When it comes to pieces I’ve written, so far, I’ve only posted poetry to my blog. Below is the prologue to an upcoming thriller/horror book I’m writing; I call it Dead End. Enjoy!
Dead End
Tom stepped into the night, not knowing what to expect…yet a feeling of foreboding hung in the nighttime mist.
The streets were desolate and it started to drizzle. Tom’s face was flecked with small beads of water, and it felt good on his warm skin.
Seemingly out of nowhere he heard footsteps from behind, so Tom peered over his shoulder. The ominous man wore a trench coat, which hung loosely from his tall, thin frame. In his right hand his fingers were clasped around a walking stick. It was hard to see, but it appeared to have a metallic wolf’s head on top of it.
Tom didn’t know the man, but, for some reason, he instantly feared him and quickened his pace. As he did so, he heard the man’s footsteps increase in rapidity. As Tom passed shuttered businesses and abandoned houses, all he could hear was the rhythmic pounding of the man’s footsteps and walking stick.
Then, he heard nothing. Tom turned around and no one was there. He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped under a tattered awning to call for a cab from his cell phone.
A thunderclap let out and the skies opened up. In a matter of minutes Tom was drenched from head to toe in a deluge of water. His grip on the phone slipped and it hit the sidewalk with a wet, hard smack. To his dismay, it was cracked and beyond repair.
After covering so much ground, he was determined to walk home and save the money that would have been spent on the cab. Lord knows he’d now need it to replace his phone.
As he crossed the intersection and approached a side street, cold, wet hands gripped his neck and threw him to the pavement. Tom shook his head, looked up and found himself face to face with the dark figure from earlier. But this time he was in an alley with a dead end.
Tom could barely see the man through the sheets of rain. What he did see was the man’s walking stick cutting through the darkness, and what he heard – and felt – was it connecting with his skull. Tom tried to fight back, but the man kicked him in the gut and viciously brought the stick down hard on Tom’s head one last time, breaking the cane in two. Cloaked in darkness and covered in blood, he died in that alley. And all he could see before breathing his last breath was the blood-soaked wolf’s head of the walking stick, gleaming in the moonlight.
