Monster Rundown Part One Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 1

Henry Crane was not expecting to be fighting a fire-breathing wyvern on the morning of his first day of high school, but it wasn't the worst way to start the school year.

Before the wyvern attack, his phone's duck alarm rang at 5am, an hour before morning training. He used to get up early to write rundown journals. He used to be productive. He used to sleep all night.

He laid in bed for an hour hitting snooze.

Melbourne Stein banged on the door. "Henry, what the hell?" Henry's adopted brother, who was Black, woke him the same way every morning. A loud horn blew across Colorado Springs warning of a monster attack as he jumped out of bed and dressed for the morning run. In the hall, Mel, in bright green sneakers, was looking at his phone and said, "Dragons, well, wyverns."

"In the city?"

Henry's father, George, opened a door down the hall. "Four miles," he said around the toothbrush he held with his prosthetic hook. He used it more than his real hand like he was proud of it.

Henry said, "We know," as the door closed. His mother, Marie, synced their running schedules with their phones, but his father reminded them every time.

"Relax," Mel said, putting headphones into his ears while he walked down the stairs. Just outside the house, they passed Henry's mom and ten-year-old sister, Estes, at the end of their run, high-fiving them.

"Get it, ladies," Mel yelled after them.

"Watch out for the wyvern, boys," their mom said.

The world felt empty this early in the morning, but that might just be the wyverns. If dragons attacked before the sun came up, maybe the stories about this city and its monster problem weren't exaggerated after all.

Henry's attention was divided between uneven sidewalk and two flying lizards attacking a tower several miles away. The nice thing about wyverns was that regular old armor piercing bullets brought them down, a lot them of course, but no enchantments or special metals were required. They were just flesh and blood animals with a fifty-foot wingspan and the ability to breathe fire. They usually weren't aggressive, preferring to stay away from populated areas.

It was still weird to think that they would soon be heading to Theodore Roosevelt High, the most prestigious monster rundown school in the country.

So far, Henry had spent his whole life traveling with his family, chasing zombies, hydras, vampires, chimeras, and every other monster found in the books and some that couldn't be. A dangerous life of adventure that ended when, Mel's family died, Henry's parents lost their coursing licenses, and his father lost his arm.

As they returned to the house, George came running out of the garage with the high caliber sniper rifle, pointing at the sky behind them. "We got one coming in!"

Henry turned towards the mountains, catching a glimpse of the expression of pure joy on Mel's face. A wyvern was flying in their general direction. Mel grabbed the rifle from George, and Henry and George loaded the heat shield and harpoon gun into the truck bed.

Mel fired at the wyvern to get its attention. Better it attack them than someone who wasn't prepared to fight it. The bullet hit its lower jaw, and it veered straight toward them.

Laughing, Mel followed Henry into the bed of the truck, and they held on tight as George backed out of the driveway and sped down the street. The wyvern, medium sized with a wingspan of about forty feet was right behind them emitting a high pitched whistling sound; it was about to bathe them in fire.

The wyvern was too far away and the road was too bumpy to get a reliable shot on its open mouth, so Mel lifted the shield over them as Henry attached the harpoon gun to the truck bed with the custom clamps. Fire spread around them changing the cold morning air into a sauna. "Whoo!" Mel yelled.