Crash of Dawn by David A. Hill

I woke up this morning to what I thought was an 18-wheeler colliding with a freight train somewhere near my back deck. There was even a noise that sounded something like a train whistle performing a bad duet with a tractor trailer horn. But I knew that wasn’t it.

            By the time I had some pants on; the noises had moved away a bit and were hard to define. Something splintered as I made my way across the hall to a back window. There were a bunch of snapping and whipping sounds to go with the splintering, like someone busting a giant guitar. That’s when the power went out.

            So I got to the window and peeked through the blinds. There was no way I was going to show myself to whatever was going on out there. Somehow, I wasn’t really too surprised to see some kind of giant lizard rising up out of the wreckage of a half-dozen power poles just at the edge of the trees across the street. The equally gigantic crab-looking thing that scuttled up behind the big reptile was a bit of a shock though. I didn’t know what to do. I had a gun, but what was the point? The monsters weren’t on my property.

            When the crab hit the lizard in the back and they both skidded toward the house, I reconsidered the gun but decided to make a run for it instead. The keys were sitting on the table by the door and I snatched them up on my way out. That’s when the giant lizard landed on the back deck and rolled into the living room. I slammed the front door behind me and ran for the truck.

            If you’ve never seen a ’92 Dodge Ram pickup lurch to one side and then hurtle through the air to crash into the head of a 60-foot tall lizard, well, consider yourself lucky. The big crab just stood there in the empty driveway and looked at me, almost like it was debating whether I’d be big enough to make an effective missile. I doubted it and the crab seemed to agree as it scuttled right over me and smashed through the kitchen to get at the lizard again.

             By this time, the scaly green monster with the truck-sized lump on its head had discovered the exposed gas pipe from the stove that was now lying in the shallow end of the swimming pool in the back yard. That big fella gnashed his pointy teeth together and fat blue sparks jumped out like we were at a Fourth of July picnic. The gas ignited and the lizard blew the flames toward the crab right as it came over the kitchen pass-thru. That mean old crustacean didn’t seem to like getting a face full of fire and gas, so it did a quick sidestep into the dining room and I thought I heard the china cabinet take the brunt of it all.

            The last I saw of those two giant monsters, the lizard had rolled through my barn with all four claws latched onto that crab-thing and they kept on tumbling across Highway 11 and then into the river. For myself, I was just glad to be alive and in one piece. Praise the Lord for that.

            I do thank you boys from the insurance office for coming all the way out here to take my statement. When should I expect my check?

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David A. Hill is a freelance writer, artist, and role-playing game designer. His science fantasy poetry and short fiction has been published in Scifaikuest and Lore magazines, and he has co-authored a humorous sword and sorcery tale for an anthology from Loconeal Publishing. He is currently hard at work being an Associate Editor and occasional interviewer for Lore magazine, and the author of a contemporary mythic fantasy novel trilogy featuring a raven and a Baltimore museum curator in their struggle to save the mortal world from dragons, giants, and really big maggots.

Copyright 2013 David A. Hill