New Adult Threesome Contest Entry #3

Title: FROM THE GROUND

Genre: Horror

Word Count: 47,000

Query:

For James and his gang of miscreant friends melting in the heat of a slow desert town, theirs is a life of love and laughter, of impulse and sin.  Anchored by his probation and his most recent bed buddy, Sue, James has worn out his welcome amongst the varied townsfolk and none more so than Sue's father, Potts.  When Sue reaches for a different future than the one she's been cursed with, it creates an unavoidable confrontation between James and her father that quickly escalates into a holdup...

And then, from the ground, a horde of carnivorous, mutant creatures descends upon the diner.

Without an obvious exit, the creatures pin James, Potts, Sue and the patrons, with all their histories and grievances, inside the diner.  Inside a boiling box in the desert where friends become enemies and lovers become fighters and the darkness of night brings not relief, but the total destruction of the only truths anyone has ever known.

When the day breaks and the sun shines, the only people left standing will be those not afraid to face the truth that rises from the ground.

First 250:

The only thing that still worked right on the broken down Airstream was its reflection.  The big silver box took everything the sun had and threw it right back, a white-hot beacon of impoverished surrender.  By mid-afternoon, the metal got so damn hot that someone walking by would burn their hand up if they were dumb enough to touch it.

There weren't any shortage of that type in Aesop's Green, but they stayed away just the same.  Didn't have nothing to do with the heat or the hollering; even their thick little kids had enough sense to know that the reason you stayed away from the Airstream was because of the slick motherfucker that lived inside of it.

***

James came up off her in a huff.  Sweat ran down every inch of his naked body and gave him a little something cool to lie in when he dropped on his back.  "Damn..."  He smiled and teased a little sleep in his eyelids before something else cut in line.  He rolled over a little further and fished around for his pants on the floor.

The pockets were empty. 

Sue pushed some wet strands away from her forehead and sighed.  Two of them gave the recent quakes a lot of competition; difference was, they saved their destruction for after the shaking was through.

James scrounged through the debris around the bed until he found her purse and almost fell off the side of it putting a pinch on his target.

He put the smoke in his mouth and lit it with her zippo and got right back to the little spot in the mattress where his broad shoulders bowed.  If there was anything worth getting to in the day ahead, he didn't look in any rush to greet it.