Dark Season: The Complete Third Series (All 8 books) (58 page)

"You can, huh?" I say, impressed by her confidence. "What the fuck is a Golv, anyway?"

"You don't want to know," she says. "You don't
need
to know, either. If you can help me get access to the past month's police logs, I'm pretty sure I can track it down myself. Just give me what I need".

"You want access to the police logs?" I say, laughing. "Seriously? You think I'm just going to have that shit over to you?"

"It'd be useful," she says. "I can still find the Golv without your help, but it'd be easier if you come onboard".

"And why should I help you?" I ask. "What can you do that I can't do for myself?"
"I've got experience with these things," she replies firmly. "The Age of Chaos has arrived, and there's going to be a lot more of this type of thing. You're going to need me sooner or later, and I figure we might as well get the groundwork done while things are relatively calm". She pauses for a moment, before stepping toward me and reaching out a hand for me to shake. "It's complicated, and I can only explain part of what's happening. You wouldn't believe the rest. My name's Abby Hart. Dr. Abby Hart. And trust me... You're gonna want me on your side".

THE END

Bonus Book:

Arrival

(Devil's Briar 1.1)

Prologue

1925.

Opening my eyes in the dark, I stare straight ahead. Everything around me is perfectly still, but I can sense the faintest rumble in the distance.

It's coming.

Rushing across the valley, smashing through the trees and ripping up the ground, it's headed straight for this tiny house. I sit up in bed. There's no sound coming from the other rooms; the rest of my family are all asleep. Why can't they sense what's about to happen? Why can't they hear this thing as it races straight for us? What's wrong with them?

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, dropping my bare feet onto the cold wooden boards of our family's modest home. On the other side of the room, my brother is sleeping soundly in his new bed. He clearly hasn't sensed that anything's wrong, but I can feel the power coming through the floorboards and vibrating against the soles of my feet.

I'm not imagining this. It's definitely getting closer.

I take a deep breath. Perhaps I'm insane. Perhaps I'm not 'sensing' anything. I feel like these things are invading my mind, entering me from the rest of the world, but perhaps they actually come from within? It would be no surprise if I went mad. After all, my mother keeps telling me that I'm a somewhat hysterical girl, and there's madness in the family. From what my father tells me, most of my forebears ended up losing their minds out here in the wilderness. I guess it's possible that such things run in the family. My grandfather, for example, ended up killing himself by eating dust and soil until he was so full, he couldn't breathe. He was in his sixties, but perhaps I've begun to go mad already, as I approach my late teens.

I creep quietly past my brother's bed and through the door. As I get into the corridor outside, I can already smell my grandmother. She's in the next room; she's been there for three weeks now, ever since she died. I take a few steps to her door and look into the room. Moonlight streams through the window and my grandmother's dead body rests on the bed, covered by a thin white sheet. My mother insists that we mustn't bury her until we're certain that our family will be staying here in this part of the country, so that we can tend to the grave. While my father waits to make a decision, then, my grandmother's body remains in the house. My mother has attempted to dry her out, to reduce the rotting, and scented herbs have been placed all around the bed in an attempt to stop the smell from spreading throughout the house. Still, sometimes I stand and stare at the covered body and see movement under the sheets. Worms or beetles or some other pest have certainly begun to chew on the flesh. My mother refuses to acknowledge this. In her mind, this is the best option and -

I turn suddenly, realizing that it's almost here. I can feel the floor start to rumble. This isn't madness; it's not just in my head. This is very, very real. Surely everyone else will be able to feel it soon? I hurry through to the kitchen and, although I know it's foolish, I open the door and stare out at the tall pine trees that surround our little house. There's still nothing to see, but I
know
that it's out there, coming straight for us. My brother, my mother and father, are all asleep, resting soundly, oblivious to what's happening. Why am I the only one who has to have this premonition? Why has God blessed me like this? If we're all to die, I would rather not know. I would rather die sleeping. Am I supposed to do something, to find a way to save us? I've already tried speaking to my father over the past few days, but he just ignores me. I've done what little I can. It wasn't enough. I'm just a girl. If God wanted something to be done, why didn't he give this warning to my brother? At least people would listen to him...

Behind me, pots and pans hanging on the kitchen wall start to clang against one another. There's no doubting it any more. Squinting, I see something moving in the distance, behind the trees; something churning on the horizon. Finally, after days and days of sensing its approach, at last I can see it with my eyes. At this speed, it'll be on us in a matter of seconds. Our little house will surely be torn apart, with no hope for any of us to survive. If God had a plan for me, it's clear that time has run out. As I stand in the doorway, I see the huge storm coming closer and closer. It's moving so fast, even the smallest particles will cut like a blade through a human body. Swallowing hard, I recognize that this is going to be an extremely painful death, with the only hope being that it will perhaps also be mercifully quick.

Turning away, I shut the door. Standing alone in the dark kitchen, I listen to the sound of the whole house vibrating, a sound that's getting steadily louder and louder. After a moment, I hear movement elsewhere in the house and eventually my startled father appears from my parents' bedroom. Without saying anything, he pushes past me, opens the door and looks out at the huge wall of snow and hail that's rapidly coming straight for us. In my heart of hearts, I was hoping that he'd have some answer; that he'd know what to do. But he just stares at the oncoming apocalypse, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He's clearly stunned by what he sees.

"It's the judgment of the Lord," says my mother, who has also come out from the bedroom. "It's not just we who shall face this wrath. The whole of the world is coming to Judgment Day". She drops to her knees as the house continues to shake. Suddenly a pot falls from the kitchen wall, banging against the wooden floor. "Let the sinners die first," my mother continues. "Let the Lord see the good work of the faithful. Let the Lord guide this maelstrom around our house, so that it retains its full force for when it strikes the sinners in town".

Rushing past her, I head to the bedroom I share with my brother. If I'm to die, I want to be with him when it happens. On the way, however, I glance into my grandmother's room and I stop, shocked by what I see. My first thought, yet again, is that I must have lost my mind, because my grandmother's bed is now empty, her dead body nowhere to be seen. I step into the room and see that the empty bed has a brown stain on the white sheet, and a few beetles are scurrying around. Who would have moved the body at this hour, and why?

"Grandmother?" says a voice in the next room. It's my brother. "Don't touch me," he says, sounding scared. "Don't touch me!" he screams.

I turn to go and see what's happening, but at that moment there's a massive crashing sound and the whole house seems to lurch up into the air. I grab the door to steady myself, but it's useless as the house pitches to one side. Closing my eyes, I hear the horrific sound of wood being torn apart all around me, and the howling of the dust storm fills my ears. I desperately try to cling on to the door, in the vain hope that somehow I can be saved, but finally I hear the house start to break apart. Forcing myself to open my eyes, I look over my shoulder just in time to see the front of the house being pulled up into the swirling vortex that surrounds us. The churning snow is all around me. Finally the force is too strong and I let go of the door. The storm hauls me up into the air. I look back down and see the rest of the house disintegrating, and then for a moment it's as if I'm hanging in the air, hundreds of feet up, so high that I'm above the tops of the trees. I've been consumed by the storm, and for a moment it seems that I'm to be pulled ever higher. Finally, however, I see the wrecked kitchen wall come flying straight towards me. I barely have time to blink before the wood smashes into me, shearing my head straight from my body. There's another moment of consciousness as my severed head is thrown about in the storm, and then I feel life itself fade into darkness.

Chapter One

Today.

"Devil's Briar was on a few early maps," shouts Bill, trying to be heard over the sound of the spluttering engine as our truck bounces along the dirt road, "but it was generally assumed that the place was just a small encampment. A few houses, maybe a well, nothing of any real importance or even permanence". At that moment, the truck hits a particularly large bump, jolting us violently. "Those old maps were notoriously unreliable," he adds, barely even missing a beat. "Seriously, if we went looking for every scratchy little town that might or might not have existed, we'd be -"

"Rock!" I shout, pointing at a boulder that's sitting straight in the middle of the road.

Bill looks ahead and sees the boulder just in time. He turns the wheel sharply to the left and the truck careers off the dirt road and into the brush. For a moment, it seems like we might be about to overturn, but the heavily-laden truck just about manages to remain the right way up as Bill slows us down and we come to a halt just at the edge of the tall pine trees that reach high up into the afternoon sky. Smiling, Bill stares ahead. "You see, Paula?" he says finally. "You see what it's like out here? There's no infrastructure, no human intervention, just hundreds of miles of pristine, unspoilt woodland. We're probably the first people to come through this stretch of land in years, since the loggers who cut this rough road. There's nothing out here. No oil, nothing of value at all. It's a wasteland. This is the very last corner of America that might have any secrets at all. If we'd died just then, no-one would have found our bodies for... months. Years, even. Maybe not ever".

"You mind if I drive for a while?" I ask, smiling. It's great to see Bill so enthusiastic, especially given what he's been through over the past year, but I'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable taking the wheel.

Sighing, he unbuckles his seat-belt and climbs out. "I'm okay, you know," he says. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm totally fine".

As soon as I get out of my side of the truck, I'm struck by how cold it is out here. There are patches of snow all around, and I can see my breath as I walk around to the driver's side. "It must be below zero," I say, climbing back into the truck. "How much further until we get to Devil's Briar?"

"Just a few more miles," he replies, getting into the passenger seat.

"You said that a few miles ago," I point out, starting the engine, "and a few miles before that". Easing the gas pedal down to avoid spinning the wheels, I ease us slowly back up onto the dirt road. Frankly, this trip is starting to feel like a wild goose chase and a chore. For the past week, Bill has been able to talk about nothing other than the possibility of finding this once-buried ghost town out in the Colorado wilderness. It sounded like a far-fetched idea at first, but he gradually gathered enough evidence to persuade me to come with him. I mean, what kind of a wife would I be if I let my husband come on a cockamamie trip like this by himself? He tried to get a few other professors interested at the university, but none of them took his claims seriously. To them, the idea of discovering an entire lost town is too far-fetched. As for me, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for a while, if only to humor my husband.

"Are you sure there's no-one else out here?" I ask. "We can't seriously have this whole wilderness to ourselves".

"There's nothing and no-one," he replies. "It's dangerous territory. Not the kind of place you want to go wandering around aimlessly. Satellite imaging shows no signs of wheel-tracks or any other kind of disturbance".

"And satellites can
never
be wrong," I say, unable to hide the cynicism in my voice. I've been supportive so far, but now I'm getting worried. The odds of us actually finding this forgotten ghost town are tiny, and I'm afraid that Bill's spirit will be crushed. Am I doing the right thing by indulging him in this journey? I'm desperate for him to get back into his work, but perhaps I've taken things too far? I'm starting to think that I should have let him down gently and encouraged him to find some other project. Something nice. Something safe. Something easy.

"It's thanks to the satellites that we found this place at all," he replies. "Without..." He pauses for a moment. "Hang on, pull over for a second".

"Why?" I ask, unable to see anything up ahead that might have piqued his interest.

"Over there!" he says, pointing to the right of the road. "Paula, stop!"

Sighing, I pull over and stop the engine. Bill immediately gets out of the truck and limps twenty or so feet across the desert, finally stopping next to what looks like a long line of wood, partially buried in the ground. At first, I assume it's just a fallen tree, but as I sit and watch him through the windshield, I realize maybe he's actually found something. Getting out of the truck again, I wander over to join him. After all this effort, it'd be pretty amazing if it turned out Bill was actually
right
about there being something out here.