Evil Beneath Us

by Laybourne, Alex

  Evil Beneath Us

  By Alex Laybourne

  Published by Alex Laybourne

  Evil Beneath Us by Alex Laybourne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at www.alexlaybourne.com

  All Rights Reserved

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  DEDICATION

  This is for my wife Patty, and our wonderful children; James, Logan, Ashleigh, Damon, and Riley

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  Jeremy Clark ran as fast as he could. The uneven ground trying desperately to trip him, to bring him down to his knees. To see him felled, the way his best friend had been felled. Sweat burned in his eyes and his chest was on fire, but Jeremy knew that to stop meant death. A stitch formed in his side, digging into his ribs like a blade.

  There is a point in every chase, in every sprint, where the person doing the running knows they must stop. Jeremy felt that moment. While his fear drove him on, forcing his legs to turn even after they had stopped listening to his conscious commands, he was powerless to resist coming to a halt. His lungs screamed for fresh oxygen. His legs were dead weights; so heavy that if gravity lessened, Jeremy was sure he would remain weighted down to the earth’s surface. He could feel his blood coursing through his veins. His thundering heartbeat seemed to pulse from his every limb, as if it were his body that was pulsing, not just the single organ within it.

  Jeremy leaned forwards, placing his hands on his knees. He began to shake as he took deep gulps of air, hoping to satisfy his rebelling body. He needed to vomit. His head swam.

  He looked around, but all he saw was an endless sea of black. The night was in control, and the creatures that lurked under its cover thrived on it. They reveled in his terror. Jeremy was sure he could hear them laughing at him as they licked their lips and moved in for the second kill of the evening.

  The moon broke from behind the clouds. It too looked down on Jeremy. The gaze etched into its surface seemed to find him, bathing him with its mocking smirk. Full and round, it lit the scene enough for Jeremy to realize he had run the wrong way. He had fled deeper into the dunes, rather than back towards the town; towards home, and help.

  Something moved in the sand behind him. A rustling in the dune bushes that grew with such wild abandon in late spring. Jeremy froze, even the sweat that covered his body had turned to ice. They had him. It was now only a question of when they would take him.

  The scene darkened as the clouds once again took control of the sky. Jeremy moved; just a small step, testing the water. Something grabbed at him. Long fingers snatched at his clothes. He felt the pull as they brushed the fabric of his shirt. Running again, Jeremy heard them behind him. No need to be sneaky anymore. They were no longer following, but hunting. He was their prey, and when they were done playing, they would claim their prize the same way they had claimed his best friend Simon. Even as he ran, Jeremy could still hear Simon’s screams echoing through the sandy expanse. It was as if he was running so fast, he was catching up with the cries.

  A snarl and the sound of gnashing teeth rang out like a dropped book in a library study room. Jeremy jumped, his legs propelling him away from the earth, only to crumble when asked to bear the full weight of his fleeing body. With cartwheeling arms, trying so hard to stay upright, Jeremy crashed into the ground. The ground was harder than he realized, the sand not absorbing his fall, but rather providing a rough surface that would shred the flesh from his body as his momentum came to a sudden halt. Jeremy turned, trying hard to get back to his feet, but his right ankle exploded in a burst of agony so vivid Jeremy could see pain.

  Colours filled Jeremy’s vision, and what little movement he had made towards regaining his feet was stripped away as he fell once more. The back of his head bounced off the hard floor and began to throb. Jeremy smelled blood; his blood. They also smelled it, for a chilling cry broke the silence of the night.

  “Leave me alone … have mercy,” Jeremy cried out as he pushed himself along the floor in an inverted crawl. “Spare me.”

  “Foolish human,” an animalistic voice replied. It was a wet growling sound, issued by a throat that was either not created for human speech, or at the very least one so unaccustomed to the act that it took great effort to force the few simple words into existence.

  The creature in the darkness laughed. The ground began to shake. Jeremy could imagine the creature, its head thrown backwards, entertained by the pathetic display it had witnessed. Fear spread like wild fire, and Jeremy lost the battle to stay alert. He found himself slipping, his aching head growing woozy. His stomach flipped, and in a head-warming rush of blood, he dove into the black well of unconsciousness.

  The last memory to flash in Jeremy’s mind was that of his best friend Simon as he was slowly pulled beneath the sands. The blood, the look on his face as some creature crawled into existence and pulled him down out of it. That had been bad, but the scream; it was the scream that would forever haunt Jeremy’s dreams. The final sound his friend made before he disappeared had not been a plea for help or even a frantic apology for some unknown, repent-worthy deed, but rather an exclamation of total suffering.

  ***

  Jeremy came to with a jolt, and the first thing he felt was the cold. The sun was threatening to rise, the horizon alight with its impending presence. A mild ground frost had settled in the period between Jeremy’s loss of consciousness and his wakeful return. A layer of frozen dew covered Jeremy’s body, and had soaked through the material of his clothes and into his skin. However, Jeremy didn’t care because once his brain had completed the standard start-up processes, a strong sense of euphoria gripped him.

  “I’m alive!” he exclaimed with unrestrained joy. He began to laugh. It soon faded, however, when the remaining memories came back to him. The truth about what had happened that night returned in a flood. “Simon,” Jeremy whispered his friend’s name, as if speaking too loud would somehow summon his spirit, or worse, summon them.

  Thinking back, Jeremy tried to convince himself that it was all a dream. It had to be. There was no way creatures like that could exist. Yet, his frantic passage through the sand was clear to see, as too was the spot where he had fallen. He also saw the indentations, left by inhuman feet, made into the compacted sand. Small and round in the back like a hooved foot, they had seven long toes that seem
ed to widen in at the end like a light bulb. Looking at the deep nature of the impressions, Jeremy knew that this was the place where the creature had stood and laughed at him, mocking his final moments. They were no more than a meter from where his body had been lying, from where he had woken up. Yet they had not touched him. Foolish human. The voice sounded in Jeremy´s ear and made him shiver.

  Why didn’t they take me too? Jeremy asked himself, fighting a twang of resentment for the beast. What was wrong with me? It was not a question Jeremy intended to dwell on or ever come back to again, but in that instance, he felt hurt, ignored.

  Jeremy turned a full circle expecting and hoping to see something standing close by watching him. It made sense that they would want to take him alive. It was his fear that drove them, and without that, his meat would taste bland. There was nothing; no hidden danger lurking in the pre-dawn light. But Jeremy knew it was out there. He had seen it. As his head cleared and the true relief at surviving grew, he knew that he never wanted to deal with such creatures again.

  On trembling legs that could barely hold him upright let alone offer any forward momentum, Jeremy forced himself to move. Jeremy knew the dunes on the edge of town well, or at least the ones where he and Simon had been the night before. Nonetheless, he followed the trail of his own flight, wondering what he would find on the way back to the bunker. The place where the nightmare began.

  ***

  He and Simon had convinced an old man to buy them a couple of six-packs of lager, and they had taken them into the dunes to drink. Their town was a small coastal one that bordered a deep expanse of natural sand dunes. Miles and miles of rolling walks and pathways, teeming with wildlife, and offering manner of adventures. It was to be expected that two boys spending their whole lives growing up on the edge of such a place would be naturally inclined to go looking for such adventures whenever they could; to discover all of the hidden gems.

  There were three places in particular that held a special appeal to them, one of them being the place they had headed to with their beer. They were too young to drink, or rather too young to buy alcohol. As Jeremy had convinced Simon, drinking it was fine. Anybody could drink it, just not acquire it. Both had drunk before, but there was something about the illicit nature of buying their own and sneaking away to drink it that Jeremy found overwhelming. Simon had been reticent to join in, but at sixteen, and almost a full year younger than Jeremy who had turned seventeen the month before, he had been easy to convince. Simon always buckled and acquiesced to Jeremy’s wishes and plans.

  Years before, when out exploring the dunes on a summer afternoon, they had stumbled across an old war bunker. One that had been almost entirely buried in the sand, forgotten by the years. There wasn’t even any graffiti covering the outside of the structure, which in their town was a miracle. The boys had soon claimed the bunker as their own. It became their fort, their place of solitude, a spot that only they had and where they could retreat when times required it. They had not even discussed heading there to drink. They didn’t need to. It was their second home and the central point where most of their plans, good and bad, were formed.

  Their plan had been to spend the afternoon having some beers and a laugh at the bunker, returning home for dinner and a shower. It was not unusual for the boys to be out the whole day, especially once the weather cleared up and the outside world beckoned. However, once they were hidden away inside the bunker, their good judgment receded. Before long, they had emptied the first six pack into their eager throats, only to find the thirst was not quenched, but rather fuelled by the alcohol.

  The bunker was in a secluded section of the dunes and not easy to come across unless you were aware of its presence and went looking for it. The boys had found it by accident, and it took them nearly two full days before they had dug out enough sand to reveal an entrance. Even then, they had to enter on their hands and knees, squeezing through the small space they had excavated.

  The day progressed swiftly, and neither boy saw the sun’s disappearance occur, for the bunker was dark, save for their own lighting sources and two small windows that gave a poor indication to anything. Drinking quicker than they had planned, the boys opened their fourth can each, the buzz growing between gulps. It had been around that point in the day, when things began to get out of control.

  ***

  The memories continued to form in Jeremy’s mind, breaking free from the frozen haze that lay over his brain, the same way it dominated the dunes. Making his way to the bunker, the evidence of his flight the previous evening long since eradicated once he left the well-used pathways and hit the softer sand. Jeremy tried hard to convince himself it was all a dream, a nightmare brought on by the alcohol.

  His head throbbed. It was the beer. Jeremy tried hard to convince himself of this, and to ignore the dried blood on his shirt, and also the mass of tangled, bloodied hair on the back of his head. His ankle ached and made progress slow, but the fact that it could bare his weight was an encouraging sign.

  Jeremy saw the bunker, his eyes automatically drawn to the spot through years of conditioning. It looked peaceful, isolated. It helped to fuel his growing delusion that nothing had happened. It was all a dream, a bad, beer-fuelled nightmare. Even as he approached the entrance, he secretly held firm to the belief that he would find Simon curled up, or rather passed out, surrounded by empty beer cans, with nothing worse than a bad head.

  He knew it was a lie, but he believed it nonetheless.

  The sun, although not fully risen, was high enough to offer sufficient light to see by, but Jeremy knew that inside it would be black. They had positioned several battery operated lamps around the shelter, camping supplies borrowed from Jeremy’s father’s shed. The family had not been camping in almost ten years, and so the items would not be missed. However, had they not been turned off, the batteries would be dead by now. This meant Jeremy would need to cross the bunker and retrieve one of the torches that they kept on hand. He dug around in his pocket, looking for his mobile. The light on it was more than adequate for the task at hand.

  Pausing for a second, Jeremy looked at the display. It was approaching seven in the morning. That fact was soon pushed to one side. Jeremy saw that he had sixteen missed calls and fourteen unanswered text messages. They were all from the same two numbers. One flashed up under the simple, yet effective label of “MUM”. The other had not been afforded a place in his contact list, but it was one he knew well. It was Simon’s home phone number.

  Their parents were looking for them. Probably had been all night. Do they know about the bunker? Jeremy wondered.

  Jeremy was about to hit redial on his mother´s most recent unanswered call when a hand clamped down on his shoulder, and a bellow filled his ear.

  “Just what in the name of holy hell do you two boys think you are playing at?” an instantly recognizable voice sounded.

  Jeremy’s heart, which had almost burst from his chest in fright, beat even faster when he turned to find his father’s irate face a matter of inches from his. Jeremy had experienced his father’s wrath before. He was not the poster child for good behaviour, but there was something in his eyes in that moment that terrified Jeremy. Behind his father, Jeremy saw both his and Simon’s mother standing with identical expressions on their face; the perfect mix of fear and relief.

  Jeremy looked from them to his father, feeling the pressure of their gaze, while his mind continued to replay images of the night before. They flashed in a strobe effect over his vision. Tears stung Jeremy’s eyes before he knew they were there. When he felt the warm trail as they rolled down his face, Jeremy knew it was too late to stop the emotion. The sobs came, and his body took on a mind of its own. He shook and gasped for air when trying to speak. His knees, which had been locked, began to tremble. Jeremy was certain he would have fallen had his father not reached out and pulled his son into a tight embrace.

  “It’s ok. I’m just glad that you are ok.” William Clark hugged his son tight, his rage dissi
pating at the sight of his son’s remorse. He had never seen Jeremy repentant, and certainly not so emotionally distraught.

  “Dad, I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have done it,” Jeremy stammered, his words bordering on the nonsensical.

  “It’s ok, Jeremy. Let’s just get you two boys home.” William’s voice trailed off, as he squeezed his son one last time. While his rage had gone, the feeling that replaced it gave him a much more uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Where is Simon?” Julia, Simon’s mother asked, her voice low and worried. Both Jeremy and William turned to face her, and while neither of the Clark men could see the other’s face, their combination was an ominous portent, for Julia’s face fell. Her shoulders dropped and her eyes welled with tears.

  Jeremy’s mouth went dry. He had no idea what he was going to say. Even when the words began to form on his lips, his brain still did not know how they would sound.

  “They took him.” Three small words, yet they brought four worlds crashing to a halt within a single beat of Jeremy’s still rushing heart.

  “What do you mean?” William asked, clutching his son by the shoulders, forcing Jeremy to look at him. “It’s ok, son, just tell me what you mean. Who took Simon?” There was a look of strong concern set on William’s face.

  Jeremy looked over his father’s shoulder, not able to take the accusing gaze. While he hid it well, Jeremy could always see the undertone of disappointment in his father’s eyes, even more so now given the magnitude of his mistake. This new view was no better, for he saw Simon’s mother break as his words sank into her brain. It happened in slow motion. Her hands raised to her gaping mouth, her knees buckled and she sank down into the sand. Tears flowed, streaking the previous days make up down her cheeks, only adding to the raging sorrow of the morning.

  “Well … we … we bought some beer.” Jeremy decided that to start at the beginning would be the best option. He saw the rage flash across his father’s eyes once more, but he had to tell his story. He had to tell them everything. “We came up here to drink them, but ... but ... something happened. They came for us. They took Simon, and I ran. I got away, but Simon … he was already gone. There was nothing I could do.” Jeremy expected himself to fall victim to grief. To collapse as Simon’s mother had done. His best friend was gone, and his secret was out. He had messed up, again, and this time someone had gotten hurt. Only, he didn’t. He didn’t crumble, didn’t cry. Instead, he felt a strange, surging sense of relief as if he had bared one of his deepest, darkest secrets to the world, and had come out unscathed.