Prologue

Abbie Gallagher walked swiftly down the sidewalk, her heels clucking as fast as she could make them. It was nearly midnight and she hated walking home this late at night, alone, in this part of town. Her job as a cashier in a twenty four seven mini mart was the only job she could keep so she had no choice but to take the hours that came with it, ridiculous as they may be.

As the traffic light up ahead changed to red, no cars stopped. That was because there were none. The streets of downtown Arcadia was totally dead. Wrong word. She decided to look ahead and focus on reaching her apartment building. Just two more blocks to go girl. One foot in front of the other.

Damn it. She heard her heels clunking against the cold concrete. The place was so eerily silent. And she hated silence. It meant you could hear things in the alleys you really didn’t want to. Alleys like the one she was about to pass now. Just stay focused and look straight ahead she warned herself. But that was impossible as in the darkness her eyes automatically darted to the single flash of light to her left. In the alley.

“Hey darlin’, care for a bite to eat?” The voice was dark and husky, and for some reason an image of a wolf flashed through her mind.

Just ignore the druggie and he’ll ignore you. That’s it, keep walking. But her heart was beginning to do that racing thing.

“Hey,” the voice grew closer as if he was following her, “I was talking to you b***h.”

Her footsteps went at an almost jog now and she begged herself not to look back to see if he was indeed following her.

Suddenly a hand roughly grabbed her arm, wrenching her body so that it faced the other direction, and her face stared at the owner of that bestial voice.

She froze at the sight. The image of a wolf was so wrong. What she saw was much worse. His dark hair was matted with something so greasy it stuck to his scalp. His eyes, God his eyes were…inhuman and his mouth was fixed into a sneer so wide she could see his stained canines. The hard ridges in his face and hollowed cheeks gave him such a menacing look that she almost fell to the ground. But his hands dug into her arms and pulled her back up so that she met those eyes. Inhuman eyes.

“I said, do you care for a bite to eat?”

Abbie didn’t know why tears started to flow as he said the word bite and why her lips trembled as she weakly eked out the feeblest “No.”

The man with the inhuman eyes then smiled at her showing more of those canines.

“Well I would.”

And then there was darkness…