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lights.
    “God, how many are there?” she whispered.
    “Too  many,” the beagle said. “He comes this way every day at least once. He aims for them.”
    Jess’s mouth curved in a terrible smile. “My turn.”
    She reached out to the dead, their blood mingling on the advancing unholy car.
    “Come,” she called. “We take what belongs to us.”
    The animals converged. Their forms solidified, becoming flesh for a wild hunt once more. Howls rent the night air as the hissing of cats and barking of dogs merged with the trumpeting of deer and the chattering of squirrels and raccoons. Their eyes glowed red in the darkness, staring with malicious intent at the vehicle barreling down on them.
    Jess heard music blaring from the speakers, the sound stabbing through the quiet night.
    Why’d he come back? To make sure I was dead?
    Anger coiled inside her, hot and vicious. Clenching her teeth, she opened her wings and took a step forward. The hunt followed, powerless victims no more. The hunted had become the hunter, and their prey approached.
    Headlights washed over Jess’s body as the car came closer and closer. He had to see her. There was no way he didn’t. Uncharted rage spread through Jess and she broke into a run, meeting the car at full speed, her new powers giving her strength she never knew she had. Her sneakered feet pounded the pavement. As the car roared down the highway in her direction, Jess snarled and leaped, using her newfound wings as leverage. She landed on the hood.
    She saw the driver’s wide eyes meet hers through the windshield, read a silent, “What the fuck?” on his lips.
    Her wings spread to their full span, blinding him, blocking his view.
    There was nowhere to go. He jerked the car to the left and Jess held on, her wings acting like sails in the midst of a storm. As the driver stepped on the brakes, the car went into a spin and collided with a tree close to the side of the road. Jess sprang high from the impact. The front of the car merged with the massive oak, accordion-style.
    She hovered above, wings supporting her. The driver, hollering in pain and anger, struggled in the wreckage. It held him fast. Jess descended again onto the crunched hood. He stared at her with disbelief, then at the horde of animals surrounding the car.
    “Oh, God!” he cried.
    “Exactly.” She brought the shovel down onto the cracked windshield with full force. Glass shattered, a shower of fragments exploding inward.
    The driver screamed. “You! You bitch! I killed you!” His voice was high and full of terror. He gave a futile swipe at his eyes.”You’re dead. So are the rest of you. Fucking road kill!”
    Jess smiled a terrible smile and let her wings open to their full expanse.
    “Come and get him.”
    The wild hunt converged on the car, their rotting bodies crowding against the sides of the vehicle, mouths gaping in want. Teeth and claws ready to dispense justice, they moved forward, a mass of ghostly energy turned feral and very, very real. 
    A half-skeletonized buck gouged at the driver through the open window and several points connected with the man’s bloodied face. The buck let out a satisfied bellow. Undead squirrels and raccoons swarmed inside to scratch and bite at tender flesh. The beagle howled and the dogs and cats joined the fray.
    The sounds of ripping and tearing rose into the night. Jess hummed as the flood of creatures that had been wronged took their vengeance. In minutes the passenger door was dislodged and hanging open, the driver’s lifeless body spilled out in the dirt.
    With their terrible task completed, the animals began to drift again into a spectral state. Soon, they had returned to where they lay in death, waiting for Jess to find them at last. Only the beagle remained by her side.
    She flicked her damp hair out of her eyes and surveyed the mess, then looked down at him. “I need to bury you, I guess.”
    “Can you send me home first? I really don’t want to watch.”
    Jess