PG-13, Violence
Have fun down the rabbit hole! ~ Ellen
Rabbit: Chasing BethRider By Ellen C. Maze ©2017 Excerpt from the KINDLE EDITION
Prologue
The monster had him boxed in, and it wasn’t
even close to sunup.
“Rabbit! Give it up! You don’t have a chance!”
Schaffer cringed at the sentiment and tiptoed
faster along the corrugated tin wall. Up ahead, he could see the exit, a huge
door that emptied into the dark night beyond. The warehouse sat on the river’s
edge—how far from the pier was he? Maybe fifty feet once he cleared the
threshold. There was a good chance he could jump into the water and swim away.
Didn’t these aberrations of nature abhor running water, or had that been an
evil joke? He had been in their clutches long enough to question his sanity at
every turn. Schaffer didn’t have time to ponder. Taking one deep breath to
gather his nerve, he burst forward suddenly, commanding his legs to propel him
faster than they ever had before. However, it wasn’t fast enough. Not by a
mile. Schaffer slammed into the outstretched arm of his enemy after four short strides.
“Oops,” the monster giggled. “Down you go.”
Schaffer struggled to find his feet, but the creature
grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back the way they had come. His boot
heels plowed the red clay in the dirt parking lot, making furrows no one would
notice.
“Silly wabbit. Come on, we have a big night
ahead of us.”
Schaffer wrestled against his attacker’s grip
to no avail. The creature that held him fast was not his master, but he was
still one of them. One of the
Brethren. A Rakum. A devilish miscreant with ancient roots no one remembered,
whose strength was outdone only by his cruelty. They would be sure to punish
Schaffer for the stunt he pulled against their Elder, Rufus.
Schaffer fought futilely until they reached the
monster’s aged Dodge pickup parked in the unlit abandoned lot. He got a glimpse
of the Rakum’s face; it was not one he recognized, but that mattered little. Once
marked as a Rabbit, they would come from all over.
“In ya go, Rabbit.”
The Rakum grabbed Schaffer’s belt along with
his collar and tossed him into the passenger seat in one fluid motion. Schaffer
grunted with discomfort as his attacker zip-tied his hands together. He then
zip-tied his wrists to the headrest behind, yanking his arms up above his head.
Schaffer cried out, but only a few syllables escaped his lips before the
monster shoved a greasy rag into his mouth.
“Where’re your matches now, Rabbit?”
Schaffer shivered at the Rakum’s question; he had
set Rufus on fire. It had been a glorious sight, but he didn’t get away fast
enough. Schaffer blinked back tears, gagged, and watched with round eyes as his
attacker settled into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.
“Might be fun to burn you up, Rabbit. See what
that smells like.”
Schaffer moaned. An hour after he set Rufus
aflame, he’d been captured and marked by one of the Elders. The creature told
him to start running.
Schaffer looked out the window as they sped
through a thick forest. If only he’d planned an escape route. Now this monster
was taking him to his private killing field. As the morbid thought crossed his
mind, an Airstream trailer emerged from the woods ahead.
“Oh, my. All for me.”
The Rakum hit the brakes hard and didn’t bother
to come around to extricate his catch. Instead, he jumped down and reached in
to yank Schaffer out the driver’s side. The stiff plastic ties raked across his
flesh and he yelped through the filthy towel as his skin gave way. His wrist
bones fractured as his hands popped free of the bonds. The Rakum chuckled and
tossed Schaffer bleeding and crying over his shoulder and headed for the
trailer.
Schaffer watched the weeds go by in the
moonlight, his bloodied fingers dangling off and on in his line of vision. They
no longer stung, but he was too terrified to notice. They entered the trailer,
the door closed and was locked, and he was dropped onto a tattered yellow
couch. Schaffer grimaced as he hit the sofa hard, but one glance at his wrist
and he could see the skin was not ripped as he had thought. Was it the dim
light?
“Now you’re in my house, Rabbit. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Do you know what
happens to Rabbits around here?”
Schaffer’s eyes grew wide and he shook his
head. His tongue pushed at the rag in his mouth, but it wouldn’t budge. He
watched his attacker’s face and vainly pleaded with his eyes.
“We eat
Rabbits around here. Yep. But we take our time.”
Schaffer cringed as the monster approached and
stopped only inches from his sweating face.
“And Rufus wants to be sure you suffer.”
Rufus? In the present tense? Are they
fireproof? Schaffer choked back a scream as the monster withdrew a knife from
outside his vision and brought it up to his chin.
“We ain’t in no hurry, Rabbit. We can go all
night…” The sharp blade pressed into Schaffer’s throat until it broke through
the skin with stinging pain. Blood coursed from the wound and spilled out from
before him onto the monster’s chest. But as his assailant hovered over him, an
evil grin on his dark face, Schaffer felt something else entirely. The fiery
pain in his neck subsided and was replaced with a peculiar tightness. The blood
that spurted forcefully from his body ebbed and then stopped completely. His
knife wound had healed. –As if he was one of them.
The marking procedure
did this!
Horrified as the gravity of his situation sunk in, Schaffer violently leapt
aside. The Rakum backhanded him into place and straddled him on the couch,
holding him down with his body weight.
“See, Rabbit? Now you get it.” Schaffer
straightened up in his bonds as the monster raised the knife and slashed him
again, this time across the chest. The wound was deep and the dark oxygenated
blood oozed down his shirtfront. Once again, the pain subsided and the flow
eased. Schaffer’s face twisted into a mask of horror.
“Yep. That’s right. We’ll go on all night. And
tomorrow night. And the night after that...”
Schaffer watched as his attacker brought the
bloody knife tip to his mouth and cleaned it with his red tongue.
“Oh, shit, that...is...so...” he whispered, closed
his eyes and smiled. After a moment, he sought Schaffer’s terrified eye. “And
Rabbit,” he said and paused drunkenly. “When I get tired of you…we’ll have my
brothers over and let them see what fun you are.”
The knife rose again and plunged into Schaffer’s
middle. He grunted, his gag still preventing him from screaming no matter how
his lungs fought in his chest to expel his terror. The Rakum’s gory tongue
circled his lips, not coming close to clearing the expelled blood from his
chin.
“We’ll never get tired of you,” he whispered,
obviously intoxicated by the ingestion of Schaffer’s blood. The knife came out
and was thrust in again, this time into his side, into his ribs. “And you’ll
never die. You’ll never die, Rabbit. Never.”
As Schaffer felt the skin tighten and knit
itself together in his middle, he knew the monster was right. His punishment
would go on. Schaffer was in hell. And
his hell would last forever.
______________________________________________
Rabbit: Chasing Beth Rider
Book One of the Rabbit
Trilogy
(Be sure to
purchase the Little Roni Publishers Version—ISBN: 978-0615678306, Kindle and
PB, for the Newest Edition with BONUS “Easter Egg” Chapters)
BACK COVER: What if your novel attracts
the wrong kind of attention?
Author Beth Rider's vampire novel has hit number one, but her fictitious plot puts her in the crosshairs of an ancient race of vampiric beings known as the Rakum. Spreading evil among mankind for thousands of years, the leadership of this bloodthirsty race now has a singular focus: catch Beth Rider—her very life in mortal jeopardy as she goes on the run, a rabbit desperate to escape the worst of predators.
Facing
the most terrifying trial of her life against creatures known only in fables,
one simple woman will unintentionally threaten the very existence of a powerful
and accursed people. In the climactic
mêlée, it is a race to the death—or if Beth has her way, a race to the life—of
every Rakum who makes the choice.
Rabbit: Chasing Beth
Rider By Ellen C. Maze ©2017
Excerpt from the KINDLE EDITION
All
rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without
prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of
America copyright law. The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental
and unintentional.
Print
Edition ISBN-13: 978-0615678306
Also
available LARGE PRINT format
PUBLISHED
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This
prologue provided to prepare the fans of the Rabbit Trilogy for the release of
Book Three, Rabbit Redemption. Blogger/Book Reviewers, Contact the author at ellenmaze@aol.com for a complimentary copy
of the books for your reviews.
