Ravenous Read Free Page A

she’d slimmed down, things would go back to normal and they would have a sex life again.
    Clouds obscured the moon, and the night was dark and misty. It had been raining since Christmas—about three weeks straight—with no end in sight. Emily drove along Seaside Trail, a two-lane road flanked by lush woods on both sides. Fat-trunked redwoods towered overhead, and to her right, it was possible to catch glimpses of the ocean in the occasional gaps in the strip of woods during the day. Mixed in with the occasional patches of towering redwoods were scattered Douglas-firs, bay laurels, and a few spruce trees along the edge of the road. Below them, thick green ferns and other foliage carpeted the mossy woods. But none of that was visible in the dark of the misty night—it was, instead, sensed. She could feel the thick woods around her.
    Emily reached up and rubbed her right temple with two stiff fingers, traced small circles over it, pushing hard. The headache was only on the right side of her head, behind her eye.
    She was in the middle of a yawn when a ding from the dashboard made her look down at the lights. The “check engine” light was blinking.
    The engine died.
    Her power steering died with it, and she had to struggle with the wheel to pull her metallic green Volkswagen Jetta onto the shoulder to the right. Gravel crunched under her tires as she brought the car to a stop.
    â€œShit,” she said.
    She turned the key in the ignition to start the car again, but nothing happened—the engine did not make a sound.
    â€œOh, shit ,” she said, her voice higher, more shrill. On the verge of tears, she took in a deep breath to steady herself, let it out slowly. She pounded a fist on the steering wheel once, then reached over to the passenger seat for her purse. She reached up and turned on the light above the rearview mirror, then unzipped her purse and plunged her hand in, groped around for a moment, then found her cell phone. She flipped it open, pushed the button with her thumb to turn it on, then put it to her ear. The phone beeped three times, and she heard no dial tone.
    â€œOh, no!” she shouted.
    The cell phone’s battery was dead.
    â€œI knew that, dammit!” she said. She’d been meaning to recharge the phone, but she used it so seldom that it had slipped her mind. With a lugubrious sigh, she threw the phone into her purse, then sat there for a long moment, staring out the windshield at the beams of her headlights, which melted into the misty, murky darkness up ahead. She killed the lights.
    A car drove by going the same direction she’d been going, and a couple of minutes later, another came the opposite way. She turned on her emergency blinkers.
    Tears stung Emily’s eyes. She sniffled, but tried to hold back the crying. She took in a deep breath and said, “I’m screwed.”
    She was getting out of the car when she heard it, and it made her freeze where she stood, in the open door of the car, made gooseflesh crawl over her shoulders. It had come from the woods to her right and had been very distinct—a howl. She frowned. It had to be a dog, that was the only explanation—but it had not sounded like the howl of a dog. Not really. Not at all . It was a full sound, but piercing, a resonant cry. A chill trickled down her back like ice water.
    Emily got the long, heavy Mag-Lite from the backseat. She leaned in, popped the hood, then closed the door. She went to the front of the car and shone the light onto the engine. Gravel on the shoulder crunched beneath her feet, and the Jetta’s emergency lights blinked on and off with a soft clicking sound.
    She laughed coldly and muttered, “What am I doing?” She knew nothing about cars and had absolutely no idea what might be wrong with the Jetta. Even Hugh’s knowledge of cars was limited. They relied on Phil at the Volkswagen dealership in Eureka when something went wrong with the