Excerpt: Deadmonton

Geraldine watched Alice's face. As Scrub-boy and Shanise came within touching distance, Alice's nostrils flared and a wild look of awareness crept into her eyes.

It reminded Geraldine of the time an ex-boyfriend talked her into going hunting with him. After getting up obscenely early and freezing her ass off in a blind for hours, finally a deer had come into sight. She'd watched it through binoculars while Ross lined it up in his scope. Then, without warning the breeze shifted and blew from behind them, straight at the deer. She'd watched its notstrils flare and its eyes go wide and scared-looking. Then it had stomped its foot and bolted back into the underbrush, all before Ross managed a single shot.

That was how Alice looked now, only instead of stomping and running, she lurched forward. Scrub-boy reached out, planning to catch her, Geraldine suspected, unfortunately it was he who got caught.

Alice grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled him toward her. At the same time she tilted her head and lunged forward, fastening her teeth on his nose. Scrub-boy screamed and pulled back, leaving a good portion of his nose behind in Alice's mouth. The motion reminded Geraldine of a ghastly parody of how children get a freezie out of the wrapper with their teeth.

In amongst the blood which now covered Scrub-boy and Alice both, Geraldine could see something translucent and white where his nose used to be. Cartilage, she thought, it must be cartilage.

Scrub-boy clutched his nose and staggered backward, while Shanise stumbled to the side. Her eyes were wide and glazed with what Geradine assumed to be shock and terror. She could relate to those feelings very well.