Flint wasn't a squeamish person. The likes of death or corpses seldom bothered him. He accepted demise as natural, as long as he wasn't the corpse. Flint obviously didn't know any of the bodies encased in clay tombs, yet a stone seemed to plummet in his stomach. Not the lurch of disgust but the tug of panic. Alarm constricted around him as he spun in a full circle, counting six, ten, twenty more clay banks.

  Jason recovered his discarded weapon and scanned the treeline, searching for whatever may have entombed these people.

  Flint looked at his older brother. "Jason," he started, "We need to get out of here." Flint tried to ignore the cadaver-strewn landscape.

  Flint scooped up a fist-sized stone. He had to be sure. Moving to the nearest mound, Flint reared back and struck it where he would have assumed the head would be. The rock punctured the earthen coffin with a hollow thud and shattered under the second blow. Peeling back parts of the clay shell like a boiled egg, a second skull grinned back at him.

  "Flint," Jason muttered as he squatted down low. "Leave them alone."

  "We need to know what we're dealing with," Flint muttered.

  F'faron walked closer, watching Flint with absorbed interest.

  Flint glared at the creature. Everything about F'faron was unnatural. Animals weren't supposed to walk on two legs like people, wear pants, or talk. He didn't know what to make of it, which made him uncomfortable.

  Flint moved from mound to mound, cracking several more open from head to foot. Some of the clay shells were thicker and more stubborn than the other. But they all yielded skeletons. None wore clothes, but Flint found several belt buckles, zippers, keys, rings, and watches among them.

  "I'm pretty sure they're from Earth," Flint said as he picked up a gleaming vintage gold watch, leather straps missing. Without a second thought, he pocketed it. He attempted to discreetly remove a gold wedding band from a bone finger under the pretense of examining it closer.

  "How did they die?" Jason asked, only daring to shoot a quick glance over at Flint's find.

  "I'm not exactly a pathologist," Flint said as he worked the ring off the finger and slipped it into his pocket, "But this guy has a heavy cleft in the skull." He narrated as he moved to the next largest one. "This one has some broken ribs, and this one …" Flint squatted. The body he was examining had several broken bones, but most disturbing of all was the shoulder was splintered in the way a dog's chew bone might splinter. The most likely explanation was that something big, with powerful jaws, chomped into it. Flint looked at Jason, who shivered.

  "Flint, we need to get away from here," Jason said.

  Flint nodded. But something disturbed him. "Why did the metal survive but no clothes?" he asked.

  "Clothes rot," Jason reasoned, but Flint shook his head.

  "These bones aren't dehydrated; they smell. Besides, people only started disappearing about half a year ago, and that’s not nearly enough time for clothes to disintegrate completely."

  "What are you saying?" Jason asked, his eyes darting as he scanned the horizon full circle for signs of hostiles or predators. Rehydrated, fresh beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.

  Flint glared at a mound that appeared less sun-baked than the others. Grabbing his stone, he swung into the rise and instantly gagged as he recoiled from the stench. Rather than cracking, it crumbled inward, revealing part of a decaying corpse.

  Behind him, Jason wretched as the stench hit him. "Flint!" He coughed and gagged. "What are you doing?"

  Flint started to pick away at the mound with a stick, crumbling the outer edges and revealing a much fresher, wetter, rotting corpse than the ones in the mounds around it. As Flint broke into the shell further, slimy, rancid juices ran free of their clay container.

  It was unlike any roadkill or dead animal Flint had ever seen. Usually, when something rots, it dries and turns to dust, but this body was slimy and wet, and the steaming acid smelled like fermented vomit.

  Flint's face scrunched in distaste at the stench as he examined the body. He couldn't recognize its facial features, but this one wore wet clothes supporting a woman's build. The clothing was as far gone as the body and as if it were—"Dissolving," Flint muttered out loud.

  "What?" Jason asked.

  "It's in some sort of acid," Flint speculated. "But why? Who would do this?"

  An ear-splitting howl sounded from the forest on the far side of the clearing with the well, causing both boys to spin in panic.

  "Shette," F'faron cried.

  "What?"

  "Shette, koul!" He ducked behind Jason.

  "Let's go," Flint agreed, "But carefully." He shouldered the pack and jogged back into the forest away from the sound.

  The three of them ran only as swiftly as any degree of stealth would allow, making slow but careful progress.

  They only made it thirty meters before Flint realized they weren't alone. He heard them before he saw them. He caught flashes of movement from people running through the trees on either side, and they fled from the direction of the bestial cry.

  "Jason!" Flint hissed as he slowed his pace.

  Jason signed back to him with his free hand. "I see them." He held his knife firmly. "Run."

  Flint nodded, and they both bolted away, replacing stealth with speed. F'faron ran with them, taking Jason's cue without hesitation.

  Flint cursed himself with every step; the hole in the bottom of his foot didn't take kindly to running. He paid for his injury by falling behind Jason by several feet. Flint had run on it the day before, but it had obviously become infected since then. Then he saw them.

  People ran in from all sides, running toward them. With a quick glance, Flint counted at least five.

  "Jason!" he cried. But Jason had stopped; three more people in ragged but regular earth clothes barred his way. They looked like anyone the Vances would have passed on the street back home. With dirty, sweat-streaked faces, as if they had been forced on an impromptu week-long campout. Despite their familiar garb, their wide, frenzied eyes gave Flint pause.

  "Get on the ground!" their leader barked, and the others closed in around them.

  The Vance brothers looked around, stunned; they had walked—or, more correctly, ran—into a trap.

  Seeing the newcomers, F'faron bolted off, shooting up a tree and leaping from treetop to treetop.

  "Well, thanks for having our back," Flint growled.

  "Let me see your hands!" their leader cried. He wielded a small pocket knife.

  Jason took a defensive stance, pushing Flint behind him.

  "He has a knife!" another one cried, pointing to the weapon in Jason's hand.

  Jason took a deep breath and held up both hands in a gesture of surrender.

  Flint's teeth ground in irritation. Dad had trained Jason. With his field experience, Jason should have been as dangerous as Arthur or as ruthless as Brigham, but now he trembled like a lost child. Flint would have given anything for Jason's skills and training. He wouldn’t have crumbled so easily if their roles were reversed.

  "Drop the knife!"

  The pack fanned out, tightening the circle around the Vances.

  "Hey!" Jason cried. "Alright, easy, you speak English! What's going on?"

  "The knife!"

  Flint evaluated their captors. Most of them didn't look overly dangerous. Their leader was a tall, thin man who appeared more tired than antagonistic. The others included a man in a mechanic's jumpsuit, a wiry balding man with glasses, an olive-skinned man and woman who stood side by side and wore matching grey beanies, and a middle-aged woman who looked like a mom whose biggest problems should have been dropping the kids off at soccer and providing healthy sugar-free snacks for the team. Finally, there was a teenage girl who was probably younger than Flint—or maybe older? Flint had never been good at predicting a woman's age.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The only pack member that Flint considered particularly intimidating was a muscular, dark-skinned man brandishing a thick club. Flint wouldn’t have been surprised if he could benchpress a truck.

  Realizing Jason wouldn’t Fight, Flint realized they needed to change their approach. "Drop it," he advised Jason. Something about weapons dehumanized people, and Flint sensed a lot of potential sympathy in this group.

  Jason considered his options but eventually agreed with Flint's assessment. He set his knife on the ground, held his palms out, and the teenage girl ran over and snatched it.

  Flint smiled at her, and she blushed. She was cute, but he wasn't flirting; he was just trying to make as many human connections as possible.

  "Where are we?" Jason asked. "Can you help us?" He stepped up, and all the others hissed, tensing threateningly.

  Flint recognized the primal dread in their eyes, and his palms began to sweat. He had miscalculated; he thought they were cautiously curious, but they were terrified, making them dangerous.

  Another angry shriek echoed from behind, causing them to jump, but it sounded much closer this time. Yes, the mob was like a man wandering the desert without water or a child abandoned in a war zone. Their eyes were filled with dread and desperation, the poison that changed unwilling men into killers.

  "What made that noise?" Jason demanded.

  "Can we just leave them to the teeth?" the balding man asked, ignoring Jason's question.

  "That won't work," their leader grumbled, his eyes fatigued. “The teeth would ignore them and come for us; they always chase the larger numbers. We have to kill them."

  Kill? Flint stepped back.

  Jason raised his voice, "Hey, now easy. No need to be so hasty; if you just let my brother and I go—"

  Flint had to act fast. He usually wore his hat just over his eyebrows so he wouldn't have to look people in the eye, but Flint tipped it all the way back, exposing his face as well as several locks of brown hair; his regular smirk melted as he softened his face and used the most childish voice he could muster. In seconds, he changed his appearance from a cynical, moody teenager to an innocent boy.

  "Why are they saying that, Jason? You won't let them hurt us, will you?"

  Jason looked down in surprise at Flint's shifted posture.

  "Jason," Flint sniffled, "I'm scared."

  Understanding dawned on Jason's face, and he turned to Flint. "Don't worry, Flint. It's going to be okay."

  Flint tried to break into tears, but he could not muster any. He burrowed his face into Jason's shoulder and shook.

  "Please, let us go." Jason pleaded. He looked them each in the eye, and they stiffened uncomfortably. "Or if you have to kill anyone, kill me; just let my brother go."

  "No!" Flint wailed as he broke into a fresh fit of sobs.

  Jason looked around and saw the couple in grey beanies standing together. "You all look like reasonable people. Are you going to kill us?"

  The pair of them looked sick.

  "And you." He turned to the teenage girl who now held his knife. "You're just starting life. Are you sure you want to do it as a murderer?"

  "I ... I—"

  "Don't talk to them," the soccer mom snapped. "Look, we don't want to do this, but we have to."

  Flint turned his face away as he slowly unzipped the side pocket on his backpack and eased out two pens. Red and black. Paralysis and lethal auto-injectors.

  "Why?" Jason asked, not needing to act scared but trying to get a hand on the situation. "Why do you have to murder us? I'm just trying to understand."

  The cry sounded even closer.

  "They won't stop until they've killed," the teenage girl muttered. Her lean face, lightly freckled, drained of color. She crossed her arms awkwardly, gripping the knife, and shivered.

  "What won't stop? What is that?" Jason asked, apparently associating the approaching noise with the unspoken entity.

  "Teeth," she whispered with a break in her voice.

  "Teeth?"

  "Enough," their leader snapped, growing impatient, "We don't have time. I'm sorry, but it's you or us."

  "Oh, I wish we could have caught the critter. I hate killing people," the man in the mechanic jumpsuit lamented.

  "We could split up," The woman of the couple suggested.

  "No!" their leader snapped. "If we split up, we'll get killed by other survivors."

  "Oh, I hate this," the mechanic moaned.

  Another cry sounded, responded by two other howls coming from three different sides.

  "Desh," their leader cursed. "There's more than two, and they're getting smarter."

  "We're trapped?" the man in a grey beanie panicked. His partner grabbed his hand and tugged him away.

  They all fidgeted, glancing around in apprehension; the base instinct to flee itched at their minds.

  Flint was no different; his adrenaline screamed to escape from the party. He was too small to fight; if he ran, he would lag behind because of his foot. An injured small target would be the first that a predator would pick off. Predators often found their quarry through behavior patterns. Prey was expected to be scared and run, so the best he could do was not act like game.

  Flint sighed, dropping his facade. He tossed his backpack on the ground and then dropped down after it. He lay on the dirt, using the pack as a pillow to prop his head up.

  Everyone regarded him in startled surprise.

  "Flint! What are you doing?" Jason cried.

  "While you bicker about whether or not and who will kill us, I'm going to take a nap. Care to join me?"

  The pack members looked at him like he was licking ice cream from a toilet.

  "Flint! Now is literally the worst time—"

  "Which makes it the best time!"

  "Flint, get up," Jason pleaded.

  Flint took both pens in one hand and grabbed Jason by the ankle with the other, digging his fingers into Jason's skin.

  "Ow!"

  "Sit down, Jason," Flint growled.

  Jason looked down pleadingly, and Flint glared back. Reluctantly, Jason squatted next to him.

  Flint's heart surged in tempo, but he had to keep his composure. Hoping to look the part, he yawned widely, looking as bored as possible.

  "Let's play a game," Flint suggested. "It's called, who is dumb enough to stay?"

  Another set of howls sounded very close.

  "Wow, it looks like we have a whole crew of winners."

  The mechanic looked around, sweat glistening from his face. "You said they are attracted to numbers, right?" He asked the leader.

  "Don't you run! If we kill the two, then—"

  "Running out of time," Flint taunted.

  The mechanic glanced around momentarily, perhaps gauging his chances, and bolted off.

  "Dwain!" their leader cried.

  The mechanic darted off into the trees, headless of their leader's outrage.

  "He's going to make it," the man in the couple noted. "Let's go!" He pulled his wife by the hand and sprinted off after him. The others, now five in number, looked troubled.

  Something shrieked, and a horrible shape shot into the clearing, racing towards them. Built like an elongated, hairless ape, its mud-caked hide blended with Ash's dirt. Unlike a primate, its fangs were practically tusks, and barbed claws grew at the end of its fingers.

  The beast cried out gleefully, an excited vibrato rolling its howl. It loped in on all fours, one of its fists crushing a burial mound as it bounded towards the group.

  "Screw it, run!" the middle-aged woman cried. The remaining people scattered.

  "Get down!" Flint grabbed Jason's head and pulled him down.

  The wiry man tried to skirt around the boys, but in a muddy flash, he screamed as a second beast slammed into him from the side.

  Flint cried out in alarm at its unexpected appearance. The second one had silently snuck past them, not snapping and snarling like the one in the lead.

  The beast reared and used its mighty arms to beat the thin man. Flint looked up; the creature's sturdy feet were only a foot away from his face, within arm's reach.

  The first beast bolted past them after the fleeing people, giving them no head.

  The monster reared up and opened its first, exposing its curved, jagged claws at the wiry, balding man. Flint flicked the cap off of the black pen and slammed it down into its butt.

  Click.

  The creature looked back at Flint in surprise, black eyes seemingly soulless. Deep and without remorse, it snarled as it swung at Flint. Curved claws raked at the boy, catching his flesh, snagging his shirt, and throwing him back.

  Flint gasped as he hit the ground, but the air stopped coming after that. He choked as he tried to draw breath.

  The beast snarled as it skipped past Jason after Flint. It took a wobbly step, looking confused, as its body didn't respond appropriately. It stepped again before collapsing. Its shallow breath gargled through failing lungs.

  The thin man got to his feet, looking flustered. His glasses lay broken at his feet. He looked at the beast on the ground and then at Flint before snatching his snapped spectacles and running into the overgrowth.

  "Flint!" Jason cried. He crawled over to his younger brother, who was failing to breathe. "Flint!"

  Flint found his lungs and sucked sweet life-giving air. Funny how one never fully appreciated oxygen until they'd gone without it, even for a short time.

  "Run!" Flint gasped. He grabbed his dropped red pen and pulled himself to his feet.

  He looked down at the beast, which now lay still; its inky black eyes seemed to look everywhere at once. The dirt that it lay on almost seemed to shift for a moment. Jason grabbed Flint by the hand and ripped him away from the scene, towing him in the other direction, away from the carcass. Flint broke into an uneven run. Hot blood ran down his abdomen, and his pulse roared in his ears.

  Jason kept him in tow, pulling much of Flint's weight.

  This was bad. Usually, Flint was the faster one, but he stumbled behind.

  Two cries sounded from behind them, but they seemed fainter. Flint could only hope the second beast wasn't making a meal of the others, even if that would have been his preference over being eaten. They ran until Jason huffed to a stop.

  "Need to … breathe," he gasped.

  "They're smart," Flint panted. "And coordinated."

  "What are you talking about?" Jason asked.

  "They moved together. Master hunters. Predators. Jason, I'm scared." Flint surprised himself with his honesty. One had passed over them, leaving its brother to finish them off. That wasn't the action of a hungry animal but an intelligent pack of killers. One of the beasts corralled them loudly while its partner silently cut them off. This wasn’t animalistic instinct but a deliberate strategy.

  "Flint," Jason said. "You're bleeding!"

  Flint looked down to see three slashes running across his abdomen. Luckily, they didn't look too deep.

  "Funny," Flint chuckled. "I can't even feel it."

  No sooner had the words left his mouth when the gashes blazed like glowing red steel.

  Flint cried out as he clutched his gut.

  "Can't feel it, huh?" Jason unzipped Flint's backpack and pulled out the first-aid kit.

  "No, it, it stings, bad," Flint groaned.

  "Flint, you killed it."

  "Mom's autoinjector," Flint said. "The black one, I honestly didn't know if it would take to work. That thing was massive."

  "You saved that guy." Jason pointed out as if trying to distract Flint from the pain, "You might not be so bad after all."

  "I saved us." Flint corrected. "And gave them something else to hunt. Gah, this hurts!"

  "Hold still." Jason pulled Flint's shirt up. Based on his grimacing face, Flint could tell the wound was ugly.

  "How bad?"

  "Not deep, just really jagged. I hope it doesn't get infected. You've got hemostatic powder. It should stop the bleeding, but it's going to hurt."

  Flint sat back, propped against a tree as Jason bandaged him up. He shut his eyes so tight his eyes stung, part to block the pain and part to withdraw his thoughts to himself.

  One day on Ash and, they could have died several times. Flint hated admitting it, but their chances looked slimmer with every passing hour. They still had no leads on Dad. The awful situation broke through Flint's usual confident assurance.

  Realization finally took Flint; he had seen the graves and could die here just as easily as anyone else.

  "Flint, look." Jason broke Flint's focus as he pointed to the darkening sky, "There it is again. It happened all night last night."

  Flint looked, and in the not-so-distant horizon, he saw bands of yellow light streaking through the night sky. Like the green and pink northern lights back home, only these burned gold.

  "Woah," Flint muttered as the light grew brighter in the night. "I hope Dad's seeing this."

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