Gothic Alaskan and Other Stories

Book excerpt: The seething, thrashing jungles of Alaska are the lair of many secret species. To see them is to disappear. There are life forms here so horrible the sight of them would make a Kodiak bear jump off a cliff, or send a one-ton moose up a tree, or drive a pack of wolves into a rabbit hole. Every summer unknowing tourists anchor a boat off the wrong island and become dinner. Or they drive down some unmarked dirt road and are slaughtered. Every year they trustingly stop over at some strangely-empty campground or wander down an unmarked trail and meet a horrible end. [Author bio]Eugene Shelby has lived in Alaska for twenty-two years, including Anchorage, Barrow, Prudhoe Bay, Shemya and Valdez. He has a BA in journalism from USC.