The Devil Eats Here (Multi-Author Short Story Collection) (17 page)

And who knows what's here in the lot? Some dark sphinx huddling among the vehicles, ready to open its Great-White jaws and swallow passersby whole? Maybe I should go around it instead, take my chances on the sidewalk—

He stopped. Another one. This time it was a woman, hair disheveled as if she had just gotten out of bed, and...he squinted. Wrapped in a sheet?

Toga party. That was it. Once, during his Western Australia days, some enlisteds had dressed up in barracks-issue bedsheets and thrown such a bash. Was she drunk? Should he offer to walk her home? The thought gave him a delicious little shiver.

But she didn't walk like a drunk. She glided by, her expression difficult to read. Tonight being what it was, she might possibly have been a ghost, and she did seem to glow like one...and her eyes sparkled like he doubted his own had ever done in all his three decades of existence.

"Ah...miss?"

She strolled on. He watched her follow the long downhill slope of Fourth Avenue, back the way he had come. In the past five minutes he seemed to have done nothing but gawk and stare and wonder at the people who kept appearing.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it...

And then she bent down and reached for her bare left foot.

Dex saw why. Tied to her big toe, nearly the size of her foot itself, was a cardboard tag with writing on it.

A moment later she looked up. "Excuse me?" Her voice rang clearly in the silence of the hour, the newly-untied tag in her hands. "Did you say something?"

He gaped. "Are you...?"

He sensed something then, an atmospheric shift just enough to register on his skin. He looked up.

And saw that the moon was full now. And it was moving.

OTHER SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES YOU MAY ENJOY

Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts

Stories by William Meikle, Douglas Kolacki, Jonathan Broughton, Carole Ann Moleti,  Kiersten Hartrim, Sera Hayes, Rayne Hall, April Grey, Grayson Bray Morris, Tracie McBride.

Edited by Rayne Hall.

Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires

Stories by Liv Rancourt, Jim Bernheimer, Douglas Kolacki,

Lana Bange, Jonathan Broughton,

Carole Ann Moleti, Debbie Christiana, Rayne Hall, Pamela Turner, April Grey.

Edited by Rayne Hall.

Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates

Stories by Margo Lerwill,

Liv Rancourt, Douglas Kolacki, Rayne Hall, Jonathan Broughton, KJ Kiegan, Kris Austen Radcliffe, John Blackport.

Edited by Rayne Hall.

Scared: Ten Tales of Horror

Stories by Tracie McBride, Deborah J. Ross writing as Deborah Wheeler, Jonathan Broughton,

Liv Rancourt, Pamela Turner, Rayne Hall, William Meikle,  Grayson Bray Morris, Donna Johnson, Karen Heard.

Edited by Rayne Hall.