Jamal W. Hankins's Page

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Below is an excert from "Vengeance in Bloom" by Jamal W. Hankins

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Lily clawed her way between the heavy barn doors and rattled the rusted chains that held them closed. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her way through, but the doors slammed on her right ankle. As she collapsed to the dirt floor, she bit her bottom lip to muffle her scream. She laid there and took in the pain. After a moment, she pushed herself up on her elbows and took a deep breath to slow her beating heart. Her lungs burned, but she dared not stop. She turned over on her back and nudged the doors apart with her free leg just wide enough to yank her ankle loose.

A faint rumble rose up in the night, and she scrambled to her feet. A bolt of pain shot up her right leg and she stumbled forward. Before she dropped, she caught herself on the barn doors in a clatter of wood and chains.

“Shit!” she hissed, and her ankle throbbed hot and angry. Hopping on her good leg, she turned and leaned back against the door. Her raven hair clung to her sweaty face and she wiped it out of her eyes. Moonlight shone through partially boarded up windows and hinted at the empty stalls of splintered wood that lined both walls of the barn. A patchy blanket of musty hay covered the dirt floor, and she caught the silhouette of a ladder which she could use to hide up in the hayloft.

The rumble grew louder and vibrated through the ground under her feet, then it abruptly stopped just outside the barn. Horses neighed and snorted in a commotion just beyond the doors, and in an explosion a hole ripped through the door beside her head. She fell to the side into a mound of hay, and a cold tingling sensation rippled through her body. Her heart raced, and a high-pitched ringing filled her head. Her left ear burned and it stung when she touched it. There was a deep gouge in the curve of her ear and her fingers were slick with blood. Her jaw dropped. Not even an inch more to the right and she would have been dead.

“Come on out, girl!” a man yelled outside the door.

Lily pushed herself up to her feet and hobbled over the half buried ladder. She grabbed the rungs and heaved with all her might. It scrapped across the ground a half inch if it even moved at all; it might as well have been rooted to the ground.

“Don’t make us chase you no further, hear?” A second voice called. The barn doors shook violently. "We know y'er in there!"

Lily hopped down the line of dilapidated stables, and the pain in her ankle knifed its way up to her knee, then to her upper thigh every time she put weight on it. Finally, she collapsed into a stable on her right where a pile of hay took up its left corner.

There was a thunderous boom, and the chains on the barn doors rattled. She clawed her way over to the pile of hay and burrowed into it head first. She dug her way to the corner of the stable and covered herself completely in hay. She left a little hole just big enough to to see through, and took a deep breath to stop panting.

She heard the barn doors slowly creak open, and pale moonlight bled inside the stables. Concealed by the hay, she curled into a tight ball, and waited in silence.

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Read the entire prologue here. Follow the story as it unfolds chapter by chapter at www.scribereglyph.com