Thankfully her body took pity on her emotional state and shut up. Her tread was smooth as she headed toward the bed. Passing the window, she cast a cursory glance out toward her backyard.
And froze.
God. No.
She was trapped in a nightmare, transported back to that deadly night on the street with a monster wrapped in a man’s skin. Only the monster now prowled her backyard.
Its massive bulk, as wide as a minivan, crouched on her grass. Wings that had easily spanned twelve feet folded alongside its body, the hind hooves stamping out an impatient rhythm before stilling. Its rounded eagle’s head cocked to the side as if it listened for the slightest movement that would betray the location of its prey.
Tamar was that prey.
She knew it. Somehow he—it—had found her, tracked her to her home and intended to finish the kill that had eluded it the night before. Her heart slammed against her chest like a rabbit sighted by a great raptor. Yet unlike that bunny which scampered for its life, she remained rooted in front of the window, petrified with fear. If the eagle-horse-hybrid mutant happened to tilt its head in the opposite direction, it would spot her. And attack.
That mobilized her into action.
She didn’t want to die.
Not like Resa.
Tamar whirled on her heel and ducked out of the line of sight. She crab-crawled to the bedside lamp and tugged on the chain, plunging the room into darkness except for the shaft of moonlight that beamed through the window like a lighthouse beacon.
The soundtrack of Resa’s death played in her head. Looping over and over. The horrible cracking and crunching of bone. The awful wet smacks she refused to analyze and identify. She straightened, scanning the room for anything she could wield as a weapon. Her quick inspection skipped over the fireplace then careened back to the iron poker. She raced over to the utensil, snatched it from the set. Its weight was a comfort in her grip.
Her breath thundered in her ears as she crept back to the window. With her spine pressed to the adjacent wall, she peered around the sash. Shit. Empty. Her backyard was empty. Where the hell had it gone?
The poker hung from her hand as she contemplated her next move. The eternal optimist in her wanted to believe the beast had left. But then a picture of the evil delight in his stygian gaze as he promised to take his time with her filtered across her mind’s eye. No. If the monster had found her, he wouldn’t just leave. Not with her trapped…nowhere to go…and no one to interrupt him this time.
A noise, so soft she almost believed her fear conjured it, whispered through the utter stillness. Tamar sucked in a deep gust of air, held it and strained to pick up the sound once more. Silence met her ears. And more silence.
Maybe…there.
Like a footfall on carpet.
Or a brush of cloth against a wall.
Outside her bedroom.
Panic drove her to the corner nearest her bed. She wedged herself between the headboard and wall, brandishing the makeshift iron weapon in front of her like a club. The moon’s pearlescent light didn’t reach the corner where she hid and the darkness pressed down on her, an oppressive weight. Her breath echoed in her head like a shrill wind through a cavern.
Memories of another time when total blackness had borne down on her threatened to drag her under the looming tide of terror. A time when the yawning void of light had been as petrifying and painful as the twisted metal that pinned the left side of her body to the seat of a crashed airplane.
Tamar fought not to give in to the dread that poked at the periphery of her subconscious. Sweat dotted her forehead and a bead rolled lazily down her temple. It coated the skin between her breasts and made a mockery of the deodorant she’d applied after her shower. Her fingers tightened around the poker, her damp palms slick against the heavy metal.
The bedroom door opened as slowly as a swinging pendulum. She almost expected gnarled, clawed fingers to curl around the edge like the imagined goblin that’d lurked inside her closet when she was ten. From her hiding place, she couldn’t see who entered the room and her nerves stretched to the snapping point as she waited.
A shadow separated from the void that surrounded it and slid over the floor toward her bed. Toward her. Her heart slammed against her chest, a wild animal frantic to escape its cage. Every survival instinct screamed run, get out! But it was too late—had been since she’d spied the beast outside her window.
Now all she could hope for was a quick death…and maybe to make the intruder hurt a little, she vowed, lifting the weapon higher.
The figure moved closer. Tamar tensed, ready to streak out of the corner like a bat out of hell. It shifted direction, nearing the window. Moonlight glanced off it, revealing the faint outline of a large man. The shades of black lightened to gray, bringing its shoulder, neck and face into focus.