A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend 9: "The Demon and the Avatar" E-Book

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

• Herausgeber: Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

They both felt it at the same time, even as the train lurched forward and the cars jolted thunderously—a tremor in the very fabric of things, like a ripple in a foam of potentiality which contained in it the threads of all their possible futures. Something, somewhere, had just happened—something directly related to their current endeavor of delivering the bomb to Barley and detonating it amidst the Enemy. communicated Ank, still smarting from his struggle to climb onto the flatcar with the added weight of the weapon. “You felt it too? Like one door closed and another had opened, but with disastrous consequences, for us all …” Williams looked at him, rattled and bewildered. “Ank, how could we know that?” “Ank, don’t.” Williams leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. “Our friendly engineer, in case you haven’t noticed, is clearly insane!” And then Williams was leaning over the side using one of Ank’s spikes for a handhold while simultaneously yelling at the engineer, who poked his head out the engine’s side window, his long, gray hair flying, and shouted, “You want speed, you got it, ha-ha! The world, she’s a comin’ back, yesiree!” He sounded the horn suddenly and Williams covered an ear, even as his hat blew off and fluttered away behind them. “The New World Special is back in service—and it’s taking its passengers to the Promised Land! Ha-ha!”

Leseprobe

A Dinosaur is a Man’s Best Friend

by

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Table of Contents

Title Page

A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend: "The Demon and the Avatar" (A Dinosaur Is A Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel), #9)

IX

A new novel set in the Flashback universe

Copyright © 2018 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Cover design Copyright © 2018 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

Based upon “Flashback,” first published by Books in Motion/Classic Ventures, 1993. Reprinted by Hobb’s End Books, 2017.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

IX

Peter had been right: The cavalry had arrived. Or so it seemed as the motor homes and semi-trucks and construction equipment and motorcycles and even a couple armored personnel carriers rumbled into Barley. And yet introductions had been kept short and celebrations to a minimum as the drivers sought position and the smoke roiled in from the southeast, for it was clear to everyone now just how close the Enemy had drawn ... and how near the confrontation was.

Still, Bella felt an optimism she hadn’t felt in days as she inspected the crowd of what amounted to new soldiers and helped her big assistant take stock of the heavy equipment, and by the time she and the wagon train’s leaders met for an initial consultation by the hot springs she had largely beaten back the depression which had so dogged her the first part of the day.

Mostly she was just relieved at what a hardy and experienced bunch they were: from the hand-less man named Roger to the strapping former convenience store clerk (whose name she couldn’t remember) to the tough little woman named Charlotte to the steady and stoic man named Red—they were seasoned survivors, all of them, and had seen their share of blood and conflict long before they’d ever heard of Radio Free Montana or the Enemy in the East.

That experience would be needed, and soon, thought Bella, as she inspected the perimeter’s booby-traps and fortifications—its sandbagged pillboxes, its trenches full of gasoline—for she was now convinced, after consulting with Sammy and Peter, that an attack could come at any time ... and from any direction. And she wondered: Had they done enough? For something still tasked her—she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Something ghostly and ephemeral. Something which had first arisen in her dreams and now dogged her every waking step.

Something was missing ... something that, in her single-minded purpose, she had overlooked completely. She thought of the albino girl and what she’d said immediately after their arrival: But this isn’t all of us. There’s also Will and Ank ... but we don’t know where they are right now.

Will and Ank. Why did the names sound so alien and yet familiar at the same time?

Ank’s been gone awhile ... but Will went looking for him.

Just today, Sheila had said. Heading south on something called the ‘Redneck Highway.’

Bella stopped in her tracks, staring along the battlements but no longer actually seeing them. Of course, she thought. Her dreams ... the visions ... The mirror and the Paladin. The Paladin and the Brute.

And like that she seemed to understand the thing—its rules and its perimeters, its use of proxies and doppelgangers, its need to conjure counterparts in every single aspect ... and she knew, also, just what she needed to do to fulfil her part.

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