Page 1 of Horns & Heart
Chapter1
The apocalypse was one hundred percent totally an accident, and I wassorry.So sorry.I contemplated for about the millionth time how very, very sorry I was as I huddled on a dusty stool in a changing room in the ladies’ section of the department store and peeked out from behind a dusty, tattered curtain at the very angry, very purple monster venting its anger management issues on a female mannequin.
All of this was my fault, and I had the distinct feeling that the other shoe was about to drop.I’d be eaten.Like the mannequin, only with more…splatter.
Funnily enough, the mannequin had been wearing a purple skirt and a matching lavender blouse with lots of complex layers.The monster apparently did not like layers, and it was undoing them just like it was the mannequin, cracking the head with a sharp sound that made me flinch and wish I were elsewhere.
My knees were hurting from awkwardly squatting on the stool, I could only hope that the monster had picked the women’s clothing section intentionally.With any luck, it preferred eating women and wasn’t interested in guys, meaning I would be safe.Not that I was going to try my luck.I might have caused the apocalypse—and did I mention I wasextremely sorryabout that?—but I wasn’t going to just let some purple-assed monster eat me.
Sadly, while my survival instincts were pretty good, they didn’t prevent me from getting muscle cramps.In my left calf, for instance.
I managed to keep quiet when the cramp hit.I didn’t manage to just breathe through the pain and keep still though.Instead, with all the grace of a one-legged dodo, I overbalanced.That led to the stool falling over, me with it, and since I was holding on to the changing room curtain, that ripped from its rail and landed on top of me like a polyester shroud.
The dust made me sneeze.My heart was racing, panic constricting my throat.I peeked out from under the curtain, sure this was going to be it.The purple monster looked at me down its long snout.It had two sets of eyes.Seriously, was that really necessary?What was there to see that was interesting enough for four fucking eyes?
The thing looked like a cross between a monkey and a jaguar, quadrupedal, with no fur but leathery skin, and its mouth was more like a beak, but studded with teeth like a shark’s.
The teeth were more worrisome than the eyes, if I was being honest.It considered me for two whole seconds before its body language told me that it liked guys just as much as female mannequins.The thing growled and took one step toward me, the taloned front limbs tense and ready to launch it forward.My heart was pounding in my chest.I was too scared to even scream.
The blade that arced down came so fast, my brain didn’t recognize it for what it was until the purple monster’s head came off, splattering dark blue blood all over the dirty floor.The severed head rolled a few times, then came to a stop an arm’s length outside the changing room, practically in my lap.All four eyes fixed me with an accusing look.They were black, like beetle eyes.One of the lids twitched as I stared.It twitched right at me.
“Fuck,” I said.“Fuuuuuck.”The monster’s massive body collapsed, and more blood came out of it.
I tried to get to my feet, but the curtain had torn and tangled me like a net, and when the decapitator stepped out from between two clothes racks that advertised a fifty-percent-off-everything sale, I froze.
The apocalypse had done a lot of weird stuff.I only saw some of it because social media went down frequently and news reporting was spotty.When I moved—staying in one place for too long was dangerous—keeping my phone charged wasn’t always a given either, but even with all that, I’d heard about the suspension of most travel and the limitations of trade, as well as the changed ecosystems and even stranger creatures appearing all over the world.
That was all really bad, but it was abstract.I could handle abstract.It was the concrete stuff that scared me.
Such as hungry monsters roaming all over the place, includingherein Ireland, because that was where we’d been on our summer vacay before everything had gone to shit.Some of the monsters liked female mannequins and had blue blood that spurted sort of slowly after their heads got cut off.Apparently others were tall and massively built—not in a bad way, just carry-me-in-your-arms kind of fit.And they had horns that curled back from their heads like an ibex’s, with all those textured ridges that looked kind of cool.
This guy was like that—not that I was looking all that closely or anything.I was frozen in place, my whole body tense.The monster guy had those ibex horns and slitted cat eyes, baby blue skin, and hair the same color as the ink stain on the bottom right corner of my third-grade desk.It was braided under his horns with the braids running to the back of his head.
Monster Guy was also staring at me.Intently.His sword was still out, but as I watched, he did that neat trick I’d seen samurai do in movies when they wanted to get blood off their blades.I even heard the liquid splattering the ground right before he sheathed the blade at his side in one quick move.That sound honestly wasn’t all that neat, and he didn’t look away from me while he did all that, which meant he was either a show-off or ruthlessly efficient.
He wore comfortable-looking clothes—pants and a shirt tied with a belt, all black.At least if he was using a sword, wearing clothes, and walking on two legs, he was civilized.On the other hand, two years of living in the apocalypse had taught me that you could be both civilized and human and still be a monster, so what did I know?I needed to get out of this situation, that was what.
Monster Guy took another step toward me on silent feet.They weren’t quite human feet, I noticed when he kicked the monster’s head away.
It was nice not to be watched by those four eyes anymore, one of which had been twitching for a disturbingly long time post decapitation.
The reprieve from the dead, four-eyed gaze was brief.Monster Guy’s feet looked like massive cat paws, and combined with the horns, they just made the dude, really, really intimidating.I shifted on the ground, which did nothing at all to get me untangled from the curtain.
Monster Guy squatted in front of me, and the way he moved was weirdly graceful for such a big, strong person.Once he was close, he pinned me with an intense stare, his slitted pupils cleaving irises of shining indigo.
And then he looked me up and down and licked his fucking lips.
I scrambled back against the wall of the changing room, not caring that the curtain tightened even further around my legs.“No.I’m not for eating.I’d taste bad, so bad.Because of all the preservatives, hormones, and microplastics you eat as a human.You don’t want me.I’d be bad for your health.”
“I wasn’t thinking about eating you,” Monster Guy said in the poshest of posh English accents I’d heard since landing here, which was odd considering this was Ireland and he was a horned dude with a sword and some sick reflexes.“Did the beast scare you?”
Huh.That was unexpected.
