Hana sat in a locked utility closet on the first floor where her brother had shoved her. Sleet pattered on the roof of the building two stories above her. Footsteps echoed in the hall, growing louder. A key slipped into the lock on the door, and the hinges creaked as the heavy metal door slipped…
You wanted to know what happened to make Michael hate you so much? You’re not going to like it, Shaman, Sven whispered maliciously as his host rode the black waves of unconsciousness.
Dreams flooded his senses. The moon cracked into deep fissures, and a faceless woman with black wings flew over the sky. He followed her movements, enthralled with her dance. The glade sparkled in the stillness beneath her floating ballet. Polaris’s surface shattered into a million pieces. A shadow man emerged in the dusk. The woman…
Five days sifted over the treetops and through the underbrush as they waited for Hana to come back to the land of the living. When the camp settled and sleep overtook the group, the wolves emerged, and Sven refused to give up his spot to Nat. The white beast curled around the bird-woman and refused…
They packed their bags and collapsed the tent. Sleep had done the pack good. They were in a relatively jovial mood as they walked farther and farther from Portland and the sights of war. The highways had been destroyed to an extent, but there were still fragments of road leading them into potato country. They…
The white wolf paced in his head, begging for attention. Nat rolled, opening his eyes to the field they had set up in late the night before. The sound of the tent zipper had woken him in the frosty dawn. The women had taken the tent at his insistence. With work, and more than one…
Hana woke in fits and bursts. An hour after settling into the room, the group grew restless with her starts. The woman was jittery, which placed their wolves on edge.
In the morning, the friends found themselves not in warm beds but in a freezing tent. Their body heat seeped out through the thin shell of second-hand polyester. Benj, first to wake, tiptoed out of the tent, letting in a draft.
The trees that surrounded the area loomed over the site like ancient guardians protecting their tiny treasures Nat and his friends hunkered down into the snow-covered grass, bracing themselves against the chill wind that blew in from the north of them. It smelled of wood smoke and burning gas.