the truck, praying that it was just one tire that was shredded. He wanted to put on the spare and get his family home. Thankfully, as he was getting out of the truck, Stern went racing past him. Stern, with screeching tires, did a quick U-turn and came back to stop next to Kane. Phillip had gotten out of the truck, too.

  “Josie put something called RESISTANCE on me,” Phillip explained, “What is the plan?”

  “I need to get the spare on, cover me if you can,” Kane called out as Stern exited his truck.

  “Who the hell were those guys? They shot out your tire as you went past! I need to check my back panels,” Stern growled as he went to the back of his truck, “Fuck, they hit my back panel, but it looks like external damage only."

  “Did anyone see their uniforms?” Kane asked as he grabbed the tool needed to lower the spare tire.

  “Yeah, camo with red and blue like the neighbor said,” Stern called back, “The flag on the sides of their vehicle had too many stars too. Those guys aren’t ours.”

  “Shit, that was what I was worried about," Kane grumbled as he got the tire down but realized he forgot to grab the jack, heading back to the cab of the truck.

  He was halfway to the door to the back seat when they saw a humanura round the corner of the street they were on. The thing paused just long enough to lock eyes with Kane, then started running towards them, not on two legs, but on all fours. The three men lifted their rifles to aim at the charging creature.

  “DON’T SHOOT! IT’S GOOD!” Callie cried, opening the front door.

  Suddenly, Josie ran from behind Kane straight at the creature.

  “JOSIE, NO!” Kane let his rifle down in an attempt to grab his daughter.

  The creature stopped short of Josie, still on all fours, almost in a crouching position. Josie didn’t stop running until she had both hands on the creature's head. Kane had run after his daughter and caught up to her right as she touched the creature.

  “Friend, help," The creature said in very broken English, almost with a strange accent.

  “Josie, get back!” Kane cried at his daughter, leveling his rifle at the creature.

  As he did, the military vehicle came full speed around the corner. One of the soldier-looking men was hanging out of the passenger window with his rifle aimed at the creature. When he saw the creature was stopped, and saw Kane and Josie near it, the soldier pointed his weapon at Kane. Kane instinctively grabbed his daughter and fell to the ground. He heard the snap-crack of the round going past his head. Then Kane heard the familiar sound of rifle fire from behind him. Kane looked up in time to see the soldier fall limp out of the vehicle.

  The humanura grabbed Josie and Kane in its oversized hands and sprinted past Stern and Phillip and the trucks. The creature put them down in front of Kane’s truck.

  “Friend, help, mage cursed,” the creature said, looking at Josie and pointing a long, three-jointed finger at the area where Callie had said the rhinoceros was.

  “What mage? We don’t see anything?” Kane told the creature over the gunfire behind him.

  The creature just looked at Kane and then back at the sky, “It is coming.”

  Kane grunted in frustration and then turned to help his friends. Phillip had opened the back passenger door and was using it as cover. There were three bodies on the ground that Kane could see, but there were at least two more shooters if Kane predicted the sounds correctly.

  Kane turned to go to the far side of Stern's truck. As he rounded the back corner, he could see a soldier shooting from the trunk area of the vehicle. He aimed and hit the soldier just right of center mass. The soldier dropped almost instantly, with the round he had fired going high and hitting the tree above Phillip. Kane couldn’t see what he thought was the last soldier.

  “Surrender or lose your life!” Stern called out to the enemy vehicle.

  “Non in vita tua!” The soldier shouted back.

  “English motherfucker!” Phillip yelled back.

  “FUCK OFF!” the soldier said, lifting his head into view over the driver's side door.

  Kane took the shot at the same time Stern did. It wasn’t clear which bullet hit first, but the soldier was missing a good chunk of his head as the body fell to the ground. The gunfire was over as quickly as it began. Kane took a look at Stern over the hood of the truck. Stern nodded and signaled to push forward. Stern turned and did the same to Phillip. The three of them smoothly and efficiently moved forward as they had been trained to do all those years before. They cleared the vehicle quickly. Stern moved up the street to make sure nothing was going to follow around the corner.

  When Stern came back, the three of them started going through the bodies on the ground. There were five bodies, all men, all with the unusual green, tan, blue, and red uniforms. Stern was right, the flags on their uniforms and the side of their vehicle had 60 stars, not 50. Their weapons were very similar to the firearms Kane and Phillip held. They took the remaining ammunition they could find, the rifles, and any medical supplies they could find in the vehicles. Strangely, none of the men seemed to have been carrying pistols or handguns of any sort. They did find a small handbook in one of the soldiers’ pockets, though. It reminded Kane of the Ranger Handbook they had been issued during R.I.P. Kane took the book and put it in his back pocket.

  “Do you think it still drives?” Phillip asked with a mischievous smile on his face.

  “Go check. Looking to upgrade from the van?” Stern laughed at his friend.

  “Fuck you,” Phillip said as he hopped into the driver’s side. A big smile came across his face as the vehicle came to life with the engine roaring.

  “Good job, help me get these plates and vests for these guys. I need to get that spare tire put on,” Kane smiled at his friend as Phillip hopped out of the still-running vehicle.

  Kane, Phillip, and Stern made quick work of getting the protection gear off the dead soldiers and loading up anything they thought valuable into Kane’s truck. They would have loaded it into the military vehicle they were acquiring, but Stern made a point to tell them that if it broke down, they didn’t want to have to move everything or leave it behind. Phillip had grumbled a little but agreed it was the wiser option.

  “Dad, his name is Jonah, like the whale story in the Bible,” Josie said as she walked up to her dad, who had grabbed the jack and was lifting the truck.

  “Who, oh shit, I forgot about that thing,” Kane was shocked that, of all the things he forgot, he had forgotten his daughter was with a strange creature in front of his truck.

  “He says we should hurry, the mage won’t be distracted for much longer,” Josie continued, handing her dad the impact to take off the lugnuts.

  “Does he know the mage?” Kane asked as he worked to get the blown tire off.

  “I do, he cursed by Hunters. You can not trust him,” the creature said as it walked up behind Josie between the vehicles.

  “Why should we trust you?” Phillip asked his hands on his rifle.

  “I could kill, but saw friend. Friends friend tried to protect Jonah’s family in other world. Jonah was fighting when fell through Rift,” the creature tried to explain in more broken English.

  “So you aren’t friends with the guys who shot at us, how do we know you won't turn us into this mage thing?” Phillip continued not removing his hands from the ready position on his rifle.

  “Mage is cursed, until curse lifted Jonah no friend of mage.” Jonah nearly crumbled to the ground after he said that. If Kane didn’t know any better, he would say the creature was crying, but no sound came from it.

  “Kane, he is glowing green. He isn’t evil. I don’t know if we can trust him, but he isn’t evil. That has to be worth something. Even Alex wasn’t green at first,” Callie said over the bed of the truck. Kane hadn’t realized she had gotten out of the vehicle.

  “Okay, well, none of this is going to mean anything if I don’t get this tire on,” Kane said angrily at no one in particular.

  The group was quiet as Kane finished switching out the tire and throwing the blown tire into the bed of the truck. After Kane had put all of his tools back into the backseat, he gave Eliza a quick kiss, then Josie, and then looked at Phillip and Stern, who were watching the road they had come from.

  “We need to get home,” Kane announced.

  “Yup, but we may have a problem,” Stern had a strange tone to his voice.

  “Wha-” Kane started, but then saw the thing coming towards them. Suddenly, the chill that had gone through him when he saw the red eyes descend from the Rift raced through him again. A humanura was riding what did look like a rhinoceros, but with fangs and claws.

  “Jonah, the betrayer, you will be dealt with in your own time. Hunters, you have slain those who attacked me. I will pardon only this one time. You will be spared for 1 hour, enter my war territory after that, and I will not spare you again,” the creature on top of the rhinoca shouted down at them.

  “Who are you?! We don’t want to be a part of this war!” Kane yelled back.

  “You do not have a choice, your kind started this. Mine will end it with your destruction. No good comes from your kind,” the humanura retorted.

  “We aren’t Hunters!” Phillip called up at the creature.

  “All humans are Hunters. You are wasting your hour. If you continue to do so, I will revoke my kindness and return to battle immediately.”

  “We are not your enemy, but we will leave,” Kane said as he grabbed Josie to put her in the truck.

  “Jonah, the betrayer, do not betray this, your final oath, protect the druid,” the humanura said and then turned the rhinoca and walked away in the direction it had come.

  “What the hell was that about!” Stern cried out in exasperation.

  “I don’t know, but we need to leave, NOW,” Kane said, motioning for Phillip to go get in the military vehicle, “Jonah, if you are coming, hop in the back.”

  Jonah stood up fully. He hopped into the bed of the truck, and Kane looked to make sure Callie was in. Kane nodded to Stern, who was already in his truck. Kane hopped in his truck, started it, and made a quick U-turn. The three vehicles made their way back to the main road, narrowly missing the dead bodies on their way. They all headed east and then south.

  Thankfully, not much happened until they hit the edge of Fountain.

  The drive to Fountain took a little longer than the way up due to traffic lights and an unexpected influx of traffic. When they hit the northeastern edge of the town limits, that electric feeling started coming back. Nothing as strong as it had been at Academy Boulevard, but just strong enough that it raised the hairs on Kane and everyone else’s arms.

  “Cursed creatures coming,” Kane heard Jonah say loudly from the bed of the truck.

  Kane rolled down the windows a little. “Where?” He screamed through the windows.

  “They are coming,” was all Jonah said, but Kane suddenly felt the weight of the truck shift like Jonah had climbed onto the cab instead of staying in the back.

  Callie, hearing all of this, started scanning in front of them and in the area they had just come from. Could it have already been an hour? The traffic had slowed them down, but enough to turn a normally 20-ish minute drive into 60 didn’t seem possible. Then she saw them, spider-like creatures moving quickly over houses and starting to cross the road in front of them as they headed west into Fountain.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Kane slammed on the brakes, hoping Stern and Phillip were paying attention behind him. The creatures seemed to almost be marching in a southern direction, ignoring structures in their pursuit south. Kane watched as more and more of these creatures crossed the street in front of them. Then they saw burs intermixed, almost like a secondary set of soldiers heading south. A bur stopped in its trek about 200 yards in front of Kane’s truck and looked at the vehicle and its occupants. As the last line of burs hit the creature, it turned back and started moving again. Kane just sat there, unsure of what to do. There had to have been twenty-plus spider things and at least that many burs.

  *ring*

  *ring*

  *ring*

  “Kane, answer the phone,” Callie gently grabbed Kane’s arm.

  “Huh?” Kane shook his head, “Shit, hello?” Kane said, still in a daze at what he had just seen.

  “I have Phillip on too, what the fuck was that!? And are we going to stay and wait for whatever is making that rumbling or are you going to get your ass moving?” Stern asked. Kane hadn’t even realized the ground had a slight shake like something big was coming.

  “Shit, everyone, back-up, we are going the long way home, I’m not crossing this road if more shit is coming!” Kane nearly screamed into the truck speakers, finally coming out of his daze.

  “Ummm, I thought this was the long way, where the fuck are you wanting us to go?” Phillip asked.

  “I’m making a 3-point turn, follow me, but stay on the line. We need to all know what is coming,” Kane directed as he slowly moved forward and turned the wheel sharply to the left.

  As he did, they saw the first badger come out from around some houses going in the same direction the spider-things and burs had gone.

  “God damn it, more of those creatures!” Stern sounded scared and pissed on the other end of the line.

  “Yeah, let's get out of here. That thing nearly knocked out all of us the last time,” Phillip said right as Stern finished.

  “Yup,” Kane said, driving slowly to make sure the other two got turned around. As Phillip made his final turn to face the same direction as Kane, Kane saw in his side mirror that one of the dozen or so badgers had turned to look in their direction. The creature was thankfully 500 yards away, almost out of sight with some trees between them, but it definitely turned and was looking at them.

  “Umm, I think we are about to have a problem,” Kane said, out loud. As he finished his sentence, the badger reared up and roared into the air, “SHIT, we have a problem!”

  “FUCK!”

  “SON OF A BITCH!”

  “Follow!” was all Kane shouted as he stepped on the gas and took off the way they had come. It was definitely the long way, but Kane knew there was a way past the east side dump and down to Hanover, and then go west again to cross the interstate. Kane had hoped that by going that far out of the way that the horde would be long south and they could cross quickly in the setting sun back to his house. Now it felt like he was fleeing into no man's land with his family and closest friends.

  “Shit, it is moving fast!” Phillip announced.

  “No shit, Sherlock! Kane, I hope you have a plan,” Stern said, keeping right on Kane’s tail as Kane made a sharp right turn and then stepped on the gas.

  Kane did not have a plan, but he couldn’t say that out loud with his wife and kids in the car. Suddenly, a flash of light came from Kane’s truck over Stern & Phillips’s vehicles and hit the badger in the face.

  “Move fast, please,” Jonah said as he stuck his face next to Kane’s window.

  “Holy shit, that human-whatever creature just sent a lightning bolt behind us!” Phillip yelled.

  “It is asking us to drive faster,” Kane said with a slight laugh to his voice at the absurdity of this situation, “Hang on, this is going to get rough.”

  Kane made a sudden left turn again as he came to a T intersection. Slowing down just enough to make a left-hand turn and then stepping on the gas again.

  “Kane, this is a military vehicle, not a go-cart!” Phillip screamed as Kane heard screeching tires behind him.

  “You wanted to bring it!” Stern yelled back, laughing.

  “Straight run, any ideas to distract or slow down the damn thing?” Kane asked no one in particular.

  “COLOR SPRAY?” The group heard little Cosette say loudly but sheepishly.

  “Do it,” Kane said, not wanting to overanalyze while trying to keep all four tires on the road.

  “How, I’m not sticking my child out the window!” Carlie cried.

  “Figure it out!” came from Phillip.

  “Fuck you!” Carlie cried back.

  A few seconds passed, then Kane felt Jonah jump from his truck and heard the *thunk* of his landing on Stern’s truck.

  “GET OFF MY TRUCK!!!” Stern screamed, though it sounded like he had opened the window as he shouted it.

  “Jonah, help hold child,” Jonah could barely be heard on the phone with the wind noise coming through the speakers.

  “Like hell I am letting you touch my child!” Carlie sounded frantic now.

  “Mom, I can do this,” came from Cosette as Josie yelled, “He is trying to help!”

  “Leave her alone!” they heard Carlie scream.

  “Shit, get your arm out of here!” Stern screamed at nearly the same time.

  Kane looked in his rearview mirror to see Jonah reaching into Stern’s truck. Kane couldn’t tell if he had reached into the front window or the back window, but suddenly Cosette was leaning out the back window. Jonah reached his long arm around Cosette's chest and shoulders, almost like he was providing her a shelf to lie on. Jonah had his other arm wrapped over the top of the truck and barely had his fingers hooked on the passenger side of the cab.

  In the blink of an eye, a colorful spray was coming from Cosette and hit the running badger square in the face right as it was reaching open-mouthed towards the back of Phillips’ vehicle. In that same second that the badger got hit in the face and was falling back with a rainbow of colors across its eyes, Cosette was being pushed back into the truck by Jonah, and he was scrambling onto the top of Stern’s, his feet hanging over the front of the hood in a semi-squatting position.

  They could hear Carlie crying on the phone as Phillip shouted, “That’s my girl, good job, Cosette.”

  “That slowed it down but probably also pissed it off, too. Any other ideas?” Kane asked.

  There was a long silence. Then Kane saw the signs for the landfill.

  “Anything? If not, we are heading into the dump and hoping for a miracle,” Kane sighed.

  “Tortle!” Kane heard Eliza scream as he was mentally preparing himself to turn into the dump.

  “Where?” Kane asked loudly.

  “1 o’clock,” Eliza yelled. Kane looked then almost laughed to himself.

  “That is 11 o’clock,” Kane smiled at the mistake. Then he heard the thump of what he hoped was Jonah landing in the bed of the truck.

  “Go to tortle, it friend,” Jonah yelled at Kane.

  Kane did as he was told and gave the truck what it had left to get to the tortle as fast as he could. They were maybe a 100 yards from where the tortle would cross the road when Kane heard the roar of the badger very close behind them. Kane kept going, but as he checked his rearview mirror, he saw Phillip get hit and start spinning out behind him. The badger ignored Phillip’s vehicle after that and took a swipe at Stern’s truck.

  Stern thankfully swerved, and the paw went wide, missing the truck. Kane was now right in front of the tortle. He almost lost control as he felt Jonah push off the bed of the truck, causing its balance point to shift. Kane looked to his left and saw Jonah land to the side of the tortle. He quickly bowed, then scrambled up the shell of the creature.

  “Dimittere hanc creatura!” Jonah screamed as the air shook in front of his hand. The rippling air went straight to the badger.

  Unfortunately, the wave of rippling air didn’t hit the badger until after it had taken another swipe at Stern’s truck, sending him careening out of control into the ditch and hitting a barbed wire fence. Kane slowed his truck, made a U-turn, and stopped facing the badger and the tortle.

  The rippling air was still going between Jonah and the badger. The tortle was slowly moving towards the badger, its head close to the ground, making it almost look like it was stalking the monster that had stopped in its tracks, but was snarling at Jonah.

  “Dimitter hanc creatura!” Jonah shouted again as the rippling air suddenly had a glow to it.

  “Proditor, hostis amans,” the air seemed alive with those words spoken from the air itself as Kane felt that familiar unsettling energy.

  A moment after the words filled the air, Jonah was knocked off the tortle by something. The badger was shaking its head and then reared into the air again. The tortle took the opportunity while the badger had its belly exposed to ram the creature. Kane, seeing the health bar come up as barely in the red on the badger, jumped out of the truck, grabbing his rifle as he went.

  “STRIKE!” Kane screamed, running forward. At the end of the word, Kane felt his entire body lurch forward at what felt like three times the top speed he had ever gone. Kane stopped just short of Stern’s truck, feeling disoriented and unsteady on his feet. Stern had already stumbled out of the truck and was raising his rifle at the badger.

  Kane saw the badger get hit by something. Following the trajectory, he saw a barely standing and bleeding Phillip with his rifle raised. Stern was now unsteadily taking shots at the badger.

  “MARK!” Kane screamed, activating his HUNTERS MARK on the badger, and started firing as well.

  The tortle had backed up to let the badger come back down. The badger hit the ground with its front paws, nearly knocking Kane off his feet, but knocking the injured Stern to a kneeling position. Kane took a quick look at Stern, then Phillip, then back at the badger. The tortle proceeded to headbutt the badger. This sent the creature back just enough that it exposed the soft spot Kane was looking for.

  Kane took the shot and hit right where he aimed. The red health bar was now flashing, but it wasn’t down. Stern must have seen where Kane had hit, because as Kane was aiming again, he saw not his bullet but Stern’s hit the soft spot again, penetrating. The badger collapsed as the tortle backed up one final time. It looked at Kane and Stern, opened its snapping turtle-like mouth, and sent out a loud grunting noise. The force of the grunt sent Kane to his butt and Stern to his back.

  Fearing the worst, Kane started scrambling backwards toward the barbed wire fence and Stern. Thankfully, the tortle didn’t move closer to them but instead moved to where Jonah lay on the ground still. Kane heard footsteps running towards him. He peeled his eyes away from the tortle to see Philli limp running towards them from one direction and Callie, Josie, and Eliza running from the other direction. Kane took a quick breath to assess himself, then worked to stand up on the uneven ground and tall grass.

  Phillip had made it to Stern and was helping him up as Carlie crawled out of Stern’s truck, holding her right shoulder that looked to be bleeding. Callie had made it to Kane and was helping him up.

  “What hurts?” Callie asked, looking over Kane from head to toe as she helped pull him up.

  “Nothing, go look at them,” Kane gestured with his head at Stern and Phillip.

  Josie slowed her run to a walk and looked at her dad. Kane smiled a half smile at her and nodded his head towards the others. Eliza, however, ran full force into him, wrapping him in a giant hug and burying her head into the bottom of his chest, armpit area.

  “I’m okay, Eliza,” Kane said, half-hugging his daughter while wincing at the sudden force of her hitting him.

  “You didn’t look okay,” Eliza’s muffled voice came from his shirt.

  “I am, let’s go check on the others,” Kane said, looking to where Stern had collapsed back down into the grass. Thankfully, he was still sitting up, but he looked a little green.

  As Kane and Eliza walked over, sure enough, Stern turned and threw up into the ditch, narrowly missing his rifle on the ground. Callie was holding one of his arms, almost like she was holding him up. Josie was looking and holding Phillip’s arm with her back turned to Stern.

  “Lunch wasn’t that bad,” Kane laughed as he came up to Stern, grabbing the rifle from the ground as Stern sat back up, wiping his mouth with his arm.

  “I could smell you from over here, you shit bag.” Stern tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful-sounding cough instead, “Fuck, I think I cracked a rib when we hit the ditch.”

  “I think it was the sudden stop, you, windbag,” Phillip called over through winced teeth at whatever Josie had just done to his arm.

  “Help me up,” Stern said to Callie, who still had a hold of his arm. Callie gently pulled as Kane reached to grab Stern’s other side. The three of them hobbled over to the truck.

  “Eliza, open the back of the truck, please,” Callie told her daughter as they walked.

  Once they got to the back, Kane helped Stern get up onto the tailgate so Callie could get a better look at him. He leaned against the side of the topper, looking like it hurt to breathe.

  “Carlie, I need to look at you, too.” Callie leaned around the side of the truck to where Carlie was helping Cosette and Giana out of the truck.

  “Turtle!” Giana cried with excitement, completely oblivious to everything else around her.

  This makes everyone laugh or giggle to some extent. Leave it to a small child to say something so out of character for the moment and break whatever tension may have existed.

  “No, you can’t play with the turtle,” Carlie giggled through pain as Giana tried to go after the tortle.

  Giana whined a little as Carlie put her behind Stern in the bed of the truck to climb around in a contained area. Then Phillip helped her onto the tailgate before jumping up himself.

  “Dad, help Jonah, please,” Josie said with such a serious and authoritative tone that Kane actually took a step in that direction before stopping and looking at his daughter.

  Josie’s serious attention was already back on Phillips' bleeding arm and head, paying no further attention to her dad or anything else. As Kane watched, Josie produced a small stream of water in her hands and was washing off the blood from Phillips’ arm so Callie could get a better look at the wound.

  Kane turned around and headed to where Jonah was finally stirring. As Kane approached, Jonah had a hand on the tortle’s head before the tortle turned west. It went a little way and then turned more to the south and continued its way. Jonah had gotten shakily to his knees by the time Kane had made it all the way to him. Kneeling with his butt on his feet, Jonah was eye-level with Kane, who normally stood just shy of six feet.

  “You okay?” Kane asked, not sure what to say to the creature.

  “Bene sum,” Jonah sighed, looking towards the Rift, “I am fine.”

  “You took a hard hit. You okay to move?” Kane asked, not really believing the creature.

  “Yes, move we must,” Jonah said as he put his arms down to try to stand up.

  Kane watched as he shakingly got to his feet. Once he was upright, though, Jonah stood at full height and had a resolute look on his face. He was still looking towards the Rift.

  “Sic tyranni sint,” Jonah said barely above a whisper.

  “I know that, ‘Thus be the tyrants’, are you speaking Latin?” Kane asked, stunned at finally recognizing a phrase.

  “Druid Frowler gave language to us,” Jonah said as an explanation as he looked down at Kane.

  Kane just nodded his head, not sure what else to do, and not understanding what Jonah was trying to tell him, “Can you walk?”

  “Yes,” was all Jonah said as he walked over to where the rest of the group was.

  “Thank you for getting the tortle to help us,” Kane said, trying to keep up with Jonah’s long strides and also to break the silence.

  “Tortle help because must, not because want,” Jonah said, not breaking his stride.

  Kane, not sure about what else to do, just followed Jonah in silence. When they got back to Stern’s truck, Callie had moved on from Stern, who seemed to be breathing better but still had blood on the side of his face and his left arm. Callie had pushed Carlie’s sleeve out of the way, and it was evident that Carlie’s right shoulder was dislocated.

  “Kane, do you think you could help reset this so I can use my healing spells on other injuries?” Callie asked with a pained tone in her voice.

  “Yeah, Stern, Phillip, one of you want to help?” Kane asked, looking at the two men on either side of Carlie.

  “Yeah, I can help. Let the pansy rest,” Phillip said as he hopped down, clearly making a joke at Stern.

  “Fuck off, you cut your arm on flying glass, I broke a fucking rib,” Stern growled back.

  “He has a conclusion too,” Josie said from the other side of Phillip.

  “Concussion, Phillip has a concussion,” Callie said. “Well, Stern does too," She added at the last minute as Stern opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but stopped himself.

  Kane and Phillip made quick work of getting Carlie’s shoulder back into the socket, and then Callie followed it up with a healing spell, drawing out all of the glass from the same arm.

  “Need to get moving, mage knows we are here,” Jonah suddenly said, still having not taken his eyes off the Rift.

  The five adults looked at each other, then at the three vehicles.

  “How bad is yours, Phillip?” Kane finally asked.

  The three men did a quick assessment of the military vehicle, which thankfully had just spun out. The only damage was to the back quarter, where the badger had sunk its claws into the spinning vehicle and the broken windows from the force of the impact. After a quick discussion, they decided to use the military vehicle to get Stern’s truck back onto the road. As they were walking back to it, though, they realized they first had to cut the barbed wire away.

  The forever Boy Scout Phillip thankfully had his Leatherman on him and started snipping away while Kane and Stern carefully grabbed and pulled what they could away from the truck. To their luck, the front of the truck took most of the damage and not the tires. Phillip ran back to his vehicle and made quick work of getting Stern back onto the road.

  They loaded up the vehicles as quickly as they could, and Kane turned his truck around to continue heading east. Kane and Stern had argued a little about continuing to the east and then south versus just turning around and heading back to Fountain and south. It ultimately came down to Jonah agreeing that they should stay away from the town that had finally convinced them to continue their eastern route.

  The turn south to head to Hanover seemed to come quickly, with nothing chasing them. The convoy turned south, and they saw another tortle and a couple of cowks as well as some derbits before they turned back west. As they were coming to the bridge to cross the interstate, Callie suddenly perked up.

  “Hey, I wonder if we went up any levels?” She questioned, looking at Kane.

  “Check,” Kane said nonchalantly as he started scanning the interstate and across the bridge for any signs of danger.

  “We did,” Callie said absently, “I’m going to wait until we are home.”

  “Okay,” Kane smiled over at his wife and grabbed her hand. He needed the little bit of comfort it provided after the day they had.

  The sun was just on the back side of the mountains now, and it was getting dark quickly. Kane felt Jonah shift in the bed of the truck and looked in his rearview mirror to see that the humanura was now leaning against the back window, watching to the north as they turned south onto the frontage road. Kane nodded slightly to himself but continued driving.

  As they pulled into Kane’s driveway about fifteen minutes later, he could hear the baying of the cows and cowks closer to the house than he remembered. The goats were also crying slightly. Kane turned so that his headlights were facing the goat pens. They had intentionally left the gates open for the animals, but all of the goats were at the edge of the momma goat pen staring at the headlights. Stern pulled up next to Kane.

  Kane rolled down his window as Stern did the same, “Can you point your headlights in the direction of the cowks and cows?"

  “Yeah, something doesn't sound right?” Stern asked.

  “Something isn’t right,” Kane affirmed.

  Stern nodded and moved his truck so that his headlights were facing in the direction of where the noises of the cows and cowks were. Kane saw one of the bull cowks, his horns and part of his face were covered in blood. There was a female cowk next to him with blood on the side of her body facing the headlights.

  “Shit, what happened here!?” Kane asked loudly as he put the truck in park and started to get out.