Page 4

“And you run out into the dirt and mud like a wild animal. Stand up.”

I don’t bother moving. I just stay still, kneeling. I’m never going to take another damn order from this disgusting man ever again. My gaze sweeps back to the treeline. Searching. Searching for anything to help me escape. I press both of my bleeding palms flat against the freezing, wet mud.

My father’s raspy, drunk voice echoes in the back of my head from seventeen years ago. From all those times he repeated himself. All those times he told me the same damn story. “Stand right in the center of the dirt cross. Kneel in the mud. He wants your desperation. He wants your blood.”

The first time I heard the tale of the Devil Dog, my father was drunk. He swore on his seventh bottle of the night that something large and monstrous roamed the dense redwoods of Wraith Harbor. It was a shadowy, gray beast with glowing blue eyes. The old-timers called it the Wraith Hound. According to local drunks and townsfolk, it was a paranormal creature woven from ash and fog. A creature that stalked the edge of the woods, waiting near the crossroads. It dragged foolish, stupid men into the dark, leaving nothing behind but scorched scratch marks in the dirt. The town treated it as a grim fairy tale to keep children out of the deep woods after dusk, a nightmare most adults are too afraid to confirm.

Then there were the whispers about the center of the crossroads. The older folks down at the harbor docks swore that if you bled on the dirt where the old paths intersected at midnight, you could strike a deal with a demon. They described a creature of terrifying beauty and aristocratic malice. A blue-skinned devil with crimson eyes who granted miracles in exchange for your soul, binding desperate humans to ironclad bargains. In Wraith Harbor, the hound was the beast that tore you apart, and the demon was the devil who owned you.

That’s when I remember the glowing blue eyes from my childhood.

I don’t give a shit which legend is real. I don’t care whether I’m summoning a phantom hound to tear them into bloody pieces or a blue devil to claim my soul. Anything is better than going back to Gregory or being raped and tortured by his men.

My blood drips onto the red dirt of the crossroads, my vision narrowing as my knees give out. I collapse further into the mud, my lungs burning. I pray that whatever the fuck lurks in these woods is listening.

“Please, I don’t care what you are,” I whisper desperately into the dirt. My voice raw and trembling. “I don’t care if you consume me after. I don’t care if you take my soul.”

“Who are you talking to, Bellamy?” Gregory sneers, taking another step. “Get up off your knees before I let Jake drag you back by your hair.”

I dig my fingernails into the mud, smearing my blood across the crossroads. “Save me from him,” I sob, the words ripping out of my chest with a wild, desperate fury. “Come take me! Save me. Tear them to pieces!”

Nothing.

“That’s enough,” Gregory snaps, nodding to TJ. “Grab him.”

TJ steps forward, reaching out a leather-gloved hand.

“Please, I’ll do anything!”

The world goes dead silent.

The freezing rain seems to stop in mid-air. The howling ocean wind cuts out instantly, replaced by a sudden, terrifying drop in atmospheric pressure. My ears pop. The temperature around the crossroads plummets so fast my breath instantly billows out in thick, white clouds.

The three flashlights blink out all at once, bathing us in the natural glow of the moonlight.

“What the hell?” Kyle stammers. “Why did it get so fucking cold?”

“Jake… Look at the fog,” TJ whispers, his voice trembling as he backs up a step.

Above us, the fog grows unnaturally thick. Churning. Churning. Churning. It pours down from the trees like black ink, gathering into a dense, towering mass right in front of me.

An eclectic charge fills the air, causing the tiny hairs on my arms to stand straight up. An intense, intoxicating scent washes over the clearing. Sea salt, deep ocean water, and rich, spicy sandalwood. My heart races with a sick mixture of fear and excitement.

Off in the distance, the rain seems to fall naturally, but in this eerie dark bubble surrounding the crossroads, it’s as if the universe itself is afraid. From the heart of the black shadow, two glowing blue eyes blink into existence. The eyes from my nightmares, or maybe the eyes from my dreams.

A massive form materializes.

It looks like a hulking beast. But rather than the four-legged Devil Dog I was expecting, the creature stands on two legs, draped in a heavy, fog-gray wolf pelt. The jagged furs rustle in the unnatural wind, and the head of the pelt overhangs the figure’s face completely, casting his upper features in pitch darkness. Below the strange pelt, dark tailored clothing blends seamlessly into the shadows of the forest.

Something else catches my eye. The shadow on the ground beneath the pelt suddenly detaches itself. A ghost-like silhouette rises out of the dirt. It’s a shadow of a beast the size of a grizzly bear with long claws and a skull like a prehistoric hound.

It moves with a disjointed, paranormal speed.

Before TJ can even scream, the ghostly shadow whips forward. There’s a sickening, wet sound that echoes across the silent clearing. TJ’s body is yanked backward into the black fog with violent force, blood spraying with the motion before he’s flying through the air. He hits the trunk of a redwood twenty feet away and slides down into the mud, completely motionless. His neck is twisted at an impossible, disgusting angle, and his right shoulder ends in a jagged, bloody ruin where his arm was torn away. My eyes snap back to the shadow beast right as TJ’s arm is swallowed, disappearing down the beast’s throat.

For a long moment, silence drags us under before the world comes screeching back.

“What the shit?” Kyle shrieks, dropping his flashlight into the dirt. “It killed him! It fucking killed him!”