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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

We were standing on the railroad tracks. Riversea waves crashed at our feet. I knew what she was talking about. I felt it myself. The elements were strong, here. Everything else was stripped away. We were rooted firmly on the Earth, on the stone and metal of the train tracks. Breathing in air, surrounded by water. Fire burned inside of us, and twinkled in the distance—lights on the riverboats; cooking fires along the quay.

“It’s not safe here,” I said to her.

“It’s happening,” Ash said. “I remember.”

Forty-Three

Ash

“What do you remember?” I asked.

“That night,” Solomon said. “The night you fell.”

He grabbed me by the arms, pulled me into a hug. His whole body was shaking. Not from the cold.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re going to be okay.”

A bell clanged on a buoy out in the river. Thunder thudded, distant now.

“I’m slipping,” he said. “It’s like the rain is washing me away. Washing all of this away, this Solomon-shaped person I’ve constructed. The walls are coming down. And I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

Forty-Four

Solomon

So we didn’t talk for a long time. Just stood there in the rain, holding each other tightly, eyes shut, tuning out the whole world around us. Until I wasn’t sure what world we were in anymore. Or who I was. Until I thought we were somewhere else—a place like ours but twisted, different, incomplete. I could see its outline, the shape of it, so close to ours, but not.

We held tight to each other. Like nothing else mattered. Like literally nothing else was real.

Lightning snaked along the edge of the sky. I braced myself for the thunder, prayed it would never come, wished I could stop time, keep this moment from ending.

But I knew I couldn’t.

I felt her, now. Coming back. Felt the way her posture and her face took on a new strength, a new confidence. Something they’d been lacking. And then that confidence, that fearlessness, began to bleed into me. My fear began to shrink. Not by magic. Just because we were together, we were united, we were strong. “Tell me,” I said.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, her eyes wide with excitement. “But I can show you. That’s what I can do. That’s my ability.”

Vision magic: a rare and valuable power. To be able to see with perfect clarity what would happen in the future, or had happened in the past, or was happening far away in that very moment—people had built huge and powerful empires on the strength of a gift like that.

“Show me,” I said.

She pressed her index and middle fingers to my forehead. Shut her eyes. The sound of the rain faded out. So did the darkness.