Fire And Steel (The Merryweather Chronicles Book 2) by Lesley Woodral Read Free Book Online Page A

the camper out to their secluded little hunting spot. But once they got it all set up, with camo netting and a good gas generator lifted from Jock's asshole neighbors, it was just about the nicest little ole meth lab you ever did see. Jock had even brought a couple of high school girls out there and broke it in like only high school girls knew how to do.
          Now, he just had to find the fucking thing.
          Just when he was beginning to think he really was lost, Jock caught a flicker of golden light up ahead and off the path.
          "There you are, bitch." He said out loud, veering off the old deer trail and moving toward the light. As he neared the decrepit camper, he called out. "Hey, Bryan, you worthless pecker gnat! You better have the burners going, yo! It's a cold ass bitch out here!"
          He could hear music playing when he reached the narrow place in the woods where they had crammed the camper. The light and music was coming from the camper's half open door. The windows were all blacked out.
          Music and light weren't the only things escaping from the open door. Blood dripped in a steady stream, making a black puddle in the dying grass beneath the camper. A lot of blood.
          Jock raised his gun, pointing it at the door, and called out. "Come on out, yo! I got something for you!" His voice was low and quivered slightly. From nervous energy, not fear. There was no fear in Jock when all his cylinders were firing. The gun was rock steady in his fist. Not waiting for a response from whatever might've been waiting in the camper, he rushed forward. Snapping the metal door the rest of the way open, he meant to charge head first into the camper and empty the gun, but that wasn't quite how it went down.
          When his heel hit the blood covered linoleum, his leg shot out from under him and he crashed onto his back, hanging half out of the camper. His teeth clacked together, biting through the tip of his tongue and filling his mouth with blood.
          Blood.
          Blood everywhere.
          It took a moment for what his eyes and nose were telling him to register in his drug addled brain. The interior of the camper was covered in blood and meat. Broken glass and spilled chemicals mixed into a brackish poison all over the floor. Long ragged strips of skin and muscle and half chewed organs were strung about the place. On a wide flap of skin, flattened on one of the blacked out windows, part of a tattoo was visible. A skull with wings of flame.
          "Jesus, Bryan." Jock whispered, his high as gone as if he'd never held a pipe in his life. His lips were numb and one of the muscles in his left cheek kept twitching. Everything was destroyed. The lab. The camper. Fuck, even Bryan. There was nothing left. Nothing but the stink of blood and exploded bowels.
          Before he could let loose the scream threatening to tear its way out of his soul, something growled outside the camper. Something close. Twisting around, his stomach squelching against blood and god knows what else on the floor, Jock bit back a scream.
          The creature lurching out of the darkness into the light from the open camper door was a living nightmare. It resembled a bear more than anything else, with its shaggy hair and big upper body, but that was only superficial. No bear ever dressed itself in rough leather armor and wore heavy black boots on its feet. Or carried such a wicked looking axe.
          Jock was pulling the gun's trigger before he even realized that it was still in his hand. The thing stumbled backwards and roared at the night, frothy spittle flying everywhere, but didn't fall down. Still screaming, Jock pushed himself back into the camper and yanked the metal door closed. He twisted the pitiful little latch and slip crawled through the gore and various bits of his former friend and business partner. His shoulder hurt like hell from the fall and he was having trouble