City Shadows

By Chuck Heintzelman

Clara works hard, juggling high school, her waitress job, and eking out time with her friends.

And now, finishing work far too late on a school night, she wants nothing more than to get home and sleep.

But dark and otherworldly things lurk in the shadows of her city.

If you love fast moving urban fantasy grab a copy of this short story today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kydala Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533712936

Book preview

One

Istood outside Joe’s restaurant. It had rained during my shift and now streetlights and store lights reflected pale yellow on the dark wetness that was Eighth Street. A red neon sign flashed above the restaurant door. Good Eats it said, but the letters o and s were burned out so it said Go d Eat. The reflected red words pulsed on and off in the street in front of me like an alarm clock needing a reset. I could almost hear a beep beep accompanying the flashing red letters.

Somehow I read Go death in the blinking reflection and shuddered.

I unpinned the My name is Clara nametag from my shirt and put it in my backpack’s front pocket. I slung the backpack over my left shoulder and gripped the strap. The weight of my school books dug into my shoulder. My right hand clasped the pepper spray in my right coat pocket. The pepper spray had been a gift from mom just last week.

For a moment I thought of going back inside the restaurant, into the warm and comforting smells of grease and coffee. Usually I work three or four hour shifts, but Joe needed me to work seven hours that night. I didn’t like the idea of walking home so late.

Chet, or Cheese as everyone called him, would walk me home. He’d probably do a backflip if I asked him. He had offered to walk me a home at least a dozen times, each time asking if I was 18 yet.

What a creeper.

Cheese’s offer to walk me home was always accompanied by a leer where he stared at the top button of my waitress blouse like he could unbutton it with his mind.

I didn’t want to deal with Cheese. Nope. Better to walk eight blocks home by myself than be