The Gnashing — A Story of the Shadows & the Devourer (a serial story)

Melanie didn’t believe in ghosts, much less haunted houses, but something strange had just happened.

Melanie leaned back in the old leather chair she’d inherited from her favorite aunt, studying the nursing manual beneath the dim light of a pole lamp. She went over the paragraph for the fourth time, trying to make sense of its highly technical medical language. Why she’d chosen to enter a field that was becoming less appealing to her as its reality began to sink in was now a mystery even to her. Her father had looked at her twice before beginning to grin.

“You don’t even like to look at your own blood when they give you a shot.”

His habit of demeaning every belief she began to form as she came of age confused and angered her. When had he started this crap? Seventeen was old enough to leave home. She just needed the money to do that — money that a decent job would provide.

Melanie looked for two weeks, but the only place she could find work to get started was a grocery check-out clerk. Even so, within a month she had what she needed for this low-rent apartment. She could still see the stunned look on his face when she told him she was out of there. Still, he had signed for the loan that…