The Devil's Daughter by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 33

Nelu did not sleep that night and several times, got up, roamed through the house and looking out the windows, stared into the dark woods. Stopping at the window facing the village, Nelu noticed a dog, close to the edge of the tree-line, barking continuously. It could be anything – a wolf, a deer, a sound heard only by the dog – or, perhaps, a scent, pushed along the ground by a slight breeze. Staying at the window, he saw the dog suddenly sprint away, moments before he heard a long, distant scream. The entire village had heard this terrifying sound and had come to correctly believe that it was the creature, bellowing out from somewhere above where the trees met the mountains. He glanced up at the wall, where his rifle lay in a makeshift rack. He kept in a box, high on a shelf nearly, far from the reach of tiny hands.

Feeling his eyes beginning to pull themselves shut, Nelu turned and started toward the bedroom, where Anca lay fast asleep. But as he took his first few steps, he heard the dog's barking suddenly stop, followed by a very short-lived yipping. Running back to the window, Nelu stared out into the night and saw that the dog was gone. Looking up towards the mountain, where the creature's scream had come from, Nelu wondered what had driven it away and convinced himself that nothing could travel from the mountains to the village that quickly. Again, Nelu turned back to the bedroom and as he put his head on the pillow, he felt safe with the assumption that the creature would not be visiting the village that night.