Excerpt: Infernal

Typically, the dream was greyscale. He would stand, watching the pigs and cows through the fence, a few of the heifers still meandering around the paddock, most asleep, the pigs doing similarly. Eventually, he would turn and run through the fields of hay, finally returning to the farmhouse. Tonight, though, the dream wasn't black and white. Tonight, the dream was accented with red blood, burgundy in the dim light of the moon. Tonight, he hadn't just sat and watched the livestock. Tonight, he had slaughtered them.

He had taken a running leap and mounted the fence, landing among the startled pigs with a feral snarl, killing them with tooth and claw, relishing the sensation of the warm blood of the pigs dripping down his chin, finding himself disappointed they were such easy game. After the massacre of the swine, he had turned toward the wild-eyed heifers that had become alarmed at the squealing and shrieking of the pigs and were now tossing their heads and straining at the gate and fences, searching for a way out. But Jacob had had no time for them; he had turned and clambered over the fence of the pigs' enclosure, and then loped easily back up to the farmhouse as the moon began to sink in the west.

Jacob shook his head, trying to rid himself of the images of his savage killing of the pigs in his dream. But it hadn't really been him in the dream. It had been someone – something – else that had killed those pigs. And of course, they weren't really dead; it had just been a dream, after all. Still, his sleek, feline movements in the dream disturbed him; they seemed all too real.

He rubbed a hand across his eyes as he swung his feet around to land on the hardwood floor, shuffling into the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for the day. As he turned on the faucet, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror and froze, all thoughts of his morning ritual pushed from his mind by the alarming sight before him. Blood was smeared across his face, staining his sun-browned skin from his jaw up to his temple. He looked down at his hands under the faucet and saw the water running off them was pink, tainted by the blood being washed off them.