Cutthroat Chicken Read Free Page A

Sarah Bellam fought against the panic that consumed her. She had always considered herself to be brave. It was ridiculous to be shaking like this.
    She tried to scream for help, but no sound would leave her mouth. She was too scared to scream.
    Panting breaths filled the air, whistling with tension. Terror pulled at the girl’s heart. She choked on every heartbeat, her heart was thudding so hard in her throat that she couldn’t swallow it down again. Tears of terror blinded her. What hell had she fallen into? Bad enough that she should lose the competition, but now she could hear the incessant tap, tap, tap of some stalking creature. She knew, she just knew in her heart of hearts, that she was in mortal peril.
    The worst part? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound human. It sounded as if some beast, some thing was hiding in the shadows, stalking her. She wasn’t the kind to be imaginative. She wasn’t a daydreamer. She was a practical, hard-working woman. She was an adult.
    She didn’t believe in the monsters that lurked in closets or under beds. She was smart. She knew better.
    So she ran. Her saddle shoes skidded on the concrete beneath her feet. She wind-milled her arms, trying to regain her balance. The shadows seemed to close around her. How could this studio have turned into such a dark, menacing labyrinth?
    Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t believe in monsters, but she’d never liked being in dark spaces. She even slept with the bathroom light on, so that her bedroom was never dark.
    What could she do now?
    There was only one solution in the offering.
    She was fast. She could run.
    Sarah Bellam’s hair, pulled and pinned into her rockabilly coif for TV, fell in snaky tendrils around her face. Her eyes stung with the sharp perfume of her favorite hair glue. Curls stuck to the sweat on her skin, threatening to turn her into some ghastly papier-mâché creature made of hair and hair glue.
    Her pulse hammered in her ears. Her breath gasped shakily, wrenched out of the tightness that was her chest. She was used to running, but she was not used to terror. Adrenaline slowed her down and ate at her endurance. It wasn’t supposed to do that. Adrenaline was supposed to create speed and energy, not sap it away. Fear was weighing down her limbs, making her movements stupid. She sprinted down the long, narrow corridor towards safety.
    She hammered her fists against the exiting door, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried to scream, but her voice stuck in her throat. Her fists bruised and bled, but still the doors refused to budge. She was trapped, cornered.
    She turned to face the demon who followed her.
    Her dark eyes, framed by thick, false eyelashes widened, the pupils nearly swallowing up the irises in her last, desperately hopeful panic. Her wide mouth, with the red lipstick slashed across it, dropped open. Her pale face almost shined in the darkness.
    She threw up her hands, slick with blood and sweat, to protect herself, but she could not prevent her fate now. She was doomed.
    It was too late.
    She did not even get the chance to scream.
    She stared her enemy in the face. She saw what he was. She thought to laugh, but the fear had her paralyzed.
    Her last thoughts were filled with irony.
    “Crap,” she thought, as the creature advanced. “I really should have remembered to eat breakfast this morning.”
     
    The Viewer stood in the shadows, watching, waiting. His job was done now. His plan was moving forward just as he had dreamed it would. Success was a beautiful tasting thing.
    When the first screams of shock and denial pierced the air and rang from all the corners of the studio, he retreated even further into the safety of the shadows.
    Not that he had anything to fear.
    They would never find him. They would never know who it was who was tormenting them. There was no reason to lurk. He had nothing to fear.
    Still, he kept to his shadows, and watched as the TV folk raced towards the sight of the screaming.