Lasting Impression

By William Mangieri

Cryptozoology was not where she planned to take her life, but a sighting on a college field trip in the Ozarks sends Audrey's future plans in a whole new direction. If only she knew what she really saw...
“Lasting Impression" is a speculative fiction short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Mangieri
• Release date: Jan 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005343644

William Mangieri

William Mangieri is a karaoke junkie, former theater student, and recovered wargamer who spends as much time wondering "what if?" as "why not?". He writes from Texas, where he and his family live at the mercy of the ghost of a nine-pound westie.William writes mostly speculative fiction (that’s science fiction, fantasy and horror), although he also has a detective series with a soft sci-fi element (Detective Jimmy Delaney.) He completed writing his first novel (Swordsmaster) in 2019; prior to this, he has honed his skills on short fiction. He has been published in Daily Science Fiction and The Anarchist, and six of his stories have earned Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future contest.

Book preview

Lasting Impression

By William Mangieri

Copyright 2020 by William Mangieri

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Lasting Impression

When Audrey won her scholarship in ‘83, it was for the respectable, overarching discipline of biology. She spent her first three years in college with her nose to the grindstone – no parties, no dating, nothing but interminable lectures and dusty books in the morgue of a library, with only an occasional foray into the wild to remind her that biology was about living things - until that one spring fieldtrip where the shapeshifter changed everything.

Audrey knew what she wanted out of that week in the Central Missouri Ozarks – she thought the change of scenery might help her think of a unique topic for her eventual thesis. If nothing else, she could hone her observation skills as she studied the local wildlife. She had no interest in participating in that other kind of wild life that her peers were busily engaged in. As cute as she thought Roger was (well, especially as cute as he was), she was glad that they’d segregated the guys and girls in their own cabins. By the third night she found that didn’t mean much to Beth and Julie and their nighttime visitors’ raging hormones, and it wasn’t long after dark before the cabin became noisily coed, and not