Isolated Howl: A Short Story

By Grant Palmquist

Three boys think they’ve found their ticket to fortune and fame when they find the body of a werewolf near the woods.

Then it disappears, and a trail of bent grass leads straight into the heart of the forest . . . which makes the boys think there must be more of them out there.

When a full moon hits and they decide to hunt one down, they’ll get more than they ever bargained for . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant Palmquist
• Release date: Apr 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476355078

Grant Palmquist

Grant Palmquist is the author of the science-fiction novel Azure and four horror novels: A Song After Dark, Permanent Winter, Dirge, and The Seer. His short stories have appeared in Chizine, Dogmatika, and Underground Voices.

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ISOLATED HOWL

by Grant Palmquist

Copyright 2012 by Grant Palmquist. All rights reserved.

Second Smashwords Edition: February 2014

Cover Design: Streetlight Graphics

LICENSE NOTES

All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DISCLAIMER

The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Table of Contents

Isolated Howl

About the Author

Other Works by Grant Palmquist

Excerpt from The Seer

Isolated Howl

Around the time the murders were splashing across the headlines of Trident, Texas, Zane dragged me to a field on the outskirts of town. He kept telling me I wouldn’t believe it, that I had to see it with my own eyes. Like the pseudo-badass all boys try to be when they’re young, I went with him.

I’ll admit my stomach was clenched in a tight little ball, and my fists were just as taut, following him through the tall yellow grass, gnats spinning through the air to either side of us. I could smell the stench of something rotten permeating the air more and more as we trudged onward. Zane buried his nose in the crook of his arm and looked back at me.

‘Stinks, huh?’ he said.

‘Sure does.’

We came to an area where the grass had been edged away then lowered altogether in an irregular pattern. In the center of it lay a skeleton, the flesh completely gone. The skin of a snake rested in the cavity of the chest. The body was much like a human body, but when you got to certain areas, there were differences that were hard to ignore. A snout protruded where a nose and chin should have been; the feet and hands looked like claws; the teeth were sharp, like that of a mastiff or coyote. It was at least seven feet tall, and that didn’t take into account any shrinkage that might have occurred after