Most of the time I’m reading horror. But for most of my life, I’ve primarily consumed books outside of that genre. The first books I truly fell in love with were Piers Anthony’s amazing Xanth series. Then it was Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Eventually I found Kerouac. Then Hemingway and Steinbeck who remain my favorite authors along with a little-known horror write with the initials SK. And I read a decent amount of non-fiction. Most recently, I finished this one.

By the devil’s mischievous happenstance, his route carried him directly past the courthouse, and he couldn’t help but stop for a second, looking at the aging adobe building with a bitter cocktail of irony, pride, and a stiff ounce of fear, all brewing in his belly. As he stood there, staring at the cold dark bars on the sole window, that cocktail birthed a niggling feeling throughout his guts, urging him to move on quickly. As the warning neared crescendo, where it simply must be heeded, he sensed movement from the corner of his eye. A lithe little coyote sauntered like a ghost out from behind a shuttered shop only two streets up and then sat back on its haunches right in the center of Court Street.

I’ve been thinking about this . . . too much.