I hadn’t even recovered enough to worry about Kurt before he crawled out of the crumpled pickup, hauling himself through the pebbles of safety glass in the empty windshield windowframe.

John was still standing behind me, but when the dinosaur vanished he’d moved forward to grab the black gem. Davi had landed, stumbling as her missing arm disrupted her balance. Her whole side was splattered with blood, but I knew John must have taken care of her. Where was Byron? Oh, there he was. He’d turned away from the dinosaur and was glaring at the wildfire.

That’s all of us. Not all whole, but all standing. The realization was a huge relief.

Byron shot an Ice Bolt. I spun, ready to take on whatever monster he’d spotted, only to see nothing behind us. His projectile flew instead to the edge of the road parallel the highway, snuffing out a small flicker of flame where the fire had found its way across the road. He frowned, then fired another shot at a second weed that was starting to smoke. “We gotta get out of here, fast. Once the fire really catches on this side of the road, it’ll be up the highway in seconds.”

“It’s not going to burn the road,” Kurt said. “I know there’s some tar, but it’s mostly sand and rocks, right?”

Byron shook his head impatiently. “It probably won’t burn the road, but that doesn’t really matter. Look at me, I’m playing whack-a-mole with these little fires. How do you think they’re starting? It’s not embers blown on the wind, it’s just that hot. If the wildfire catches up to the edge of the road, your shirt could catch fire on your back.”

“Frank’s motor is still running,” said John.

“You’re kidding!” I said. “A T-rex fell on it.”

John shrugged, gesturing to the truck. The crackle of fire had disguised the noise, but I realized he was right. The front of the semi had seen better days, but engine still rumbled.

Byron fired off another Ice Bolt. “I don’t think it matters, unless we want to drive back to Santa Fe.”

I shook my head. “We're not going backward. We’re close enough. We can make it to Albuquerque on foot.”

“Team Always Forward,” said Davi. She was clutching her stump with her remaining hand, but she looked determined.

Byron nodded. “Right. Well, we don’t have time to try cutting through the Points Siphon, especially since we’re not sure whatever it's made out of is cuttable. Get the cart out, Vince. Everyone else, grab your go-bags.”

The go-bags were something we’d made up in the past few days, one backpack for each of us that held our most important possessions, food, and water. We’d already seen that the aliens would let us take things with us when they teleported us around; not taking advantage of that was just dumb.

When I met another “Rina,” I’d have a snack for her.

That didn’t seem likely to happen this twelveday, though. My Novelty had gone up quite a bit during my fight with Carlton - from 0 to 42 - but that was the only increase any of had seen. A quick glance showed that even taking down a firebreathing T-rex hadn’t made my numbers budge. Kurt and Byron’s Novelty remained stubbornly at negative one, and it seemed like their presence was having some kind of suppressing effect on the rest of us.

It was a relief, but I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of disappointment, insane as that might be.

“I’m not sure we should leave Frank. We-” John said.

“I am,” Byron interrupted brusquely. “You guys wanted me to be a fire expert, and here I am. That whole area is this close to catching fire, so move your ass.”

John looked shocked, but started to move.

“Get mine for me?” I asked Byron.

He gave me a thumbs-up and I raced to the rear of the semi trailer to grab the flat cart, yanking it out and shoving it down to the road.

My friends were all waiting with their backpacks. Byron looked a little silly, with one strapped to his back and one worn across on his front. I gave him a questioning look.

He hopped aboard. “You’ll have enough to do trying to push us. We need to get out of here, now.”

I glanced behind me and blanched.

Byron had likely been fighting a losing battle against the encroaching flames anyway, but he’d stopped for a few seconds to grab the backpacks. The fire had gained a foothold and was expanding on it with a vengeance, a campfire-size blaze doubling in size as I watched.

My friends piled aboard the cart, leaving a gap in the middle so I could still see the road ahead.

“Bye, Frank,” Davi said.

John looked like he was close to tears. “He took real good care of us.”

“He did,” Byron said.

I regretted leaving the truck behind too, but the fire had grown more in the scant moments it had taken my friends to climb aboard. I had to focus.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I sprang into motion, pushing the cart around Frank and along the edge of the road under the elevated side of the Points Siphon bar. There was just enough space that I didn’t need to warn Byron to duck.

John looked off to our left with a focused expression, and a cool gust of wind hit us. Moments later the fire flared to my right, encouraged by the influx of oxygen. It was moving toward us fast, faster than I’d been able to run in a flat-out-sprint a few months before.

“Keep the air with us, John.” Byron’s voice was tight.

“Sorry. Sorry!”

“Don’t panic,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

With those words, I sped up.

I’d been moving at something close to normal human speed as I navigated around Frank and underneath the broken Points Siphon, but now I was on a straightaway, needing only to gently curve my path to avoid the occasional monster.

The fire rolled toward us, an orange wave of devouring heat.

But at full speed?

I was faster.

The cart was vibrating in my hands, hard enough to make my fingers go numb. Understandable: this device was meant to go at three miles-per-hour on smooth hardware store floors and it was now rushing along at more than ten times that on a highway. It didn’t have shock absorbers or even soft wheels, just hard plastic things that transmitted every bump and ridge to my hands and passengers.

Monsters were charging us, but the ones that approached from the sides and rear were ignorable, too slow to keep up with my bone-jolting speed.

“You okay?” My question to my passengers was terse as I panted for air, my speed enough to push me to my limits.

“O-o-o-k-k-ay-y,” Davi managed, the rough ride making her speech jitter.

“Slow down,” I said. “Soon.”

She nodded, rather than try to speak again.

The wildfire had already reached the road behind us, but the area ahead wasn’t “safe” for nearly a mile. Even then, I wouldn’t want to slow down much. Alabama wasn’t wildfire territory, but I’d seen maps of the west coast, Australia, and Canada on the news. I knew that once a fire got out of control, it could threaten a massive area.

Something ahead caught my attention. “Crab!”

The monster was charging the cart straight-on and would definitely catch it, even if I tried to evade. There was nowhere to dodge; monsters were all around us. There was a bugdeer dead ahead, right behind the crab. Slimes approached from the front and sides, and three hexcrabs were jackhammering their way along the road behind us. A lone wostrich was heading toward us from the left, and a ram in front of us had lowered its head to charge. That left aside flying gas monsters and hellbats and the smattering of spacedogs all around.

My friends had been facing backward, to keep a tight grip on the handlebar, but now they tried to turn to face forward, a difficult feat on the cramped, smooth, fast-moving platform. Davi, the fastest to turn, threw a few Force Shields to slow the crab down. That bought me enough time to get by, and for everyone else to awkwardly scramble into front-facing postures.

Kurt threw a Missile into the face of the bugdeer, and John followed up with another; combined, the attacks were enough to make the monster flinch. I should have had enough time to get by, but the cart hit a pothole I hadn’t noticed, sending John - who had lifted one hand to fire his attack - flying.

I dug my heels into the pavement, smelling the stink of burning rubber as the soles of my shoes were ground away, then snatched my trident from a loop on Byron’s backpack and turned.

A jump got me in between the deer and John, and a single thrust with my trident was enough to dispatch it.

Unfortunately, our sudden cessation of speed let the monsters I’d been outrunning catch up.

A few weeks ago, we would have died. Even a couple weeks ago, we might have struggled, but my coworkers and I had fought countless battles together. We knew our jobs.

Davi threw Force Shields in front of the diving hellbats, letting the flyers’ own momentum stun them as they smashed into unexpected obstacles.

The slimes and gasbags were trivial to Byron, carefully applied flames spreading easily over the slimes’ bodies and making the gasbags explode into airborne fireballs.

Kurt had taken Telekinesis recently, and a selection of ropes and crowbars flew out, working in concert to flip the hexcrabs upside down, allowing me access to their vulnerable undersides. He still had enough focus to take out the lone wostrich with a well-placed Missile.

John’s winds blew away any toxins that lingered after the gasbags’ death, since the clouds they released didn’t vanish like their corpses, and John himself scrambled to his feet and began methodically dispatching the spacedogs, hitting them with his sledgehammer like he was swinging a golf club.

All I need to do was finish off the hexcrabs and take out the ram, then assist in clearing out the spacedogs.

A hectic minute later, my friends and I stood panting in a silent stretch of road.

I’d gained some ground on the fire, but not as much as I would have liked - we could still see it behind us, coming closer, flames large enough to trigger a bone-deep primal fear.

I kicked aside the corpse of a spacedog, now vanishing, then turned to John. The sleeve of his shirt and a large portion of his pants had been torn away from where he’d impacted with the road.

“You okay?” I called.

“Nothin’ a little Healing Touch wouldn’t fix,” he said. In spite of his brave words, his voice was shaky. “How’s everyone else?”

“No more injured than I was a few minutes ago!” joked Davi.

Kurt was crouched down next to the cart. “The wheels were really ground down already. I’ve Repaired them, but… I think I need to do more if they’re going to last us until Albuquerque. I’d like to make where we’re standing a little safer too.” He tilted his head to look at the flames behind us. “Do you think you can do that speed again, Vince?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t say If I have to, but I was thinking it. My ability was called Biological Augment: Sprinter, not Biological Augment: Endurance Runner. I could keep going pretty quickly for a long while, but pushing myself to my top speeds wore me out quickly. It’s okay, I told myself. Healing Touch and Regeneration will help. We clearly won’t make it to Albuquerque without some modifications.

It was a shame we hadn’t fixed the cart up earlier, but grabbing it out of the parking lot had been more of a whim than anything else. We’d discussed using it, but hadn’t really expected to.

Byron seemed to come to the same conclusions, glaring at the flames behind us and cursing softly under his breath. Louder, he said, “Fine. Vince, get some water and rest. Kurt, work fast. Work damn fast. When I say we need to leave again, we leave.”