Mark of the Beast

By Steve Wells

Jessie has just picked up trailer park mother and are en route to the grandmother's house when they hit a deer on a deserted highway. The accident totals her broken down Volkswagen Bug...but the two soon have bigger problems. The deer was being chased by something very large. A beast emerges from the shadows and soon sees the two women as an appetizer as they try to escape. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201742157

Book preview

Chapter One

I’m just saying you need to be more careful.

Jessie’s hands gripped the steering wheel of her old Volkswagen beetle.  She loved this car.  It was powder blue and smelled like the vanilla air fresheners that she religiously hung from the rear view mirror.  Those little hanging trees were like her good luck charm, she figured.  Nothing had ever gone wrong with her life since she started putting them there.

Her mother, on the other hand, didn’t agree.

He’s using you, honey, her mother continued.  That boyfriend of yours is no good for you.  I just don’t want to see you get hurt.

Mom, enough. 

Jessie adjusted the rearview mirror again, not that it needed to be.  There hadn’t been another car on this stretch of Old Highway Forty-two for twenty miles.  There never was at this time of night.  That’s why Jessie liked using it as a shortcut.  Not even the cops came this way after the rush hour traffic had dispersed.  Jessie could drive as fast as she wanted on her secret shortcut.

Right now, after picking her mother up from the bus station, she wished the old blue bug could fly at supersonic speeds so the ride could be over.

The criticism had started as soon as they got in the car.  Jessie shouldn’t have pierced her ear five times.  Jessie shouldn’t have gotten that cute tattoo of a heart on the back of her wrist.  Jessie shouldn’t be wearing those cut-off jeans or that tight t-shirt because what would the men around her think of that?

It was stuff that Jessie had listened to all her life, but it was also the reason she had moved away from home the first chance she got.

I’m just looking out for you, kiddo. 

Her mother—Belinda Reyez—was relentless when she wanted to be.  Finally she stopped for a breath and combed back errant strands of her long black hair.  They were very similar, the two of them, to the point where Jessie and her mom had been mistaken for sisters more times than she could count.  High cheekbones, dark skin from their Hispanic heritage, coral brown eyes, a physique that men would pay to get close to.  Her mom had more than her share of admirers too, Jessie knew.  Men she dated on a random basis.  Which was one of the reasons why she didn’t want to listen to any lecture on how not to be used by a man.

If she wanted to be used, then she damned well was going to get used.

She smiled as she peered ahead into the dark.  The headlights showed the way, while her mind wandered over the last night she’d spent with her boyfriend Casey.  Two nights ago.  That had been a night she would always remember.

Something moved in the headlights.  A dark shape, large and tall and standing right in the road.

The deer lifted its head at the same time that Jessie realized what it was.  There was just time enough for her to draw a breath and stab her foot down on the brake before the impact.

A crunch of metal and the high-pitched tinkling sound of cracking glass filled Jessie’s ears.  Then her mother’s scream was all she heard, and the world turned upside down.  The wheel wrenched itself out of her hands and her head hit something hard and stars blossomed in front of her vision.

In the next instant, everything went still.

Jessie blinked her eyes and stared out through the broken windshield at the headlights slanting upward.  The car was down in a ditch, crashed up against some trees, with the front end facing back up toward the road.

At the edge of the pavement, the deer stared down at her.  Its eyes flashed a luminescent blue in the light.  With the flick of an ear, it limped away on a front leg that was torn and probably broken.

Oh sure, Jessie grumbled.  At least you get to walk away.

The car creaked when she moved, caught unevenly on three of its tires.  Her door opened, just barely, to the balmy air of mid-summer, with the sound of crickets and night birds everywhere around them.  Damn it.  There wasn’t going to be any driving back up that slope.  They’d need a tow truck.  And a miracle.

Mom?  Jessie said.  Can you get out your cellphone?  Do you have any service? Mom?

Her mother moaned and lifted a hand to her forehead.  There was blood there, and Jessie panicked for a moment before she saw it was just a scratch.  Ow.  Where are we, Jessie?  What happened?

I hit a deer.  Jessie slammed her fist down on the steering wheel.  Fantastic.  Just fantastic!  Did you check your cellphone?

What?  Her mother turned in her seat, fumbling for the seatbelt release at her hip.  What phone?

Your phone, Mom!  Check your phone and see if you have any service out here.  We’re going to need a tow to get out of here.

Belinda frowned at her daughter.  I know that.  I’m not...I mean I know.  Damn, my head hurts.  Did I hit it on something?

Mom, focus.  Frustrated and angry, Jessie searched in the center console for her own phone.  It wasn’t there.  The accident had thrown it somewhere.  She searched everywhere but couldn’t see it.  Mom, we need your phone.  Where’s your phone?

It’s right...here.

Belinda took her phone out of the door pocket on her side.  The screen was smashed.

Great, Jessie mumbled.  Well I guess we’re walking.  Come on.

Shouldn’t we stay here? her