Savannah was sure Mike wouldn’t do anything at all, would just acquiesce to his fate. She had been locked in place by fear ever since the creature’s first appearance. Next to her she’d sensed Joyce’s interest in the creature, watched in disbelief as Joyce had even taken a couple of steps toward the beast. Then things had taken that ghastly, surreal turn, the man changing in front of their eyes, and before Savannah could do anything, the beast had loped across the clearing toward Mike.
And then Glenn had jumped in front of the creature.
She was sure the beast would kill Glenn, but then Mike’s trance broke and he was stepping over to the fire, bending, grasping a stout branch, and facing down the creature. In the sparking heat shimmer, Savannah could see what was happening.
Mike was settling into his batting stance.
She didn’t feel the thrill she once had when watching Mike play baseball—those feelings were dead. But despite this fact, watching Mike turn away from her, the firelight dancing on his back, was like stepping into her eighteen-year-old self at the high school baseball field. The tree branch he’d selected was longer than a normal bat and maybe twice as thick. She assumed the thing weighed a ton, but Mike handled it like it was any other piece of lumber. A full half of the branch was blackened from the fire, and perhaps six inches of its tip glowed a cheerful red.
Mike crouched, twisted that front foot of his, and dug into the batter’s box. He cocked the long bough, bringing his hands way back, and wiggled his butt the way he did when preparing for the pitcher’s delivery.
Reliving his former glory. Realizing his promise.
Becoming the hero everyone had assumed he’d become.
The beast charged at him.
Mike rocked onto his back foot—the part of the swing called the load, she remembered—and began to unleash his fury.
In that moment, in those glorious milliseconds when the broad, bludgeoning branch began to knife through the strike zone, Savannah was certain the beast would have its neck broken by the blow. The scorched cylinder of the makeshift bat and the fiery orange brand at its tip came howling toward the beast, Mike’s body a powder keg of coiled power.
But Mike missed. The bough scraped over the ducking body of the beast, and Mike lost control of his weapon. The branch went skittering through the air like a dying dervish and landed somewhere in the underbrush. The beast, having cleared the swinging cudgel, slammed into Mike, snarling and scratching. The beast lifted Savannah’s long-ago boyfriend like a weightless mannequin and braced him above its head with one massive hand. The skin of the beast, Savannah saw with little surprise, was an unwholesome tawny hue, though most of it was furred with wiry black hair. The creature’s back was broad and muscled, the arms attenuating the fabric of its shirt.
At some point the beast had either scratched or bitten Mike, Savannah now saw, for in the firelight Mike’s whole front, from the stomach of his shirt all the way down to his thighs, was slathered in blood. Mike was gaping down at the creature, perhaps still dumbfounded at his inability to hit yet another moving target, but Mike didn’t gape for long. The creature reached up with its free hand and slowly, almost sensuously, buried its claws in Mike’s stomach. Blood poured from Mike’s belly in soupy rills, more blood coughing out of his twitching lips. Mike was still alive at that point, though he’d already begun to pale, so when the creature brought Mike’s face lower, Savannah was pretty sure Mike knew what was happening.
The beast’s face looked vaguely human. But in the firelight painting it, she could clearly make out the differences. The elongated ears. The oversize jaws. The wrinkled forehead. The extra hair.
The leering golden eyes.
As though he were toiling to speak, Mike opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, the lips working like a dying trout.
The creature opened its mouth as if to kiss Mike’s lips. Then its teeth vised down on Mike’s chin. A gurgling, high-pitched yowl sounded from the pit of Mike’s throat. The creature’s teeth hinged together, the bones of Mike’s jaw splintering like balsa wood. Blood gushed around the beast’s writhing lips, Mike’s eyes starey and horrorstruck.
The creature began to shake Mike’s head in its mouth, a stomach-churning growl issuing from its lethal maw.
“Somebody do something!” a shrill voice screamed.
Savannah turned, saw Jessica Clinton waving her arms at the rest of the partygoers, as if they all hadn’t just witnessed the same thing she had.
Then Savannah realized that Jessica had a point. No one was doing anything. Despite the fact that they had the beast outnumbered, despite the fact that some of these men had guns in their vehicles. Despite all this, a man was being devoured before their very eyes.
No. Not just a man.
Mike Freehafer. The boy she’d been certain she would one day marry. They were going to live in a big city. Boston, or maybe even New York. She’d travel with the team, shop at the fancy stores. Then, when he’d struck it big in free agency, they’d settle down, raise a family.
That dream had been brain-dead and on life support for a long time, but now it was officially over. The beast had reduced Mike to a gore-streaked rag doll.
Jessica Clinton’s words were still ringing in Savannah’s ears when the creature hurled Mike’s lifeless body into the woods and raised its arms to the group. “Will you watch while I use you for food? Won’t you flee so I can experience the pleasure of running you down?”
Savannah scanned the faces of her fellow partygoers. Most were still staring at Mike’s twisted body with sick expressions. A few were glancing around, maybe seeking for the one brave soul who would challenge this monster.
Then two figures broke loose from the crowd. One was Dan Clinton.
The other was Joyce.
“What are you doing?” Savannah asked, but Joyce barely heard her.
Joyce had been watching the beast with a growing sense of déjà vu, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, Jessica Clinton’s plea had given her the jolt she needed.
Joyce had no plan, had no idea at all what she would do when she reached the beast; she certainly had no delusions of vanquishing it. Yet something told her this was the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life, the destiny she’d suspected would one day materialize if only she had the courage to embrace it.
She wasn’t a muscular woman, nor was she especially physically fit. She walked a lot, and she ate healthily, but if Mike Freehafer—a former stud athlete in the prime of his life—had been ripped to pieces by the beast, what chance had she?
Little, if she was being objective about this, but objectivity had been her ruler for far too long. In the books she read—and lately, the stories she’d tried to write—anything was possible. They were all about characters stepping outside themselves, confronting deep-seated fears and then living or dying on the basis of their own wiles and fortitude.
At the very least, Joyce had to try.
Why? she heard her mother’s shrill voice demand. Because it’s dangerous? Because it makes you feel rebellious?
Yes, she decided, striding closer. That was precisely why she was doing this. Her mother would have run shrieking in the other direction by now, or perhaps taken refuge in a hollow log.
But Joyce was doing something she’d never done before, something she’d dreamed of doing her entire life.
She was taking a chance.
She was risking something.
She was transgressing.
God, it felt amazing!
But when Dan Clinton reached the creature, the stocky man moving in an ungainly sprint, Joyce realized she’d made a mistake.
The beast snatched up Dan Clinton as though he were an irritating insect and hurled him into the flames.