Ben looked towards David and he could see his face darkening too. Neither of them spoke a word, but with each step forward they took, they were getting further and further away from the light, and further from the world they knew. They were descending into something unknown. Something dark and powerful. As they stepped through a thick section of trees and emerged into a clearing, Ben’s breath caught in his throat and his whole body was shocked with cold. It pierced him deep within his heart and kept him there, paralysed with fear.

  David stopped too, and Ben was aware of the rifle falling again. Down to the ground, crunching onto the frost under their feet and turning icy and white as it connected with the earth.

  “My God,” Ben gasped. His eyes widened as he took in the scene in front of him.

  For a moment, he was sure that he must be dreaming. None of this could be real. He blinked and lifted his shaking hands towards his eyes where he tried to rub them, but the cold wouldn’t allow his fingers to move. They were frozen in place, quickly turning red and frost bite taking hold.

  “Dav…id…” his voice cracked. The cold travelled through his mouth and right down to the pit of his stomach. It gripped him like nothing he had ever known before and within a second it was as if he were turning to stone.

  Before them both, as they stood there freezing, the last things their eyes saw was the scene in the forest.

  The trees above them were turned brown and black, their trunks and roots poisoned from the ground up. A fog was heavy in the air, something dank and sweet, trails of energy wisping up from the cracks in the earth below. The circle in the center of the clearing. The darkness and the death. Heaps and heaps of bodies. Animals of the woods that had gathered there, in that very spot and met their end, just like Ben and David themselves. The circle of bears, wolves, deer, rabbits, racoons and birds were all piled together, in a swirling pattern, all facing the central point of the clearing.

  It was like something out of a horror movie. Something unnatural, dark and magical. But not the good kind of magical. Something utterly terrifying. Whatever had come to the woods of Bridge Hollow had managed to kill off at least a hundred animals. Either they had been led to their death, or they had been called.

  Now Ben and David were a part of them. They would never make it to the bar on Main Street, and they would never get to tell their wives what they had seen that day. They would certainly never hunt again.

  Some would have said that was a good thing.

  Some would think it terrible luck.

  But for the animals of Bridge Hollow, it was only just the beginning. They may not have had Bigfoot lurking around them, but they sure as hell had something. And now it was coming out to play in full force.

  The cold slowly began to lift, and the animals sank into the ground like it was quicksand, taking David and Ben along with them. Like the saying often went, the ground opened and swallowed them whole. Slowly and silently, one by one. Any evidence of what had occurred there was completely destroyed, taken away as if it had never happened at all.

  The darkness lifted, but the chill remained.

  The sun broke through the trees and lit up the clearing, the fog cleared, but the energy there would be forever changed. There was something magical about this place. Something deep and meaningful. Something that the locals were either going to have to embrace or fight.

  Bridge Hollow was never going to be the same again…

  You know you want to visit Bridge Hollow… a new town with new mysteries …

  …Get it here on Amazon …; )

 

 

  Samantha Leal, Taken by Her Wolf (Mossy Ridge Shifters Book 4)

 

 

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