EXCERPT:

Gazing through the window framed in velvet curtains, she thought how pretty the city looked in the fading summer light. Everything bathed in a rosy glow. The sidewalks and streets seemed speckled with gleaming diamond chips. The people hurrying home from work or to personal appointments were muted blurs. Everyone smiling. Talking. Laughing. Living their lives on a hot summer night. When the sun went down the shadows and breeze would cool things off. Then it’d be perfect.

By the time they’d finished their dessert, paid the tab and strolled hand-in-hand from the restaurant, dark had claimed the city. Deep purple shadows pulsed and the air hummed with the sounds of the night. The gloom was a warm, heavy cloak around them. There wasn’t a breeze stirring anywhere. The crowds had thinned.

In the shade of the building Jeff stole a moment to kiss her. A long slow kiss that made her remember why she’d never stopped loving him. When he pulled away she reached out and slid her fingers along the side of his face. “I love you, husband. Forever and always.”

“And I love you more.” He kissed her one last time.

“Let’s get our car and drive it to the hotel, instead of walking. I don’t like where we’re parked. Since it’s later there’s bound to be a better parking space somewhere else,” she told him and he agreed.

Lost in their conversation and each other, they strolled along the street by the river to the parking lot. They’d left their car in an isolated spot, a pool of soot, beneath a concrete viaduct. Not the safest of parking spaces. Usually, they’d never put themselves in danger like that because they, of all people, knew any place that secluded and shadowy could hide something unexpected. Because, in the world, monsters did exist.

But they weren’t thinking about that. They were only thinking about the moment. The years of their safe normal lives had lulled them into a false sense of security.

Under the overpass it was as silent as a tomb. No one else around, or so they thought.

Jeff unlocked the car at a distance with the click of his key control and had his hand on the passenger side door handle when she glanced up. A capricious breeze drifted across her face where there shouldn’t have been any moving air. Her skin shivered as she caught a faint whiff of something she hadn’t smelled in a very long time.

The scent was fresh dirt, ash and something…long dead.

“Jeff, get in the car now!”

Across the vehicle’s roof a large shadow enveloped her husband and he screamed.

It was the last thing she saw and heard before something invisible grabbed her, slammed her to the ground and plunged something sharp into her neck. The excruciating pain lasted a millisecond, an eternity, before the blackness took her.***