Animal Control: Haunted Coal Ridge, #23

By Chuck Sperati

A series of intertwined supernatural stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge when the secret gets out, it begins to feed…again.

 

Story 23: "Animal Control"

 

As an animal control officer, Jake Beasley is used to crawling into unpleasant places and dealing with dangerous creatures, but whatever is wandering around town doesn't follow any behaviors that make sense.

 

After a town elder is killed in an apparent animal attack, Jake sets out on a search for something far more dangerous than anything he's pursued before. The problem is that Jake lives in Coal Ridge where people are the prey, and everyone knows that They Must Play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writing Distracted
• Release date: May 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646390526

Chuck Sperati

Among other things, I'm a writer--with some published experience--whose been mostly quiet for the past few decades, mostly because I let life get in the way. I've long had a creative outlet at the gaming table and recently found another when I started building a website. With this new outlet also came inspiration. Right now I'm working primarily on a series of short stories that has received some very positive feedback, so I'm sharing. If you enjoy anything I've written, check out my website at https://www.chucksperati.com, where you can find more things that have crawled out of my imagination.

Book preview

Dedication

Coal Ridge is based on Ohio's Finest Village. It was a great place to grow up and continues to be a remarkable community to which I enjoy returning to see friends and family. For those who live there, take a moment, look around, and be wary of the shadows.

Preface

A series of intertwined short stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge when the secret gets out, it begins to feed...again.

Set in a small, somewhat geographically secluded town in the Midwest, the blue-collar people of Coal Ridge are friendly and laid back, enjoying block parties, gossip, and the simple joys that come with being a close-knit community. Because everyone knows everyone else, secrets are hard to keep, but some are so well hidden that they've been forgotten.

These short stories explore a supernatural awakening that will test the bonds of family and community.

Animal Control

Come here you cute little bastard. Having shimmied into the concrete runoff pipe that ran under Bur Oaks Drive, Jake Beasley had limited mobility with his arms pinned under him. If that weren’t bad enough, the flashlight clipped to the bill of his Silver Spring Miners baseball hat began to wane in the inky blackness.

Crap.

It had completely slipped his mind to change out the batteries after crawling through that attic on Hemlock Drive to remove a colony of bats.

Taking a deep breath, he blew it out and wiggled his right arm free. Not surprisingly, tightening the cap on the flashlight, didn’t make it brighter.

Blowing out another breath, he hung his head a moment, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the thought of trying to retrieve the frightened puppy in complete darkness. Getting it into a harness in the confined space would be difficult enough, especially as he forgot to adjust the straps for its smaller size before going in.

Dipshit move, Beasley.

Pushing with his feet and pulling with his elbows, he started forward again. Each time he drove an elbow forward to gain purchase on the rounded concrete surface, a jab of pain rippled up into his shoulders. To make it worse, his fingers were beginning to tingle from the constant pressure on his forearms.

A whimper sounded from nearby.

Picking his head up, the flashlight reflected off something white up ahead, but he still couldn’t see the puppy.

It's okay Spots, Mr. Jake is gonna rescue you.

The sweet, youthful voice echoing into the concrete pipe belonged to Mirryn Webb. When luring the puppy out had failed, it had ultimately been the expression on her face that got him into this position.

Well, that and her dad.

If something happened to that puppy, her dad could make life for him very difficult. When the outside world looked at Scott Webb, they saw a pleasant, charitable husband and father who loved his role as