WIP Wednesday - On the Edge of Nowhere - One Week Until Release
Mattie stretched. She looked over their surroundings, then
froze. “What’s that?”
Gina peered in the direction of the nearest stretch of
trees. “A table? Wait, is that a pegboard? How is it hanging in the air?
Mattie, get back here!” Cursing, Gina followed her friend.
They hurried over to stare at a workbench. The rough,
water-stained board construction had a vise attached at the end. A pegboard
hovered just behind it. Baby food jars hung from it, filled with various
screws, nails, bolts and other small bits one might use in building projects.
The pegboard floated in the air with no visible support.
Mattie waved her hand around it. “Freaky. How is it doing that?”
“So much for the perfect, nonthreatening scenario.” Gina
gazed at their surroundings again. She wondered what new weirdness was in
store.
“Mattie-eating trees are threatening. This is just strange.”
Mattie circled behind it.
“After the rats and the addictive-fruit tree, I’m worried
about everything. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Where we are and how
to go home.”
“We’ve established we’re in Hungry House’s basement. The
pegboard must be attached to the wall. But yeah, you’re right about going
home.” Mattie returned to her side. “Which direction? Across the open, where we
can see whatever might be coming, or in the trees, where we can hide if we need
to?”
Gina scowled at their options. The surroundings’ peace could
be a lie.
She wanted to go home. She ached to do normal stuff. Go to
homecoming with Jayesh. Eat leftover hamburger steak for dinner. Fill out
applications for college. Home had been paradise.
“I’ll flip a coin.” Mattie startled her into the present.
She dug in her pocket. “Heads, meadow. Tails, woods. Call it.”
Before Gina could, rumbling erupted. The ground beneath her
feet trembled. Branches within the stand of trees snapped as loud as
whipcracks.
She grabbed Mattie’s arm and pulled her behind the pegboard.
They crouched behind the workbench.
“You stupid house. I hate you.” Gina waited for whatever
doom it had concocted to descend on them.
Movement on the workbench’s other side. Horse hooves flashed
past and sent up sprays of dirt as they thundered from the woods to the meadow.
Bare-chested bestial men loomed overhead.
Horse hooves, but not horses. Men’s torsos, but not men.
Gina gaped at the half-human, half-animal creatures racing by.
Scaly rats. Meat-eating trees with fruit that screams
when you bite it. So sure, why not centaurs while we’re at it? Hysterical
laughter bubbled up.
She cringed against Mattie when the creatures wheeled to
face them. They trotted back and surrounded the girls. Their muscled legs pawed
divots as they halted.
“I wish I’d paid better attention when we covered mythology
in school,” Mattie whispered. “They don’t look friendly, do they?”
They glared at the girls. They were huge. Gina imagined they
were bigger than any Clydesdale. Rather than covered by the sleek, gleaming
hides of the horses Gina had encountered, the centaurs’ animal parts were
covered by coarse, wooly coats. Twigs, burrs, and leaves clung to the matted
fur. The snapping tails were tangled, knotted messes.
The horse sections were lovely compared to the human parts.
Scarred, muscled torsos were covered with curly hair as snarled with filth as
their lower halves. Their hands were gloved in dirt, black buried in chipped
and broken fingernails.
More snarled hair erupted from their faces and scalps.
Shaggy beards and eyebrows hid most of their features, but it was impossible to
miss the brutish expressions they wore. Yellow-toothed grins appeared within
their facial hair, which enhanced their aura of bestial ferocity.
One black-haired and -furred creature glanced at his
companions. In a guttural voice, he said something that sounded like fermshat.
The others laughed, the sound cruel. Gina’s bladder was abruptly full.
The speaker stepped close to the girls. He waved his arm. “Gelots.”
Gina glanced at Mattie. “Almost sounds like ‘get lost.’
Which I’m fine with doing. Maybe he means hello?”
“I doubt it, but we can try.” Mattie smiled at the
terrifying creature. “Gelots.”
He responded by kicking her on the shoulder. Then he kicked
Gina’s hip. His cracked hoof thudded against her hard enough to bruise without
breaking bones. They yelped in pain and clung to each other.
“Gelots!” He gestured toward the woods the herd had
emerged from. When they cringed, he kicked them again.
“What the hell, jerk?” Gina stumbled the direction he’d
indicated and dodged another kick. Two laughing centaurs edged apart to let her
through. The brown-furred one slapped her hard on the back of the head when she
passed. Her ears rang. The other shoved Mattie. She tripped and earned more
kicks. Gina shoved to reach her. She ignored the abuse to pull her friend to
her feet.
“Bastards. I’d love to have a horsewhip right now.” Mattie
wiped her bleeding nose. They broke into a trot to avoid more brutality.
The hike they were forced on through the woods was a
nightmare of kicks, slaps, and shoves. A couple of the centaurs snatched
switches from the surrounding trees’ thinner limbs to slash at the girls when
they slowed. The beasts chortled with merriment as they drove them for at least
an hour.
When they broke through to open, hilly terrain, Gina was
exhausted, bruised, and bleeding. Mattie looked in no better shape. She cried
silently, the sort of weeping that spoke of fury rather than sadness or fear.
Her expression spelled murder.
I wish we had the means to carry it out. Gina ground
her teeth.
She had little opportunity to admire the paradisical
setting, though it impressed her as the centaurs urged them on with continued
cruelty. Lush green grass carpeted the rolling hills before her, with flowering
trees that dotted the landscape. In the distance, Gina spied stone ruins of
what she took to be a Greek temple. White columns, stately despite chips and
wear, reared from weed-pocked granite slabs. They supported the framework of a
long-destroyed roof. Whatever building it had once been still possessed
grandeur beyond anything she’d seen in person.
The centaurs herded her and Mattie to this architectural
wonder. A camp had been set up near the ruins, with crude tents made of animal
hides and wooden stakes. Many more centaurs, at least a hundred, milled about.
A large fire burned in a pit in the center, over which a massive cauldron was
suspended from a wooden framework. A trio of human girls stirred the pot.
Nearby, several spitted animal carcasses were turned over other fires by
weary-looking boys. All the humans were filthy, cut, and bruised. They watched
the centaur party’s approach with wary expressions and flinched when the
half-beasts neared.
Gina eagerly examined each and every human face. She wasn’t
sure whether to be relieved or despondent when she saw neither Carrie nor
Braden.
Most of their harassers galloped to the animals on spits.
They snatched meat off the bones with their bare hands and shoveled it into
their mouths. Juices ran into their matted beards. Gina grimaced. How many
years’ worth of food was caught up in their hair?
She glanced over her shoulder. Despite her exhaustion, she
thought to make a run for it. Centaurs milled all over the place, a grotesque,
seething tide between her and the forest from which she’d emerged. A yard away,
Black Hair sneered at her as if he knew what she was thinking.
“You can’t escape. Come over here and help before they beat
you,” someone called.
Gina glanced at the cauldron suspended over the fire. A girl
gestured to her and Mattie. She wore a grim expression, at odds with the
smiley-face pin attached to her striped shirt. Have a nice day.
Fuzziness invaded Gina’s brain. She shoved it off. “Come on,
Mattie. Let’s get the scoop on what fresh hell this is.”
* * * *
Those who step inside Hungry House never return. But when the abandoned house on the edge of town is ready to feed, it won’t be denied.
Inquisitive Gina and her impulsive best friend Mattie know better than to enter the abandoned Victorian. The mansion on the edge of Nowhere, Georgia, has a reputation for ‘eating’ those who dare to step inside. Yet when another friend and her younger brother disappear after last being seen heading toward Hungry House, Gina and Mattie have no choice but to follow.
Inside, they find every door is a gateway to a new nightmare. Even death is no escape—it only sends the unlucky trespassers back to the start of Hungry House’s gauntlet. Their only hope is to survive long enough to confront the house’s mistress, an inhuman being whose lust for vengeance is as immortal as she.
Releasing in one week on October 25. Pre-order now: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Smashwords.
Print on sale now: print
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