Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

And it always wanted something – more formula, a diaper change, her toy doggie she threw across the room during tantrums.
    Matt’s wife took it all better than he did, and he chalked this up to the fact that she was female and women at least gave the appearance of loving their spawn. For Matt, the absolute adoration of his daughter (which his wife had named Patchouli, for Chrissake) had deserted him the moment her shit started stinking. He wasn’t certain which week it was, but all of a sudden her bowel movements could singe the unibrow off his Italian mother-in-law. And, brother, that was a lot of eyebrow.
    Now, he was trying to watch a rerun of The Jerry Springer Show , concentrating hard so he could tell what curse words they were bleeping out, and she started in again with the high-pitched shrieking. He turned up the audio, but that horrible noise seemed to shove a knife into the back of his head and twist the blade back and forth. He winced, groaned. She must have sensed his displeasure, because she started screaming full blast.
    “Shut up!” he screamed; this only triggered her into higher pitched, shrill wails. “Aw, for God’s sake…”
    Shoving himself out of the armchair, he turned his back on the arm-flailing screeching mistress and the butt-ugly drag queen on TV and headed for the baby’s room. The apartment was small, so it only took a few steps until he opened Patchouli’s door and peeked inside.
    Then, he screamed in harmony with the baby.
    Patchouli was caught in the jaws of a rat that had to measure at least three feet long. Its eyes burned red, and its fur was greasy and black. Its tail slapped back and forth, as if it were an angry feline, and its head was deformed. Long protuberances grew over its eyes, like a Neanderthal’s brow. Its teeth were sharp and jagged, like a shark’s, row after row of them…
    …crunching down on his daughter, whose bellowing suddenly stopped, and he briefly wondered who’d changed the station. The baby’s form lay limp as the creature closed its jaws tighter around her body. Bones cracked and snapped.
    In the shadows of the baby’s room, other figures slinked back and forth. They were also too large, too misshapen to be rats. He figured they were the enormous rodents he’d read about in the newspaper. They were supposed to be all the way downtown near Ground Zero.
    Matt turned around to run to the phone and call – who? Police? Firefighters? The dog catcher? Three more of the creatures rushed out of the corners of the room.
    Matt Schwartz only made it halfway across the efficiency before one of them bit through his Achilles tendon and he plummeted to the floor where the other two were waiting.
     
    * * *
     
    Gwen Drew was tired. Eight hours at the office followed by three hours at the strip club, trying to avoid the savages who came to see her when she moonlighted as Cherry Jubilee. Shaking your thang in five-inch fuck me pumps really blew out your ankles. It was enough to wear out any girl until she was as threadbare as the carpet in her third-story walk-up.
    She slung her heavy purse on the kitchen table, listening as it slid to the floor in a jangle of keys and makeup and mace. Locking the door behind her, she stripped off her clothes. It wasn’t sexy, like when she masked herself as Cherry, but she was soon naked and running a hot bath for herself. Her cat, Tina, made an indignant appearance. She gave her a pat on the head and the cat padded into the other room to do cat things. Gwen sprinkled the steaming water with scented bubble bath and inhaled fake lilacs. After a few minutes, she shut off the tap and slid into the water with a sigh of contentment.
    She closed her eyes, let her sore feet and back relax with the near-scalding water. Her nearly paid-for-breasts bobbed on the surface like pink islands. The apartment was quiet as a tomb, and she relished the silence. After three hours of blaring hair rock, silence truly was golden. She trailed her