THE MAYFAIR MOON - The Darkmoon Saga I

Chapter 2 - A Beastly Attack

Trees towered over us, blocking most of the moonlight from the clear dark sky. The bicycle path through the park was a shortcut to our house. The park was full of joggers and bicyclists during the day, but it was desolate and eerie at night. Even with the sound of the freeway in the distance, I still felt like I was far away from home, lost in the wilderness somewhere.

Catching her off-guard, I frogged Alex as hard as I could on the arm with the bony knuckle of my middle finger.

"That hurt!"

"Paybacks." I grinned.

For a moment, when Alex didn't smile back at me, I thought she was mad.

"What was that?" she said. "Did you hear that?" She gripped her arm, but it was apparent something else was on her mind other than the inevitable bruise. She stared through the trees behind me as the hair stood on the back of my neck.

"No, I didn't hear—."

Then suddenly, I did hear something: a low guttural growl on the wind. But what struck me was the strangeness of it, the shiver it sent down my spine like a cold, ghostly finger. When you hear a dog growling, you usually know right away that it's a dog—this was not a dog.

"Sounded like a bear," I said, my heartbeat racing.

Alex grabbed my arm, smiling. "This reminds me of the time we saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre over at Liz's, remember?"

I guess her sudden relaxed attitude helped calm my nerves because I wasn't as edgy anymore. "Yeah, I remember."

"Like freaked out little girls," Alex added.

We cupped our hands over our mouths to stifle the laughter. But then the wild flapping of wings sucked the calm right out of us again. Birds, hundreds of them, burst out of the trees and swirled into the night sky like a swarm of bats.

"Alex," I whispered harshly, "let's get out of here." I took her by the arm.

As we hurried down the path, squirrels bounced from tree to tree, all moving in the same direction; there were so many I couldn't help but notice.

"What's going on?" Alex said, suppressed panic in her voice.

The growl now sounded more like a roar—and it was getting closer. My breath caught. Alex and I stood back-to-back, moving in a circle to keep each other safe, but from what we couldn't have possibly imagined. We had always been told not to run if we ever encountered a bear, but running was all I wanted to do.

A figure crashed through the bushes then, and my lungs hardened like cement as a naked man stumbled out and fell onto the path ahead. Alex shrieked and gripped my forearm so tight that it stung. I was too frozen to scream.

The man stretched out a hand toward us; I could hear the disturbing sound of his flesh scraping against the asphalt as he dragged his body forward with his arms.

"Omigod"—Alex gasped—"Omigod!"

"Please..." the man said in a raspy, growling voice, "...run away from here! Go! Now!" The sound of his voice held an echoing, demonic undertone, and it stunned me. Demonic? Of all the words I thought to describe it, why did I choose that one?

Alex grabbed my arm tighter and jerked me toward her; her fingernails seared my skin. A force, like hot, foul-smelling wind, blindsided me, and I felt my face crush into the side of a tree. Furious white spots dotted my vision, shattering my focus. Blood sprang up in my mouth. I was so disoriented I couldn't tell if I was still standing or if the tree pressed against my face was really the ground.