Praise for Daniel Willcocks
Daniel Willcocks has the ability to draw you into a scene, then stick you painfully, weaving a ribbon of fear as he twists your thoughts about what you read, and what is real."
Michael Anderle
Willcocks has a way of finding humanity in the darkest and strangest of circumstances, turning standard horror-thriller premises into real life touching stories.
Kathy Robinson
Awesome, freaky stories! I really enjoyed every story and I can't wait to read more from Mr. Willcocks! Anybody looking for some quick scares needs to read this book!
Christina B
The First Fall
When Winter Comes, Ep. 1
Daniel Willcocks
Other titles by Daniel Willcocks
The Rot Series (with Luke Kondor)
They Rot (Book 1)
They Remain (Book 2)
They Ruin (coming soon)
Keep My Bones
The Caitlin Chronicles (with Michael Anderle)
(1) Dawn of Chaos
(2) Into the Fire
(3) Hunting the Broken
(4) The City Revolts
(5) Chasing the Cure
Other Works
Twisted: A Collection of Dark Tales
Lazarus: Enter the Deadspace
The Mark of the Damned
Sins of Smoke
Keep up-to-date at
www.danielwillcocks.com
Copyright © 2020 by Devil’s Rock Publishing Ltd.
First published in Great Britain in 2020
All rights reserved.
https://www.devilsrockpublishing.com/
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No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover or print other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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To each and every one of my patrons, I truly appreciate your ongoing support.
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To all the readers with smiles on their faces and horror in their hearts.
Contents
Prologue
1. Tori Asplin
2. Cody Trebeck
3. Cody Trebeck
4. Alex Goins
5. Cody Trebeck
6. Tori Asplin
7. Alex Goins
8. Tori Asplin
9. Cody Trebeck
10. Karl Bowman
Author Notes
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About the Author
Other titles by Daniel Willcocks
Prologue
And so, the sky bled.
Or, so it appeared. The shimmering, waving pulses of magnetism that birthed the Aurora Borealis lost their green hue as a rift broke across the night sky and turned the phenomenon crimson.
It began slowly, even as his final breaths escaped through cracked, frostbitten lips it turned. The eerie alien glow that captivated the hearts of millions across the globe receding as the vein was pricked and the red took over. Oh, it still danced in the sky, giving the people what they paid for, performing its ancient ritualistic routine while the sun lapped the world and clawed for its dominance against the sickle moon. Only, this haunting shade of red brought with it much more than the world would ever know, a message and a beacon for darker times to come. Times that Chikuk knew only too well were a simple part of nature. Times that Aklaq had born himself. A waxing and waning of the tides of life. For every hour of light that comes, darkness soon will follow.
She lugged him now, the ancient chieftain, her delicate frame only just strong enough to lay him on the sled that Aklaq had crafted when he was a much younger man. Stronger and virile. A chieftain of great stature, Aklaq had once been an imposing figure, standing well over six-feet tall with the broad girth that would put the trunks of the great jack pines to shame. An Inuit leader who had conquered some of his tribe’s greatest challenges, leading his Iñupiat sub-sect through the challenges of clinging onto their heritage, rituals, and values in an ever-modernizing world.
While many of the Inuit tribes had taken to integrating with the mainlanders, Aklaq had pacified the stubborn advances of this new breed of man and bargained to secure the Iñupiat peoples their own space and borders along the Alaskan coast. They fought for their traditions, and in that regard, the open wound of the sky was his fault, and his fault only.
Chikuk snapped the reigns, signaling for Kazu to begin his run. The pure-white husky was almost invisible against the barren landscape of snow around them, the edges of his fur blending into the ground. The only true sign of Kazu’s acknowledgment of Chikuk’s command was the two dark eyes, ringed with amber as they cast their gaze back at her, and the sudden tension in the reigns that kicked the sled into motion once those dark pinpricks disappeared.
Passage was slow. Chikuk knew that one dog would barely be enough for the journey, yet it wasn’t worth waking the rest of the tribe. Their bearing towards their resting place was located down a slight gradient which bore their advantage, but even then, she only wished they could have moved faster. Soon They would come and claim what was theirs, and when They did, she knew that her only chance of survival was to be absent from their sight. She had dreaded this day for years, ever since her life-partner’s body had shown its first sign of betrayal, evidence of the arthritic parasite that gnawed at his tendons and bones and chipped away at his youth. He fought valiantly, though in the end time claims what it’s owed. Time waits for no being.
As they glided along through the silence of the night, Chikuk cradled her partner. She was no young Jack herself and holding Akluq steady sapped what little energy remained. She pulled his hood tighter to his face to shade him from the steady stream of chill air, but already the darkness was staining the flat of his broad nose and twisting lips that had once been pink and lithe to shades of frosty grey. As his organs ground to a halt, so too would the final remnants of warmth seep through his pores until all that was left was a frozen husk of a man.
Chikuk afforded herself a single tear, the droplet trailing down her cheek and landing upon Aklaq’s lips. There it remained, a frozen gem of her love and devotion and, though she wasn’t certain that it was true, she could have sworn his lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.
The Aurora continued its metamorphosis above them, morphing the sky as it completed its kaleidoscopic transformation. Already the alien greens through which it had gained its renown were almost gone, and Chikuk knew that if she was looking at it, so too were They.
A stretch of ancient pines came into view, cutting across the snow in front of them. Their borders passed in either direction as far as Chikuk could see, and it was here on the edge of the forest that she set up camp, easing Aklaq from her lap and covering him with blankets to fend off the coming cold. Her hands, gloved in the thick blubber of seals from time long past, dug expertly into the snow. She shovelled and compacted the fine powder into solid bricks which she arranged in their circle as the igloo begun to take shape. For many, the igloo may take hours to build, but for the expert craftswoman, which Chikuk certainly had once been,
she adjusted the final touches no more than one hour later.
Breathless, she turned her nose to the sky. Thick plumes of frozen air came from her mouth, masking her view of the Aurora. Around her flakes of snow had started to descend, a gentle flurry for now, but soon things would elevate. Soon there would be little escape from its attack.
She shooed Kazu away from its bed beside its master. The husky had curled up in the crevices Aklaq’s fading body had offered and, though she was sure its body heat would have helped to ease Aklaq’s passing, she had no heart to spare for the creature while hers was dying inside her.
With a gentle tug, she revealed Aklaq’s face to the night. She was unsurprised to find that he was dead, staring up into the sky with unblinking marble eyes. Eyes which had watched over these lands for decades, ruling with the iron fist that only an ancient legacy can pass down. Eyes which had seen death, had seen love, had seen unimaginable change across the beating heart of the land. Eyes which had fought for their little island of paradise and won.
But at what cost?
Aklaq’s eyes reflected the undulating crimson lights, giving off the presence of a bloody fire raging inside the hollow of his skull.
With the tenderness that only love can spare, she leaned closer and rubbed her nose back and forth across his own, ignoring the icy temperature of his skin on hers.
Kazu whined, padding his paws against the snow as his head crooked toward the forest. His eyes grown wide as he sensed Their coming through the trees. She could sense them, too. Chikuk knew that time was short and nothing would stop them. Their promise had been made, and now it must be kept. It was Their time, now.
For a while, at least.
Delicately placing Aklaq into his resting bed in the snow, Chikuk worked as fast as her body would allow to unpack her meagre provisions from the sled and bring them inside the igloo. She had brought enough food for the night, as well as a means to make a fire that would fend off the cold and allow her a barrier from the monsters that came. With trembling hands, she created the first spark and birthed a fire in the center of the igloo. The darkness subsided in a sudden burst of light just at the moment that Kazu rent the night with a bone-chilling howl.
Chikuk crawled to igloo’s mouth and urgently ushered the dog inside, certain that anything left outside of the confines of the iced hut would be gone by morning. Kazu reared on his haunches and yapped relentlessly, his stubby fangs bared at the pines. Chikuk afforded a glance in their direction and felt her heart stop at the sight of the first of their kind. A creature, as tall as it was thin, its bone white mask leering at them with quiet impatience. In its long, slender fingers it held a stone knife which caught the light of the Aurora and flashed as if in warning.
Chikuk hissed at Kazu once more and the husky barrelled towards her, its courage all but spent. She grabbed him around the neck and threw him inside before glancing one more time at Aklaq, his body twisted and frozen where he lay. The sled empty for all except him. She only wished she could have dismantled the sled and brought it inside before They came. The journey home would be a difficult one come morning.
If she made it to then.
Chikuk ducked inside the igloo and scooped the snow to block the entrance. The creature’s cries summoned more of its kind and their marching feet crunched through the snow. The wind picked up and whistled through the minute cracks in the igloo. Chikuk wrapped her blankets around herself, cuddling Kazu closer to her. The dog’s ears were flat to his head, his eyes wide. A low whine leaked from his throat like the hissing of air through a damaged pipe. She was certain that Kazu was exploring a map in his mind, using his bestial senses to track the invaders. She wondered how close They were already, if They had even made it to his body.
Chikuk closed her eyes and listened, regretting it almost instantly. Outside the igloo hard objects clacked against each other. Their footsteps were indelicate and strange utterances came from their throats, spoken in a primal language that Chikuk’s people had forgotten long ago. They whispered and growled and, at one point, it sounded as though an argument had broken out, likely an angry debate as to the feasting order of their latest meal.
A dominating cry exploded, causing Chikuk to flinch. She covered Kazu’s mouth but couldn’t stop his whine. The cry was like a gunshot, then silence followed.
Chikuk wasn’t sure how long the silence carried. Even the wind held its breath, slowing enough that the quiet fell thicker than the snow. A tear traced its way down her nose and touched her quivering lips, leaving a salty trail that she daren’t try to remove for fear of drawing their attention. They had made a promise, but promises were made to be broken.
The candy cane snap of bone broke the quiet. Cikuk’s startled jump kicked Kazu into action, and he barked and howled and whined behind a hand that clamped to his mouth. His teeth broke her skin, her blood mixing with his saliva but it was all she could do to muffle his din.
Not that the creatures outside paid any heed as they began their feast. Chikuk was all too familiar with the sound of crude tools slicing flesh. Her tribe were people of the frozen north, hunters of seal and wolf and bear. She had witnessed the grotesque smacking of lips as her tribesmen threw the bloodied carcasses of seals to the dogs and the beasts tucked into their meal. Great slopping sounds of fat, blubber, tendon, and meat torn to pieces by dozens of fangs. The whites of the husky’s coats morphing from shades of black and white and grey to nightmarish crimson, their fur thick and clotted as they dined hungrily, eating in the way nature had intended.
The exact same way the creatures dined now…
They showed no patience or manners in their attack. Chikuk could only screw her eyes shut and fight off the image of her husband torn to shreds as the savage creatures claimed what was rightfully theirs.
A heavy thud beat the side of the igloo, and Chikuk could only gasp, terrified that they could break through and come for her next. Who was she, anyway? A lone Inuit delivering the promised goods. If they came for her, she could not fight, and this they must know. They scrambled and tore and growled and rent the night with enthusiastic cackles while her life-partner ceased to be in soul and now body. She extinguished the fire and huddled closer to the wall, wrapping her sheets around her. She forced her eyes shut, blocked out the sound with thoughts of places far from here, focused her attention on something—anything—that would remove her from this place.
At some point in the night Chikuk fell asleep, the adrenaline wearing through her body and sapping her of energy. Her heavy eyes opened, the lids crusted with the remnants of sleep and tears. Something rough licked at her hands and she glanced down to find Kazu cleaning the wounds he had inflicted, an apologetic look in those great amber-ringed eyes.
She stroked his head absently and noticed for the first time that the ferocious feast of the creatures had reached its conclusion. The wind blew eagerly and resumed its whistling through the igloo’s minute gaps, the storm no doubt continuing to build its bluster. Chikuk stared at the fire, knowing that she needed to get heat going again if she was to fend off the coming cold. She had no idea how long she had slept for but knew that it didn’t take long for the cold to creep inside your bones and take you down from the inside out.
But first, she wanted—no, needed—to see it for herself.
Confusion creased the deep trenches already set into her brow as she fought her way out of the igloo. There was considerably more snow blocking the entrance than she had expected after closing herself in. She whistled to Kazu and the husky worked the barricade with its paws, worming their way out into a world of spectral white.
The snow fell thick and fast, snowflakes the size of golfballs sweeping across the landscape in a dense flurry. She could hardly make out the sky and the bloodied lights beyond the blanket of white clouds whipping the winds and snow around them in indelicate pirouettes. Chikuk’s breath caught, her mouth hung open in awe of the power of the elements above her.
Kazu barked, the wind snatching the sound an
d ripping it from his throat. Chikuk turned to where the dog was standing, its body once again almost lost in the blanket of white. She shielded her face with a thick sleeve and laboriously made her way through snow that came to a little above her knees, fresh powder which would soon compact and make travel all but impossible.
There was only a single piece of evidence of the creature’s feast. A single splinter of wood stuck out from the snow like a rebellious sapling. It was one of the planks from the sled, its tip laced with blood now turned pink as it mixed with snow. Chikuk swept a hand at the ground below her and the snow gave way, revealing a shard of bone, snapped and filed to a point. A few stray strands of viscera clung desperately to what remained, but otherwise she knew that he was gone. They left little to spare, and what they had would now be claimed by the winter.
Chikuk rose to her full height and squared her shoulders, staring in the direction she knew the forest to be. The snow whipped against the few square inches of skin left bare around her face and pricked her with icy needles. It was already increasing in fervour, the coming storm only just beginning to find its legs.
She shook a fist to the woods and expelled a grievous cry into the air. Every ounce of pent up emotion she had felt during the night came out in one long, primal note of rage that the wind sucked from her dry lips and sent forward in the direction of the woods. She screamed until her lungs were empty, her throat burned, and her legs would take no more. She folded to her knees, Kazu taking a stand beside her and joining her declaration with his own breed of yaps and barks.
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