Feral Read Free Page A

Shannon’s head with the rest of the sounds.
    A second later the face was gone.
    Shannon rolled onto her knees and rose.   Around her the shadows jumped, shifted, melted together like living pools of ink.   Some vanished just as she caught sight of them, only to reappear in the periphery of her vision.   Every swing, teeter-totter, and hanging length of rope was in motion.   The rope bridges above and around her bounced and swung violently.
    The noise of laughter grew and grew, again mixed with that distant music.
    Shannon stood, her fists pressed to her ears, an attempt to block out the noise.   It didn’t help.   She searched for the opening in the playground wall, the arched entrance she had come in through, found it, and bolted.   She glanced back as she ran and saw something following, a long serpentine shadow.   It picked up speed and size as it absorbed the smaller shadows in its path.
    Now Shannon could hear screams as well as the laughter, and realized they were her own.
    C’mon back, lady . . . we wanna play !
    Something flew past her, sailing only inches from her right ear.   It might have been a brick, but she couldn’t tell for sure in the dark.
    Nany-nany poo-poo , stick your face in doo-doo .
    Something grabbed her upper arm as she ran; it felt like tiny fingers, incredibly strong and with long fingernails that dug into her flesh like the teeth of an iron trap.   She went into a rough sideways spin, stumbling over her feet and landing hard on her ass.   The invisible thing lost its grip on her as she fell.   She tried to rise again; the exit was only feet away.   The great shadow serpent, more like a shadow river now, was rushing ever faster.
    She scrambled and was grabbed again, this time the tiny iron trap hand closing around her ankle.
    â€œDamnit, let go!” she screamed, and kicked at the invisible hand until it released her.
    Ouch . . . fuckin’ spoilsport .
    She blundered to her feet, and was knocked down as something large and solid struck her between the shoulder blades.   She made a choked ‘ Oof ’ sound and landed face first.
    Get her !
    She turned over onto her back in time to see the monstrous shadow stretch out wide and rear up like a cobra.   It came down on her legs, and they disappeared from the thighs down.   All sensation below her waist ceased.
    She dug fruitlessly into the wood chips and dirt with the heels of her hands as it started to suck her in.
    Catch the Bogey !
    Kill the Bogey !
    Cram a stick up its ass !
    Then there was a scream, a sound of such honest terror that Shannon thought her heart might stop.
    Then it was over.   All was silent; all was still.
    The shadow thing was gone and she had her legs back.
    She turned to the exit and saw a girl, a girl who reminded her so much of Alicia it hurt, staring past her slack faced.   The girl didn’t look anything like her missing daughter; it was the clothes.   Faded Arizona blue jeans, pink canvas high-top shoes, pink t-shirt, and the small heart-shaped gold locket that hung around her neck; the one with the picture of Thomas, Alicia, and herself inside it.   The last time she had seen Alicia, she had been wearing those clothes.   Then the girl began to sag, her eyes rolling up to the whites, and she collapsed before the arched entrance.

Chapter 6
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    S ometimes the scariest things are also funny; not funny like Larry The Cable Guy is funny, but funny in the same sadistic way that The Three Stooges are.   Like the shock on the face of a woman who has been discovered in the most personal and embarrassing of positions, or the look on the face of a man who has just been caught by his wife with his pants around his ankles and his cock in another woman’s mouth.
    Jared Cruse managed to stay faithful to his wife for four years, a fact that inspired an amount of awe in his friends considering his habitually wandering eyes and his