Read Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) for Free Online

alabaster—so much so that the sunlight shining in from the far
direction left a bold wet kiss of luminescence on her left knee. He couldn’t
see her face from his vantage, but the woman’s smooth, bare legs made her face
a moot characteristic of her anatomy. The effect of the sheer cloth draped so
carelessly up around her strong thighs was dizzying. He longed to experience,
with those strong limbs as willing partners, if not the act of breeding, at
least the slow, wet and voluptuous behavior which often leads to conception. It
occurred to him suddenly and with delight that the thighs he had lusted for so were
remarkably like his own Linda’s. He smiled with the thoughts of her body and
her mind.
    Fatigued by the week’s events, the long drive up and the hour, he
drifted to sleep.
    He woke with a jolt when for the second time, the loudest, lowest
bass tone he had ever heard shook the bones in his head and made his teeth
buzz.
    *   *   *
    Jim Hall knew the sound of a black bear snooping around camp when
he heard it, and he was hearing it now. They’d mess up your camp if you didn’t
shoo them away. He wanted Bailey to see it though, just to scare the shit out
of her—before he chased it the hell out of camp.
    He sat up and nudged her gently awake. “Bailey, wake up,” he
whispered, shaking her butt. “Wake up, there’s a bear outside.” He reached
over, picked up the flashlight and turned it on.
    Bailey’s eyes were immediately wide open and as big as saucers.
    “A bear? Outside?” she whispered back, gasping for air.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s a lot more afraid of us than we are of
it.” He started to zip down the tent’s door. Bailey grabbed his arm.
    “What exactly are you doing?” she asked incredulously.
    “I’m gonna show you the bear. It’s okay, believe me,” he said
smiling. “I’ll say ‘boo’ and he’ll split. Watch.”
    “No,” she said firmly. “Don’t.”
    They could hear the bear sniffing loudly around the door of the
tent. It was awfully loud sniffing. There were some stray cattle in the canyon,
and if Jim hadn’t known that cows didn’t move at night, he’d have thought it
was a steer outside by the volume of the sniffing.
    “Bailey, Jesus, would I let a darned bear drag you off and tear
you to pieces? Besides it’s a little ‘ol black bear not a damn grizzly. Just
relax.” He took hold of the zipper and started to pull it down.
    The gray hunter didn’t wait for the zipper to come all the way
down before it shoved its head on its long neck into the tent, right into the
full beam of Jim’s light.
    “Jesus . . . what the hell . . . ” Jim stuttered, yanking Bailey
back away from the head. Bailey screeched so loud it hurt Jim’s ear.
    It was clearly not a bear. Some automatic mechanism in Jim
insisted on treating the creature as if it were a bear anyway. “Git!” Jim
yelled at it. “Git!”
    The head just watched them menacingly.
    Jim looked closely at the head. The eyes were human, no doubt
about that. Mean eyes, yes, but it was a person. He started to laugh. I get it.
    “It’s a darned mask!” he said and reached out to touch it. “Who
are you?”
    The head snapped at the hand with its powerful mouth and bit right
through Jim’s fingers.
    “What the hell! Jesus Christ!” he cried, clamping his other hand
over the stubs of his fingers. Bailey screamed again and scooted as far as she
could to the back of the tent.
    Without thinking Jim whacked the head with the flashlight, but
the head just snarled then tilted up and grunted loudly. Jim lifted his right
foot up out of the sleeping bag, pulled it back and stomped hard at the head.
The creature took the full force of the kick directly on its flattish face. Jim
hauled back with the foot a second time and stroked down hard. This time the
creature ducked around and clamped onto the side of his foot with its teeth.
Jim yelled with pain. The creature shook like a terrier and pulled off half of
the foot