CHERYL MADDALENA
“Oh no,” breathed Abby. Her skin crawled, lushed with gooselesh. What she saw before her was not her love of old. It was the evil spirit that had entered his body, vulnerable and unprotected in death on that awful desert slope. “You’re not him,” she said, scrabbling backward up the hillside, loose rocks rolling wildly under her hands. “Why did you track me?” She rushed through her mind, trying to remember anything she could about this spirit monster. The pumawha were shape-shiters, able to mimic human and animal form, and also to inhabit the dead. They chose forms that would give them the advantage they wanted. They were impossibly fast. And she couldn’t remember if they could be killed. “Well, a body has a lavor,” the man-shaped thing licked his lips, “and this one tasted of you. None of the bodies between there and here could satisfy this craving.” Its head tilted, eyes black. “I’ll go back to running wild ater this. Nothing else could compare.” “But where is your, your pack?” Abby shouted, desperately scrambling for a distraction that could help her reach her beautiful bike, just twenty feet above their
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