"So," Star says to me, grinning her manic grin, pointing a kitchen knife at me, "did you decide?"
She may be younger than me, and shorter, but she's still very scary.
I clench one of my fists. I look at Jenny, her wide green eyes staring at me with panic. She presses her hands against the walls of the glass box, and tries to yell something, but I can't hear her.
I look at Sally. She looks at me eyes filled with tears, blood dripping from the stitches holding her mouth together.
I look back at Star.
"Yeah," I say, "I have,"
---
Meet Spike, a tough guy with a soft spot for ginger damsels-in-distress. His summer of community service has gone for a strange and rather scary turn in one day, as he ventures into the house that most people, kids, dogs, and mailmen avoid, and strives to free the spirits trapped inside.
Antique store owner Liz brings home a Victorian taxidermy hound from auction, unwittingly unleashing dark forces on her wife and son.
*****
Nat Loman has finally married the love of her life, Liz, and is getting used to her role as stepmother to Liz's 5-year-old son, Liam. The Loman family runs a bustling antique business so they attend a sale where a striking, black taxidermied hound is up for auction. Liz picks it up for the business, but it ends up being stored in their home, where Nat notices strange things occurring. She quickly discovers the past residents had died violently. Then she hears from a friend about the myth of "the devil's dog", a hound that perches in the shadows, tearing families apart from the inside. Soon, people around the Lomans are dying, and Liz is changing, darkening. It's up to Nat to save the woman she loves from the darkness closing in, and to save Liam from danger no matter what she has to sacrifice.
[[Winner of the 2018 Wattys "Hidden Gems" category]]
[[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]]