Prey

Max was wide awake the very moment that he opened his eyes. He immediately leapt out of bed and rushed to wash up and brush his teeth. Most of the time this wouldn’t have been normal behavior for the high school student. Typically he would roll over, pulling the bedspread over his head, and resist getting up until his mother started nagging him to get out of bed. However, this was the morning of October 31st and, over the past few years, he’d been noticing changes in himself as Halloween, or Samhain, approached. The first year he’d noticed it, it wasn’t anything more than an increased altertness, even antsiness. He wasn’t able to figure out the reason for the feelings of agitation. However, they subsided fairly rapidly after Halloween was over and his memory of them faded. But they came back again the following Halloween, and they were stronger than the first year. He also became aware of sharper sensory perception, particularly the sense of smell. Once again, though, he quickly forgot about them after the holiday had passed. ...

This story contains scenes of crushing and bones breaking, not for the faint hearted. A group of herpetologists, connected to several universities, were planning a trip to the Amazon rain forests to further their knowledge of reptiles; particularly South American snakes. During their preliminary discussion of arrangements, a rumour arose of a very large snake that had been interfering with the lives of villagers in a particular part of the forest. Several villagers had disappeared over the years, but the local opinion was that this was the work of one or more jaguars. The scientists agreed that they should make that area the base for their research. If there was a large snake living in the vicinity they were almost duty bound to find it and do some trials. Their base was located near the village and a week before they arrived, a villager lost a large dog in circumstances that made it unlikely to be the work of a big cat. ...

The desirable actress and her producer husband were traveling by yacht in the South Pacific, mostly to get away and forget her dismal performance in her last film. She had got into film many years ago as a teenager with stunning good looks, having been discovered by accident in a shopping mall, and rarely having to perform on the casting couch for a role. Since then she had worked hard at becoming more than a pretty face, but her looks forced her to be typecast as a dumb blond for the first part ofher career anyway. She never did any nude scenes, but she had to dress the part and her wardrobe always stopped just short of an adult rating. By the time she had a chance to actually act she was stuck with the predetermined notion that she was as dumb as most of the world thought she was, and her last film was a major flop because of that. She was angry at herself for taking the ill suited role, but more so with her husband for advising her to. She would now be considered a “poison pill” for any big screen work, and she didn’t even want to think about the small screen! To make matters worse, there was always a fresh supply of pretty young ladies to take her place, and they would do anything, literally ANY THING to land a role on the big screen. ...

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” You put away your phone. Fine by you. Your phone is almost dead, anyway. Those ride-sharing apps always take forever to load. You feel just as comfortable out here as you did inside the club. In fact, it might be a bit more comfortable - inside it was hot and muggy. The cool spring air - polluted as it may be by concrete, chemicals, and the endless fumes of automobiles - is refreshing on your face. An evening breeze rustles trees along the road. A few of the other patrons go back inside. ...

Part One Christina lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling fan as it made slow, lazy circles above her. “Hemmin, hemmin, hemmin,” it seemed to say to her in its perpetual hum. “Hello, Mr. Ceiling Fan,” she murmured. “How easy life is for you. How easy, how predictable. Last year at this time you were spinning above me, not a care in the world. I lay here looking up at you and was much the same. Tomorrow you will still be spinning here, going around, and around, and around, your place in the world assured, but I…” ...