Erica turned the truck around facing away from the barricade. She might have killed some grass in the process. I’m sure no-one will complain. Both ladies jumped down, approaching me. I was constantly moving my head around trying to notice any movement.

Again the lack of any normal sounds was nerve-wracking. I was trying to look deeply between two buildings in the distance when both girls came up from behind. They startled me just a bit. No, I didn’t scream out in bloody horror when Katie grabbed my arm. It was a very manly sounding …sound.

“Wow, that was high-pitched.” Katie said not hiding her amusement in the slightest. I turned to her in anger, saying. “What is wrong with you? Look around this is not the time for jokes.” Her amusement leaked away as her eyes noticed the red spots.

I turned to Erica to see if she was going to try the same. But her eyes were roving around the road ahead. I eased my way over the top of the hood to the other side. As I landed I heard a very distinctive crunchy, ting sound. Both Erica, and I knew that sound. But she was on the other side still so couldn’t see them. But she remarked. “Bullet casings?”

I nodded as I looked down. Hundreds of casings were spread along this side of the cars. Along with spent magazines. Surprisingly no guns, or rifles anywhere. That was very strange. If someone was shooting that much. They had to have hit something. But we had not seen any monster bodies on the approach.

I turned to Erica, “Did you see any monster corpses as you drove up?” She shook her head in bewilderment. “No nothing, no loot bags either.” So either they missed every shot… or the bullets had no effect. Which was more than a little bit wierd. Why would a gun not kill orcs, or whatever attacked? But our weapons worked? Or had they fought something only effected by magic. Wraiths, ghosts, demons, lots of disturbing images floated through my head at that moment. All much more powerful than what we had faced already. Then I turned to look at the fire. It was still going. But it had not spread to the rest of the vehicle. Nor had it gone out. Now i’m no forensic CSI guy. But basic science says a flame needs fuel to stay active.

I looked around the fire base as best as I could. It was currently burning up the seats. Ok that made sense, but how long has the fire been going? The fire had only reached the front seats of the car. I couldn’t tell how much of the front of the car had been destroyed before it caught fire, or if the fire explosion had caused the crushing part.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I stepped back as a gust of wind started blowing the flames in my direction. I stewed for a moment trying to cause an Ah! Ha! moment. It didn’t work. I finally shook my head saying. “I don’t know what caused this, nor do I know how long ago it happened. All I can say is that it’s recent. Otherwise the fire would have gone out by now. Whatever did this is either big, and strong. Or uses fire magic.”

“Let’s check out the rest of town, there might be people huddled, hiding in their homes.” I turned to wave the two ladies over to my side of the barricade. As Erica hopped over, she examined the bullet casings. “Mostly 5.56mm casings, looks like some of them had AR-15's. Wouldn’t have stop heavily armored guys, but just the concussion alone should have hurt em.”

I kept looking around for any clue’s. But just casings and the splotches. “Ok so casings I can understand leaving them, if they fell back in a hurry. But the red splotches, yes I know what they probably are. I’m just calling them that to not sound insensitive. But why just blood? Where are the bodies? Where are the clothes? Or the rifles?” Neither woman spoke, they just kept looking around. I sighed in defeat. “We need to go deeper in, but keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. This is more than just strange.” Both nodded.

We started out slowly walking down the road. We avoided walking into any of the spots. Not that we were afraid of blood, it just felt wrong to get close to them. As we approached the first building on the right. It looked like someone had boarded up the windows, but the front door was demolished. It was also very dark inside. Just glancing in I didn’t see any movement.

I motioned to Erica. She moved up next to me. “Stalk in but be quick. No need to examine the entire place. Just see if you find any obvious signs. We will stay here and guard the front. If you see any monsters come get us first.” She stealthed disappearing from sight. Katie, and I kept looking around for movement in all directions. Nothing…Not even birds. After a few minutes Erica re-materialized between us. Speaking softly so as not to startle us. “Lots of blood, streaks on the walls, it wasnt pretty. But no bodies.”

I shuddered turning to the girls. “Only one house, no definitive answers, but im not a dictator. Should we keep going? Or go back to grab Aiden, and Keith? This seems like a full group kind of problem.” Both ladies did the mental conversion with just eyes, that boggles men’s minds.

After a few seconds they both nodded saying. “Full group.” I agreed so I started walking towards the truck. We safely made it back to the truck. As we rolled out of the mysterious disaster, the town had become. I could only wish that our full group would be enough.

Little did I know how close we had all come to a very sudden, and violent demise.