Listening In The Rain I'm a good listener; always have been. Especially here inside the cemetery—just sitting in my truck, listening to the rain, hearing it tell the story, and waiting for Holly. We don’t have nice winter weather around here, just cold and rainy. The only thing it’s good for is hunting, especially for deer. But I don't hunt—not anymore. Winter became my favorite season after meeting Holly. I’d been drivin...

The ranch was an isolated place but that didn't mean we lived in total isolation while I grew up ranch. We had many visitors from far and near who enriched our lives in many ways.Often it was a family who came bringing with them the whole family including kids. Our Fox cousins from Denver were particularly fun to entertain. They, of course, wanted to ride the horses and ponies. After an hour or so of that, a nice cool off...

"It reeks of blood," practically tasting rotten metallics pieces lingering in the air, the stench corroding his sense of smell, Dark stalked the streets, now that the hour is long past the majority of humans being out and about. As much preferred the night was in terms of avoiding the prying eyes of humans, demons among other creatures tend to frequent the night as well causing much trouble for the Angel, since he could n...

Lee handed his eight-year-old daughter a shotgun loaded with a pumpkin-ball. She couldn't shoulder the heavy shotgun correctly, and the pumpkin-ball had less than the range of a football field. It was safe enough. His thinking was that he would send Eloise down one side of the hill while he quietly went down the other, hoping that she would scare all the deer his way. She would believe that she was a mighty deer hunter, w...

The world was a whir of green and brown as his feet felt like they were flying. Freedom was possible, he just had to make it out of this hell first. His steady breaths were calm as he dashed through the underbrush, ignoring the snags and cuts, calculating the best path for the fewest tripping hazards and less likely to be followed.  The man had ran for an hour straight, by now his pursuers should be dissuaded from their l...

The snow fell hard for days making it impossible to hunt and the food supply was running low. The cold weather was hardest on the pups as Nurse wouldn't let them outside the den for fear they would get lost or become sick. I watched as the pups become depressed and aggressive towards the rest of the pack. I snapped and growled at the pups until they fell in line and settled down. Since the weather was cold we didn't have...

I let out a happy yelp and rushed over to Tank, only to come to a stop short of reaching him. He was limping badly and his leg was bleeding. I wasn't sure if he would be aggressive towards me, so I lowered myself to the ground and slowly belly crawled my way to him and whimpered. He snorted and panted before dropping to the ground himself. There was a hole in his front left leg and it reeked of human. He had been attacked...

I woke to the smell of rabbit under my nose with the slight hint of Gash. Sigh. I knew she would start sucking up to me but I didn't think it would be this soon. By my guess she thought sucking up to me would lessen her punishment, but she was dead wrong. But since I didn't eat last night I ate now, growling the whole time to let Gash know that I still wasn't impressed with her. As I munched on my rabbit I was thinking ab...

As I lay on my side, I wondered why I was still alive... Sandi had had me in a death grip which should have ended my life and yet I could still hear and smell everything around me. I moved my front paws and by some miracle they moved even if ever slightly. Sandi's howling was getting on my nerves so much that I gathered all my remaining strength and what was left of my energy and flung myself up and latched onto his throa...

We headed out just before dawn and kept it at a steady walk for Gash's sake. She kept up well and didn't whine when she started limping. I knew we needed to rest and slowed everyone to a slow walk until I found a shaded lake. We all drank and laid under a tree, the sun had come up fast and was suddenly very warm. It was strange because the week before had been so cold signaling the coming winter. But I was thankful the we...

I woke and looked over at the wounded wolf and huffed - she was still alive. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep at the far wall of the cave; I must have been pacing and sat down for a minute and that was when I fell asleep. I walked over to her and she seemed somewhat happy to see me. She raised her head and whimpered. I cocked my head and touched my nose to hers, she then laid back down and slept once again. I snorted,...

Kilgore and Stiles spent the better part of the day planning the evenings trip. They armed themselves with crucifixes, one in each of their coat pockets and one around there neck. As dusk approached Kilgore went to his wall safe and removed an old key ring with two old fashion keys, the largest one would open the gates to the family crypt and the smaller for the inner wooden doors.Just before sunset they mounted their hor...

Stiles drove the buggy at breakneck speeds from the farm house back to the train station. Due to the amount of jostling and bouncing Kilgore was forced to hang on tight and refrain from asking any questions lest he bite his tongue or lip. Upon their arrival he told Kilgore to have his engineer run full steam as time was of the essence. Once underway and after downing a few brandies Kilgore finally asked Stiles what was th...

I suppose you want to know my name. Fine, I’ll tell you. I’m Nick. My full name is Nicholas Michael McMasterson. Now that you know that, stop smirking and just listen to my story. It isn’t spectacular, it isn’t sexy, nor is it really that exciting, but it’s a story, nevertheless. I’m a killer. My last victim truly deserved it. He was this big dude, thought he was, anyway. You know the type, they get all offended when you...

This morning I saw those black ducks, the ones that eat fish, through my bedroom window. We seem to have lots of them, but a few years ago I never saw them. Pointy beaked things? Yea.That's a fish-duck, or a cormorant, the kind of bird the Japanese used to catch fish. I used to go duck hunting with Joe. Joe's mom was from Germany and had a thick rolling accent. I didn't like plucking and messing with the ducks I shot, so...