Forsaken An American Sasquatch Tale - By Christine Conder Page 0,45

barn. She quickly bustled, and the hound sniffed the air, took a few laps from its bowl and then retreated into its den. Careful to keep up the shield, she got up in a low crouch and ran to the darkened side of the barn, the opposite side of where the doghouse sat.

The scent from inside the building was repulsive. It had obviously been where the previous owner conducted part of his taxidermy business. Various stages of decomposition, from various species of animals wafted through the siding. It was all she could do not to lean over and retch.

Focus on Sage, she told herself, and for crying out loud, don’t lose it now.

She stood, flattened herself against the rough planks and sidestepped to the front to check out the house from the shadows. She felt her pelt catch several times and grimaced, come daylight there’d be enough of her left behind to weave a scarf.

Near the front, Nathaniel’s scent was stronger, but she still found no sign of him or Gabriel.

Parked a good distance down the road, the house hadn’t seemed very big when she had come with Becky. But up close it looked massive. Even to her, bigger than a human man.

On the gable end of the house, facing the field she’d crossed over, were a set of over-sized garage doors leading down into the basement on sloped concrete. The doors were pulled down, but three small windows in each one showed a light was on inside.

Thick bushes lined the perimeter of the house and she worked her way around the ones on the backside, scrutinized each shrub to determine if Nathaniel and Gabriel had crouched and hidden behind one. All empty.

Surely they’d seen her, right? Humans couldn’t detect Sasquatch auras, but hers was a vibrant gold with red chasers. She had to look like a giant glowworm. Why hadn’t they signaled to her yet?

A television was on somewhere inside. The two windows above the garage doors were lit, as well as out of seven of the eight windows across the back of the house. She agreed with Becky. Certainly not ones for conservation. And why would they need the rooms so lit up? Maybe someone was afraid of the dark. She could relate to a degree. The dark was sometimes a dangerous, scary place.

A series of tiny rustles made her crane her neck, look into the patch of woods that bordered the backyard. Unable to discern any movement or abnormal shapes in the sparse foliage, she turned back toward the front and jerked when she saw the hound dog peeking around the corner, sniffing at her.

She motioned him away, hissed a little and then almost bolted when the same exact wail she’d heard earlier, when she’d been with Becky, boomed down from the sky.

What the hell? She looked up. Was there a Sasquatch on the barn roof? The hound started to nose around in the fur on her calf. She legged him, light for her, but for the dog it was a lot. He rolled and yelped. Thankfully he’d not gotten caught up in his chain. She wasn’t sure she could bustle enough to quiet a panicked dog. The dog headed back to his side with a whimper, so at least she’d accomplished her objective.

A moment later, the wail sounded again and this time she looked around the front of the barn to see if she could tell where he was. She couldn’t sense him at all, but even so, she knew it wasn’t Nathaniel, Gabriel, or Adrian. The tone was unique. Almost foreign, though she couldn’t place the area.

A halogen security light mounted on a telephone pole near the driveway flickered, and when it did she noticed a black box mounted near the top of it. Ten seconds later, another wail shrilled. A recording. A speaker.

Her stomach dropped. Movement in her peripheral vision made her duck back flat against the barn. Someone, or something, in one of the rear windows.

As she watched, a white aura appeared in the frame and Liberty’s breath caught in her throat. It couldn’t be denied. Sage was human and her aura had become white. Of course it had, Liberty bemused, her daughter was truly an angel. And coming home to be with her family soon.

The low hum of a motor came from the garage, and Liberty saw a slice of yellow reflected out onto the concrete as one of the doors began to rise. The smell of death carried out into the