The Dark Unseen

by Andrew C Jaxson

  My ears ring for a moment. No, not my ears. Some other part of me. The ringing floods my brain, and the world dims. The world shudders to a halt, and the only thing that matters is the knife, and now the ringing in my brain is fevered. It hurts. My head spins, and the knife, somehow, glows red-hot like it’s been in the fire. The ranger swears, and drops it. He stares at me for a second. “Well, that was unexpected. You’re a bit clever, aren’t you?”

  I have no idea what just happened to the knife, but I take his distraction as an opportunity, running at him despite my dizziness. He’s thrown off balance and hits the wooden table behind him. His head smacks the corner, and he goes down hard, knocked out by the impact. The knife is still hot, but I grab it regardless. It sears my hand. The pain doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now. I should kill him. It would be safest. I press the knife against his neck and wait for the flesh to give way.

  “Hud, no,” Bek says behind me. “That’s not you.”

  Maybe it is, though. Maybe that’s why the thing let me live so many years ago.

  It climbs to my waist, now, snake tongues crawling over my pyjamas. My arms shake; I can’t stop them. It reaches my chest. The cold is awful. It hurts. The pain goes right inside my chest, into the middle of my stomach. It’s going to kill me. My whole body shakes. I’m going to die. I scream.

  It stops.

  The pain withdraws. It has no eyes, but it looks at me. It crawls back down my chest, legs, feet, and out of the tent. It’s gone. It could have killed me, but it let me live.

  The ranger has rope in his supply bag, so I tie him to one of the big logs that make up the cabin wall. He’ll have a hard time getting free of that when he wakes up. He said help is coming, but I doubt that’s help we want, considering he just tried to murder us both. We need to get out of here fast.

  But Bek can’t walk. Her leg is definitely broken, and I can’t carry her far. I try the ranger’s satellite phone, but it’s locked with a pin code. His keys are in his pocket, which is the one good thing to happen all night. He has a map of the huts in his bag, and I think I know which one the lower hut is. That’s where he said his truck was. The hut is farther down this road, but it’s a long way. It’ll take me a few hours to get there if I walk, just two if I can run that far. I’m going to have to leave Bek up here until I get back. I don’t like it, but there’s no other option.

  “Stay inside,” I tell her. From what I’ve seen of the creature, that won’t help at all, but it might not know she’s in here. If someone’s coming they might find her, but the risk of the creature hunting her is greater. Either way she’s in danger until I get help. I kiss her and open the front door.

  The mist still lies thick as a blanket around us. Up the road, the wreck of our car is wrapped around a tree. It’s a miracle we survived at all.

  The lower hut is a straight trip down this road, so I should be okay for directions. I clip the knife onto my belt in the sheath I took from the ranger and stuff the map in my pocket just in case. I set off at a jog. I have to pace myself if I’m going to run this whole way, even though it’s downhill. The ranger had a brighter torch in his bag, and it lights up much of the road. Regardless, I switch it off. I can’t attract the creature.

  The mist is lit up by the moon, and it twists around me, pale and ghostly, providing just enough light to make out the next few steps. It’s safer to run in the dark, for now.

  My feet crunch on gravel, and my breath hits a rhythm. I’ve never been the greatest runner, but adrenaline keeps me going. I have to get help before someone comes. Whoever the ranger was talking to didn’t seem to want us alive, and if they can’t raise him soon, they’ll come looking.

  This whole night has been impossible. Dan, the creature, my writing in the book, even this memory that has returned from my childhood. I’m at the center of a storm that I can’t see or even understand. Why did the knife glow hot? The ranger didn’t seem surprised. He said I was clever. Was that me—did I do that somehow?

  My vision blurs, and I stumble. My head is woozy from the accident, and running isn’t helping. I can’t afford to pass out. I have to stay—

  I am in the mist, hungry, I am so hungry, the animals are useless, they can’t fill me, now something tugs at the back of my being, like a string pulling on my brain, and I follow it, I chase the string thought down, and it deepens, and now I am still in the forest but my mind is moving, down, down, into the string, into the darkness, into the void, the vortex, the night, and I’m falling, tumbling into the abyss, and they are here, the lives, the souls, the meat, and they cry and scream and plead, and a face appears in the suffering, his name is Daniel, that’s what the children called him, but he is dead now, of course, and they seemed sad that he died, the girl Rebekah and that boy Hudson, the boy is familiar, somehow, I have held him before and let him live, although why I do not know, but this time he must die, this night he must die. He must die. He is near. I can feel him.

  My face eats gravel, and I pull myself upright. Whatever it is, it’s coming for me. It’s hunting me. I was in its mind, but how, I don’t know.

  The world spins again. I’ve pushed myself too hard, and my head’s not coping. My ears feel wet. I touch them, and my hands come away red. The accident has done bad things to my brain. I really need a doctor.

  An engine sounds in the distance. Nobody would come up here in this mist unless they had a really good reason. I take a deep breath and turn around. There’s no way I’ll make it to the ranger’s truck in time, and it’s at least twenty minutes back to the hut. I’ve got to return in case they’re coming for Bek. Something flickers at the edge of my vision, but when I turn to look, it’s gone.

  I head back uphill now. This run is harder, and I’m breathing heavy. An engine sounds close behind me in the mist, getting louder. I run off the road and into the trees until the car goes past. Its black body cuts through the fog. They’ve kept their headlights off. They don’t want anyone to see them coming.

  I follow them up the mountain, staying far enough behind in the mist so as not to be seen.

  There’s no way I’ll make it in time. They’re going to find her.

  As the dark form of the hut emerges from the mist, a second engine sounds behind me, and I leave the road just before a second identical car speeds past.

  She’s going to die. I shouldn’t have left her.

  Ahead of me, car doors slam, and I slow down to work out a plan. I can’t just run in there. They’ll kill us both on the spot. I have to be smart about this.

  Figures move in the mist. They’re being cautious, though I don’t know why. We’re just a couple of harmless kids, no threat to a team like this. I count eight of them moving around, marking positions, making an entry plan. A few move to the window on the right of the hut. They haven’t seen me, and I try to stay hidden. I have no plan yet.

  The back of my head goes cold. Slowly, I turn. The dark is here. The creature.

  Up close, it’s constantly in motion, tendrils curling and uncurling, spiralling from nothing and retreating just as fast. The air around it distorts, like its bending the world itself. It reaches for me, and I run. I don’t care that the others will see me. If they shoot me, it will be a kinder death than at the will of this creature.

  I sprint for the hut, and the darkness is close behind. The men at the door turn at the noise and abandon their plan. They aren’t surprised by the creature’s appearance. Instead, they stand back to let it have me. I burst into the hut, and Bek sits up, bleary eyed.

  “Can you run?” I shout.

  She shakes her head. Her eyes go wide as the creature crosses the threshold. “Hud, I can’t move. You need to go. Let it take me. There’s no way I can outrun it.” She cries, and her body shudders.

  The creature blocks the doorway so we can’t escape, but it targets something else first. The ranger, still lying unconscious on the floor. If he’s been out for this long, he’ll probably never recover, which is good, because the creature lifts hi
s body, and he’s drained of life. His skin darkens and shrinks around his bones.

  At the last moment, he wakes and screams, until his mouth peels back against his gums, and he goes still.

  The creature drops him and comes for us.

  We have no way out. I try to cover Bek, but it wants her first. Like any predator, it’s targeting the weakest in the pack. First the ranger, then Bek.

  The thing lifts her in the air with two smoky tendrils, and she arches her back in agony. I can’t save her. I yell, and my voice travels out into the room, into the walls, and my mind does too, and it travels inside the fibers, inside the wood and the nails and the rusted roof, and I want to rip the world apart because she won’t be in it, and it works.

  The walls split and crack and explode out into the night, and the roof tears into shards of tin that shoot out from the hut as bullets. The building blows apart from the inside, and spears of oak and metal fly off into the trees.

  My head is in a vice, and pain shoots through my eyes. The creature lets Bek go, and she hits the floor, unconscious. Her face is grey, but she’s alive. We’re standing in the forest now, and the hut lies in a million splinters around us. Our would-be attackers are on the edge of death, covered in debris from the explosion, so the creature targets them instead. They’re worse off than Bek, and it can’t resist preying on the weakest. If we don’t move, though, it’ll come back for Bek when it’s done with them.

  I pick her up and head for the cars. I stumble over one of the men, who’s speared through with a hundred chunks of timber, splinters through his skin like a porcupine. One eye has a nail through it, and mess dribbles down his face. He tries to move but can’t. He’s pinned to the ground by the hut’s remains.

  The driver’s door of one of the cars is open, and the keys are in the ignition. I drop Bek in the back, jump in the driver’s seat, and floor it. The creature turns to us for a moment but can’t resist the allure of the dying. Why chase prey and risk losing them when there’s plenty of food right there?

  Bek’s still unconscious, but she might be okay if I can get her to a hospital. My phone’s still in my pocket, and halfway down the mountain I turn it on to check if I have reception. It rings, and I jump. It’s an unknown number.

  I quickly answer it. “Hello?”

  “You can’t take her to a hospital,” says the voice on the other end of the line. “They’ll find her there. They’ll find you both.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Someone who can help you.” He sounds young. Around my age. Somehow, that makes me trust him a little. “I’ll send you an address. Drive there, and I’ll keep you both alive. They won’t stop until you’re dead, especially after what you did to the outpost.”

  He knows I did that. I know, too, although I don’t understand why. Or how. Somehow, I reached into the fabric of the world and tore it apart.

  My phone buzzes. He’s sent me a text. “Did you get the location?”

  “Yes. How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You don’t, exactly. But if you go to a hospital, she’ll die. If you go home, everyone you love will die. Your family need to think you’re dead. The world needs to think you’re dead if you have any hope of surviving this.”

  My dad. He’s lost Mum already, and now he’ll lose me. But if he knows I’m okay, they might kill him. I can’t be responsible for that. Nothing that happened tonight has made any sense at all, but I’m part of something. I can sense it. I’ve seen enough to know the stakes.

  I drive with the headlights off. The road out of the mountains is winding, but the stars light up enough of the track to see. The fog is still thick, so I can’t drive too quickly, although I’m still going faster than is safe. Bek lies unconscious in the back, and she hasn’t moved since the hut. It’s almost an hour before I reach the edge of the national park, but I haven’t seen any cars coming the other way. We’re probably safe for now. Switching the headlights on, I floor the pedal and screech onto the highway.

  The address the voice gave is a tiny, empty street on the very edge of Ettney, a small town not too far from the mountains. It’s a new estate, so half-built houses and empty blocks of land scatter the hills. The whole place is quiet.

  He stands next to an old, rusted truck in front of an empty lot, and as I approach he waves me over. I pull up next to him, and get out of the car. I was right—he is my age, perhaps a bit younger. Bek’s still breathing, but her skin is grey and clammy, like she’s dead, or dying.

  He holds out his hand. “Hudson?”

  “Hud.” I ignore his hand. I don’t trust him yet. He doesn’t tell me his name, but somehow he knows mine.

  “Rebekah,” I plead. “She’s sick or something.”

  He looks at her in the back, and frowns. “I’ve never seen this before. The Shadow had her?”

  I nod. “The hut blew apart before that thing … finished her.”

  “That’s something, then. Nice work on that, by the way.” He checks her breathing. “She seems stable, but I’m no expert. We have people who can help. People who might be able to save her.”

  I draw the ranger’s knife out of its sheath and hold it out at him. “If you’re lying, you’re dead.” I stare him dead in the eyes to make my point. The knife glows red-hot, and I drop it.

  He smiles. “If I were lying, you’d be dead already. Can we get moving?”

  “How did you do that?” I ask.

  “Same way you can. We really need to leave. I’ll explain on the way.”

  I nod. He has answers, and he’s my only shot.

  “We need to ditch this car,” he says, and helps me carry Bek to his truck. It only has two seats, so we have to put her in the metal bed at the back. “Don’t worry, I’ll drive carefully.”

  The sky starts to lighten as we turn onto the Western Highway. Wherever we’re going, I hope we’ll be safe. I hope Bek will be safe.

  “Should we call the cops?” I ask, but I already know the answer. It’s the reason I haven’t called them yet myself.

  He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t matter. The evidence will be gone by now, the whole thing covered up. You’ll just be two friends who went missing in the mountains.”

  “Three. Three friends.” I say.

  I haven’t just lost my friend tonight, I’ve lost my life. My safe little world is gone, and I’m heading into the unknown. Ahead, sun breaks over the horizon, and morning illuminates the road before us.

  We drive into the light.

  Hud will return in The City Unseen,

  Book Two of the Unseen Series (out 2018)

  The story continues in The Fire Unseen.

  Keep reading for a free preview of the first two chapters!

  The accident was the first time I saw someone die.

  The blast knocked me from my feet, and flames licked at my arms. My skull cracked as it hit the glass. Searing heat. Blood clouding my eyes. A child screaming.

  A young boy lay next to me with his face half-burned. He reached for me, pleading, and then he was gone.

  My vision blurred, and I blacked out.

  The world was gone. Everyone I knew, everyone I loved. I stood on a desert plain under a dark sky. The stars were red, and aside from them, there was no light. The sand stretched as far as I could see. It was dead flat; I could run for weeks and never reach the horizon. This was not my world.

  The wind picked up, and it smelled of death. I had been here forever. I would be here forever.

  Nearby, a figure perched on four limbs. It was human, or it used to be. Wrinkled grey skin rippled as it moved. It had no interest in me.

  A face emerged in the sky above, a colossal, obsidian face that blacked out the stars. Its eyes were dark, lightless, hungry. I was drawn to them; they called for me like magnets. The desert shifted under my feet, rolling like an earthquake, and a field grew around me, but not one made of grass. I stooped to get a closer look. The field was black, and slimy. It moved against the wind, of its own accord. It was ali
ve. I touched it, and my hand came away red with blood.

  The figure nearby noticed my presence and crawled towards me with backward joints. The face in the sky opened its mouth, ready to swallow the world.

  I was conscious again. Voices swam through the blood in my ears. The boy lay next to me, and he wasn’t moving. I raised my arm to try and feel out my surroundings.

  “The Unseen are getting stronger,” said a voice.

  “Here, of all places,” another replied.

  How long was I knocked out? Sirens screamed in the distance. A fire, maybe? The nearest station was almost twenty minutes away. I must have been lying here for at least that long.

  “Did you see the reverb on the girl?”

  “I did. Weird resonance. Can’t see her now though, and those sirens are getting closer.”

  My mind was on fire.

  The world went blank.

  Red and blue lights, subdued only by the blood still clouding my eyes.

  “Got another one. No way—she’s alive! Help me move this!”

  “Looks like she was sheltered by the barricade. Miracles do happen.”

  Faces, asking my name. A muffled engine through ambulance walls. Needles in my arm. Still, somewhere, a child screaming.

  Nothing. Nothing for a long, long time.

  “You’re lucky.”

  My brain swam to the surface. Disinfectant stank through the fog of concussion.

  “If you hadn’t been shielded by that barricade … well, let’s just say you wouldn’t be in recovery.” A blinding light. I recoiled, slapping the torch away. “Sorry. Should have warned you. I’m still pretty new at this.”

  My eyes adjusted to the light. He was in his early twenties; his brown-eyed baby face was out of place atop a doctor’s coat.