The Way to Spook City

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The air was shining up ahead, a cold white pulsing glow bursting imperiously out of the hard blue desert sky. That sudden chilly dazzle told Demeris that he was at the border, that he was finally getting his first glimpse of the place where human territory ended and the alien-held lands began.

He halted and stood staring for a moment, half expecting to see monsters flying around overhead on the far side of the line; and right on cue something weird went flapping by, a blotch of darkness against the brilliant icy sheen that was lighting everything up over there in the Occupied Zone. It was a heavy thing the size of a hawk and a half, with a lumpy greenish body and narrow wings like sawblades and a long snaky back that had a little globular purple head at the end of it. The creature was so awkward that Demeris had to laugh. He couldn’t see how it stayed airborne. The bird, if that was what it was, flew on past, heading north, dropping a line of bright turquoise turds behind it. A little burst of flame sprang up in the dry grass where each one fell.

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