Flashback Dawn: A Teaser

by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Red looked about the room, still disoriented. Spying it, he rushed toward it and snatched it up, even as Charlotte called, “Let’s hurry it up, we’ve got company!” Red handed Corbin the weapon and they exchanged uneasy glances. It was an exchange that set Red’s hair on end, for the cop’s eyes said one thing very I could leave you here right now, asshole. Because seconds count … and it might just come down to you or me. Then he set his weapon aside and extended his hand for Red to take, and they just managed to clear the window and climb into the Jeep before the pair of allosaurs—not quite as large as their cousin T. Rex but quicker and more gracile—descended upon them from the mists, and the group narrowly missed being caught in a pincer movement only by Charlotte’s assured driving and a heady dose of pure, undiluted luck. The first aspect of the primitive girl Red became acquainted with was the tip of her spear, which jabbed him in the ribs as he climbed into the backseat of the truck. “You brought her spear?” he said incredulously, shifting the weapon aside, even as one of the allosaurs brushed its massive head against the chassis, causing the Jeep to lift off two wheels briefly and to nearly lose its footing. “She’s in shock, but she wouldn’t be separated from it,” said Charlotte. “Hang on!” Red grabbed the back of her seat as the Jeep rocked violently and accelerated, sparing a glance at the primitive girl as he did so. She was only semiconscious, and her right leg was clearly broken, plus they’d buckled her in. Nevertheless, he gripped the short spear stealthily as she turned her head against the window and eased it into the rear storage area. The vehicle jolted again as the allosaur on the passenger side butted it with its head, and Red shouted, “Jesus, Corbin, give us some cover!” The ex-cop was already working on it, and an instant later Red saw a repeating, crisscrossed muzzle-flash erupt from the side of the truck, the rounds of which blasted away a chunk of the animal’s snout and the sound of which startled the primitive girl awake. “Naaygi!” she cried suddenly. “Naaygi!” She reached for her spear instinctively, and, finding it nowhere, began thrashing about wildly in her seat, grunting and growling. “I think we got a situation back here,” said Red, even as she lunged at the sound of his voice. Corbin continued to fire. “In case you haven’t noticed, asshole, we’ve got a situation out there.”

20 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2018

About the author

Wayne Kyle Spitzer (born July 15, 1966) is an American author and low-budget horror filmmaker from Spokane, Washington. He is the writer/director of the short horror film, Shadows in the Garden, as well as the author of Flashback, an SF/horror novel published in 1993. Spitzer's non-genre writing has appeared in subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History. His recent fiction includes The Ferryman Pentalogy, consisting of Comes a Ferryman, The Tempter and the Taker, The Pierced Veil, Black Hole, White Fountain, and To the End of Ursathrax, as well as The X-Ray Rider Trilogy and a screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.