Blind Passion by Brannan Black Page B

until I worried I might burn. And all that time, I heard nothing but the gentle sounds of nature, birds singing all around, squirrels chattering, the wind sighing gently past, even the faint chirps of frogs somewhere in the distance. I smelled only damp, sun-warmed earth, grass and spring flowers. None of it suggested humanity had ever existed.
    Stark loneliness flooded my heart and soul. I fled back inside, suddenly afraid to know if I was indeed the last human on the planet.
    Two days later, the smell of rain sank into my sleep. Leaping up the stairs, I tripped and barely saved myself from a bad fall. Careful, I had to be careful because there was no one to help me if I got hurt. A deep chasm of despair opened in the pit of my gut. Was it worth it? Just surviving?
    Rain tapped on the roof of the shed. I opened the door and let the fresh, cold air of the storm wash over me. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I shivered with a chill, all the while reveling in the sensations. The rain on the roof and splashing on the ground made a symphony for my starved ears.

    Brannan Black
    Blind Passion, A Wolfman Tale
    8
    I sat just inside the door until it ended. The world smelled so fresh and new after a storm passed. Birds sang in celebration of life. Or at least that’s how it felt to me. I could hold on a while longer. Today I would hold on to hope.

Chapter 1
    It’d been a week since I’d started venturing out of my burrow, slipping along the side of the building, checking out what I could around it. A lot of weeds, but some flowers grew in the bright Colorado sun, too. I pulled some of the weeds in hopes that more flowers would grow. It lifted some of the dark depression from my soul, just being in the sun again.
    Mostly, I heard only birds, squirrels and the wind. Occasionally something would rustle somewhere near, and I would scamper like a frightened bunny back into my burrow. Around the far side of the shed, I’d found a nice spot of shade to sit and enjoy the air, dreaming of days gone by or a future where my sister Jian returned.
    Maybe she’d found a refugee camp that would take us. Or others who would come here to live.
    Sometimes, far more often than I dared admit, I would imagine a man coming to save me like some prince in a fairy tale. Knowing I was alone, I played out these fantasies wherever I was. After all, who would see me lying naked in the grass with my fingers in my lonely pussy? Surly if anyone, even beasts, were around they’d have come for me by now.
    A snap of sound pulled me from my dozing. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I jerked up, fully alert. I heard a sound, a rustling in the grass, too constant to be the wind, from around the left side of the shed. The breeze carried a musky odor unlike any animal I knew.
    Every time I went out I took the rifle Jian had left me. Not that I could hit a damned thing with it, but maybe it would make whatever was out there pause long enough for me to get back inside. I threw the bolt, chambering a round.
    “I’ll shoot if you don’t back off!” I put all the confidence I could muster into my vain warning.

    Brannan Black
    Blind Passion, A Wolfman Tale
    10
    A deep, growling voice chuckled from far too close. “I should warn you that getting shot pisses me off.” His voice sounded almost normal, almost human. Almost .
    Which meant a beast had found me. He’d stopped moving. I could hear his breath now, just around the corner.
    I backed away toward the other corner, ready to make a dash for the door. Over the pounding of my heart I heard the grass rustle. I threw the gun at him, whirled and ran. Straight into a hard wall that shouldn’t have been there.
    Confusion sang through my mind for the few seconds it took the wall to move. I screamed as a hard body twisted me around and slammed me face-first into the ground.
    Growls seemed to come from everywhere around me. I struggled to crawl out from under the beast that had me but I knew it was futile. Strong