Night Terrors: Savage Species, Book 1 by Jonathan Janz

arrowheads they found when they excavated for the park?”
    Emma shook her head.
    “A handful,” he said, “and those were ancient, probably from the Potawatomis or the migrating Iroquois.”
    “So?” Colleen said.
    “You go to any cornfield in Indiana, and a trained eye will find several arrowheads in no time at all. They’re all over the place despite the fact that the last arrows were fired in this area over a hundred—” He broke off and bent over.
    Emma sat forward. “What is it, Mr. Red Elk?”
    He made a miserable face, clutched his swollen belly. “Ah, man…you’d think I’d learn by now. Whiskey always gives me the shits.”
    “We can come back later,” Emma said, but he was up and out of his chair.
    “Gotta drop the kids off at the pool,” he said, jogging toward a door. He slammed it shut, and almost instantly they heard a ripping sound followed by a prolonged splash.
    Colleen made a disgusted face. Emma said, “Maybe we should wait outside.”
    She rose and stepped over to the door. “Mr. Red Elk, we’ll come back later if—”
    A groan and another messy, splashing sound.
    “We’ll come back,” she said.

Chapter Nine
    Jesse was sure Frank Red Elk was the weirdest thing he’d see all day, but when he and the girls came through the pine trees and beheld the large, circular playground, he knew this sight was in contention. They’d heard the music from nearly a mile away and smelled the beer the moment they climbed out of the car. But this…
    Jesse regarded Emma, who was laughing softly.
    A hundred or so young men and women covered the playground equipment and the areas between in a bulging mass of skin. Granted, it was hot—probably eighty degrees already with humidity that made you feel greasy all over—but the bikinis the girls wore would’ve been risqué for the French Riviera. A few boys wore costumes: togas made of old sheets, heads swaddled in unconvincing turbans. One guy had fashioned an oversized diaper out of a pink blanket. The rest appeared dressed for the beach.
    Jesse realized Colleen was no longer with them. He looked around and spotted her next to a row of five beer kegs lined up under a pavilion in the playground’s center. An overweight young man, his tanned, hairless belly spilling over a tiny red Speedo, filled a plastic cup of beer and handed it to her. She drank, wiped off the foam mustache and beckoned them over.
    The music originated from a red pickup truck stationed at the southern edge of the circular playground. Someone, thank God, had replaced the rap music with Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil”.
    To their right a group of guys were spotting scantily clad girls as they breezed across the playground on a zipline. Immediately opposite the zipline, several people played on the swings and took turns looping down a curly slide. Jesse saw as they neared that a large group had gathered to watch people doing keg stands. At the moment a big-breasted girl, her light blue bikini barely preventing her boobs from suffocating her, was standing on her head sucking down beer. The onlookers chanted for her to drink. Just when Jesse was sure she’d bust out of her top, the girl brought her legs down, swayed a moment, then dashed for the pine grove that surrounded the playground.
    “Lightweight!” one guy yelled.
    As they pulled up next to Colleen, another drinker took the last one’s place. Jesse recognized the spiked blond hair, the washboard stomach from the night before.
    Austin favored Emma with a broad grin, and with an athleticism Jesse couldn’t help but admire, Austin leaned down, his spikes embedding in the sand, and popped up in a headstand. Another guy, the one with the black goatee, fed the tube into Austin’s mouth. The crowd started chanting, “Go! Go! Go! Go!” the young man’s throat working furiously to ingest the flow of beer.
    “Fifteen seconds,” the goateed guy shouted, and everyone cheered. Austin remained upside down several