Welcome to Snippet Saturday, where authors share snippets of their work.
Today is Weaponry! Wheee! There’s nothing I love more than writing about weapons and the characters who use them. It’s probably why I love writing action and suspense stories….my characters often get to play with weapons.
The most fun I ever had researching weapons was for my Demon Hunters series. Here’s a scene from SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND, the first book in the series. Hope you enjoy!
Then she saw it. A flicker of movement to her left. Like a flash of white lighting as it breezed by.
“They’re fast, Gina. Get ready to run. He’ll circle and pop up behind you before you know it, otherwise. Get your vision tracked and follow, but stay sharp. They like to gang up. And stay with me at all times.”
She nodded and drew her weapon up rib high, acknowledging that her hands were shaking, forcing a calm she didn’t feel.
It was just adrenaline. Not fear. She was ready for this fight. Prepared. Armed and strong. She could take these bastards.
“What scares you, little girl?”
For a split second, her eyes closed, and she was propelled back in time once again, becoming that frightened child all alone. Gasping back a sob, reality surged and she pivoted.
The sonofabitch was fucking with her mind, and that she would never, ever allow. She aimed and fired, the UV light surprising the demon. He threw his hands up, but it was too late. An unholy scream emanated from the creature as it boiled and bubbled, smoke pouring from its frying flesh before oozing to the ground in a gelatinous pile.
Gina walked over to it, watching the remains rise and fall as if it was still breathing.
“Don’t ever fuck with me like that again,” she whispered to the darkness around her. “You can’t scare me.”
Blinking back the moisture in her eyes, she turned. Derek was watching her.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He focused on her for a second, then nodded. “Nice shot. Now let’s move.”
It didn’t take long for another to dart by them. Like ghosts, they flew by, almost as if they were taunting them, playing a game of cat and mouse. Derek took off in a fast run, Gina right on his heels, digging down when she was nearly out of breath. When he increased his speed to nearly inhuman levels, Gina almost lost sight of him. For someone she’d easily kept up with just a few days ago, he’d sure stepped it up all of a sudden. She was wheezing, her lungs were on fire and if he didn’t slow down soon she was going to be left behind.
God, these things were fast, zooming around trees and through the bushes with lightning speed. Relentless, Derek refused to let go of his target, but finally halted so suddenly Gina almost ran up his back. She dug in her heels and stopped just in time to see him aim at one coming right at them. The gun whirred with a low humming sound, but she couldn’t see anything coming from the barrel.
Nevertheless, the microwaves had obviously hit their intended target. The demon flew in the air, shimmying and shaking as the waves hit it, its eyeballs protruding from their sockets, white and bulging. When it hit the ground it began to sizzle, bumps popped out on its skin like a bad case of hives, its skin turned bright red and began to bubble.
“Stand back, Gina,” Derek said.
She did, and he took several steps backward, too.
Gina watched in horror and fascination as the demon began to expand, its skin stretching like a balloon filling with air. Wider and wider it expanded, more than skin should be able to inflate.
“This is where it gets really messy,” Derek said.
Suddenly, the demon blew apart with a loud pop, parts of it flying all over the jungle.
Gina grimaced and looked at Derek. “Oh that’s so gross.”
Grinning, he said, “Yeah, isn’t it? Now let’s go get the last one.”
Strangely, it seemed that the last demon was hiding. Or maybe it was stalking them, ready to pounce from behind a tree or thicket of bushes.
Gina and Derek combed the area, communicating back and forth with Linc and Ryder, who were engaged with their own set of demons.
“See anything?” Derek asked as he looked left and she looked right.
“Not yet.”
But suddenly it was right there in front of them, appearing out of nowhere. Derek dropped his rifle as the Demon lunged for him, it’s clawed hands and dripping fangs reaching out, trying to bite, to scratch, to insert its paralyzing toxin.
Human looking in every way except for its hideous fangs and claws, it was just like the one she’d seen the night before. Nearly bald, with pale blue eyes, but emanating pure evil as its twisted, grimacing face glared at Derek.
Derek grabbed its wrists and held it back, struggling to keep it at bay.
Shocked for a second, Gina gaped at it, her mind scrambling for what to do.
Shoot it, dumbass!
Then instinct roared to life and she grabbed the handgun out of the holster at her hip, taking careful aim as the demon and Derek struggled in a fierce dance. She didn’t want to hit Derek in case they moved suddenly, but she knew Derek didn’t have much time. The muscles of Derek’s arms bulged with the effort it took to keep the demon from sinking its fangs into his arm.
She fired a shot, striking the demon in the throat. It let go of Derek and reached for its neck, blood pouring over its hands.
Derek pushed back, panting and fighting for breath as he leaned over and braced his hands on his knees. Gina rushed over to him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Thanks.”
She looked at the demon, horrified to see its flesh melting off its bones, a strangled, bubbly cry tearing through the night as first its flesh disappeared, then muscle, then organs disintegrated, until nothing was left but skeletal remains that dropped to the ground.
“You have some seriously kickass weapons, Derek.”
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Anya Bast
Vivian Arend
Ashley Ladd
Leah Braemel
Taige Crenshaw
Shelley Munro
Sasha White
Jody Wallace
TJ Michaels
Victoria Janssen
Elisabeth Naughton