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Katt Dunsmore is a writer and book illustrator. Her stories appear in Crime and Suspense Magazine, Flashing in the Gutters, Flashshots, and Silver Moon Magazine. Katt is also an illustrator for Koboca Publishing. Her long list of current projects includes “The EX-Factor,” an anthology written with a group of talented writers, to be released Friday, October 13th, 2006, by Koboca Publishing.

Sweat poured off Joe's body. Whether it was from running, the hot summer night, or his own fear, he couldn't say. Mosquitoes buzzed around him in an unrelenting cloud, hundreds of tiny bites making him squirm in silent agony. He didn't dare slap at them or squash them. The noise would bring his pursuers down on him...so would the smell of his blood. Joe leaned back against the giant, moss covered oak he was hiding behind trying to catch his breath, hoping he wasn't breathing in too many bugs in the process.

He felt like he had been running for hours, but he knew it had only been about ten minutes since his insane run through the Mississippi marsh had begun. That meant that he only had five minutes left before Leone set those...things loose after him. That is, if he stuck by his end of the bargain. Joe wasn't sure he could believe him, a man who stays that calm after catching you in his wife's arms wasn't to be trusted.

Looking back now, Joe realized he'd been a fool to fall for the "my husband doesn't really love me; I’m just one of his pets” line that Marlena had fed him. Once she had him in her bed, he'd been too lust-struck to see how she had gotten him where she wanted him - where the spoiled, bored housewife could amuse herself with his heavily muscled and deeply tanned construction worker’s body. Marlena was hard to resist, her large breasts stretching the limits of the thin fabric of the minimal bathing suits she lazed around the pool in, her large green eyes and blonde hair shining in the sun.

The affair lasted for weeks. Tonight, coming home earlier than expected from his genetics lab, Leone caught Joe and Marlena together in the pool cabana, far from the building project Joe was supposed to be working on and long after he should have knocked off for the day. As Joe stammered out an apology, Leone told him that if he could make it off the property before one of his 'pets' caught up to him, he was free to go. If not...

Joe forgot all about Marlena’s curves; he just wanted out with his life. He looked up at the full moon, glowing in the deep dark of the southern marshland, and started off in the direction of the fence again, berating himself as he ran.

"How stupid can you be?" he told himself. "You never mess around with someone like Leone; it's not just dumb, it's suicidal. I wonder what he’s going to do to Marlena? Probably buy her a new Mercedes for providing him a victim for his monsters."

Leone worked in genetic engineering. Rumor had it that he created new animals in the test tubes at his lab. From the odd dogs and cats he had seen around Leone’s house while he was there building special enclosures for the larger of what Leone termed his ‘pets,’ the rumors were true.

Off to his left, he heard something heavy thrashing through the underbrush. He heard a low growl coming from the right. Other noises began to come to him from different directions. Leone had already let them loose; he had no intention of letting Joe get off his property alive...or in one piece. Joe paused under another tree to catch his breath, supporting himself by holding onto a low-hanging limb, when he spotted lights ahead: the lights by the gates. If he could make that before Leone’s animal concoctions caught up to him, he’d be safe.

As he started off toward the gate and safety, a heavy weight came down on him from above, pushing him to the ground. He rolled over and looked into a face of nightmare, the last thing Joe Potter ever saw: a mixture of cougar and wolf and...Marlena. The last thing he heard was her anguished, hungry cry before she ripped his throat out.