The Killing Moon
A Novel
1HELL ROAD
A crack, a spray of flame, and he dropped onto his back on the side of the dirt road.
Nothing made sense at first. Not the trees overhead, nor the dark sky. The gasping that would not fill his lungs.
He heard hissing and felt a great pressure easing in the center of his chest, a sensation like deflating, like shrinking back into boyhood.
His fight-or-flight response failed him, blunted by years of false alarms. In the end, his brain was unable to differentiate between legitimate trauma and the fire drill of another cheap high.
The forest was fleeing him on all sides. Light came up in his face that he did not realize was a flashlight; a bright, beaming presence he thought might be divine.
Ten minutes earlier, he had been so fully alive. Pushing his way through the snagging branches of the Borderlands State Forest, jogging at times, giddy as he followed the full and smiling moon through the treetops. Intensely alive, every part of him, as he had not felt in weeks or even months.
He was two full days beyond sleep, yet his thoughts remained hyperfocused ... read full excerpt from The Killing Moon ebook
