Earth Zero: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 2) by Scott Nicholson

creature, it would be better to outmaneuver it if possible. Franklin wasn’t familiar with the terrain here on the lower slopes of the Blue Ridge, since he rarely made supply runs and preferred to raise his own food. The trees were slender and widely spaced, as if the roots had difficulty finding purchase in the rocky soil.
    If they could make it to denser underbrush, the creature wouldn’t be able to follow. Stephen’s eagerness to take the fast way out showed a lack of experience that might get them both killed. Franklin didn’t have time to explain his strategy, so he just lowered his rifle a little and jerked his head to the side to indicate they should leave the path.
    Maybe it hasn’t even seen us yet.
    Stephen’s face puckered in defiance and he lifted his own weapon and aimed at the thing. Franklin let out a hiss of anger and pushed Stephen’s gun barrel. They struggled for a second, Franklin losing his balance and bumping into the boy. Stephen stepped backward and a branch snapped with a piercing, brittle sound. They both froze and gazed at the creature.
    Oh, shit.
    The creature lifted its head, the aurora pooling in its eyes and casting them as luminescent marbles. But that wasn’t the worst part. Two more sets of eyes came out of the trees behind it, the creatures sporting jagged racks of bone atop their heads. Franklin realized these things had once been deer, or at least had borrowed some of the genetic code of the ruminant mammals. He’d hunted deer for meat plenty of times, but now it looked like they were the hunters instead of the prey.
    This time Franklin didn’t hesitate, because there was only one real strategy. He squeezed the trigger, popping off a series of short bursts. The one on the path reared and issued a squeal, kicking at the air with its front hooves. Two dark dots glistened moistly along its flank, but it didn’t drop.
    The two other deviant deer-things lowered their antlers and charged, snorting and crashing through the brush. Stephen fired, but his aim was about as bad as Franklin’s. After half a dozen ineffective shots, he turned and dashed in the direction Franklin had originally indicated.
    Franklin stood his ground and waited for the creatures to come fully into the light of the path. They were barely twenty yards away when Franklin heard a muted thunder. Then he saw them—a whole herd, pouring from the forest and thundering up the slope toward him, the forest alive with their movement.
    He fled after Stephen, expecting to feel the sharp stab of those antlers in his spine at any second. His theory had been right—the vegetation slowed the predators a little, but they simply bulled their way through when grace failed. He lost sight of Stephen when he stumbled over a root and slammed against a charred oak trunk, nearly dropping his rifle. The deer surged toward him, the formerly peaceful night now awash with the destruction of their stampede.
    Franklin was out of breath, his heart slamming against his rib cage as branches slapped at his face. Turning and firing would be useless, since he only had half a magazine left. Even if he made every shot count—a big if—they would stomp and gouge and gnaw him into human sausage. His only chance was the stupid plan he’d been so sure about only a minute before.
    When you bet your life, you better make damn sure the odds are in your favor.
    He dashed between two looming pillars of granite that jutted from the earth. He dared a glance behind him. His pursuers ascended a wide gulley where the trees were thinner, dark shapes rocking back and forth as their legs churned, mud and debris flying from their monstrous hooves.
    Stephen shouted somewhere ahead of him, the sound quickly pushed away by the crashing of underbrush and the rattle of dry leaves as the wind shifted. Behind it was a low hiss of white noise that seemed to grow louder as Franklin ran. He thought it was his pulse rising, or his own breath boiling from his lungs, but as the