Dylan

You know what’s really freaky? Driving backward down a steep boat ramp, boat attached, into an inky black lake in the dead of night. No flashlights allowed, headlights off, and the bulbs for the brake lights removed (That last part had been Terry’s idea).

I did it, in halting starts and stops that made Lilly laugh and Terry get frustrated as he guided me backwards. But I did it.

Once the boat trailer was submerged into the water, I tried to set the emergency brake only to realize it had been on the entire time. I wasn’t going to tell a soul.

Still exhilarated, I hopped out of the car. Clarissa stood at the top of the ramp with a box of supplies. She and Ben had been getting ready to pack the boat.

“I’ll take it,” I said, reaching for the box.

Smiling, she handed it over. “I notice Terry wasn’t exactly offering to back that Land Rover down," she said in an undertone.

“Yeah, well he’s got more experience launching boats from the outside. His dad lives on the coast.” For a half-breath of time, I smelled sea-salt. The beach. The cave...

I pushed it away.

Clarissa shook her head and rolled her eyes, but not in the mean way Lilly did. She grabbed some cans out of her brother’s overloaded arms. “You’re too sweet for your own good, Dylan.”

I shrugged. I knew what she meant, but that’s just how Terry was.

“C’mon, let’s get this in the boat.”

As we loaded the supplies, Terry got the Hummer completely unhitched. The boat was still on a trailer, halfway submerged. It would only take a shove to get it fully in the water. Terry said he hadn't wanted it floating free just in case the wind came up, or the bobbing boat attracted the griffins.

We didn’t know for sure what would catch the griffin’s attention, or how deeply they slept at night. We’d been stomping around outside for over an hour, and hadn’t been attacked. Working with no lights was a pain, but a really good idea.

The boat was a small fishing vessel, bought a few years ago, and had been out on the lake maybe twice. My father didn’t fish, but all the other neighbors had boats. So we did, too. It didn’t even have a name, which was supposed to be bad luck.

Terry looked excited. Jumping on the deck, he made a show of looking around and scuffing his foot as if to check for holes or something. “There’s lots of dust, but it should be sea-worthy. Lake-worthy, I guess,” he added, with a grin to Clarissa.

“It’s pretty small.” Trust Ben to point out the obvious.

“It’ll be fine.” Terry pointed to a space at the back of the deck. “Stow the supplies there. Lilly and Merlot will be back with fresh water soon. Dylan, see if you can start up her engine.”

I nodded and had to duck to pass through the cabin’s doorway.

The cabin was tiny with all the space taken up by driving controls and fish-finding radar. Three people would be squeezed tight in there. Four might be possible, if a couple people stood on the dash or something.

Looking around, I got a sinking feeling. If the griffins attacked while we were out on the lake, someone was going to get locked outside.

“This isn’t going to work,” I muttered.

Maybe I could break into a neighbor’s boathouse and see what kind of boat they had. There was a small marina a couple miles away. We should—

A mechanical chug-chug sounded in the air. I stuck my head out of the cabin. Had someone else started the Hummer? No, I still had the keys in my pocket. After what happened at the gate, I always made sure I knew where the keys were.

Only a few days since the world had turned, and I had already gotten used to not hearing engines or electronics.

It was the brake lights flashing red in the smoky gloom that clued me in. Someone had started up a second car. The red glow of the brake lights lit a boxy design along the road, heading away from us.

It was the Jeep that was parked inside my father's garage.

I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. "What’s that?" Clarissa demanded.

"Is that the Jeep?" Terry said, outraged.

A soft wind hushed through the trees and caught my attention even above all the other noise.

Merlot, the wind seemed to say.

I twisted around, uncertain of what I just heard. No, what I just... felt?

The pine and Aspen trees dotting the beach were still in the smoky air. I’d been mistaken. There hadn’t been wind at all.

As I stared, Lilly ran full pelt onto the beach.

“Merlot’s running away! She took the baby, too!” she said, chilling me to the core. “She grabbed the keys when I was filling water bottles.”

“Crap. I knew she’d been a little too quiet tonight.” Standing on tip-toe, Terry stared after the Jeep. We all did.

The Jeep turned on the road. Its headlights were off, thank goodness, but every time Merlot tapped the brakes the dark forest flooded with a reddish light. Exactly like a beacon.

From not too far away, I heard a griffin’s warbling cry.

"They see the brake lights," I said.

Clarissa and I exchanged anguished looks. Merlot would not get far.

“What do we do?" Clarissa asked.

I’d left the gate open when I’d retrieved the Hummer. The Jeep was already turning down the road and heading away from us. Without using headlights to see, Merlot hit the brakes a lot. It was like she was flashing a big, “Eat Me” sign through the forest.

Lilly scoffed. “She wants to go back to Carson City. Let her.”

Terry stayed silent, which meant he probably agreed.

“She won’t get that far,” I said. Another waking griffin cry sounded through the air. It probably wasn’t a good idea to be out here. I jumped from the rear of the boat and splashed into ankle-deep water. A quick glance showed the Hummer was fully unhitched from the trailer.

“She’s just scared and homesick,” Clarissa said to Terry. “I don’t think she understands about the brake lights. You can’t see them from the front.”

“So? Look, no one wants to say it, but the food will last longer without her,” Lilly said as I walked by. “And the baby’s running out of diapers.”

Opening the driver’s side door, I climbed in.

Finally, Terry noticed me. “Dylan, what are you doing?”

“I’m going after her,” I said, and started the car. “The griffins are waking up. You guys should get back inside the house, just in case.”

"Dylan, wait!" Clarissa started. But there wasn’t time, and I had never been very good at arguments. If I stayed to listen, someone would talk me out of this.

The Hummer chugged to life, and I pressed the gas and took off after Merlot.

* * *

The yellow Hummer had a bad shimmy that only got worse as I picked up speed. Hopefully, it wouldn't take long to catch up to Merlot.

If Merlot was going to Carson City, she would turn left onto Highway 50. Normally, if the roads were clear, that would take her down the mountain. Now, between the fire and the griffins, I doubted she’d make it a mile.

I toggled the button by the door to crack open the windows. Sure enough, I shrill cries sounded in the trees ahead of me. The didn’t seem interested in my truck. Not with the lights knocked out. They were on the hunt for Merlot.

Grimly, I pressed my foot harder on the gas pedal.

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It was hard to see far ahead. Small branches, pine needles, and leaf-fall littered the asphalt. In only a few days without other cars and workers to keep the roads tidy, it had grown thick enough to obscure the yellow line down the middle.

At first, I thought drifting snow was dotting the windshield, too. But when I figured out how to turn on the windshield wipers, and the snowflakes smeared, I realized it was ash from the wildfire.

I took a bend and nearly slammed on my brakes as a large, dark shadow swooped ahead of my truck.

Barely visible through the smoke, the griffin cried out once, flapped its wings, and lifted back into the air. It wasn’t after me. I had no lights on, and it was like it couldn’t see my truck at all. It was chasing something ahead of me.

The road winded again and I came around another corner. There was the Jeep.

Two stopped cars with their hoods crunched together had blocked the two-lane highway. Merlot had stopped the Jeep dead-center, probably pausing to try to figure out a way around. She must have had her foot resting on the brake pedal because the lights blared like a lighthouse in the dark.

Griffins swooped at her out of the trees. Their high, excited hunting cries attracted others. It had been a few days since the adults turned. Food must be more and more scarce. They were hungry.

One griffin-like shape landed on the Jeep. It made of cloth on the top, and I was surprised the griffin didn’t fall in.

“No!” I yelled, feeling helpless. Another griffin landed beside the first, clawing frantically at the back of the truck, right next to the brake lights.

Grimly, I pressed down on the gas. The steering wheel shook under my fingertips.

No time to think about if what I was going to do was smart or not. I had the feeling it wasn't. The two bright red brake lights glared through the darkness like a set of eyes. I had to put them out.

I pressed down harder on the gas and braced myself.

The Hummer ran straight into the back of the Jeep, plowing it forward and into the other two stopped cars. There was the crunch of metal and plastic breaking. The brake lights went dead. I thought I heard the baby scream, but she was drowned out by the shrilling griffins.

They had more or less ignored me in the dark, but no more. Even before our cars had stopped rolling forward, there was a thump as one of the griffins landed on top of my car.

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I threw myself into the footwell of the passenger seat. Hungry, enraged griffins screamed, and I heard twisting metal as taloned claws dug for me. Glass shattered.

I covered my head and ducked as far down as I could.

I'm not here. You can't see me. There's nothing here, I thought harder than I’d thought anything in my life. Half a prayer and half a command. You can’t see me.

I don't know what gave me that idea. Or why I thought it would work. Only that, even as terrified as I was, expecting to feel a stabbing beak any second, a sharp headache flashed through my head. Like I'd been staring at small text for too long and had strained my eyes.

The Hummer rocked as feathered bodies crawled all over it.

The shrieking grew to a higher, outraged, pitch. More voices joined in, and the Hummer rocked again. I didn’t dare look, but thought the griffins might be fighting one another.

The windshield shattered in. Tiny squares of safety-glass rained down on me. Still, gritting my teeth against the headache and a weird, building pressure, I kept up my train of thought. It was literally all I had left.

I'm not here. There's no one to eat in these cars. You can’t see us.

Eventually—I don't know how long it took—but eventually the cars stopped rocking.

I could still hear faint griffin cries, but they were further away.

Opening my eyes, I looked out. Through the hole where the windshield used to be, I could see stars.

The smoke must be dissipating, I thought. Holy crap. I’m still alive.

I waited a few more minutes, my head throbbing. There weren’t any more sounds close by.

Then, “Hello?" It was Merlot's voice, shaking, but alive.

I pushed my way out of the footwell. The muscles in my legs weren’t happy with me sitting folded, and it felt like someone was driving an ice pick through the back of my head.

The Hummer was trashed. All the windows were broken, except for one in the back. The top and hood was caved in like someone had taken a wrecking ball to it. Several feathers, each as long as my forearm, were scattered around the road. My guess was that when the griffins hadn’t found anything to eat, they’d turned on one another.

Merlot stood by the side of the road, Jane clutched close to her chest. They were both okay.

“Oh, Dylan! Thank goodness!" she said, seeing me. Then, at once she became frantic. “Why did you run into the back of my car?! I was right here, didn't you see me? And those griffins! They... they almost... I don’t know why they didn’t—”

“It was your brake lights,” I told her, exhausted. “You know light attracts griffins.”

“Oh!” She had the grace to look sheepish. Her bottom lip trembled. “And... and you came after me? You saved my life.”

I really hoped she wasn’t going to cry. I tried to shrug it off. “Hitting your car was the only thing I could think of to knock the lights out.”

Her hand grasped onto my arm. “You saved my life,” she repeated. “But... We can still leave. Me, you, and Jane. We can go to Carson City... be like a family together, just the three of us.”

I coughed in surprise, twisting out of her grip. Was she saying...? “Merlot, I... uh...”

“That boat’s not going to work! Did you see how small it is? And Lilly already hates Jane. She’ll think of some way to push her overboard. You know it’s true!”

She was making too much noise. I shushed her and gestured for her to follow me under the the trees. Once we were under cover, I said, “I won’t let that happen. Running away isn’t the right thing to do.”

Now she really was crying. “I just want to go home! I want to know my mom and dad are safe. Why won't you guys let me go?"

I hated to be the one to do this. But it was the real reason I didn't want anyone else coming with me. Terry would probably try to bully and guilt Merlot. Lilly would be a disaster, Ben too young, and Clarissa... had kind of a griffiny temper when she was pushed.”

"I'm sorry,” I told the sniffling girl. “I really am. All of us are going through it, too. But Merlot, your parents are gone, they wouldn't want you to go back for them. Carson City is probably as bad, or worse, than Tahoe."

“You don't know that for sure."

"Yes, I do." I pointed back to the Jeep and Hummer, which were so trashed they were undrivable. “Look what they did just because they saw brake lights and were hungry. Look what they’re capable of.”

“I didn’t think about the brake lights, okay? We can be careful!”

"Carson City is the high desert. There’s not going to be much water around. And it’s close to Reno, which means there will be even more griffins. All of them will be hungry. Think of Jane. Do you want her growing up like that? Always thirsty? Always afraid?"

“I don't know! I don't know!” She covered her eyes with a free hand and wept. I let her, feeling awkward, but she needed to get this out before she did something else really stupid.

“Let me have the baby for a minute,” I offered.

Baby Jane had been mercifully quiet—probably too scared or traumatized to make much noise. She gave a little helpless wail and reached back to Merlot when I walked away to give her space.

“Shh,” I said and patted her back. “Let’s go look at the cars, alright? See if there’s anything we can grab from them.”

It was more than a mile back to the subdivision. We could walk it, but that meant we were out of cars at the house.

I walked around to the stopped cars, which had somehow spun out and hit head-to-head. One had a still opened door.

Then, I noticed the large orange construction barriers on the other side of the road. They were common in Lake Tahoe. The freezing winter and snowplows tore up the asphalt, so there was always road construction going on. The orange barriers were set up in a line that went around another curve in the road ahead.

Curious, I hitched Jane up in my arms and walked to see.

Around the bend, on a wide shoulder of the road, sat heavy-duty construction equipment. A bulldozer, a huge plow, and a machine meant to lay asphalt.

“Merlot!” I called. The headache wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. Hope was a great painkiller.

“What’s wrong, now?” she asked, jogging up.

“Nothing. Hold Jane for me!” I pushed the baby back into her arms and ran to the bulldozer. It was the only machine that mattered. The door opened, but the keys weren’t in sight. “Do you know how to start this?”

“Uh, no? Why would I want to? It’ll be slow. Let’s just get a car.”

I jumped down, excited. “We can use this to make a huge fire-break!”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my god. We won’t have to use that stupid boat at all.” She turned, looking around, then pointed to a construction trailer set up fifty feet away, the name of the company painted across the side. “I bet there will be keys there. But won’t the griffins attack once we start the engine? It’s not going to be quiet."

I laughed and hugged her, squishing poor Jane between us. “We’ll knock out the lights. They don’t seem to care about noise in the dark. Just light. This’ll work, Merlot!”

She grinned, her cheeks darkening with a blush. “Have you ever driven a bulldozer?"

Letting go, I headed for the trailer. “I’d never driven at all before last week. How hard could it be?”

* * *

I wish I could've somehow recorded the look on everyone’s face as I rolled up to the house in a big bulldozer. Merlot and I had knocked out all the lights using rocks, but they would have heard us coming up the driveway long before we reach the top.

The griffins hadn't attacked. No lights. Nothing for them to see. That was good to know in the future. We might have been safe using the chainsaws after all. With the bulldozer, there was no need.

Lilly was jumping around in excitement, showing her age for once. I couldn't hear what she said over the bulldozer’s engine, but she punched Terry excitedly in the shoulder.

My gaze fell to Clarissa. The pride and hope on her face made me feel warm all over and dampened some of the headache.

I cut the engine, and Merlot opened the door. She and Baby Jane rode along with me in the cab.

"Look what we found !" Merlot called.

Terry ran up to us. "Where the heck did you get that?"

"It's road construction equipment,” I said. “No one was exactly using it.”

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Lilly said. "We still have a couple hours of darkness. We can get started on the fire break right now."

Terry scowled at her, then seemed to give up. "Show me how to drive it," he said to me.

"Terry," Clarissa chided.

But secretly, I was relieved. "No, it's good. I... got a headache." That sounded so lame, but after sitting next to a rumbling loud engine for a mile the pain had grown worse. All I wanted to do was lay down in a dark room and sleep. "It's not hard to drive. There is a brake and gas pedal just like a car, and these levers raise and lower the... uh, shovel thingy."

“Move over, Merlot,” Lilly said.

“I’m going to put Jane down for a nap. I think she needs a change of diaper, too,” Merlot said.

No one moved to stop her. Apparently, we weren’t going to give her problems about running away. Good.

She looked relieved and scuttled back into the house so fast, it was clearly a retreat.

I ceded the controls to Terry, and jumped down from the bulldozer. My knees almost buckled when I hit the ground. Clarissa helped me stand.

“What really happened?” she asked quietly.

She was the only one I could tell the whole truth. But now wasn’t the time. Not with Terry and Lilly so close, and a lot of work to do. Plus, I wasn’t so sure what had exactly happened, myself. At the time, it really felt like I had somehow... willed the griffins not to notice us. Now that a couple hours had passed, I think it was more likely they just couldn’t see me in the dark.

“Later,” I told her.

Terry started the bulldozer. I backed away and headed gratefully to the house.

* * *

The day after next, we watched from the attic as the wildfire swept by. It consumed all the hills and the steep forest ridges around us and jumped from tree to tree. Racing through houses like kindling. The air was choked with smoke.

I had never seen destruction like it before. None of us had.

Yes, I’d my doubts about the boat, but I was glad we had stocked it with bug out supplies just in case.

But the fire didn’t jump the breakline we had made between the road and the subdivision, or the smaller one, just in case, around our house.

Our neighborhood was an island of unburnt land.

We were safe.