Chapter One
Fourteen hours into his shift, Clint’s scrubs bore the evidence of his day. Yellow rubber duck fragments extracted from a panicked Lab’s stomach, performing back-to-back C-sections on two yowling cats, and three vials of Mrs. Henderson’s geriatric poodle’s blood that had taken seven attempts to collect. His body ached for the sweet oblivion of his mattress, where he could hibernate until sometime next week.
Turning into his driveway felt like crossing a finish line he hadn’t been sure he’d reach.
Cool air hit him when he climbed out of his truck, and he paused long enough to appreciate the smell of grass and distant pine. Overhead, clouds drifted across a sky scattered with stars, the moon casting everything in silver-edged shadows.
Beautiful, really, if he’d had the energy to appreciate it.
His house sat dark and waiting. No lights in the windows, no sound except the wind rustling through the trees at the edge of his property. Keys jangled as he unlocked the front door and stepped into the familiar quiet of his house.
He dropped his keys on the counter and tossed the mail onto the growing pile he kept meaning to sort through. Bills could wait until tomorrow when his brain functioned again.
Mabel, his orange tabby, wound between his ankles with an indignant meow that clearly communicated his displeasure at the late dinner service.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
After filling her bowl and refreshing her water, Clint opened the fridge and stared at its contents with the blank expression of someone too tired to make decisions.
Leftover Chinese food from three days ago, half a sandwich he didn’t remember making, and a concerning number of condiment bottles. Nothing appealed.
Maybe he’d just go straight to bed and deal with food in the morning.
Mabel crunched kibble in the background, tail flicking with satisfaction.
Through the kitchen window, the backyard sat dark and empty, trees swaying in a breeze he could hear but not feel through the glass. Peaceful. Quiet. Exactly what he needed after a day that had felt more like a week.
Clint grabbed a bottle of water and was halfway to shutting the fridge when he froze, listening.
Outside, something whined. Between Mabel's enthusiastic eating and the hum of the refrigerator, he might have dismissed it as nothing.
But the whine came again, longer this time.
Definitely real.
Definitely outside.
For a moment, he considered going to bed like a normal person who valued sleep and personal boundaries. But the sound set off every instinct he’d developed over years of working with injured animals. Pain. Distress. Something out there needed help.
Clint headed for the back door, already running through possibilities. Injured dog? Coyote caught in something?
“Probably a raccoon,” he muttered, though he grabbed the flashlight from the junk drawer anyway. “Or a possum. Something that’s going to bite me for my trouble.”
Wouldn’t be the first time an injured animal had wandered onto his property, though it hadn’t happened in months.
Word had somehow gotten around among creatures that supposedly couldn’t reason.
The vet lives here. Go bother him.
Outside, the temperature had dropped enough to make him wish he’d grabbed a jacket. He thumbed on his flashlight, the yellow beam cutting through darkness as he scanned the yard, each exhale creating ghost-like clouds that drifted through the light.
Grass stretched away toward the tree line, shadows pooling under the branches.
“Hello?” His voice sounded too loud in the stillness. “Anyone out here?”
He’d just become every horror movie trope.
Movement caught his eye. Clint swung the light over and stopped walking. There, about twenty feet away, something dark lay in the grass.
