A Bit of a Teaser for You - First 200 words

Rachel Brackett raced through the forest; her bare feet sodden with mud and pine needles.  Thick reaching branches blotted out the sun above while fog pinched at her long legs, all obscuring the horizon as she searched for an escape from a maze of trees and shrubbery.  Her pounding heart echoed in her ears, drowning out the crackling leaves and twittering birds.  The smell of pine and death brewed in the air, curdling in her nose and polluting her lungs, as she gasped for breath with each impression her toes dug into the ground. 

 She couldn’t see anyone behind her, or even hear their footsteps. But every instinct fired its own relentless confirmation within her: someone, somewhere, was hunting her. 

 Hunting – the word grasped at her heart, its grip a stranglehold as its meaning seeped through her senses.  Tears rolled down her slim cheeks in fear as the forest closed in around her to protect a hidden presence from view. Suddenly, she heard a loud roar – a growling that seemed to break through every corner of timber.  Its vibration sent pulsating chills down her spine, and she groped through the trees, looking for some way, any way, to escape. 

    An abrupt break in the forest emerged, and Rachel staggered into a clearing.