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    116 Results in the "Burned Cover" category


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      11 – The Hunters

      11 – The Hunters Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika pulled up to the rundown arcade a full hour before midnight, their expected meeting time. The old beater van was still parked around back. Rick’s ride, presumably. Joining it was a motorcycle. Not one of those sleek modern things, but an old-school Harley. The owner clearly took care of it. Most of it was polished up to a shine that gleamed in Erika’s headlights. She pulled up alongside it, hopped out, and was just about to knock on the arcade’s rear door when she heard muffled voices…
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      11 – i – Anna

      11 – i – Anna Cover
      by Tower Curator “I’m going out, Mother,” Anna called out as she laced up her boots. “I should be back before dinner, but just in case I’m not, there is a salad in the fridge, all ready to eat.” The scrape-clack, tap-tap, scrape-clack, tap-tap of Mirabelle’s walker grew louder as she approached, until finally, the hunched woman stopped in the doorway. “I thought you had the day off,” she said, her voice trailing off. “Did the lab call you in again?” Anna patiently smiled as she pulled out a…
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      11 – Distance Provides an Illusion of Safety

      11 – Distance Provides an Illusion of Safety Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika stood in a narrow alley between a pair of large garbage bins, watching the minute hand of her watch fly over the numbers. A pair of fire escapes, mounted on opposing brick buildings, now sported GoPro cameras strapped to their lowest rungs, aimed down either end of the alley. With no doors close to Erika, anyone who entered the alley and got anywhere near her current position wouldn’t be both obvious and caught on one of the cameras. With a slight mental tug, Erika bent time around her watch,…
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      11 – A Brief Moment of Abnormalcy

      11 – A Brief Moment of Abnormalcy Cover
      by Tower Curator “Hello!” Erika called out. “Anyone home?” The aged wooden door creaked, long and squeaky, as Erika pushed it open. A darkened foyer greeted her. One musty rug sat on the floor while massive webs clung to the corners. A grandfather’s clock, frozen in time, stood just in front of a set of stairs. A heavy scent of mold hung in the air, thankfully swept away by a sharp draft that blew in from behind Erika. She stepped inside, taking in the environment. It certainly gave off a perfect spooky…
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      10 – Kill and Tell

      10 – Kill and Tell Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika couldn’t help her leg thumping against the floor as she looked around at the other Hunters. A flutter of butterflies in her stomach refused to let her sit still. Some little whisper in the back of her mind told her to get away, to crash at random hotels and motels again, knowing that The Monk was out and free. “Honestly should have expected this,” Rick said, only half-paying attention as he fiddled with the command line terminal on his laptop. “When you said the archive had strange things…
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      10 – i – Bounty

      10 – i – Bounty Cover
      by Tower Curator Noblesse Oblige. Before Sargon of Akkad united his peoples and formed his empire, before the pharaohs of old Egypt erected their monuments to their own demise, before the Romans built their roads, and before humans made the paradigm shift from hunter-gatherers to an agricultural society, man hid in caves and cowered from the monsters that lurked in the night. The apex predator, the tool-using top of the food chain… Those titles did not belong to humanity. They weren’t the dominant species. Not…
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      10 – Finding Motive Force

      10 – Finding Motive Force Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika ground her teeth as she circled the motel for the fifth—no, sixth—time. The neon vacancy sign flickered, casting a sickly red light across the empty parking lot, making the entire area feel somehow more ominous. She couldn’t tell what was going on inside. Her eyes scanned every shadow, every movement, and all the people still standing about watching; the cold sent most of the people away, either back to their cars or, the more daring of them, back to the neighboring motel rooms. A squad car…
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      10 – A Brief Moment of Normalcy

      10 – A Brief Moment of Normalcy Cover
      by Tower Curator Erika sat in the back of her math class, phone in her lap, flicking her thumb up and up and up. Mister de Vries teemed with a lot of news about binomial theorems, but she found the subject even less interesting than she normally did. School as a whole wasn’t quite what it used to be in her mind. Before, she had thought she would live a relatively normal life, albeit one in which she had a few party tricks to show off. It was a life where she still needed connections, networking, and social skills to…
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      09 – Renegade

      09 – Renegade Cover
      by Tower Curator The door exploded inward, metal shrieking as it tore free from the frame. The tattooed woman stepped through the wreckage, her face split by a malevolent grin. Her eyes, ringed with thick, bar-like tattoos, locked onto Delilah. Erika didn’t hesitate. She surged forward, bat raised, aiming for the woman’s head. The bat struck just below the woman’s eye, and Erika heard a crack of bone, but the woman stumbled slightly, and didn’t look bothered beyond that. Her eyes swiveled in her head as her hand…
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      09 – Positive Outlooks

      09 – Positive Outlooks Cover
      by Tower Curator The Adjustment kicked back, feet taking up the armrest of a small couch. “Glad to be out of that,” she said with a relieved sigh. “Thought I was going to have to treat my poor carapace for burn damage again halfway through.” Erika stood at the window, looking out over Chicago and the lake with a small smile on her face. “I did see a few sparks.” “Empy really managed to restrain herself.” The Adjustment barked a laugh. “I’ll have to pat her on the head later.” Impassive…
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