Banshee by Terry Maggert Read Free Book Online Page A

Humanity had lost. By the time he reached the outer defensive ring, it was apparent that Asheville, the hope of a new nation and the center of what was called the Cherokee State, wasn’t just going to be sacked, it was doomed. Despite the unrelenting mania of the monsters, the big guns of the militia still boomed out at regular intervals. It was obvious that they were having an effect, because one creature could not raise its left arm, and the other had sheets of putrescent emerald fluid raining from one eye. Both were wounded, but the largest of the pair wasn’t done. It lunged and tore with renewed vigor, raging over homes that had been crushed more than once. At that point, the attack had passed the one hour mark, an ungodly amount of time for such terror to reign unabated. Thousands of dead were scattered through the debris, and French could see horses and riders in full gallop leaving in every direction. The city was dead. The state was no more, and when French saw the matchsticks that had been his parent’s home, he knew his life in Asheville had ended. He gathered two small watertight trunks from the remains of the only home he’d ever known, which was now collapsed downward with the enormous weight of not one but two giant strikes from the monsters. He prized two rifles and ammunition from the space that had been his father’s shed, and counted his lucky stars that both were undamaged. A Browning pistol was beyond repair, and he dropped the once-noble weapon into the mud with a pang of regret. Following an arterial spray of blood, he found his mother’s hand, and nothing else. Numb with loss, he began to dig, but then stopped as the enormity of the day settled on his heart with a painful constriction.
    A dazed neighbor whose shirt was impossibly clean, despite his wounds, looked up at French, who asked simply, “My father?”
    A short grim shake of his neighbor’s head told him everything he needed to know. He sensed without searching that his wife was already long gone, and let a shaky sigh leave his body.
    “My wife?” he asked.
    The neighbor stood thinking. “She left in a hurry before the . . . before the attack started. Told my wife to get out, said that she saw something on the bank of the river. Someone, I mean.” His neighbor paused and spat blood. His shirt was blooming red now, but when French made to assist him, he was waved off with a sad smile. “Got hit from behind.” He turned slowly to show his back to French, and a long sliver of metal protruded from high on his spine. “It’s in my lung. You go to that wife of yours. She took some stuff with her, said you would know where she was. She asked me to get my family, too.” Another slow grimace and his neighbor slumped to the ground. “I don’t think anyone will ever rebuild. Too many bones.” He nodded once at French as his eyes closed for the last time.
    There was no shame in relief at knowing some of his family was safe. Underneath his folksy reserve beat the heart of a pragmatist, and he would not apologize for that quality, not that there was anyone left to hear such a confession. French grabbed the nearest horse that was alive and capable of listening, a sturdy appaloosa gelding flicking its ears back and forth in response to the sounds of fear and pain emanating from every corner of the valley. He did his best to calm the mount, and slung his two small cases over the saddle horn, before swinging himself up with the practiced ease of a lifelong rider. He took one last, cringing look at the citywide coffin that had been Asheville, vowed that he would avenge someone, somehow, and set off to the west. His mother had been a Bruxton, originally from the boot heel of Missouri, and her family had a colorful history, to put it mildly. She’d saved letters and accounts of his ancestors for pure entertainment, telling French that there must have been some heavy drinkers in her family tree in order to cook up the stories she’d heard as a