The eyes blinked, and Will flinched. The creature slithered back deeper into the rocks, disappearing from sight. Will ran down to pick up his bag and threw it into the hole. I have to know how many are here, he thought. If this was anywhere else I could blow their nest to kingdom come and call it a day, but being this close to the park, I'd be risking structural damage to Land’s End.

The sound of wet feet echoed from behind him. He turned around, pulling a glock with a snub nose silencer out of his bag.

There were six of them. Each seven feet tall when ironed out. But as they stood, with their cerved, running-blade-like legs, and downwardly curved heads, they were about five feet. And they were coming out of the water at what Will considered to be an all too nonchalant pace.

Mean and green all over, Will thought, taking a shot at one of the lizards, who bared its forked tongue with a hiss. The bullet blew its brains out in an elegant shower over the water and the lizard fell down dead.

The remaining five broke into a run, webbed feet plodding deep into the wet sand. Will shot down two more of them. Then another, as it came right at him, but he hadn't been quick enough. The other two were almost upon him, flanking his sides.

Will dropped down to his bag, grabbing a small fire ax. With a hiss one of the lizards came up behind him, and with one fluid turn Will spun around and brought that ax tearing down through the lizard’s chest at a downward angle. The lizard toppled over, it’s innards nearly falling out as the top half fell quicker than the bottom, having nearly been chopped in two.

And then the last one was on him, knocking Will down into the sand. He thrust his ax up into the creature's jaws as it lunged down to take a bite out of him. He struggled to keep the creature off of him, and went to knee it in the crotch out of foolish instinct, receiving the sound of a cracked kneecap in return.

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Will screamed out and pulled the ax to his side, taking the lizard's jaw quite a way with it before it released the ax from its grasp. With a desperate swing Will brought the ax up and through the lizard's neck, decapitating it, and releasing an unholy torrent of purple-red blood and guts all over him as the lizard's body fell down.

Will pushed the filthy thing to the side and wiped his face, unsure of how he would explain his new fashion choice to the owners of the travelodge he’d been staying at.

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Micheal drove down to a creek he’d used to go to when he was younger, to be alone, a creek about five miles away from the family home. But tonight he went there for more than merely to be alone.

He parked close to the land edge and opened the boot of his car. Inside was a pair of pants, torn to shreds as if from the inside out, a pair of boot cut jeans, split at the knees, and a popped open shirt, covered in blood. He quickly gathered them all up into his arms and went over to the creek. He placed them into the rushing water, one after the other, and they quickly raced out of existence. He didn't even fully think about what he was doing, but he knew he had to get rid of those clothes, so he did. He hadn't even thought about what had happened, he hadn't allowed himself to, and wasn't going to start now.

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Rain began to fall in Asheton, drenching the town in a thick blanket of misery. In a downtown apartment building, Kyle Drover sat on a chair next to a couple of boxes, and watched the rain patter down on a window. The apartment only had two windows, and Kyle thought there was only really one, because a fire escape could hardly count. Still, it was.. a perfectly adequate window. Kyle's thoughts trailed off. If only Will wasn't busy with that business in california. The idea made Kyle feel selfish, he was, after all, one of the very few people in Asheton who know the real reason behind Will’s sudden trip to the Golden state...

He looked across to the estal he had set up by the window. This is home now, he thought. It made him uneasy, but he didn't.. no, he did know why. He’d been so used to a truncated life, a life with boundaries.

He picked his chair up, took it over to the estal, and began to draw. From now on, he thought, there'd be no more boundaries, he would stop letting his parents' lives define his own.

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