The headlines were getting national attention. Washington Post. New York Times. CNN. All running variations of the same story: classified military program burns through hundreds of millions with zero results.

  The Department of Defense had tried to bury Project Death Claw after the explosion and classified it under national security protocols. Slapped non-disclosure agreements on everyone involved. But someone had leaked the budget reports to Congress, and now both parties were scrambling for blood.

  Dr. Carlos Marsh watched the circus from his living room, bourbon in hand, CNN muted on the TV. A senator from Ohio was holding up a poster board with dollar amounts circled in red marker, jabbing his finger at the camera like that would make the numbers mean something. Marsh finished his drink and poured another.

  His phone buzzed—a text from Tom Guidry.

  You watching this?

  Marsh typed back. Yeah.

  They’re calling for criminal investigations.

  I know.

  You okay?

  Marsh stared at the question for a long moment, then set his phone face down on the coffee table. The senator was still talking on TV, mouth moving silently, performance art for C-SPAN viewers and campaign donors.

  Marsh had submitted his resignation letter two days after the explosion. Effective immediately. No explanation required. The DoD accepted it without comment. He’d expected a phone call, maybe a visit from someone in a suit asking uncomfortable questions. But nothing came. They were too busy covering their own tracks to worry about one scientist who’d walked away.

  He turned off the TV and sat in the dark, listening to the house settle around him.

  Another death had shaken the community, a fisherman found gutted near the Bonnet Carré Spillway, his intestines spilled open on the shoreline. The fisherman’s name was Eugene Thibault. Sixty-three years old. Retired postal worker. Spent his mornings at the Bonnet Carré Spillway pulling catfish out of the muddy water with hand-tied lures he bought from a tackle shop on River Road.

  The jogger who found him called 911 at six-forty-two a.m., voice shaking so badly the dispatcher had to ask her to repeat herself three times. By the time the first patrol unit arrived, the woman was sitting on the ground fifty yards away, knees pulled to her chest, rocking back and forth.

  The Bayou Mounds Police Department stated by noon—wild dogs. Possibly coyotes. Residents were advised to avoid the spillway at dawn and dusk.

  Sheryl Brown read the article on her phone while eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria, still in her scrubs from the overnight shift. She’d pulled three twelve-hour rotations in a row, the ER packed every night with car accidents, chest pains, overdoses, the usual parade of human fragility. She was supposed to have the next two days off. Sleep. Laundry. Maybe cook something that didn’t come from a microwave.

  But she wasn’t tired. That was the strange part. She should’ve been exhausted. Should’ve gone home and collapsed into bed for ten hours. Instead, she felt wired, restless, like every nerve ending was humming just below her skin.

  She finished her sandwich and threw the wrapper away. Walked out to the parking lot. Got in her car and started the engine.

  And drove north without knowing why.

  Interstate 55 stretched ahead of her, flat and endless, broken only by the occasional gas station or billboard advertising injury lawyers. Sheryl kept the radio off. Her hands were steady on the wheel. Her eyes didn’t blink. She passed the exit for Hammond. Then Tangipahoa. Then the Louisiana state line into Mississippi.

  Two hours later, she pulled off at an unmarked exit and followed a two-lane road through dense pine forest until she saw the sign: Mike Allen State Park.

  She’d never been here before. Didn’t know it existed until ten minutes ago. But something in her chest pulled her forward, insistent and undeniable.

  The parking lot was empty except for a ranger’s truck near the visitor center. Sheryl drove past it, following a dirt access road that wound deeper into the park, away from the picnic areas and hiking trails. She parked beneath a cluster of oak trees, killed the engine, and sat there for a minute, listening to the tick of the cooling engine and the rustle of leaves overhead.

  Then she got out.

  The air smelled like wet earth and pine sap, faint and organic, like rotting wood and algae mixed. Sheryl walked away from the car, her shoes crunching on dead leaves and fallen branches. Her breath came faster, shallower. Her pupils dilated.

  She dropped to her hands and knees.

  The ground was cool and damp beneath her palms. She lowered her head and sniffed, dragging air through her nostrils in long, wet pulls. Her fingers curled into the dirt, nails digging trenches. She moved forward, crawling through the underbrush, following scents she couldn’t name but recognized instinctively.

  Deer urine. Raccoon scat. Bird droppings. Creek water. Limestone. Clay. Each smell built a map in her mind, layering information she didn’t consciously understand but absorbed completely.

  Finally, she emerged into a clearing that overlooked a lake. The water was dark and still, reflecting the canopy above like black glass. Tall pines rang the clearing, the ground covered in soft moss.

  Sheryl stood. Looked up at the sky through the gaps in the trees. Pale afternoon light filtered down in thin beams.

  “Perfect,” she whispered.

  Two days later, the moon rose full and bright over Bayou Mounds.

  Derek went out that night with friends from his old unit, guys who’d rotated home the year before and settled into civilian jobs they complained about constantly. They met at a bar on Industrial Boulevard, drank too much, found new deployment stories they hadn’t told, and laughed at jokes that would always be funny to them.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Derek got home past midnight. Sheryl’s car was in the driveway, with the house lights off. He walked inside as quietly as he could, dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, and went straight to his room.

  He didn’t check on his mother. Didn’t notice she hadn’t left her room all day.

  Sheryl lay on her bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow bursts. Her breath came out in short pants, rhythmic and accelerating, like a dog overheating in summer sun. Sweat soaked through her shirt. Her hands clenched and unclenched against the sheets.

  At ten p.m., she sat up suddenly. Her pupils were blown wide, almost swallowing the brown completely. She stood and walked to the bathroom without turning on the light. Pulled a white robe from the hook on the back of the door. Stripped off her clothes and let them fall in a pile on the tile.

  She wrapped the robe around herself and walked out the back door, barefoot, into the humid Louisiana night.

  Got in her car. Started the engine. Drove.

  Mike Allen State Park was empty when she arrived. The ranger station was closed, the gate propped open with a cinder block. Sheryl drove straight to the clearing she’d found two days before, parked beside the lake, and turned off the engine.

  The moon hung overhead, massive and white, so bright it cast shadows across the forest floor. Sheryl stepped out of the car. The robe slipped off her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stood naked in the moonlight, arms at her sides, head tilted back.

  Then it began.

  Her arms jerked violently, muscles spasming beneath the skin. Veins darkened and pushed to the surface, black lines spreading across her shoulders, down her chest, along her thighs. Her biceps swelled, doubling in size, then tripling. Tendons thickened and stretched, pulling tight against bone.

  Her hair fell out in clumps, drifting to the ground like ash. The follicles went dark, then sprouted coarse black fur that spread in waves across her scalp, down her neck, over her back.

  Her eyes flared yellow, glowing in the darkness. Her ears elongated, pulling upward and back, reshaping into triangular points that swiveled independently toward sounds only she could hear.

  Bones cracked. Her spine arched, vertebrae separating and reforming. Her ribcage expanded with a series of wet pops, sternum splitting, and fusing back wider. Her breasts flattened, absorbed into slabs of pectoral muscle. Her abdomen hardened, individual muscles emerging in ridged rows beneath fur.

  Her legs bent backward. Ankles reversed, heels lifting off the ground as her feet restructured into digitigrade joints built for speed. Her toes elongated, claws punching through the tips, black and curved and sharp enough to tear through flesh like paper.

  Her jaw unhinged. Mandible splitting, extending forward. Her nose collapsed inward, reforming as a wet black snout. Teeth fell from her mouth in a shower of enamel, replaced instantly by fangs that erupted through her gums with sounds like nails driving into wood.

  The transformation took four minutes. When it ended, Sheryl Brown was gone.

  An eight-foot creature stood in her place. Black fur gleamed under the moonlight. Yellow eyes burned like sulfur. Steam rose from her skin, heat radiating outward from the change. Muscles coiled beneath the fur, ready to explode into motion.

  She dropped to all fours. Claws sank into the earth, gouging trenches in the soft moss. A growl built in her chest, low and resonant, vibrating through the trees. It deepened into a roar that carried across the lake, bouncing off the opposite shore, echoing for miles.

  Then she ran.

  Philip and Barbara Jennings had driven their RV from Knoxville to New Orleans over two weeks, stopping at state parks along the way. Retired teachers, both of them. Sixty-one and fifty-eight. They’d been married thirty-four years and spent the last three planning this trip, mapping routes, booking campsites, arguing over which national monuments were worth the detour.

  Mike Allen State Park was supposed to be a quick overnight stop. Beautiful lake. Good fishing. Quiet. They’d parked their RV beneath a cluster of pines near the water’s edge, ran the generator to keep the AC going, and made dinner on the propane stove.

  By ten-thirty, Philip was asleep in the back, snoring softly. Barbara sat at the small dinette table, working on a crossword puzzle, nursing her third cup of decaf.

  Then she heard it. A sound that belonged to an animal.

  “Philip,” she whispered.

  He didn’t stir. Barbara set down her pen and listened. The sound came again, closer now. A growl that vibrated through the RV walls.

  “Philip.” Louder this time.

  “What?” he mumbled, half-asleep.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “That noise.”

  Philip sat up, rubbing his face. “It’s probably a coyote. We’re in the middle of the woods, Barb. There are animals out here.”

  “It sounded close.”

  “Then it’ll move on. It’s just passing through.” He lay back down. “Go to bed.”

  Barbara stood and walked to the window, peering through the blinds. The forest was dark, shadows layered on shadows. She couldn’t see anything moving.

  The RV jolted. The whole vehicle rocked sideways, cabinets rattling, dishes clattering in the sink.

  “What the hell was that?” Philip was up now, fully awake.

  “I don’t know.”

  He grabbed a flashlight from the drawer and pulled on his shoes. “Stay here.”

  “Philip, don’t go out there.”

  “I’m just going to check.” He opened the door and stepped down into the humid night, flashlight beam cutting across the dirt lot.

  Everything looked normal. No fallen branches. No tire damage. No animals visible. Philip walked around the RV, inspecting each side, the light bouncing across pine trunks and underbrush.

  Something wet hit his hat. He stopped. Reached up and touched the brim. His fingers came away slick, clear fluid catching the flashlight beam.

  He angled the light upward.

  Yellow eyes stared down at him from the RV roof.

  The creature dropped. Eight hundred pounds of fur and muscle slammed into Philip with the force of a car crash, driving him flat into the ground. His flashlight flew from his hand, spinning across the dirt, beam painting wild circles.

  Jaws closed around his throat. Fangs punched through skin, through muscle, through cartilage. Philip tried to scream, but his windpipe was already gone. The creature’s head wrenched sideways, tearing out his throat in one savage motion. Blood sprayed across the dirt in wide arcs, black under the moonlight.

  Inside the RV, Barbara heard everything. The impact. The wet tearing sound. The brief, gurgling attempt at a scream that cut off mid-note.

  “Philip?” Her voice cracked. She moved to the door, hand shaking on the handle. “Philip, answer me.”

  She opened the door.

  Her husband lay five feet away, motionless, a massive shape crouched over him. The creature’s muzzle was buried in his chest, pulling out meat and bone, claws pinning the body to the ground.

  Barbara screamed.

  The creature’s head snapped up. Yellow eyes locked on her. Blood dripped from its jaws.

  Barbara ran. She made it ten feet before her foot caught on a root hidden in the darkness. She went down hard, hands slamming into the dirt. She scrambled to her feet, but the creature was already moving.

  It grabbed her by the ankle. Claws punctured through flesh, digging into bone. Barbara shrieked as it dragged her backward through the gravel, her fingernails tearing off as she clawed at the ground, trying to stop.

  The creature swung her like a rag doll. Barbara flew through the air and slammed into a pine tree ten feet away. Her spine cracked on impact. She dropped to the ground and didn’t move.

  The forest went silent. Even the crickets stopped.

  Sheryl stood over the scene, chest heaving, steam rising from her fur. Blood covered her claws, her muzzle, her chest. She sniffed the air, turning in a slow circle, scanning for threats. Nothing moved.

  She walked to the RV. Grabbed the front bumper with both hands. Her muscles bunched, tendons straining. She lifted the entire vehicle off the ground, tires spinning in empty air. With a roar, she hurled it sideways. The RV flew twenty feet and crashed into the tree line, metal crumpling, windows shattering, the frame twisting on impact.

  Sheryl rose to her full height on her hind legs. Tilted her head back. Opened her jaws.

  The roar that came out was deep and primal, echoing through the forest, rolling across the lake, carrying for miles through the Mississippi darkness. Birds exploded from the trees. Small animals bolted for their burrows.

  The reign of the wolf had begun.

  Bayou Blood: The Awakening reach a wider audience on Royal Road.