Excerpt teaser #5 for Savage Fire

Four days.

My short story collection, Savage Fire, will be released on May 31st as an eBook. I posted a rough copy of the cover and a table of contents, but I wanted to put up one more excerpt from one of my favorite stories, An Island Never Cries, with a different kind of beastliness.

Remember to watch on Twitter for the hash tag #savagefire, which I am using for tweets and hints about the collection. When the eBook is available for pre-order, I'll tweet about it. When the book is available, I'll tweet about it. I think it is safe to say that I'll tweet too damn much about it.


The opening of An Island Never Cries, bloodthirsty horror from Savage Fire:

Wind careened across the bay, churning and roiling the water. A wave crashed against the rocks, and the wind carried the spray, dousing Kate with frigid salt water, but she was already soaked to the bone and didn’t stir. She huddled on the edge of the porch and watched angry clouds scuttle across the moon. She would not give in.

An hour later, Kate’s nails had gouged her palms. Teeth clenched, fists closed, she fought. She would not, could not give in. Cold sweat mingled with the spray and trickled down her face, ran across her cheeks. Some ran into her mouth and she swallowed the salty moisture, but it only made the pangs worse.

Half an hour later, maybe even forty minutes, she could take it no longer. Staggering off the porch, her eyes narrowed, she stared about as if food, sustenance, might be lurking in the dark. She laughed, but even to her ears, it sounded desolate and grim.

Down to the dock she ran, slipping on the slick wood in her eagerness. She struggled with the knots she had tied so carefully earlier in the evening, fumbling madly against her earlier willpower. As soon as she could slip the lines off the mooring, she leapt into the small craft. The wind howled around her, so she made do with the jib. Even so, the small sail filled in an instant and knocked her off her feet.

Where to go? Kate’s mind spun wildly with the need to get to the mainland, to feed the terrible hunger, but a little corner, the human side of Kate, warned her away from Tyson’s Cove. She fought herself, and managed to aim a little northward, up to Johnson’s Point at least. People lived there, but further inland. It might slow her down.

The boat bucked and tossed in the wind. Whether nature forced its will or the wild part of Kate took over, the prow kept skewing southward. Each time Kate leaned on the rudder, she lost ground. Through the tumult of the waves, Kate saw the dim lights of Tyson’s Cove.

One last time, the tiny flickering light in her brain seized control, and she shoved the rudder over, heading further south, perhaps down to Star Beach. Nobody would be out on Star Beach in the storm. It was no use; the light sputtered out as the small craft veered back northward and headed to shore.