Erick T Rhetts

Hungry Erick T Rhetts

Barry, an older and grouchy widower, gets up from his worn easy-chair and grabs his shotgun. He's had enough of the racoons getting into his garbage pails and leaving trash strewn all over his over-grown property. Out the door and around the house, what he finds are not racoons. He won't be coming back in. Bob's life hasn't gone the way he had imagined it would back in the day. Darla, the prom queen he won, has since become many times the woman she used to be. Their kids, all grown, have moved out of the valley. It was just him, Darla and the dog. Wondering if things could be different, he entertains the idea of leaving them both, Darla's nagging and his loss of sense of self eating him little bites at a time. But then there's a scream. Head shaking, he puts on his shoes, a bit high from the pot, and goes out into the yard. The dog is nowhere in sight, but Darla is...and the bites aren't small. They are hungry and they have come to the valley. And they won't be leaving on their own, not with so much prey walking around.