Low Desert, High Mountain, Big Lizard: A Post-Apocalyptic Story

By M.G. Herron

A basilisk barks and chases boulders across the desert. Has the thing lost its blinking mind?

As a scavenger, Das is no stranger to the beautiful and deadly alien creatures the invaders left behind. He’s always careful, like his father taught him, when he’s exploring the ruins. But this is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

Putting himself at risk is one thing…but imperil the lives of the people he loves? Unthinkable. When the mad basilisk goes on a rampage, it’s up to Das to prove himself worthy of his father’s memory, and find a way to put the brute out of its misery before it hurts anyone else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.G. Herron
• Release date: Sep 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386718604

Book preview

Low Desert, High Mountain, Big Lizard

Copyright © 2017 by M.G. Herron. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. This story may not be reproduced without express written consent.

LOW DESERT, HIGH MOUNTAIN, BIG LIZARD

M.G. HERRON

Chapter 1

A COUPLE DAYS after the cool autumn sank its toes into the sand, I packed a lunch and rode the bike that Leyla fixed for me west into the desert. I would have preferred to walk, but where I wanted to go couldn’t be reached on foot in a day.

The full water skin slung over my shoulder slapped against my leg as I pedaled across the cracked pavement of the aging highway that cut through the sand. It wasn’t until the sun was straight overhead, beaming down on the old white t-shirt I’d draped along my neck and shoulders—a makeshift keffiyeh to protect my fair, freckled skin—that the dilapidated auto repair shop came into sight.

The standalone building was half-buried in a sand dune. When I’d first found it, it was fully buried, and only the odd square shape of the awning extending out from the roof indicated that there was anything other than more sand underneath. I had marked the place on my mental map, and waited until the winds shifted with the seasons to unearth it again before returning.

I set the bike aside and inched down the hill of sand, carefully prodding with my foot for soft spots indicating there was a treacherous pocket of air waiting for the slightest motion to be filled by the sand above. More than one of our scavengers had been buried alive that way. Not wishing to add to those statistics, I moved slowly, carefully, forward.

But I found no soft spots, and my boots came down on solid ground. I seemed to be standing on the building’s cement foundation, which extended to what must have been a parking lot. Next to me, the dusty glass windows in the garage doors were still intact—a minor miracle in itself. I used my sleeve to wipe away some of the grime then peered through the glass.

I expected the inside to be a mess, and inhaled sharply when the reality proved different. Almost every old building I’d found had been left a mess—no surprise, if you believed the stories that the aliens had colonized Earth in a day. No time to prepare or set your house to rights. Just grab what you can and run run run.

But this place was as orderly as you please. A pile of sand had spilled in through a single broken window, but otherwise the floors were bare. Tool chests were lined up neatly against the wall, and a gas motor Chevrolet was raised a few feet off the floor in one of the bays, where it had surely been waiting years for a service that never came.

Maybe the invaders came on a holiday, when the mechanics were at home with their families. That would explain a