The Ashes: an Eden prequel Read Free

into fists, the twitch dying away.
    I curse under my breath again.
    Slowly, I back up, never taking my eyes from him.
    His left eye is now more metallic than human white.  I can see tiny lines forming in the other eye.
    My heels meet the pavement of the highway.  I keep both fire arms leveled on him.
    He takes one step toward me.
    “Stop right there!” I shout.  “I will put a bullet between your eyes!”
    He takes another step toward me.  He moves differently now.  Stiff, slightly jerky.  He looks disoriented and empty.
    “This is your last warning,” I say.  I’m backing away faster now, across the first two lanes of the highway.
    And suddenly Fraud sprints towards me, every trace of human reason in him gone.
    I bury two bullets in his chest and one in his forehead.
    The man who very likely saved my life collapses to the ground.  Blood pools around him on the pavement.
    I pause and look at his body lying there.  I’m regretting that I never asked his name.  Surely it wasn’t Fraud.  Maybe it was Ted, or Giles, or Scott.  I feel as if I should drag his body off to the side of the road at least.  But the guard’s words come back to me once again.
    Don’t let anyone touch you.
    So instead I turn and jog down the road toward the police car.  Change of plans.  I’m not walking to Stella’s.
     
    42°4’47.56”N  71°29’7.04”W
     
    I hop out of the car as I pull into Aunt Stella’s driveway.  I glance back at it as I jog up to her front door.  There are dents on every surface of the vehicle.  The lights on top have been smashed beyond recognition and the back windshield shattered when one of those things bashed its head against it over and over.  I watched as its skull caved in the same time the window finally broke.
    Somehow I made it alive.
    I hesitate at the front door.  Stella knew what I was in for and that I shouldn’t be outside of the prison for the rest of my days.  But the way the lawn is overgrown, the way her tiny, annoying dog isn’t barking like a maniac tells me that whatever madness has touched the world had made its way into Stella’s house.
    I push the ajar door open.
    There’s a smell that hits me as soon as I walk inside.  It’s pretty hard to mistake the smell of rotting flesh.  Not something you encounter every day, but you know exactly what it is when you smell it.
    The front foyer is a mess.  All the fancy vases and plates and whatever else it was Stella and Rich collected are smashed into tiny pieces on the marble floor.  The house is silent as I make my way across the debris toward the living room.
    The main living area is devoid of any life, in the same state of broken chaos.  I find the kitchen empty as well.
    It’s been nearly eight years since I’ve been in the house, so it takes me a moment to bring up a mental map of where I might find Stella or Rich.  Careful to make sure my feet are soundless, I make my way toward the back of the house.
    The smell grows stronger as I approach the door to Uncle Rich’s office.  My weakened stomach threatens to lose the tiny amount of food I have in my system.
    Finally, I step inside.
    Uncle Rich is lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with red, wide, dead eyes.  He’s a strange blue gray mixture.  And there is a ring of bruises around his throat.
    Someone choked the life out of Uncle Rich and left him here to rot.
    I’m about to leave, but as I turn to go, I freeze in place.  Adrenaline burns through my veins.
    Aunt Stella is standing just to the side of the door and she’s staring straight at me with metallic, empty eyes.
    I take a step away from her, back into the office.  I’m careful not to step on Rich.
    Stella doesn’t move.  She stares out into the room, completely motionless, like she’s frozen in place.
    There’s a big section of skin missing from the lower left side of her face.  Where her jaw bone should be, there is a shiny metal plate gleaming in the evening light.
    I don’t