Steve’s jaw dropped.
Right in front of his nose, the crack in the wall seemed to be widening, opening like a hungry mouth. He blinked, trying to slur out a question, dimly aware that his lips couldn’t form the words; that his tongue no longer felt like his own.
There was something there, in the crack. Moving through the water toward him, growing larger by the second, getting closer.
No, Steve’s mind tried to say, that’s not possible. It was some visual trick, like an Escher painting, or one of those irritating Magic Eye posters. Like a disconnect between his eyes and his mind.
He tried to stumble backward, but his feet felt like they had been planted in concrete.
And still the thing in the black river loomed.
Closer.
Closer.
And Steve’s mind finally understood.
It wasn’t coming through the water toward him. It was the water, taking on an impossibly solid form. Becoming something right in front of his eyes; right inside his mind. A hulking mass that seemed to absorb the light from his headlamp, swallowing it up.
Becoming.
The river became a twisted abomination, a shifting, shimmering monstrosity that bleached Steve’s thoughts, dipping them in acid. Making them burn.
It reached out for him with liquid arms.
With fingers that ended in talons as long as kitchen knives and—
*
Crash!
Dusty staggered backward in surprise at the sound of glass breaking. He had been trying to tear his eyes away from the river, trying to persuade himself that it didn’t actually want him to move closer; to lean down and run his fingers through it, when the noise broke the strange stupefaction that had gripped his mind. When he looked toward the spot where his brother had been standing, his eyes found only darkness.
The broken glass had to have belonged to Steve’s headlamp. He must have fallen.
“Steve? Bro?”
No response.
Panicked, Dusty rushed along the bank of the river, sweeping the light mounted on his helmet left and right, seeing only empty space.
“Steve? Shit, bro, this ain’t fun—”
The word died in Dusty’s mouth. He had reached the wall of the cavern; the source of the strange black river.
And he had found Steve.
Bobbing along like flotsam.
Face down.
His head separated from his torso, pulled away by the dark current, making its own profane journey. For a moment, Dusty stared dumbly at the obscenity that only seconds earlier had been his big brother. No matter how hard he blinked, he couldn’t get his eyes to erase the image, couldn’t get his mind to put it together in a way that made sense.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
It was a hallucination of some sort. Had to be.
Opened them.
Steve’s head was farther from his body now, twisting slowly in the current. Dusty’s light fell briefly on his brother’s face, and his nerves howled. Steve had died with pure, unadulterated terror in his eyes.
Not a hallucination.
There’s something else in this cavern with us.
With me.
The sudden realisation that he was alone—and not alone—jolted something loose in Dusty’s head, breaking him from the stunned paralysis that the sight of his dead brother had plunged him into. He turned away from the strange, sickening river; from the hideous sight of Steve’s torn body, and started to run, stumbling over the uneven ground, the light from his headlamp swinging crazily, illuminating rocks that seemed determined to make him fall.
When inevitably he did fall, the darkness and the panic conspired to prevent him from realising he had lost his balance until it was too late: he crashed face-first into the unforgiving ground without so much as lifting an arm to protect himself.
The pain, as his nose cracked across his face—spilling a gout of warm, thick blood into his mouth—was terrible, but far worse was the breaking of that other thing; more vital, in this place, than any bone.
Dusty’s headlamp gave up with a single, apologetic crack, and the darkness around him became absolute. Delirious with fear, he scrambled for the flashlight he was certain was attached to his belt.
Couldn’t find it.
He had a spare headlamp somewhere in his backpack. Flashlights. Glow sticks. Matches.
No time.
His thoughts began to shriek.
Dusty lurched to his feet, spinning wildly.
And saw pale green salvation.
In the distance, the fast-dimming light of the glow stick Steve had dropped by the entrance was an oasis in a sea of black insanity. He focused only on the faint light, ignoring the unfamiliar ground that wanted to trip his feet, ignoring the inescapable certainty that something terrible was following him, closing in on him in the dark.
Just get to the glow stick. Get to the rope and climb.
RUN—
Ahead of him, perhaps thirty yards away, the green light suddenly winked out, plunging the cavern into an endless, empty darkness.
Dusty froze.
No. Not empty.
Heart hammering, the noise like thunder in his head.
Lost and alone in the dark.
Unsure which way to turn.
Not alone.
It’s in here with me.
Where?
A whimper rippled through the silence in the cavern; a noise that chilled Dusty’s blood all the more for the sudden realisation that it had spilled from his own lips.
He sucked in a breath, trying to find some semblance of calm, trying to fend off the wave of terror which threatened to wash away his sanity. Madness, he realised, was a lurking shadow, separated from the human mind by a paper-thin membrane. All that was required to let insanity tear through was darkness and threat. Dusty’s mind began to collapse, breaking apart as though made of matchsticks.
And he heard it laugh.
The horror in the shadows.
Click.
Click.
The sound of its footsteps. Moving toward him slowly. Casually.
No, not casually, Dusty’s mind shrieked. Playfully.
The thing in the cavern had no need to rush; it wanted to enjoy the moment. It relished drawing out the hunt.
Dusty let out a strangled yelp, and began to run blindly. No thought for direction anymore; his internal compass was broken, smashed beyond repair. No idea that he might find some means of escape. No hope, even, that he would survive. All that was left now was terror, and running. His body switched to autopilot, undeterred by the fact that he had nowhere to run to. The sudden sprint was a genetic response, pre-programmed and futile as the twitching of a corpse.
He ran.
And somewhere behind him in the eternal darkness, it followed.
Unhurried.
The sound of its movement like the ticking of some dreadful timer, counting down the seconds that Dusty had left.
Claws on rock, echoing in the void.
Click.
Click.
Click.
1
Dan Bellamy awoke screaming.
The terrible noise tore itself from his throat like a violent cough, ripping his back upright and leaving him gasping for air that seemed almost reluctant to enter his lungs. It felt like his mind had short-circuited; his thoughts caught in the middle of some system reboot. It took him a moment to realise where he was.
Darkness.
Reality.
Emerging from the recurrent nightmare was like climbing out of a pit of razor wire; returning to the real world was a journey that left terrible scars, no matter how many times he made it. For a moment, he simply let himself exist, hoping that the horror of sleep would fade quickly.
His skin was freezing as the air in the bedroom washed over it, despite the fact that it was a warm late summer night. Freezing, that is, aside from a small area of his chest, just above his heart: the part of his body where his fiancé’s hand rested li
ghtly. It was a gesture of reassurance that was as familiar and futile as Dan’s own nightly prayers that for once—just once—he might enjoy a dreamless sleep.
He searched out Elaine’s hand in the darkness, lifting it away from his sweat-slick chest, and squeezed.
“Are you okay?”
Elaine’s voice was weak, sagging under the weight of her concern. Thanks to the blackout curtains they had installed to block the streetlight right outside the bedroom window, he couldn’t see her face, but he knew that her eyes would be wide with compassion; with her growing anxiety.
He gasped out another ragged breath and grunted acknowledgment as he collapsed back onto the bed, flinching as his skin found cotton. His pillow felt like it had spent several minutes in a freezer: it was soaked through yet again. Wincing, he flipped it over and found the underside relatively dry.
“You were talking about it again, babe,” Elaine whispered hesitantly. “The black river.”
Dan nodded into the darkness, aware that she would be unable to see the gesture, hoping that she wouldn’t press him for a response. He had dreamed of the black river every night for the past six months, ever since a mugger had driven the blade of a stubby knife into his skull. He had spent weeks comatose following the attack and, when he awoke, the nightmares began in earnest.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Dan sighed softly. What, exactly, could he say? That the river felt every bit as real as the wet pillow beneath his head? That he felt a growing certainty that he would one day wake to discover that he had left his sanity behind? That he feared that the river was reality, and Elaine was the dream?
Before he could gather a response, he heard a soft click.
Warm light spilled from the small lamp on Elaine’s side of the bed.
He squinted; waiting for his eyes to adjust, and shook his head. When he dared to look, he saw Elaine’s beautiful face marked by something that ran a lot deeper than mere concern. She looked scared. He wondered how long she had been listening to him sleep; what he might have unconsciously mumbled as the terror of the nightmare overwhelmed him.
“Talking won’t help,” he said at last.
“It might.”
He shook his head again, more firmly this time.
“I just want to forget it, El. It will get better with time, I know it will—”
“Seems like it’s getting worse with time, Dan, not better,” Elaine interrupted, her tone hardening.
Dan snapped his mouth shut. Elaine didn’t often deal in bullshit. She had a way of cutting straight to the heart of a problem, and judging by her tone, his repeated claims that things would ‘settle down’ with time weren’t going to wash anymore. He felt a surge of anxiety, deep in his chest. Ever since waking in the hospital, he had wanted to run from the mental instability he felt; to hide from the world. Hell, he hadn’t even left the apartment in the six months since the attack.
Elaine had supported him in retreating from the world because he had told her that he was getting better slowly, but the constant nightmares were making him a liar, throwing an unforgiving spotlight on his words. It was starting to feel like he might never leave the safety of their home ever again. If Elaine’s stern expression was anything to go by, she had decided that enough was enough: the time had come for her fiancé to confront his problems head-on.
That idea petrified him.
Tears stung his eyes.
“The doctors said it would take time for my medication to—” he began to say weakly, but Elaine cut him short with a look.
“Two months, babe,” she said, clearly making an effort to blunt the cutting edge of her words. “They said it could take two months for the medication to start working fully. It’s been six.”
He nodded miserably, and felt a treacherous tear spill across his cheek.
“I’m worried about you.” She rubbed the tear away gently with her thumb. “I love you.”
Dan sniffed. The sudden kindness in her tone made him feel like sobbing uncontrollably.
Elaine grabbed his shoulders, pulling him into a fierce hug.
“It’s okay, babe,” she whispered. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, no matter what. We’ll get through this together, okay? I promise. I know you can do it.”
Dan returned her embrace, burying his face in her hair, and nodded.
Elaine pulled back, looking directly into his eyes.
“Will you talk to someone? Please? If not me, then…”
Elaine trailed off. She didn’t need to say it aloud.
Therapy.
It wasn’t the first time Elaine had floated the idea, but her tone was firmer now. More insistent.
Dan had received some counselling immediately following the attack; six free sessions provided by the National Health Service, with an overworked therapist who had reluctantly agreed to home visits. Those sessions had been a blur, and had been focused on general methods for coping with post-traumatic stress. Dan had nodded and mumbled his way through them, and hadn’t ever mentioned that his mind felt like it was slowly coming apart. He hadn’t mentioned the black river. The last thing he had wanted to do—then or now—was to face it.
He searched for a response, but found none. The agoraphobia which had claimed him since the attack had left Elaine as his only link to the world outside, and though he knew she wouldn’t ever want to abandon him, the stress his condition was putting her through was taking its toll. She looked exhausted most of the time, she was losing weight. Dan thought she was probably suffering from depression herself, though she did her best never to let it show.
No matter how much she loved him, how much she wanted to help, hiding from the problem would cost Dan his relationship with her eventually, and then he would be truly alone. Just me and these four walls, and the black river. The prospect of it scared him more than he could put into words.
I have to, he thought. For her.
He nodded again, and his heart ached when he saw hope flickering in Elaine’s eyes.
“I will,” he said quietly, his tone faltering, his voice barely-there. “I’ll start looking for someone.”
“I already did,” Elaine said, smiling sweetly. “I’ve narrowed it down to a couple. They’re local, and highly recommended. We could call one tomorrow, make an appoint—”
Tomorrow?
Elaine’s words dissolved, buried beneath the thunderous hammering of his heart. After six stagnant months, things were suddenly moving way too fast. Anxiety stabbed into him once more, deeper this time, and he felt it: the sensation that he dreaded more than anything else. Like a crack in his mind was slowly widening, tectonic plates in his soul shifting; pulling apart. Letting something terrible come through.
Elaine’s face began to blur in front of his eyes, slowly obliterated by the growing darkness ringing Dan’s vision.
Familiar sensation.
Crawling up my neck.
Spreading like poisonous gas in the basement of my mind.
Unsafe. Get away.
Must get away.
Adrift on the terrible black river, surging and boiling; carrying me toward something awful. Something unstoppable, and—
“Dan? Dan!”
His vision swam back into focus.
Elaine’s hands were on his cheeks, her wide eyes just inches from his own. She looked terrified.
Dan exhaled violently, releasing a breath he had been unaware of holding, and a violent shudder ripped through him. He buried his face in Elaine’s hair once more, his body becoming limp and feeble.
Pathetic.
He choked out a sob.
“Shhh,” Elaine whispered, stroking his matted hair. “Shhh, it’s okay. We won’t do it tomorrow; we’ll...build up to it, okay? One step at a time. We can just check out local therapists online for now, do some more research. We’ll make an appointment when you’re ready. Okay?”
Dan just held her tightly, waiting for the panic attack to subside, trying to regulate his breathing
as he attempted to clear his mind. He and Elaine stayed there for what might have been minutes or hours, until she finally peeled herself away and told him that she would fetch him a drink of water and one of his pills.
He nodded slowly as she left the bedroom, staring vacantly at the wall. After the peak, there was always the trough: the numbing of the emotions that had run wild, the yawning depression as his mind returned to an even keel on a flat ocean of despair.
He would try. He would get therapy, for Elaine’s sake. But some part of him suspected that talking would solve nothing. His mind was broken, both physically and emotionally. Therapy and medication would be no more than flimsy Band-Aids: they could never fully staunch the bleeding in his soul. They could not heal the crack in his mind, nor prevent the advance of whatever waited hungrily on the other side.
He felt his eyes welling up again, and shook dark thoughts of the future away, glancing at the doorway.
He was still alone.
Their home was small. The kitchen stood at the opposite end of the apartment to the bedroom, but it should still only take a matter of seconds for Elaine to get a glass of water and return.
Dan’s brow furrowed.
It felt like she had been gone for minutes, not seconds.
“El?”
Dan lifted his voice just a little; there was no need to yell. In the silence of the small hours, sound travelled easily through the building’s too-thin walls.
Elaine didn’t respond.
Dan waited a beat.
Two.
“El? You okay?”
Louder this time. There was no way she couldn’t hear him. Yet still the apartment remained silent. Dan felt something tugging at his heart, some deep awareness rising.
Something’s wrong.
He slipped from the bed, and stumbled to the door, peering down the dark hallway which ran the length of the apartment. Everything looked normal: the coat rack near the front door, the low bookshelf lined with Elaine’s brightly-coloured romance novels, the small table atop which sat the landline telephone they never used. Everything exactly as it should be. Normal, and yet somehow suddenly threatening.
The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy) Page 55
