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Note from the author: Thank you for downloading The Zodiac Bar and Grill. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you enjoy horror with a healthy dose of suspense, I’d like to share with you an excerpt from my novel Skinwalker Moon.
Love. Magic. Terror.
Hawk held up a hand to block the light and glared at Harland from eyes that were shadowed and angry and filled with the helpless, bitterly triumphant thought that Terry Harland deserved exactly what he was about to get. And his attention split, half of it with Harland, the other half on the opposite bank of the river, for there was true evil loose in the night, and it was staring at them both from edge of the woods on the other side.
Struck by the intensity of Hawk’s attention on the opposite shore, Harland turned to see what he was staring at. Shocked, he staggered back a step.
“What the hell is that?” he whispered. The flashlight dropped from his fingers. It clattered against the rocky shore and its beam of light died, leaving them in darkness.
Yet they had no trouble seeing the beast, no more so than it had seeing them. Of that, Hawk was certain. Ephemeral, surrounded by the glow of a blood red aura, it seemed to burn from within with a hellish magic. It wavered in and out of reality, one moment seeming solid, the next no more substantial than the ghosts of river mist that presaged the fall of night.
Harland began to pant with terror, unable to pull his eyes from the strange and awful apparition on the opposite shore. Human in form and yet not human, it had two faces melded into one: the uppermost, the face of a rabid wolf; beneath it, the face of human insanity. Both were draped with rotting lengths of wolf skin that hung like hair. The beast’s hands were fisted, its yellow wolf-eyes riveted on them. It crouched suddenly, as if it would drop to all fours.
The breath exploded from Harland in harsh, ragged gasps. He dropped to the wet soil of the shore, scrabbling on his hands and knees in search of the flashlight, whimpering “what the hell? what the hell?” mindlessly, frantically, over and over again, a mantra to hold the supernatural at bay.
The creature moved.
One second it was standing on the opposite shore, staring at them with its baleful yellow gaze. The next it had leaped off the bank and was running across the surface of the river toward them, its fisted arms pumping, a feverish grin stretching the human face into a grotesque parody of humor. Its feet raised small, steaming splashes of water as it ran.
Harland squealed, a high-pitched, womanish shriek of terror. Forgetting the search for the flashlight, he tried to scramble back up onto the bank he’d dropped down from so easily just moments before.
The beast reached their side of the river and splashed out of it in front of Hawk. It bent over him, leering, bathing him in its moist, rancid breath. Hawk almost shouted with fear as one clawed fist opened and dropped a small, feathered body into his lap. Gasping with terror, he stared down at it in dismay.
It was a chickadee.
A dead chickadee.
His chest heaving, Hawk raised his eyes to the beast’s. It turned its leering grin on Harland.
Gibbering with fright and unable to negotiate the bank, the cop pulled out a gun and began firing at the monster. But his shots, though fired at point-blank range, seemed to go wild, leaving it untouched. Hawk cowered behind the tangle of roots, praying for protection from stray bullets as the beast advanced on Harland.
The gun dry-fired, empty. With a guttural snarl, the beast swung its other fist at Harland, pelting him in the face with a dry gray powder.
Harland screamed and dropped the gun. He fell to his knees, clawing at the powder that coated his sweaty face. The beast hunched over him and a sick red halo like the light of a nuclear dawn began to pulse around it.
With no thought for his damaged leg, Hawk sheathed his knife and flung himself off the bank, splashing headlong into the river. He used his arms to pull himself away from shore and in seconds was far enough to feel the tug of the current.
Of course the thing had gone for Harland first. After all, Hawk was badly injured. He couldn’t get very far, could he? The beast could track him down at its leisure after it was done with Harland, could follow the scent of Hawk’s blood or trace the silken sound of his fear through the night. With the cop’s screams ringing in his ears, Hawk swam downstream as hard as his damaged leg would allow. But it seemed a long time before he was able to outdistance the sound of Harland’s death.
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