Along with a horde of fans, I devoured the culmination of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things this week. Years of anticipation ended in a couple of days. I slouched back in a daze at the end of my binge and struggled to find a new fix. My fingers soon…
Weariness sank deep into Rayanna's flesh, dragging her to slump lower on the driver's seat. She blinked and glanced back at the argument on the roadside. Though she strained to make out the voices, her cheek sagged against the headrest. The hum of the idling engine washed over them and swept her…
Weariness sank deep into Rayanna's flesh, dragging her to slump lower on the driver's seat. She blinked and glanced back at the argument on the roadside. Though she strained to make out the voices, her cheek sagged against the headrest. The hum of the idling engine washed over them and swept her…
The thinning fog drifted from the asphalt and puddled in the ditches on either side of the road. Ruddy paint scabbed a fading sign just ahead: Welcome to Beuteburg. "Beuteburg? Sounds like someone thought your town was beautiful." Rayanna eased her foot off the gas and glanced back at the slouched…
Rayanna crushed the gas pedal. The thuds of huge paws struck the trunk and their claws screamed against the cruiser's paint. After a quarter mile, the snarls and roaring barks faded into the distance behind them. Drifts of fog swept past the windows like phantoms as the squad car barreled through…
Rayanna jammed the key into the squad car's ignition. Grantham dove into the seat behind her as voracious snarls neared his doorway and overtook the waking engine's whine. She twisted to glance back. The officer croaked, "Go." Arms smeared in muck and blood, he slammed his door with a crunch and…
Pine switches stung Rayanna's face as hurtled through the steep, brush-strangled path. As if a mountainside gullet choked her downhill. Stifled grunts followed her, in step with the thumps of Grantham's uneven gait. But the sinister tirade pursuing them in the darkness kept her from asking about him. Growls. Clawed earth.…
Spindly branches clawed her flailing arms as she stumbled onward. Slowing, Rayanna glanced over her shoulder. "Bowery?" Hoarse breathing roiled through the forest path. Animal or human? No way to tell. She sprinted further down the mountainside. The misty tunnel of brush thickened, swallowing the flashlight's beam before her feet. The…
A current of rasped breath wove through the inky brush hemming the path. The hoarse panting rose to an eddy of low growls. Rayanna's throat squeezed her voice to a rodent-like whisper. "I hear it." A twig snapped within a few feet of the narrow trail. "What do we do?" The…
The leaves shivered around her in a faint breath of icy air. Rayanna drew the borrowed coat to a close around her chest, gathering its worn fabric in her fist. "Lethean?" Officer Bowery's flashlight beam bobbed over the uneven terrain ahead. "If you've got a better name for yourself, I'm listening."…