Read J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House) for Free Online Page A

time isolating sequences. Nothing yet, but a link will show up, I’m sure it will.”
    “All life on earth, from flatworms to elephants, share some DNA sequences,” Sun explained. “Dr. Belgium believes Bub also shares several of these chains.”
    Dr. Belgium nodded several times. “Bub’s got the same four bases as all life, the same 20 amino acids. Even taking into account his…
different
anatomical layout, I believe he’s terrestrial, that is, he has earthly relatives somewhere. We’re trying matches with goats, rams, bats, gorillas, humans, crocodiles, pigs, everything that he looks like he may be a part of, to fit him into the animal kingdom… but now it’s feeding time, so let’s see if we can witness another miracle, shall we?”
    Sun led the sheep past Andy and over to Bub’s habitat. Andy, who’d been avoiding looking in that direction, forced himself to watch.
    At first, Bub wasn’t visible. The dwelling was filled with a running stream and trees and bushes and grass, as deep as a basketball court and about thirty feet high. The foliage was so dense in parts that even a creature Bub’s size could apparently hide in it.
    “All fake,” Dr. Belgium said. “Fake brush, fake rocks, fake stream. It’s supposed to resemble the area where he was found, in Panama. I don’t think he’s fooled.”
    “Where is he?” Andy asked, cautiously approaching the Plexiglas shield. He squinted at the trees, trying to make out anything red.
    Bub dropped from directly above, the ground shaking as he landed just three feet in front of Andy.
    Andy yelled and jumped backwards, falling onto his ass.
    Sun laughed. “Did you forget he could fly?”
    Andy didn’t notice Sun’s amusement. Bub was crouching before him, his black wings billowing out behind him like a rubber parachute.
    Andy’s mouth went dry. The demon was the most amazing and horrifying thing he’d ever seen.
    Hoofs big as washtubs.
    Massively muscled black legs, with knees that bent backwards like the hindquarters of a goat.
    Claws the size of manhole covers, ending in talons that looked capable of disemboweling an elephant.
    Bub approached the Plexiglas and cocked his head to the side, as if contemplating the new arrival. It was a bear’s head, with black ram horns, and rows of jagged triangular teeth.
    Shark’s teeth.
    His snout was flat and piggish, and he snorted, fogging up the glass. His elliptical eyes—black bifurcated pupils set into corneas the color of bloody urine—locked on Andy with an intensity that only intelligent beings could manage.
    He was so close, Andy could count the coarse red hairs on the demon’s broad chest. The animal smell swirled up the linguist’s nostrils, mixed with odors of offal and fecal matter.
    Bub raised a claw and placed it on the Plexiglas.
    “Hach wi’ hew,” Bub said.
    Andy yelled again, crab-walking backwards and bumping into the sheep. The sheep bleated in alarm.
    Bub, as if commanded, backed away from the window. His giant, rubbery wings folded over once, twice, and then tucked neatly away behind his massive back. He walked over to a large tree and squatted there, waiting.
    Sun led the sheep past the Plexiglas and to a doorway on the other side of the room. They entered, and a minute later a small hatch opened inside the habitat, off to Bub’s left.
    Andy mentally screamed at Sun,
“Don’t open that door!”
even though the opening was far too narrow for Bub to fit through.
    Bub watched as the sheep walked into his domain. The door closed behind it.
    The sheep shook off its blindfold and looked around its new environment. Upon seeing Bub it let forth a very human-sounding scream.
    In an instant, less than an instant, Bub had sprung from his spot by the tree and sailed through the air almost twenty feet, his wings fully outstretched. He snatched up the sheep in his claws, an obscene imitation of a bat grabbing a moth.
    Andy turned away, expecting to hear chomping and bleating. When none came, he