A little taste of what’s in my last anthology release with Storm Moon Press, Dark Menagerie. It’s a little bit horror and a little bit mythical. Enjoy.

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It’s what drives us. The four of us.

The inner need compels us despite our ever-present want for normalcy. We can never have what others have.

“Please!” His screams echo. Our own piercing cries vibrate along the earth. Thundering hooves beat the ground, playing a symphony of death.

Whoever he is, pleads again. We don’t care, we can’t. It’s not in our nature to care. The four of us laugh. Our own laughter echoes within.

Look at the little human run.

He’s ours!

The marrow is ours.

Run, human.

We laugh again despite the dulling chase. The four of us come to a mutual agreement: end it now. We speed up, easily enough to catch a human. Hunting humans has lost its thrill.

The four of us tune together like a well-orchestrated piece. We know what to do.

As to who is who and who does what, it’s all very unclear. We are so well attuned it seems as if we are one. We’ve been together so long our thoughts have intertwined. Our own individual identities have vanished. We all think and feel as one.

“No! I-” His last words die in a gurgle of blood, and his windpipe collapses under the pressure of our jaw. A bone snapping crunch and another final cry ends this chaos only to bring anew.

The four of us fight for supremacy; we fight for the best meat. It’s truly the only time we seem to be individuals. But even in this frenzied state the old habit of our and we cannot be broken.

Our bodies slam against one another; we bite, kick and scream for dominance. The tenderest and most valued part of our quarry can only go to one of us. The heart. It’s the whole reason we even orchestrate this little sham of a hunt. Without the heart of a human we will die. As individuals we must consume one every other moon. If one of us, as individuals, need it more than the another is inconsequential. Whomever reaches the heart first is the victor.

Our hooves smash the human’s fragile bones. A kicking hoof rips open the dead thing’s chest, exposing what we all desire the most. Our fighting intensifies, if possible, escalating to a height we haven’t achieved in well over two centuries.  Violence such as this was common place of ages ago.