Read Online Hissers by Ryan C. Thomas - Free Book Online

feel like we should get to the crash and see what’s what. I’m sure we’re not going to be able to do anything anyway, but we witnessed the whole thing so you never know. We’ll head home right after.”
    Nobody spoke as they crossed the remaining fields and emerged onto Union Avenue. The backside of the local supermarket was before them, the fence to the truck loading docks already locked for the night to keep riff raff out.
    Amanita climbed up first, cursing as she went, but her body was toned and she had no problem lifting her weight. Nicole went next and Connor stayed back to help her in case she fell. But like Amanita she proved athletic enough to hold her own.
    She landed on the other side and waved for Connor and Seth. “Come on, let’s hurry.”
    Seth went next and got halfway up before he stopped. He was having difficulty getting his weight up to the top. On the other side of the fence Amanita rolled her eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake just put your foot there—”
    “I can do it,” Seth yelled back. With a grunt he rolled himself over the top and almost fell all the way down to the ground on the other side but both Amanita and Nicole put their hands up to stop him, allowing him to get a grip.
    Connor went last, and while he had no problem getting over, he felt his shin burning as he used his calf muscles. At one point the open wound grazed a link and sent shockwaves of pain up his back. He winced when he landed next to Nicole.
    They walked around the side of the supermarket, across the small parking lot, and onto the road. They followed it up a steep grade until it was level with the rooftops of the surroundings homes and businesses. Here they stopped and stared at the scene before them.
    The Pizza King was gone. The gas station across the street was just a pile of flaming tinder. Up and down the street debris burned and keened as it melted. The fuselage of the plane lay in the middle of what had once been a house, now torn in half, passenger chairs piled up around it, everything alight. The cockpit had driven further into the surrounding homes, leaving a trail of destruction and fire in its wake. The other wing was nowhere to be seen, neither were the jet engines. The tail of the plane had been sheared off as well and was also missing. It was hard to tell what had gone where, but judging by the number of burning houses surrounding the crash it was obvious the rest of the plane, like the wing that almost crushed Connor and his friends, had been flung off on impact.
    Sprawled on the street at varying intervals were dead bodies, some of them in one piece, others missing essential parts. One of them was headless. Limbs poked out from under burning bits of metal. Some limbs were not attached to a body.
    A fire truck sped to the scene, joining two others that were already on site. Long arcs of water shot into the towering flames but did little to extinguish the blaze. The entire town’s collection of police cruisers was on site, red and blue lights all but lost in the intense orange blaze of the fire. An ambulance appeared out of the black smoke and pulled to the stop near one of the fire trucks. More sirens could be heard approaching. All of the emergency personnel were so overwhelmed they looked like baseball players caught in a pickle, frantically running back and forth but not sure what to do.
    But worse than this, worse than the sight of the giant mangled and burning plane sitting in the middle of a residential street in Castor, worse than the dead bodies with broken bones splayed at unnatural angles, were the people on fire, running around in the street. Even from the top of the hill Connor could hear their wails of agony and wanted to cry; they were burning alive.
    Firemen and police officers emerged with fire blankets and portable extinguishers and tried to spray down the victims, but there were too many to attend to at once. The lucky ones were hosed down, their skin blackened beyond recognition, the