What would you do to survive? How far could you push yourself before you went over the edge? Who would you trust in a world where the people you once loved were either insane or ... the living dead.
Their lifeless, yet moving, bodies intent on hunting you down, watching you fall and disembowelling every little piece of your life.
I'm still trying to figure it out.
Sometimes it's easier to wish you were one of them instead of living, they're not like your cliche zombie, slow moving and easy to kill, they didn't earn the name hunters for nothing. Their brain and body functions just like ours, except the slight urge to hunt and kill the ones who still have blood beating through their veins, and the only way to tell them apart from the living is when they take a bite out of your neck and ... their eyes. They have this glazed over appearance, with a layer of scum pretending to be blocking their sight. They can run, but only for short periods of time before they slow to a walk but they never stop moving even if they have to crawl, they'll move. The only time they stop moving is when they're dead, I feel a lot more comfortable around them where they're dead funny enough. But how do you kill them? Easy. Shoot the only part of them that's still keeping them alive, the brain. However, shooting is a luxury. In Ireland, guns are for from legal so there's not many to go around and a knife will do just as well at achieving a nice clean death. So, you got all that? I hope so, you're on your own now kiddo.
Have fun out there.
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]]