SHUDDERVILLE SIX (5 page)

Fearing the worst, Benjamin turned to find out what he had hit. A dog? A deer? He’d once hit a raccoon going 70 mph, and the poor thing had just exploded. But tonight he hadn’t been going that fast.

He walked along the road through the puckering sleet and came to the place where he must’ve hit something, because he could see skid marks in the slush. Something moved in the wind-stirred bushes by the side of the road. He saw a flapping movement, like a bat trapped in a spider web. Benjamin hated bats, their pinched faces oddly human. He squinted into the woods. Probably a deer or something.

He looked around but found nothing. It was sleeting harder now. He kept his head down. His hands had gone numb from the cold. He shivered and hunched his shoulders and hurried back to the truck. He got in and gunned the engine.

His headlights pierced the sleety darkness ahead, but before he pulled out onto the road, he saw something in his rearview mirror, lit by the red glow of his taillights. He got out and walked back to the bushes and stood there staring at the gently stirring branches. The sleet was nearly blinding, but he caught a movement behind the thorny branches. The fog parted around his shaky fingers as he pushed aside the underbrush and cringed.

He saw tangled dark hair and pale skin. He saw a small, horribly malnourished body and wide, frightened eyes. He could count each of her ribs through her gauzy white nightgown—inappropriate for this weather and soaked to the bone—as she slowly rose to her feet. She was about five feet tall, exceedingly small and frail, and covered in blood. He noticed the track marks on her arms, old scars from hypodermic needles. She was shivering violently, goosebumps the size of golf balls popping out all over her exposed skin.

He managed to choke, “Easy. I won’t hurt you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. How old was she? Thirteen? Thirty? He had no idea. She looked ageless. He reached for her, wanting to pull her out of the woods and get her to a hospital, quick, but she bristled with anger. Her piercing gaze stopped him short. Her neck muscles tensed, her shoulders lifted, and something—some unknown body part—fanned open. Wings. She had wings.

Recognition dawned.

“Bella?”

Two giant wings whooshed open, and the girl—the creature, the monster, whatever the hell she was—muscled her way into the air and flew off into the night. Her large graceful wings flapping like a bullfighter’s cape. He stared hopelessly at the clouds, into the sleet, trying to see her through the foul weather. Who would believe him? Nobody would.

He raced back to his truck, put it in reverse, turned the vehicle around and gave chase.

She would die of exposure.

She would die of starvation.

He had to help her if it was the last thing he did.

YOU ARE LEAVING

NEXT STOP

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SHUDDERVILLE

SIX

Mia Zabrisky

Copyright © 2012

All Rights Reserved.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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