Reapers (52 page)
Authors: Edward W. Robertson
For his birthday, she came up with a surprise.
"Let's go!" Tristan clapped her hands over his face, yanking him from sleep. "Time to go camping."
He rolled over. "We
live
in a camp."
She slapped his face. "But it's not a volcano."
He opened one eye. "Volcano?"
"Haleakala," Tristan said, relishing the word. "We'll hike up and spend the night. The sunrise is supposed to be the prettiest thing on earth."
He sat up, sheets bunched around his tan torso. "Will there be lava?"
"I think it's extinct. But I bet the Big Island is still bubbling. If we can handle Haleakala, maybe for your next birthday, we can sail to Kilauea."
"Cool."
He got up without further complaint. She had a bike trailer for hauling fruit down from the hills. She loaded it with gear and they rode across the saddle of the island that connected the western lobe to the larger eastern lands. Haleakala tumbled up from their middle, green and gorgeous in the morning mist. It took most of the day to climb, but as they neared the rim of the crater, the view commanded the seas to all sides. Tristan closed her eyes and shivered. The high wind was the first time she'd felt real cold in years.
But up on the lip, her blood froze solid. In the hidden slopes of the caldera, bushes grew in orderly rings. Crablike monsters stalked among the concentric rows, tentacles waving in the sun of paradise, spiked feet piercing an earth that wasn't theirs.
FROM THE AUTHOR
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