by David Wood
But to Aston’s credit, the monster didn’t appear to be coming either. If nothing else, he seemed to have been successful there. Or perhaps not. Maybe the beast was still free to roam the lake as it pleased, it just wasn’t coming for them right now. Maybe the legends would continue unabated.
She thought of all the footage they had got up until this crazy day, all secretly uploaded to her secure server. The snippets she had sent to her alternate investor, the interest she had been nurturing. Holloway was long gone, so there would be no bidding war, but she had a backer, and she had the footage. Everything that had happened today could be re-enacted or narrated somehow. It wasn’t the same as having footage of the great finale, but still… She glanced sidelong at Rinne. Maybe she could wrap the piece with those interviews with the locals she had considered before.
Through her shock and trembling, she realized her professional mind was protecting her, planning beyond this nightmare. But she would make it happen. This story would be told, and Sam Aston would be honored in its telling.
The sound of an outboard motor drifted across the lake. They turned to see a small fiberglass boat, a grizzled old man in the back guiding it toward them.
Old Mo pulled up alongside the wreckage. “Looks like you two could use a lift?”
“We’d be much obliged,” Rinne said flatly.
“Funny the things you see and hear when you live as close to the lake as I do,” Old Mo said as Slater and Rinne climbed aboard his small vessel. He scanned the water. “Come on, hurry up. I’ll get you back to town.”
Dawn purpled the eastern sky as they motored away. Slater pressed one hand to her aching head and let the tears roll freely over cheeks, gave her grief for Sam, and Dave and Carly, free rein. This story would most definitely be told. She intended to be on the first plane home.
Epilogue
Nikla Laine called out the window to his mother. “Is Dad back yet?”
She looked up from unloading groceries from the car. “How do I know, I’ve just got home? He’s not in there?”
Nikla shook his head. “He promised me we’d go fishing if I finished my work, and I have. Where is he?”
Charlotta Laine put down her shopping and planted her hands on her hips. She looked out toward the lake, eyes narrowed. What the hell was he up to this time? Fooling around with those crazy Americans, she had warned him it would bring nothing but trouble. He had been checking in every couple of days, constantly reminding her how much that fool Holloway was paying. But it was starting to feel like too long since his last visit home. She would be offended if she wasn’t so worried.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” she called up to her son.
“But he promised me today!”
“Then I’m sure he’ll be back today.”
She shook her head. Sixteen years old. She thought the toddler years had been hard. She gathered up groceries again and started ferrying them to the house.
Nikla waited until his mother had put away her shopping and left again to work her volunteer shift at the second-hand clothing charity shop in town. Be good, she had told him. Your father is sure to be home before long.
Sure, whatever. He crept to the door under the stairs and listened. The house was still and silent. His father always kept the cellar key with him, but Nikla was proud of his ingenuity. Weeks ago, coming home at lunchtime, he had found the old man passed out drunk in the armchair, his wallet and keys on the table with the empty bottle of vodka. Nikla had cautiously taken the cellar key and rushed back to town, had a copy made, and returned the original before his father had stirred.
Then Nikla had been patient, waiting for the right opportunity. He had no idea if or when his dad would be back, but day after day he had put off using the purloined key, too scared of being caught. But he could wait no longer. Something he couldn’t explain told him now was the time to try. Now or never.
He turned the key, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. A switch at the top of the stairs turned on all the lights below. His father’s private cellar, where no one was allowed, not even Nikla’s mother. She humored him, A man needs his foolish secrets, but Nikla has always wondered just what his old man did down there. If nothing else, maybe there was some good porn, or a computer without the parental controls engaged.
His jaw dropped as he reached the bottom of the steps. The walls were covered with newspaper and magazine articles, every one a story about the mysterious Lake Kaarme monster. A set of shelves heaving under VHS tapes and DVDs stood in one corner. There was a desk and a computer, an armchair and big screen TV, more bookshelves with a wide variety of hardbacks and paperbacks. But what really caught the eye was the construction at the far end, against the wall.
It could only be described as a shrine. Carved from shining, polished wood, it was a dark arch with a deep concave hollow cut into it. Small candles stood on the base of it, either side of a large, leather bound book. The candles were out, but there was light enough to see the other items behind the book. Three teeth, of varying size, but all huge compared to anything Nikla had seen before, and bright white. A kind of bony spine, curved and as long as his arm, that ended in a wickedly sharp point. Next to them a collection of small figures, men made of twisted sticks and twine, each about a foot tall and somehow disturbing to behold. At the back of the altar was a stretched piece of leather… or skin. Darkened and hardened with age, it had strange, curving symbols branded into it, five of them, one below the next. Nikla’s eye tried to look away despite his desire to study the symbols more closely. They were crabbed and pointed, they seemed to shiver against the skin and cast slight shadows of themselves as though they somehow floated just above the surface.
Nikla began to feel sick trying to look at them and tore his gaze away.
The book was large and heavy, the leather covers thick and shiny smooth. The pages inside were rough and weighty, ragged along the edges. The thing reeked of age and seemed to exude a presence, and a desire to be read. It was hand-written in a dense, swirling cursive script. Nikla backed up to the armchair and sat, placed the book on his lap. It took a moment to get his eyes around the cramped lettering, but eventually he began to figure it out. Excitement thrilled through him as he started to read.
In the darkest passages underground, in the reaches of the north, where water flows icily by, a dread Leviathan guards the entrance to the Underworld. But its mind is malleable to he who has the knowledge and the words, and, in this book, those rituals and incantations are explained. Brace yourself, seeker, for knowledge is now yours that bears the weight of great responsibility. Power comes to you, but you must worship that which serves.
* * *
Had it been hours? It felt like days, dragging out to years, but Sam Aston refused to give up. Battered and bruised, his stomach a hollowed out pit of pain, he stumbled on through the darkness.
He had cast off his scuba gear the moment he miraculously found a dry passageway after the explosion that knocked him momentarily senseless. Among collapsing debris, rocks rolling through the aftershocks of the giant detonation, everything had gone black.
When he came to, hanging limp and broken in the water, in darkness, the tiny, weak light of his helmet flashlight showed the bubbles of his rapidly diminishing air tumbling upwards. Stunned to still be alive, he weakly kicked up and followed them.
The dark passageway opened out into a much larger space and he saw the strangely carved lintel of the door he and Slater had discovered before. The explosion had created a new access to that enormous cavern. Knowing every other way out was blocked, he decided he might as well learn more about it before he died.
Aston kicked hard for the door and went through into blackness. His torchlight flickered again, threatening to fail completely at any moment. Could this way possibly lead to the underworld? To undiscovered wonders? Would he never find out, blind in the darkness? Drowned? He pushed
on, trying to at least discover something, some personal revelation before death.
Then his air ran out. His lungs began to burn, and he was certain he would drown. But silvery reflections shimmered far above. Thinking it was simply the last of his expelled air, caught in a small pocket under some rock, he sobbed as he kicked upwards, desperation to survive just a moment longer driving him on. He surfaced into it and gasped in amazement when it turned out to be a cave.
He crawled out of the water, cast off the empty tank, and desperately explored as his torch finally gave up. The last thing he saw was a tunnel leading away, and leading upwards. He followed it.
After hours, maybe a day, weak and stumbling, he stripped off his wetsuit and pushed on. Several times he reached dead ends, only to turn around and try again. He tried to keep a mental map in his head, terrified of starving like those Nazis. It would be so unjust to survive drowning only to die of hunger.
The pain of his wounds, of his starvation, threatened his consciousness, so he lay where he fell and slept. Twice more he pushed on, only to collapse and sleep. It must have been at least three days since the explosion, he could barely see for hunger, he ached with thirst, and he sat against the stone wall, despair clawing at him through the pitch dark.
But it wasn’t pitch dark.
For the first time since the cave, he perceived a vague outline of his hand in front of his face. On hands and knees he pushed ahead. A band of dim light far in front hooked into him like a fisherman’s line and drew him forward. The light became a rectangular outline, like it shone behind a closed door. Sure he was hallucinating he finally reached it, and pushed.
The door opened into a basement study, the walls covered with newspaper and magazine articles about the Lake Kaarme monster. Shelves bore VHS tapes and DVDs, there was a desk and a computer, an armchair and big screen TV. A shrine to the beast took up one end of the room, candles either side of a large, leather bound book. One photograph in particular stood out, an enlarged print showing a clearly very elderly Lars Pera, the Nazi scientist from Old Mo’s photos. Pera had his arms around a middle-aged man on one side and a young boy on the other. Even with all the years between, the young boy was clearly Alvar Laine, aged maybe eight or nine at most.
Sam Aston stood trembling and managed to laugh. This had to be Alvar Laine’s house! And Aston had to get away. He staggered up the stairs, hoping no one was home. He was rewarded, the house empty, bright afternoon light through the windows painful against his eyes.
He found the kitchen and stuffed himself with bread and fruit, guzzled water. He wore only filthy board shorts and t-shirt, but he didn’t care. As soon as his aching stomach could take no more, he hurried from the house and out into freedom.
He couldn’t believe he had managed to survive. Surely anyone who knew anything would assume he had died. There were clothes on the line in the back yard and he grabbed some, hurriedly dressed. Maybe he should let the world think Sam Aston had indeed died. Perhaps it was time to reconsider all his life choices and take the opportunity for a fresh start.
Shaking his head, rushing with the thrill of survival, he decided that first of all he simply had to get away from Kaarme and out of Finland. Anything else could wait.
* * *
Nikla Laine arrived home from school and went back down to study his father’s books. There was so much to learn. On entering the basement, something looked different. One of the bookcases had been shifted away from the wall slightly. On investigating, he discovered that it wasn’t only a bookcase, but a door. And someone had left it ajar. Wide-eyed, heart pounding, he grabbed a flashlight and stepped cautiously into the shadowed passage beyond.
* * *
In a pitch dark underwater cavern, among freshly fallen rocks, something massive shivered and pressed up against the debris.
Thanks for reading this Cohesion book.
We hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we did putting it together.
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Further titles are shown over the next few pages.
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Geoff Brown - Director, Cohesion Press.
Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum
Beechworth, Australia
Amanda J Spedding - Editor-in-chief, Cohesion Press
Sydney, Australia
Into the Mist by Lee Murray
Featuring Taine McKenna
“Cinematic and evocative, Into the Mist is a tension-packed expedition into primordial terror.
Murray’s writing had me feeling the damp of the forest, seeing the mist curling through the fern fronds, and sensing the danger lurking there.
Ancient myths, military men and scientists placed in remote, primordial locations – it had all the right ingredients for me, and it didn’t disappoint for a moment.
Lee Murray is an author to watch.”
– Greig Beck, best-selling author of the Arcadian series
When NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his squad are tasked with escorting a bunch of civilian contractors into Te Urewera National Park, it seems a strange job for the army.
Militant Tūhoe separatists are active in the area, and with its cloying mist and steep ravines, the forest is a treacherous place in winter.
Yet nothing has prepared Taine for the true danger that awaits them. Death incarnate.
They backtrack toward civilisation, stalked by a prehistoric creature intent on picking them off one by one. With their weapons ineffective, the babysitting job has become a race for survival.
Desperate to bring his charges out alive, Taine draws on ancient tribal wisdom. Will it be enough to stop the nightmare? And when the mist clears, will anyone be left?
“Creepy and addictive, Into the Mist is an irresistible tapestry of military action, dark myths, and an ancient and terrifying horror. A must read for speculative fiction fans.”
– Matthew Summers (Smashdragons)
Jade Gods by Patrick Freivald
A Matt Rowley novel
As the world frays into occultism and terror, Matt Rowley stands at a crossroads. To rescue his comrade, Isuji Sakura. he must betray the oaths he swore to his country, a country that with every passing day becomes more dangerous to those around him. As nephilim reveal themselves as modern-day gods demanding sacrifice and worship, Matt’s unique abilities draw him away from his wife and son, whose own powers have made them targets of zealots and government extremists.
When a killer crosses the veil to seek revenge on Rowley for killing him, gibbering horrors cross into reality with him, rending life and sanity to slake their insatiable thirsts. The line between reality and madness slips, catching Matt and his family between.
PRAISE FOR THE MATT ROWLEY SERIES:
Jade Sky is a an ass-kicking action-fantasy that takes no prisoners. Lightning fast, brutal and way too much fun. Highly recommended!”
--Jonathan Maberry, New York Times Bestselling author of Code Zero and Fall of Night
Jade Sky is one of those all too rare reading experiences that just consumes you... Freivald made a future so rich in detail and so full of life and energy that I couldn’t help but lose myself in it. This is a book full of wild invention and even wilder action, yet grounded by a genuinely sympathetic love for the people who live there. Freivald has truly reached a new high water mark here, which is pretty scary considering that he was already so damn good.”
--Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Plague of the Undead
“Buckle up and insert your mouthguard because Jade Sky is a fast ride and Patrick Freivald knows how to write with his fists. Smart, witty, and packed with action and suspense, this is a perfect summertime read. I’m looking forward to readin
g more Freivald. This guy’s good.”
--Ray Garton, author of Frankenstorm, Ravenous, and Warlock
Fathomless by Greig Beck
Carcharodon Megalodon – the largest and most fearsome predator to have ever existed on our planet. Rumors of its existence in our modern oceans have persisted for centuries. Now, in a new adventure, the rumors explode into brutal and terrifying reality in FATHOMLESS, by GREIG BECK.
Baranof Island, Gulf of Alaska, 1952
Jim Granger is searching for a place of legend. Known as ‘Bad Water’ by the island’s elders, it’s reputed to be home to many dangerous creatures. Through a seam in a cliff face, Jim finds what he seeks. He also finds, too late, that the water demon he was warned about is horrifyingly real.
Today, Cate Granger is following in her grandfather’s footsteps. Along with a team of scientists and crew, she accidentally releases a creature from Earth’s primordial past into today’s oceans. The giant Megalodon shark follows its instinct and a genetic memory of a home that once existed millions of years ago along the Californian coast. Nothing is safe on or below the water as the monster stakes its claim on the world’s oceans.
Now Cate and her team must do battle with a creature that has no rival, knows no fear, and regards humans as nothing more than prey.
In FATHOMLESS, the greatest predator the world has ever known is coming home in 2016.
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“… combines the terror of Benchley’s JAWS with the primordial horror of Alten’s MEG in an adventure that is the best of both.”
