BALL AND CHAIN
A woman screamed in staccato bursts. The eerie sound ricocheted off trunks of gumtrees, ghostly yet grand in the moonlight and stirred sentinel owls among the branches. The rhythm of woo, woo, woo increased as the owls spread their alarm.
The fluorocarbon strand under the pads of Jess’s fingers quivered. She tensed and peered into the shadows.
The line beneath her fingers had stilled by the time the shrieks resumed. These longer cries were answered in the distance somewhere to her left. Jess tilted her head, closing her eyes to concentrate.
Over the years, the mating calls of red foxes and human screams seemed to merge. Likewise, pops that could be gunshots were waved off as backfires, while windows broke and car panels dented, yet were just accidents. Black eyes and bro
