The man sits there, impatiently staring down his long empty glass. What could be taking him so long? A sound from within echoes up the stairwell. He turns his gaze from the glass and slowly sets it on the bar, senses sharpening as he rises to his feet. A minute passes. Nothing more. He crosses the room and gently turns the small handle, slowly opening the door to the stairway. Straining his ears, he can make out a soft whimpering. The man's spirit sinds. "It failed," he mouths as quiet as his soul is bleak.

He slowly befins to pull the door shut, but before he can close it, there is a commotion from below. A voice shouts out, "It's alive! It's ali. . ." but his words fall short of their dreamed triumph, curdling in his throat. Half a moment of immortality.

At the top of the stairs, the other man turns to run. An instant later, the creation turned beast rolls through the door. Splinters tear into the man's back. But before the pain is even felt, the beast is upon him, crushing him with its twisted mass. Last words suffer from the man's mouth as the breath is forced out of his collapsed lungs, "We created you Pedro. We created you."

excerpt from "The Wrath of Pedro" by Michael J Hofner