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

unlucky ones writhed on the hot street while their flesh melted off.
    None of the four friends made an attempt to move any closer. This was disaster on a scale they had never seen. This was more than the town of Castor was ever meant to handle. Seth finally stepped forward and said what they were all just realizing. “The plane hit Jason Drake’s house. It’s completely gone. I mean, look, it’s just gone.”
    Nicole turned to Connor but was unable to speak. There was something she needed to say, something profound, but the realization that they could have been at the party was too fresh for her. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell down her cheeks.
    Connor wanted to say something to let her know everything would be alright, but he stopped short, because as he turned back to the scene, the final puzzle piece fell in place. The people rolling on the ground on fire were their schoolmates. The plane had barreled right into them, a massive bullet burning at a thousand degrees. The flaming bodies on the street would turn out to be people he knew. The motionless ones had been lucky. What was it they always said in the movies about disasters? The lucky ones die quick.
    Amanita bent over and threw up on the street, almost falling to her knees in the process. She was crying, and somewhere in the back of Connor’s mind he realized it was the only time he’d ever seen her cry. Next to him Nicole started to shake and began tugging on his sleeve. “We have to help! We have to do something!”
    At the crash site, firemen were doing their best to shoot suppression foam on anything with flames, including the burning people. It wasn’t doing much good. The fire was so intense and so hot that it incinerated anything that got close to it. The terrified screams of pain grew louder.
    Connor felt his knees go weak but knew Nicole was right; they had to help their fellow students. “Okay, follow me.”
    He led the way down, eyeing a teenage girl rolling on the grass of a well-manicured lawn, her hair burned off, her legs still on fire. Connor broke into a run, desperately trying to ignore the blinding pain in his shin, and tore his shirt off. He slid on the grass beside her and beat the flames with his shirt. His back began to burn from the hot air surrounding the nearby burning fuselage, like standing too close to a bonfire. It was all he could do to ignore the heat and focus on the girl. As he whipped at the flames on her legs she howled in pain and flailed like a wild animal. “Stay still! I’m trying to—”
    “Get off her!” Two large arms reached around him and threw him several feet to the side. He rolled over and saw two firemen spraying the girl’s legs with foam. Their faces were streaked with soot, their eyes beet red. Even working together the two large firefighters could not control the poor girl’s kicking. He realized then it was Danny Williams’ older sister Carrie.
    He could tell from her necklace, a Sailor Jerry Sparrow tattoo. Never took it off. She worked at the pretzel stand in the mall and would be a junior this year. Boys found her attractive and stood around ordering pretzels all day just to sneak a peek at her. Right now, her lips were dangling down beneath her chin, her bald head was slick with bubbling hot blood, her cheeks were singed into strips of meat, and her left eye was nothing but a black olive. Half of her head was burned beyond repair.
    Nicole, Amanita and Seth reached down and helped Connor up.
    A police officer ran over and began shoving them off the lawn. “Get the fuck out of here now! I mean it!”
    So much for helping, thought Connor.
    “They’re still burning,” Nicole said. “Somebody needs to put them out. They’re going to die!”
    The cop started to yell at her but stopped when another burning teenager came running past them and fell, rolling to the ground.
    For a fleeting second Connor considered chasing after the cop, lending his help whether the bastard liked it or not. But