Sinth Stalker - Pearl Tate Page 0,19

and their lips are curled back from their teeth like a dog. Continual growls and grunts come out of their mouth as they stumble forward with the coordination of a toddler.

Falling down … then getting up. There’s another crash when they trip over the leg being dragged behind the first one, and that’s what distracts me. It’s why, as I’m backing up out of the bushes, I don’t even look behind me, and I end up backing right into a tree with an audible whoosh.

The crawling and blind people aren’t even the ones to worry about. A woman, wearing only a skimpy pink and yellow sundress, is right behind the tree. My first thoughts are so illogical. Number one, she’s totally ruined the dress, and number two, isn’t she cold?

I only have time to register that her eyes are just like the others. A white haze covers the iris enough that I can’t tell what color they were before. Creepy. It makes it look like she’s blind, but when she lets out a keening wail and throws herself at me faster than I can move away, I certainly know she isn’t!

I try retreating into the bushes, but the strange woman is too fast. She isn’t blind or handicapped at all, and despite her strange eyes, she can see me just fine. She proves it as she lunges after me, latching onto one of the side pockets of my backpack and dragging me up against the surface of the tree.

What does she want? As we grapple, it’s almost like she’s trying to hug me, lunging over and over at my face as I hold her off, gripping her neck. I hesitate to tighten my fingers in her skin, afraid I’ll choke her.

“Stop … stop,” I plead, but no matter how much I choke, scratch, and dig my fingernails into her, she doesn’t seem to notice. She doesn’t attempt to stop me by using her own arms. Her hands just reach and pinch, clawing at my clothing ineffectually.

I’m torn about whether to really hurt this woman. I mean … I know I have to. I just have such a hard time using violence after the way I’ve been treated. It just makes no sense why she’s attacking me. All of a sudden, her weight is just … gone.

My eyes snap open to see my stalker. He looks livid as he looms over me holding the woman by the neck. There’s an audible crunching sound, and it takes me a moment to realize that he’s crushed her spine at her neck. That’s what that snap, crackle, and pop was!

When he releases her, she crumples at my feet. His hand hovers in the air, and I flinch, turning sideways and lifting my arms to protect myself. Bile fills my mouth as I stare at him around my forearms. I’m just waiting for him to swing.

This is going to be so much worse than anything Einar ever did. This is going to hurt.

CHAPTER TEN

- Zoey

“Up.” The meaning of my stalker’s word doesn’t register. He could have said anything, and I wouldn’t have understood. I’m in fight or flight mode, and I already tried fighting. That didn’t go very well.

My body works on instinct as I turn and sprint away from him and from where those other freaks are coming from. I don’t know what kind of band of scary people have made this part of the forest their home, but I’m not sticking around to get inducted into their strange cult.

I think about the gross woman I was holding by the neck and rub my hands furiously on my pant legs just as my momentum is arrested with a jerk. Fuck! Did I hook on something?

Trying to swing around, I realize with horror that he has me. Scary stalker dude has both sides of my backpack. The speed that he pulls me back toward him pushes the air from my lungs, and I realize that the other crazy people are stumbling over toward us. There are more than just the two I saw too.

He’s holding me for them! Just as that thought crosses my mind, I release the clasp on my chest, wiggling out of the straps, but his hands grab onto my butt, tightening and sending a searing pulse through my body. Clamping me tightly by my hips, I hold my breath as he lifts me and practically throws me up onto the branch that’s at his eye level. Now, I can see over