Taste of Death: Ravenous Spirits Series Book 1

Prologue

The air was crisp enough to sting the lungs. It would be another hour before the sun rose, and even then, the gray skies would not allow lights to penetrate. It had been a long time since the sun’s warmth had touched the island.

Jackson had been on the island for just four months. He should have waited until warmer weather. He should have trusted his gut and waited for spring, but he had been so excited about the idea of joining an intentional community. A hippie commune, his dad would have called it. Never mind that no one had been a hippie in more than half a century. None of that mattered, though.

Maple Grove had seemed like a dream when Jackson’s friend, Alina, told him about it. The tiny island community near the Canadian border sustained itself with an artisanal maple harvest, fishing, farming, and community effort. People working together to support one another. Hard work, kindness, and understanding. A community the way it was supposed to be, where people gave a damn.

Growing up in the city, Jackson had always felt detached from the world. There were neighbors his family didn’t know, who didn’t want to be known. People were rushed, brusque, disinterested, and selfish. Everything was in pursuit of more money, more power, and more stuff. So many people got stepped on so that one person could reach the top. He hated to think that was the way the world was meant to be. In fact, he refused to believe it.

He’d met Alina in college, and she was a bright light in the darkness. She was studying biology with the intent to become a large animal veterinarian. She loved life, she loved nature, and she was so kind. No one was beneath her. Everyone was worthy of her time and respect. She was the most beautiful person he had met.

The relationship had never blossomed into what Jackson wanted it to be. He was in love with her, and that was obvious to most people. He even told her once. She told him she loved him too but as a friend. Alina loved everyone. He couldn’t fault her for it. In the end, he ended up loving her more.

They had shared a dream of a place they could live that wasn’t bound by the unspoken rules of society. A place that didn’t prioritize greed and wealth and selfishness. He had never asked her how she discovered Maple Grove. She knew all kinds of like-minded people who were into similar things. He assumed she’d learned about it from someone who’d learned about it from someone.

She had lived on the island for a month when she got in touch with him and told him about it. After they graduated college, he wasn’t sure he would get to spend any serious time with her again. She was constantly on the go. He leaped at the opportunity to be with her again, especially in a place that sounded so wonderful.

The first week on the island was a thrill. The people were welcoming, the landscape was beautiful, and Alina was there with him every day. She showed him around, helped him set up a place to live in one of the tiny houses that was already there, and made sure everyone met him while singing his praises.

On his first night in Maple Grove, she stayed up with him all night while they shared stories, ate junk food, and just laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. She was beautiful beyond words, and he wanted nothing more than to lean across the slightly threadbare little sofa he had been provided and kiss her. He felt like he had found heaven on earth. But that didn’t last.

Snow crunched under Jackson’s feet. The path from the town to the dock was normally not so exhausting, but traveling in darkness through the densely packed snow considerably slowed his progress. Each footstep was a struggle to pull out of the hole he’d dug for himself. He wanted to go faster. He needed to go faster. It was just not feasible.

The island was not what he thought it was. It was not what Alina thought it was. He warned her about what he had seen, but she didn’t believe him. She thought he was using again. They had done their fair share of drugs in college, but he had been clean for more than a year.

Even when he told her point-blank that the people on the island were dangerous, and that he had seen something come out of the woods, she rationalized it to him. She told him that some of the Elders had probably slipped him something with mushrooms in it. They were reckless like that sometimes. They liked to haze the newcomers a little.

The things they believed, though, and the mythology they had come up with on the island just got into his head. It made him see things that weren’t there.

She told him that it was all just stories. There was nothing to be afraid of on the island. All their talk of nature spirits, death and rebirth—all of that was just metaphor. They were people who held the earth in high esteem. So what if they created stories about spirits of the woods helping grow the harvest? It was just something to unite the community. He had to stop taking it literally and be rational. That’s what she said.

He wanted to believe her. He wanted nothing more than to live in that place with her and maybe show her that he could be more than a friend. Maybe one day, she could love him the way that he loved her. But he knew in his heart he hadn’t taken anything. He wasn’t seeing things, and she would never believe him. Why would she? The things he was saying were crazy.

Jackson had seen a monster. A demon. Maybe the devil; he didn’t know. It was a nightmare come to life, and he wouldn’t stay there any longer. He needed to get help. He needed to find someone to save the people on the island before it was too late. The people who couldn’t or wouldn’t believe what was happening. People like Alina.

He thought leaving would be easy. He would just tell them he wanted to go back to the mainland for a day, no big deal. But the Elders had immediately shut the idea down. If anyone wanted to leave, they needed to book passage on a boat a week in advance.

He had done that, but they had told him it wasn’t a good time. The weather was bad one day, and another day, the boat needed to be repaired. There was more than one boat on the island, but there was always a problem.

Jackson wanted to at least call his father, but that became an issue, too. He had not brought a phone to the island with him. Alina told him they didn’t use technology like that, but there was a phone for emergencies. Except the phone was down every time he asked. The radios on the boats were down as well. They didn’t even try to come up with good excuses.

Jackson thought his last letter to his father had gotten out on the mail boat, but he couldn't be sure. He had never had reason to doubt any of it during the first few weeks of his stay, but now, he wondered how many of his letters went out. His father had written back twice, while Jackson had sent more than ten letters. He wasn’t writing to converse, just updating his dad on what was going on so he knew not to worry.

Most of the letters Jackson sent were mundane, just letting his dad know about the island and how much he enjoyed it. He had sent one expressing his concerns just after the first time he’d asked to leave. Since then, he had seen more things in the dark. He had seen what was in the woods, and he was desperate to get off the island. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to go at first, but it slowly dawned on him.

The Elders on the island didn’t disbelieve him. They knew what he was talking about, they just didn’t want him to tell anyone. To Jackson, that meant they had to keep him quiet. What he had seen was real, and his life was in danger.

There were no roads on the island. There were footpaths, and if there had been no snow, he could have followed them. Everything on the island was done the hard way. The old way. Goods were carried by hand. Wheelbarrows and carts could be moved under manpower, but there weren’t even horses for labor. Everything was earned by the sweat of someone’s brow. It made things hard. It made getting to the dock hard.

Jackson heard the ocean in the distance. He heard the water as it reached the edge of the island, lapping at the stone, and promising a way out. But it was still so dark. He could see almost nothing.

Another sound reached his ears. The crunching of snow underfoot. He was far enough from the village that the people wouldn’t hear him. No one should have known that he’d even left. There’d be no reason for someone to check on him until morning. But he could have sworn he heard footsteps behind him.

He stopped and stood still in the cold, holding his breath. One step. Just one, but it came after he stopped moving. Someone was following him.

Jackson turned and looked back across the snow-covered field. No one was there. The village lay in the distance past hills and small maple groves. Between him and it were only snowbanks and random, single trees. Barely room for anyone to hide.

He stared at the nearest of the trees, straining his eyes in the darkness. It could have hidden someone. Something. If they were fast, they could have ducked behind it.

Jackson fought the urge to call out and ask who was there. There could be no reply that would satisfy him. Anyone not wishing him harm would not have hidden. And calling out might draw undue attention from others. He wanted neither.

With a long exhale of misty breath, Jackson turned and began to run. It was clumsy and slow. The snow forbade it from being productive, but his pursuer would be just as unsuccessful at chasing him down.

He needed to get to a boat. He planned to steal one. The police could bring it back later if it came to that. He could pilot any of the boats the islanders used easily enough. He just needed to get away.

His breathing became heavy and labored faster than he had expected. It was so much effort to run through the snow, but he made progress. He was getting closer to the path that led down the hillside to the docks that waited below.

The crunching of his boots in the snow was almost deafening. He thought he heard a second set in pursuit, but it was hard to tell, and he didn’t want to stop to check this time. If he stopped, his pursuer could catch him. He couldn’t risk it.

He saw the path ahead of him now, murky in the ambient light of night where it led down the island’s hillside to the docks. He was close if he could manage the potentially treacherous path in the snow. The way was not too steep, but it was winding and potentially obscured.

At the edge of the snow-covered path atop the hill, Jackson turned to look back the way he had come. The sound of pursuing footsteps was so clear now. Someone was trudging through the snow after him at speed. But when he looked, there was no one.

“What the…?”

The word was barely a whisper as he stared in confusion. He had heard it so distinctly. He knew someone was there. But now there was nothing.

Jackson turned, not willing to waste another moment worrying about it. Two boats were on the dock. He could just make them out in the dark. Either one would suffice. Then he could be free and, hopefully, find a way to convince Alina to leave the island as well. Once he came back with help.

He turned back toward the sea and took his first step onto the hidden, snow-encrusted path to the water. Something snagged at his foot, jerking at his ankle, and pulling him back hard enough to throw him off-balance. Jackson barely cried out before he tumbled forward, face-first into the snow.

Gravity took over, and Jackson rolled down the hill. Blasts of pain erupted across his body as he hit unseen obstacles under the snow. Rocks, roots, barren shrubs, and other unseen dangers scratched at his clothing and prodded at his flesh.

The world spun in a frenzy of freezing cold and sharp pain until finally, his head smashed against something hard, and he could no longer tell if it was him spinning or everything around him. It didn’t matter anymore. As quickly as it happened, everything faded to black.

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