Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection Read Free Page A

frenzy. Samuel hung by one arm, his left foot five feet from the ground. He
felt the sting as a pine branch opened a gash in his side, and blood dripped into
the open maw of the alpha male.
    Not this
way, he thought, wincing.
    He drew a deep
breath and forced the pain from his mind. He considered giving up until the
thought of the pack’s teeth tearing at his flesh cleared his head. His mind
raced through questions, possible reasons for the wolves’ unending pursuit. But
in that moment, he realized it did not matter. He would have to survive before he
could have the luxury of reflection.
    Samuel
shook his head, fighting the haze and scrambling to reach a higher position. The
alpha male lunged upward, clamping his jaws on the heel of Samuel’s shoe and
shaking it left to right, rear paws digging into the dirt with every backpedal.
Samuel kicked with his opposite foot but lacked power behind the motion. His
toe bounced off the skull of the alpha male, agitating him more with each
strike.
    The other
wolves crowded the alpha male, snapping at Samuel’s foot in support of the
leader. Samuel felt his grip loosening and his pants being tugged downward by
another wolf that now also had a hold. He looked up at the branch, the tree
about to fulfill his destiny of death in a way the noose could not. As his
right hand released and another wolf climbed to his knee, a crack echoed
through the valley. Samuel crashed to the ground as the wolves froze. They spun
to face the sound as another shot whistled through the air and a slug lodged in
the pine tree mere inches from Samuel’s head.
    We
will come back.
    The alpha male
turned to snarl at Samuel before bounding over the remains of the fire and
though the trunks of the pine trees. The hunters, the females, and the cubs
followed with their tails tucked between their legs.
    Samuel looked
over the fire with blurry vision. His breathing slowed, and he sensed motion. A
dark swath moved over the reemerging fire. It stopped and hesitated. The flames
jumped back to life, and Samuel squinted in the light. Again the fire burned
with a paltry, green hue, but compared to the blackness preceding it, Samuel shielded
his eyes from the glare.
    “Who are you?”
he asked.
    “Close your
eyes. We’ll talk when your body has recovered.”
    Samuel rolled
onto his back and laughed. Floating ash danced overhead against the black-velvet
sky. Bare tree branches reached for it like bony fingers.
    “The wolves,
they’re coming back,” he said to the visitor.
    “They will. They
always do,” came the reply.
    Samuel smiled
again and closed his eyes. He would sleep, or he would die. Either outcome
would rest his weary mind.

 

     
    Chapter 3
     
    Samuel felt the
nudge of the boot in his ribs and rolled over onto his back. The grey, gauzy
haze still hung in the sky. He put a hand to his throbbing forehead and
wondered how long it would take to feel normal again, if ever. Samuel detected
movement across the remains of the night’s fire, and a pulse of fear raced
through his chest. The tree, the wolves, and the howling—especially the howling—resurfaced
in his head. He gulped the air and recognized the movement of a fellow human. Samuel
squinted as he sat up on his elbows.
    “What time is
it?” he asked.
    “Does it
matter?”
    He shrugged. “I
guess not.”
    He
watched the stranger from behind. The man sat on a felled trunk, wearing a
tattered, black overcoat mingled with dried leaves. He wore a black, cloth
headband tied at the back of his head above a ponytail that was streaked with
shooting bursts of grey.
    “Who
are you?”
    The
stranger turned and faced Samuel. His eyes sat deep in his skull, surrounded by
dark blooms of age and fatigue. The headband crouched low over his eyebrows,
and the stranger’s nose sat crooked, in between two red cheeks and lips melded
together into a thin line. A bruise ran from his left ear, down across his
throat, and then up underneath his right ear.
    “Call
me