trigger at last.
And he saw it all through eyes that he was powerless to shut.
A liquid explosion.
Painting the wall.
Chunks of grey flesh impacting against stone with a barely audible thud as the echoing blast of the shotgun faded.
Small, precious bodies falling together; a twisted, unrecognisable mass of shredded flesh.
And the creature chuckled . A mirthless, rasping noise like metal grinding on metal. The soundtrack to a maniac’s fevered nightmares.
The abyss of insanity finally swallowed Barry whole.
He dropped the gun.
Fell to his knees in the blood.
And the entire world was teeth.
5
Darkness.
Pain.
He broke the surface.
Gulped down a lungful of air that scorched like napalm.
Screamed.
And the black river pulled him back under, thrashing him in its jaws like a predator. Shaking his senses apart; breaking and remaking him over and over.
Carrying him toward something terrible.
And below the boiling black surface, down in the stinking undercurrent where light barely existed, he realised with horror that he was not alone.
There are hands down there; oh dear Christ, arms in the darkness. Reaching for me.
Grasping.
Pulling me down and—
6
Dan awoke with a scream that emptied out of his throat like acid, and for a moment his vision swam dangerously, as if the noxious sleep was trying to take him back, like it was outraged that he had escaped its clutches, its
—hands in the darkness—
He shuddered at the blank space filling his mind. He was unable to recall anything beyond fear and shadows that seemed to cling to him, draped across him like a veil. Even his own name escaped him for several aching seconds.
When his vision cleared, he found that he was lying on his back, staring up at a ceiling of featureless metal, and all around him there was a roaring thunder. The entire world seemed to be lurching, rocking crazily, and for a moment Dan was back in the nightmare which had felt endless; back in the raging torrent. No longer sure whether he was awake or dreaming.
He sat upright, squeezing his eyes shut and gasping for air as the corrosive memories returned to him.
“Thank fuck for that,” a voice said.
Dan flinched. He wasn’t alone in the large, gloomy room. He didn’t recognise the man’s face, but he knew the voice perfectly well. He had heard it plenty.
“You’ve been screaming for the past ten minutes. Figured maybe that meant you were coming round. Or dying.”
Herb leaned casually against the wall to Dan’s right, his arms folded across his chest. He grinned broadly as Dan met his gaze.
“It’s Herb, from the container. You remember the container?”
Dan began to nod, and it felt like something in his skull was loose, rolling around queasily, driving a spear of pain into the back of his head. He pressed his palms to his temples, breathing deeply and evenly, and waited for it to pass.
As he had guessed in the pitch black container, Herb was young—he would have said the guy was early-twenties, no more—and a good few inches taller than Dan himself. He was stocky, with a severe haircut that made him look like he’d just joined the military. Overall, it was a look that Dan thought he should have found intrinsically threatening, but Herb’s easy grin belied his forbidding appearance.
“Yeah, I remember. How long have I been unconscious?”
“About eight hours, give or take. It’ll be midday soon. Thought you were never gonna speak again,” Herb said.
Dan swallowed. His throat felt dry and raw.
“I killed a man.”
It wasn’t an appropriate response—far from it—but it was what Dan’s mind threw up. He had killed a man, right before the seizure had swept him away. And not just killed him; he had executed him on his knees.
The world tilted suddenly, lurching like a drunk, and his gut cramped. If he’d had anything left in his belly after a night spent witnessing horrors that would have turned even the strongest of stomachs, he was sure he
And he saw it all through eyes that he was powerless to shut.
A liquid explosion.
Painting the wall.
Chunks of grey flesh impacting against stone with a barely audible thud as the echoing blast of the shotgun faded.
Small, precious bodies falling together; a twisted, unrecognisable mass of shredded flesh.
And the creature chuckled . A mirthless, rasping noise like metal grinding on metal. The soundtrack to a maniac’s fevered nightmares.
The abyss of insanity finally swallowed Barry whole.
He dropped the gun.
Fell to his knees in the blood.
And the entire world was teeth.
5
Darkness.
Pain.
He broke the surface.
Gulped down a lungful of air that scorched like napalm.
Screamed.
And the black river pulled him back under, thrashing him in its jaws like a predator. Shaking his senses apart; breaking and remaking him over and over.
Carrying him toward something terrible.
And below the boiling black surface, down in the stinking undercurrent where light barely existed, he realised with horror that he was not alone.
There are hands down there; oh dear Christ, arms in the darkness. Reaching for me.
Grasping.
Pulling me down and—
6
Dan awoke with a scream that emptied out of his throat like acid, and for a moment his vision swam dangerously, as if the noxious sleep was trying to take him back, like it was outraged that he had escaped its clutches, its
—hands in the darkness—
He shuddered at the blank space filling his mind. He was unable to recall anything beyond fear and shadows that seemed to cling to him, draped across him like a veil. Even his own name escaped him for several aching seconds.
When his vision cleared, he found that he was lying on his back, staring up at a ceiling of featureless metal, and all around him there was a roaring thunder. The entire world seemed to be lurching, rocking crazily, and for a moment Dan was back in the nightmare which had felt endless; back in the raging torrent. No longer sure whether he was awake or dreaming.
He sat upright, squeezing his eyes shut and gasping for air as the corrosive memories returned to him.
“Thank fuck for that,” a voice said.
Dan flinched. He wasn’t alone in the large, gloomy room. He didn’t recognise the man’s face, but he knew the voice perfectly well. He had heard it plenty.
“You’ve been screaming for the past ten minutes. Figured maybe that meant you were coming round. Or dying.”
Herb leaned casually against the wall to Dan’s right, his arms folded across his chest. He grinned broadly as Dan met his gaze.
“It’s Herb, from the container. You remember the container?”
Dan began to nod, and it felt like something in his skull was loose, rolling around queasily, driving a spear of pain into the back of his head. He pressed his palms to his temples, breathing deeply and evenly, and waited for it to pass.
As he had guessed in the pitch black container, Herb was young—he would have said the guy was early-twenties, no more—and a good few inches taller than Dan himself. He was stocky, with a severe haircut that made him look like he’d just joined the military. Overall, it was a look that Dan thought he should have found intrinsically threatening, but Herb’s easy grin belied his forbidding appearance.
“Yeah, I remember. How long have I been unconscious?”
“About eight hours, give or take. It’ll be midday soon. Thought you were never gonna speak again,” Herb said.
Dan swallowed. His throat felt dry and raw.
“I killed a man.”
It wasn’t an appropriate response—far from it—but it was what Dan’s mind threw up. He had killed a man, right before the seizure had swept him away. And not just killed him; he had executed him on his knees.
The world tilted suddenly, lurching like a drunk, and his gut cramped. If he’d had anything left in his belly after a night spent witnessing horrors that would have turned even the strongest of stomachs, he was sure he
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