This is one of my favorite pieces of flash fiction.
HUNT is episode #21 in The Chronicles of Odin, which is published today in Stupefying Stories, and will be released as a full anthology in late 2022.
Here's the opening:
There is a moment when you realize it’s gone too far. You’ve lost control and in the blink of an eye everything is about to become horrific.
Hadiza kept the butt of her rifle tight to her shoulder. One eye looking through the scope. Finger hovering over the trigger. And realized this was that moment.
“Joe,” she whispered, hoping she spoke loudly enough for her ear comm to pick up her voice. “Joe, I think it’s here.”
Around her, the vast blue bamboo forest swayed in the constant breeze. A never-ceasing clatter of windchimes, mixed with the rustle of the bamboo’s upper leaves and the hiss of the light rain. Her knee sank into the mud.
“Joe,” she said louder.
“Hadiza,” Joe’s voice crackled in her ear. His voice echoed her strain. “Are you sure?”
“Dammit,” Hadiza muttered, and spit rain off her lips. Her eye never left the scope. She was sure she’d seen it, weaving around the bamboo like a goddamn ghost snake. And now, she stared with every neuron straining to discern something behind the endless stalks of swaying blue. She and Joe thought they’d chased it into this forest. Now she realized it had lured them here.
Read the full story at Stupefying Stories.
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