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  She gave Grendel a little nod.

  This was how it always was. She had her outside image, she attended the games, listened to the music, put on the face. But all she really cared about was her boyfriend and her friends. Friends like Sara and Xander.

  Poor Xander.

  She called him that so much that some of the juniors had actually started to believe it was his name. She’d always thought he and Sara were perfect for one another, but Sara had, like, serial boyfriends. She went through them like popcorn. Cathy always warned her that she would eventually hit a kernel and get a bad one, or she’d pass over a really good one.

  “So, what’s going on?” Grendel asked, leaning against the counter next to her. He followed her gaze until he was watching the game as well.

  “Not much,” she said, an evil smirk spreading across her lips. “Mike’s kicking Jamie’s ass.”

  Grendel laughed. “What else is new? Jamie’s about as good at pool as he is at football.”

  “That why he’s captain and you didn’t make the team?” she poised playfully, raising an eyebrow in his direction. She turned away from Mike for the first time since the conversation began.

  “Hey, I just couldn’t take the politics of the game, is all.”

  “How is a bunch of testosterone crazed idiots running around and slamming into each other wearing glorified coconut shells and pouring Gatorade over each other political?”

  “I see no differences between what you just said and what goes on in government.” he paused. “Except football players usually have more going on for them upstairs than your average president.”

  Across the room, Jamie finally parted with his jacket, laying it on a hanger near him. He leaned in for his shot as Mike, Cathy and now Grendel all watched. He tried to get the seven ball in the side pocket with an easy straight shot, but the table was old and the cloth was lumpy and torn in spots. The cue missed the seven completely and ended up bouncing harmlessly off the side.

  Smiling, Mike leaned in quickly (almost before the cue had stopped rolling) and finished the game with a bank shot that sunk the eight ball into the side pocket.

  Jamie looked enraged, but he suppressed the anger and calmly put down the pool cue.

  “Good game,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Yes, it was.” Mike laughed, shaking his opponent’s hand curtly. “Now pay up.”

  Jamie sighed, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a five, grumbling as though he had expected Mike to forget.

  “Wanna play again?”

  “Ha,” Jamie smiled. “Not likely. I think I’m just gonna head home and call Sara.”

  “Cool,” Mike shrugged, putting his stick away and walking over to where Cathy and Grendel stood. He placed the five down on the counter and waited for Roxanne to come around so that he could buy Cathy a snack before they left.

  “You won!” she chirped happily, spreading out her arms as though she were cheering him on from the sidelines of the superbowl.

  “I did,” he laughed, placing a hand on her hip. “Wait, was that in doubt? Did you have doubt-face?”

  “Never once,” she assured him, glancing from the five dollar bill to rack of snacks and goodies behind the bar. She knew what it meant. She’d seen it before.

  He gave her a quick kiss, then extended it into a longer one.

  Jamie shrugged, justifying his loss with the fact that the money would be put to good use buying Cathy and Mike dinner, but more importantly, some much needed alone time. Life was busy, even if their parents would argue that they were lazy.

  He grabbed his leather Cougars jacket and waved a goodbye to Mike and Cathy, although they hardly noticed. He smirked to himself as he opened the door and walked out.

  Grendel looked away from Mike and Cathy as they went deeper and deeper into their kiss. As he glanced back at them, a disgusted look coming over his face. His eyes slowly fell down her backside until he found himself looking at things he knew that he shouldn’t. He turned toward the door and smiled a little. “I think I’ll head out, too. You two seem like you wanna be alone.”

  They didn’t answer, each of them too deep in the other.

  He got up and walked for the door, slamming it behind him.

  Neither of them noticed or cared.

  ***

  Jamie started to walk down the street. It was getting dark, and he lit up a cigarette and took a long draw. Then he looked down at it and got suddenly revolted with himself. He’d smoked for years. He knew what it was doing to him, why he was having trouble running the whole distance of the field now. He finished the smoke on the corner and threw the smouldering butt down onto the sidewalk, swearing to himself that he’d never touch another one of them.

  He thought he heard something behind him, then started walking again, zipping his jacket to protect himself against the harsh cold of night. He could see his own breath as it swirled up around his head like a wreath.

  A dark figure stepped out of the shadows behind him and stepped in time with him, squishing the discarded cigarette beneath his heavy feet.

  Jamie heard it now, he was sure of it. The footsteps were getting closer and closer to him. He started to pick up his pace, and so did the second set of footsteps. He broke into an all out run, hearing the second set do the same, close behind him. He got to the end of the block and made a sharp turn, beads of sweat already forming on his forehead. He got to the end of the next block and bent over from the pain in his side. He shouldn’t have gotten such a painful stitch already. He ran three times this far on the football field every day. Yet his lungs heaved, each breath brought agony, and he made a small grunt from the pain. He looked up, turning around to face his attacker for the first time.

  There was nobody there. He searched the streets and doorways around him with his eyes, seeing nothing.

  Suddenly, he started to laugh.

  He stomped his foot down onto the black pavement, listening to the echo of the sound returning to him. He’d been running from noises, shadows. He laughed once more at his own stupidity.

  “You’re losing it,” he whispered to himself softly.

  He turned the corner and immediately bumped into a large, dark figure. The person was covered by a coat that seemed to be made out of shadows, with eyes burning bright with hatred as it moved toward him menacingly.

  Jamie screamed loudly and took off in the other direction, but his stitch got the better of him again, this time right away. The shadow-figure grabbed him, and pulled him into the darkness. A dagger appeared from his coat and jabbed into Jamie’s right side.

  Blood gushed from the treads etched into the sides of the blade, splattering onto the street with a sickening splashing sound.

  As Jamie’s vision became hazy and he realized it was over, he stopped struggling against his killer’s iron grip. He fell to the ground, and the last thoughts to run through his head were that maybe if he had given up smoking just a little earlier, he might have been able to run just that little bit further...

  ***

  Xander woke up at his computer, his hair a tattered mess.

  He fell asleep on the keyboard like that often, staying online to the point past exhaustion. He wiped a bit of drool from his chin. His skin felt sticky and wet, like he had just gotten out of a bath of honey. He touched himself, and found that his flesh was clammy and warm. Glancing up at his screen, he noticed he had mail. Babygurl @ firsttimebreak.com. That was Sara’s e-mail.

  He opened it and scrolled down through the prattle that headed most of her e-mails, more gossip about Theresa and Derek, along with a few other tidbits about who Julie and Tommy were dating now... Then he noticed a little sentence at the end.

  Do you know where Jamie is? He was supposed to call me...

  At the mention of Jamie Dawkins, Xander’s nostrils flared. He closed and deleted the e-mail, then logged back onto his usual chat page, rubbing his tired eyes. He felt as though he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

  He hated all
of Sara’s (what was it Cathy had called them?) Serial boyfriends. Sometimes he really just wished that all the Jamie Dawkins of the world would just drop dead.

  Suddenly, he heard the familiar chime as someone online contacted him.

  Hello Pinkerton, came the instant message. Xander looked at it and smirked. He hadn’t been called that in real life in years, but it had always made for an entertaining screen name.

  Oh. Hi soul. How’s life? he replied, typing quickly.

  All right. I’ve been looking at something weird online. I discovered some kind of bizarre... thing. I don’t have a password decoder as sophisticated as you do, I thought you might wanna take a look at it.

  Sure. What’s the site?

  Something called engen.com. Oops. Gtg!

  ‘got to go’?, Why?

  But he was gone, just as quickly as he had come online. Xander frowned. Soul had always specialized in finding weird stuff online. Weird government conspiracy videos, proof that the Moon landing was faked, the Paris Hilton video... This was probably nothing, but still, it was worth checking out.

  But it would have to wait until morning.

  He let out a long yawn, then got up and walked the two feet to his bed, fell onto his mattress, and slept.

  ***

  Officer Tom Lensherr of the Coral Beach police precinct wasn’t used to weird stuff.

  That’s partly why he joined the force of this town. He had always said that nothing ever happened in Coral Beach. And by nothing he didn’t mean nothing bad. Literally nothing ever occurred here. It was as if this town’s purpose was solely to exist.

  Lensherr never much cared for gore either. He hadn’t seen a real dead body since his first day on the job a few months ago, and that had only been a heart attack victim.

  So what he saw as he shone his flashlight into the darkened alley made his stomach turn. The image was permanently burned into his mind, enough so that he would spend the remainder of his days curling into his wife for comfort every night as he cried himself to sleep.

  Jamie Dawkins was sprawled out onto to ground in a dark alley, thrown down like a piece of trash. There was blood all around him, smeared onto the brick walls that must have been the last thing he saw. His torso had been cut open revealing the inner body cavity and places where organs should have been, but weren’t. His skull had been bashed in, and looked like it had been done over and over again.

  There was a yellow, gloppy substance all around him, something that Lensherr recognized as intestines from a report he’d seen on the Discovery Channel a few weeks ago. The distinct aroma of dung and blood assaulted his senses, making him gasp for air that only brought more of the foul odor. Flecks of marrow and bone checkered the ground around them, and the boy’s empty eye sockets glared at him, screaming at him, his broken nose and shattered teeth turning his face into one bloody maw.

  Lensherr nearly vomited before picking up his radio and calling for reinforcements from the morgue. Then he shone his flashlight onto the blood blurred walls and saw what the blood spelled: Black Womb.

  Other Titles in the

  Black Womb Series

  The story of Coral Beach continues in Transformations in Pain.

  When two girls are assaulted and one is hospitalized, the residents of Coral Beach must put their shared tragedies behind them and stop the man responsible, as well as unlock the secrets behind the true nature of the Black Womb…

  “When Transformations in Pain focuses on the mystery elements, it moves at breakneck speeds. The dialogue is sharp – a common trait in LeDrew’s novels – and the plot weaves together quite cleverly.”

  Jay Paulin, Ink’d Well Comics, May 2011

  MORE TITLES BY MATTHEW LEDREW

  THE BLACK WOMB SERIES

  BLACK WOMB

  TRANSFORMATIONS IN PAIN

  SMOKE & MIRRORS

  ROULETTE

  GHOSTS OF THE PAST

  IGNORANCE IS BLISS

  BECOMING

  INNER CHILD

  GANG WAR

  CHAINS

  THE LONG ROAD

  THE XANDER DREW SERIES

  CINDERS

  SINISTER INTENT

  THE INFINITY SERIES

  INFINITY

  THE TOURNIQUET REPRISAL

  EXODUS OF ANGELS

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One: A Missing Person

  Chapter Two: Heavy Rains

  Chapter Three: Black Coffee

  Chapter Four: A Suspicious Turn of Events

  Chapter Five: Hit and Run

  Chapter Six: The Super Soldier

  Chapter Seven: Bitten

  Chapter Eight: A Quick Recovery

  Chapter Nine: A Single Shot

  Chapter Ten: Underground

  Chapter Eleven: Revelations

  Chapter Twelve: Incidents Around Town

  Chapter Thirteen: High Fever

  Chapter Fourteen : A Deadly Game

  Chapter Fifteen : Heading in the Wrong Direction

  Chapter Sixteen : An Impossible Choice

  Chapter Seventeen : Nearing Midnight

  Chapter Eighteen : Midnight

  Chapter Nineteen : Adrenaline

  Chapter Twenty : A Fight to the Death

  Chapter Twenty-One : Near Death

  Chapter Twenty-Two : Escape

  Chapter Twenty-Three : The Hospital

  Chapter Twenty-Four : Chaos

  Chapter Twenty-Five : Blind Luck

  Chapter Twenty-Six : A New World

  Chapter Twenty-Seven : A Desperate Need of Supplies

  Chapter Twenty-Eight : Gas Station

  Chapter Twenty-Nine : Grief and Misery

  Chapter Thirty : In the Weeks After

  Chapter Thirty-One : Welcome Home

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Author Bio: Paul Carberry

  Preview: Black Womb by Matthew LeDrew

  Chapter One: Small Town

  Other Titles from Engen Books