Bonfires Burning Bright by Jeremy Bishop, Kane Gilmour Read Free Book Online

crazy worlds full of terrifying danger would either make her or break her. He was going to try his damndest to make sure it was the former.
    They got off the bike and Laurie started running across the field, a flashlight in her hand. Kyle raced after her, carrying a giant first aid kit he’d found in the hardware store. All the ointments and pills in it were long out of date, but the gauze pads would still be sterile, and it had scalpels and hemostats, needles and thread, bandages and even a few Chux pads. It was the best he was going to find in this town.
    Kyle started coughing as he ran after Laurie. The smoke from the fires on the edge of town was thicker now. Smelled of barbequed meat. Winslow had mentioned the bodies that fueled the blazes. The thought made Kyle’s stomach queasy.
    “Cash! Are you okay?” Laurie called.
    “I’ve been shot in the chest. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I think I’ll live.” Cash’s voice came out of the dark, over the sound of the distant screaming and wailing that had set Kyle’s nerves on edge, even back at the station.
    Kyle found the tall man on the ground, his back leaned up against a metal door, in a concrete bunker-like structure that hadn’t been visible from the gravel driveway. He wore a t-shirt, but held a flannel shirt over the wound. Kyle gently lifted the shirt away, just for a moment, and stole a quick glance.
    Probably missed the lung. Good.
    A jacket was stuffed behind Cash’s shoulder and pinned in place between his back and the metal door. Laurie knelt in the dirt next to him, holding his hand.
    As Kyle set to work opening the First Aid kit, Laurie said, “ I can’t believe Charley shot you!”
    “Charley?” Cash said shocked. “Nah, Laur, you don’t understand. Charley saved me.” He indicated the blood soaked flannel he held against the wound. “This is the man’s shirt. It was that loony bitch Barnes that shot me.”
    Laurie sat back on her heels, stunned. “Julie Barnes?”
    Kyle leaned in and pulled the flannel back, going to work on the wound as blue and red flashing LEDs cut through the smoky field. The police cruiser parked behind Kyle’s bike. He could see Frost and someone else hurrying over to them. Kyle would pack the wound and then they would have to take Cash back to the station, where he had some light to do a better job.
    When he looked up again, Kyle could see that Frost wasn’t watching them as she approached. She was waving the beam of her flashlight in the air around them, and she had her gun out.
    “Lookout!” she yelled. Kyle whirled around and then dove to the side, crashing into Laurie, and knocking her down to the soil, just as something flew past where his head had been seconds before.
    He heard a gunshot, and then something fell to the ground nearby with a loud thump.
    Frost fired again, and more things fell from the sky around them. One looked like a set of human legs, with thick feathered wings at the hips...and that was it. No real body to speak of. Another had a beak like a raven’s but the size of a man’s arm. The rest of the creature was wings with small white bumps around the edges. As Kyle looked closer, he saw they were human teeth. And maybe some canine teeth as well.
    “What the hell?” he asked.
    Frost and Dodge arrived and took up positions on opposite sides of Kyle and Laurie and Cash.
    “Can he be moved?” Frost asked.
    “In a minute,” Kyle said, pushing Cash forward and looking at the man’s back. He started tearing away Cash’s shirt as Frost started in with the questions.
    “Where is he?”
    “Charley didn’t shoot me. Was Barnes that did it. Then she went inside.” Cash gestured to the bunker’s door with his head. “Charley saved me. Made the call and gave me the shirt off his back. He was sober too. Then he went in there after that broad.”
    Dodge fired his M-16 rifle—a single round—and brought down a creature the size of a turkey vulture, with five spindly, spider-like