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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

That triumph did not amount to much. More came, closing in on it now that it was down, sharp weapons aimed for soft parts.

“Stop!” I screamed, but I might as well have been speaking to people in another reality. They were laughing. Cheering. Hooting, hollering.

Abruptly, the animal’s cries went from angry roars to heart-hurting whimpers.

A crowd of people stood and stared. A couple of them were crying. I looked to a woman who I felt certain was an othersider—but if she was, she was too afraid to use her ability to intervene.

“Hey!” said one of the Destroyers, seeing the camera around my neck.

“Take a picture,” another one said, holding up the chimera’s forepaw. The thing was bigger than his torso, and he could only hold it aloft for a couple of seconds.

“Go fuck yourself,” I said, which was when I noticed how hard it was to breathe.

I sat down on the dead grass. A white stripe of chalk ran past my feet. In summer, kids played here. I looked up, trying to focus on the stars, something faraway and safe that could help me calm down. But I couldn’t see the stars.

Smoke billowed up from the burning trees set ablaze by the chimera’s breath. The cylinders of flames burned like bonfires on a chilly beach. They hooted and bellowed, these monstrous murderer savages, and I clenched my eyes to shut out the feral sight of them, but I could still hear them.

Twenty-Three

Ash

Smoke billowed up from the bonfire, a cylinder of flame, warm and safe on that chilly beach. The fire lit up the faces of my fellow partygoers, almost all of them boys, and made them look feral and wild and exaggerated. Very Lord of the Flies. It occurred to me to be afraid. Maybe Sheffield had lured me here to be murdered.

“Put more wood on it!” someone yelled.

“There’s too much wood on it already,” someone else yelled. A buoy clanged, out on the Hudson River. Someone splashed kerosene, from a massive red metal jug.

“They’re animals,” Sheffield said, sitting down in the sand beside me. “Cavemen, at best.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say about your friends.”

He shrugged, sipped from a bottle of root beer. “Not sure about that.”

All the other boys were drinking actual beer. I wondered why he wasn’t. Maybe what Sheffield liked more than being drunk, was being in control.

“You’re not sure whether it’s not a nice thing to say, or you’re not sure whether they’re your friends?”

“The second one,” he said, and turned to look at them.

Most but not all of the football team was there.

It wouldn’t do, for photography—not with lighting like this, the dark of the night and the creepy shifting illumination of the bonfire. The sand was cold. I planted my hands in it, and shivered.