Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant Read Online Free PDF

it, despite the protesting creak of his joints. He caught hold of its ropy mane and swung himself up onto its broad, scaly back. He locked his legs around its ribs. It bucked and thrashed, trying to shake him loose, but he’d broken more than a few wild broncos in his days.
    He stabbed the sturdy blade into the side of its thick neck. Yanking it out, he slammed it in again and again, perforating its hide.
    Eventually, between man, snare and beast, something had to give. Surprisingly, it was the beast, as the snare’s sharp wire sawed through bone and its arm hit the ground with a sickening thump. Voicing an ear-piercing screech, it pitched over backwards.
    Its full weight smashed down atop Verner. He felt his ribcage crush, felt a snap and the loss of sensation in his legs. He couldn’t even hitch in a breath to cry out. On the brighter side, his other aches and pains were no longer a bother.
    He waited for the end, for the beast to finish him off. But that end was slow in coming. Agonized and disoriented, wanting only escape, it blundered haphazardly away into the night.
    Verner hitched himself up enough to lean against a wagon wheel and shut his eyes.
     
    *     *     *
     
    That was how they found him in the morning, when Hugh Campbell came with a small group of men into camp, guns at the ready.
    After the ruckus they’d heard the night before, they weren’t expecting it to be pretty. Nor was it. They found a large, scaled arm lying in a pool of blood, with a generous blood trail leading towards the lake. Then they found Eugene Verner, slumped against a wagon wheel, his face pale, half his chest caved in.
    Hugh Campbell edged forward, his hand reaching out respectfully to the dead man, only to start as Eugene’s eyes flickered open. Though they were clouded, he peered at the men. His face contorted into a grimace of effort as he inhaled.
    “That you, Hugh?”
    “Yeah, it’s me, Verner,” Hugh said, tone solemn. “Bad night, then?”
    “I’ve had worse.” Verner said, the last of his breath seeping out in a rattling chuckle, and then he died.
     

     

 
    ROAD KILL ANGEL
     
    Dana Wright
     
    “God, I hate this damn road.” 
    Jessica slapped on her blinkers and jerked the car door open, slamming it closed with a huff as she got out. She stalked down the darkened street, lit only by the steady stream of her car’s headlights, and stifled an oath.
    Another dog lay by the side of the road, hit by a speeding motorist. This was the third one this week.
    Fossil Lake. Yeah, right. It was more like a fucking graveyard. Fake scenic wonders, fake transplanted trees, and now a nice nifty hole in the earth that they tried to pass off as the stock name for the new subdivision.
    The area used to be a nice patch of woods with a real lake, years ago, but the drought had taken care of that. Now the developers had decided it was time to recreate one of nature’s wonders.
    Fossil Lake, version 2.0. What a crock.
    The main road was turning into a drag strip, and Jess despised it. The builders promised speed bumps and street lights, but so far none of it had happened.  All the new construction had gotten her was an unfortunate new hobby, and it was starting to get on her nerves.
    The little furry body lay there, twisted. Jess peered closer. This one was some kind of beagle mix. She leaned in and checked for tags on the collar under the blood-matted fur.
    “Why do those assholes have to aim for every animal they see?” 
    This was somebody’s misplaced baby. Cute as hell too, or at least it would have been if it wasn’t covered in blood and viscera. And dead.
    Jess closed her eyes and sent a prayer over the critter, as she always did. She had grown weary of burying dead things, but there was no one else to do it. She went to the back of her car and hit the button on her key fob, opening the hatchback.
    She would carefully tuck this one into the earth just like she had all the others. It made her happy to at least