Teaser

You may have noticed that the frequency of my posts has fallen off a bit. Well, there's a reason for that: I've been working on a novel. Alternate earth thing. Kind of an adult fantasy w/ a bit of horror thrown in. I'm 275 pages into the first draft with a target of ~500 pages. Unlike my first attempt (about 20 years ago) this story has an outline and even has an ending that's sorta worked out... sorta.

So anyway, my good old buddy LLM suggested that I post a little sample in the blog. This is from a couple of hundred pages in. Remember, it is a rough draft. As I read it there are things that I want to change, but right now I am focusing on getting the story told. Then I want to go back and tighten up the writing.

I hope you enjoy it.

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She supposed, by the pulsing orange light that lit the alien landscape around her, it might be day in this world. Today, she tracked something larger. Something the size of a dog, but with bigger TEETH and a wiry, bristly coat. These things were all TEETH it seemed. They must have some senses, for they detected her and snarled when she neared. They’d seemed to have no eyes, though, or discernible ears.

She had climbed far up and lain very still and when one of these things had scuttled beneath her perch, she had dropped, thrown a large rock upon its back. There had been a satisfying crunch and a hissing yelp.

Alicia neared her prey. It still lived. Still had TEETH. But she reached forward like a snake and in one movement grabbed its hind leg. It tried to snap at her, but she turned in a flash and dashed its head on the stones. Over and over she did this, long past sensing any movement in the thing.

Then she began to feed. It had little power, but it was meat. It was blood and bone and gristle. She fed for a time and then clutching what was left to her like some hideous doll, she moved back across the boundary into the Place.

She wandered long but eventually found what she sought: a place in the rocks where she could fashion her lair. Of course it was already inhabited, but she enticed its current tenant, something long and sinuous, out with the smell of the prey she had brought from the boundary world.

If Alicia retained any capacity for love or enjoyment, it was love of the hunt -- especially the ambush. She made her way around and above the entrance to the place that she had marked as hers and there she waited. Barely breathing, unaware of the rank smell that surrounded her, unaware of what she had become, she waited.

The long, sinuous thing nosed from its place in the rocks. It could smell the carrion Alicia had left and it was hungry, but it was also cautious. It would move out and then dart back at some shift in the misty light, at some distant sound. Alicia waited. Two or three times, the sinuous thing almost reached the rent carcass before it retreated. Alicia waited.

Eventually, the thing’s hunger overcame its caution and it emerged fully. It was at least seven feet long. Easily the biggest prey she’d attempted. A risk, but worth it for what it might bring to her. Alicia waited until a split second before the thing’s jaws had closed on the bait. And then, committing herself fully to the attack, she leaped from her perch.

Somehow, the thing sensed her movement, and turned so that its belly faced upwards. Alicia had enough time to see that its belly featured barbs -- probably venomous -- that protruded several inches and then she landed full on its exposed neck.

Her initial blow did not kill the thing, but it stunned it. It tried to recover, tried to bring those barbs to bear on its tormentor, but Alicia had already sunk her teeth into the flesh just below the jaw. She reached underneath the thing with her right hand to hold the bottom of the jaw and force it back against her knee. She added the strength of her left arm pressing down in concert with the pull of her right.

Still it struggled, but clearly it was weakening. Alicia bit harder, burying her face as fluids gushed around her, blinding her, filling her nose, coursing down the front of her once beautiful body. She continued to bite, continued to bend the thing’s neck back and back and back until it finally snapped.

The long, sinuous thing, shivered and lay still.

If in life it could not overcome its attacker, its life force was strong and as that life force flowed into the thing that Alicia was becoming, it rocked her back and she lay panting. She panted the way one might expect a mother to pant in childbirth, but instead of birthing a child, Alicia was transforming into a twisted version of herself. Had another hunter come by just then she would have been helpless, but the helplessness passed quickly enough and strange energies surged into her.

And then she fed with abandon.