Refuge by Jeremy Robinson

Author:Jeremy Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hell, religion, lost, alien, monsters, heaven, creature, alien worlds, dome, under, dimensionshift
Publisher: Breakneck Media

57

Griffin opened his door and stepped out even before the SUV came to a complete stop.

“What is it?” Frost asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Stay here.”

He shut the door and hurried toward the trees. He had caught a glimpse of something he instantly wished he hadn’t, but also couldn’t ignore. Most of his attention had been on the massive tree towering over the depot, but then his eyes had shifted toward the normal-sized trees and the carpet of brown pine needles between them. Something had glinted in the sun. It was tiny. And brief. But something about the way it looked trigger a memory. A proposal at the beach. The sun, shining through a diamond had an unmistakable quality.

“Griffin!” Winslow shouted, stepping out of the SUV.

He threw a hand back behind him, signaling for Winslow and everyone else to stay put. Maybe, he thought, what he had seen was just in his imagination. Perhaps a fleck of mica fused to a chunk of granite.

Griffin’s nose twitched as the dark, deep rank of decay struck him.

Damnit...

He stopped, turned away, and looked at the others. They were out of the SUV, watching him. Frost had circled the vehicle and stood in front of the others, her face filled with worry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He held up his hand again, shaking his head, telling her to stay there, to not come any closer…without actually saying anything at all. It wasn’t the dead body behind him in the bushes, either; he had seen more dead bodies than he cared to remember, and he had become numb to the sight. But it was this dead body in particular that created a rumbling in his gut and a sour taste in the back of his throat.

“Stay there,” he said, as the others started forward. “Just stay there.”

They all paused for a beat. Then Frost started forward again, the others trailing behind her.

Griffin turned back around, his eyes closed. He told himself that it wasn’t real. That when he opened his eyes, what lay before him would be something other than what he knew for a fact it was.

Frost gasped behind him: “Oh my God!”

He opened his eyes.

Rebecca Rule lay right where he knew she would be. Or not Rule exactly, but what was left of Rule. The bottom of her had been cut in half during the second shift. Her legs had remained in the desert world. The top had stayed in Refuge for only an hour or so before it had disappeared.

Not disappeared, he thought. Taken.

The last time Griffin had seen her, everything above her waist had been intact. Now both of her arms were gone, her shoulders just ragged stubs covered in dried blood. And her head…some of it was still attached to the torso, but not all of it.

She still wore her uniform, or what was left of her uniform, much of it torn away. Around her neck was the diamond necklace her husband had given to her years ago, which she had worn ever since. The diamond was small, barely a quarter carat, and not the prettiest piece of jewelry.

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