Heavy footsteps, heavy, heavy, very heavy footsteps, came up the stairs.  Mink leading them.

            “Mom?” called Mink.  “Dad?”  A waiting, a silence.

            Humming.  Footsteps toward the attic.  Mink’s first. 

            They trembled together in silence in the attic, Mr. and Mrs. Morris.

-Zero Hour, by Ray Bradbury

Over seven feet tall, Grendel half-walked and half-clawed his way forward, like a grotesque gorilla.  The forest vibrated with his coming.  Oily pine needles quivered, and the damp ground shook in its remembrance of the monster.  Grendel could feel the mist of the forest collecting, a large looming cloud blotting out the sun.  The gray mist grew thick as the forest perspired with the weight of the creature’s presence.  Trees became passing ghosts, materializing suddenly from out of the dense haze, and the chittering of song birds was replaced by the hungry cawing of ravens.  The forest had not forgotten him.

-The Machine Summer, by Brandon Barr

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