Part 1 - You are here

Part 2

Part 3

My head ached as I awoke my unwilling slumber. I rested on the car’s shattered dashboard with a dying fire blazing just a few feet away. I coughed from the fumes, dazed, but otherwise unharmed. Once I could gather enough air in my lungs, I attempted to push myself up, checking my surroundings for clues as to what had happened.

Only then did I realize that my car was lying in a ditch, partially wrapped around a tree. My last intact memory was my departure from work.

I checked myself for injuries, trying to decide whether or not I should call an ambulance, but apart from a throbbing pain within my head, I felt more or less fine. I peered out the window, looking around for another involved party, but I appeared to be the only victim of the crash.

How long had I been out?

Brilliant sunshine glistened through the shards of broken glass. It was a sunset I would have appreciated any other day of the week, but on that day its presence alone unnerved me. It lit up the insides of my broken car, including my broken phone in the seat next to me. Even had I wanted to, calling for help was not an option.

“Help,” I let out in a pathetic whimper, my voice hoarse from the smoke inhalation.

But it was no use, the road I had crashed on was abandoned, lying miles away from civilization. It wasn’t a path I traveled often, but due to ongoing construction taking place on the main roads, it remained as my only intact route home from work.

I had been in a rush, I remembered that much, but for what reason remained a mystery. I only had a faint memory of speeding down the road towards an intersection, followed by little more than a blank void in my mind.

By the minute, the sun grew closer to the mountain range in the distance, consumed as the horizon ate it bite for bite. It was an unease reminder of something terrible to come, something my fractured mind was unable to bring forth to attention.

That’s when it hit me: the reason why I’d been in such a rush towards the center of town. I hadn’t been on my way home that evening, instead I had been heading for one of our town’s designated raid shelters. It was the thirty-first of October, a date dreaded by each and every inhabitant of our God-forsaken town.

With that realization, a surge of adrenaline put my body to purpose. I pushed the car door open, crawling out onto the ground. I prayed for another vehicle to pass by, knowing it was a futile pipe dream. By now, I knew the raid shelters were ready to close, which meant anyone half intelligent would have gotten their asses off the streets. I was alone, and would remain so until the raid finally arrived.

For that was the curse of Silverwoods, that during the night of Halloween, something horrible emerged from the depths of the Earth. The creatures, Praetors, would emerge into the darkness of the night, seeking out each and every unfortunate soul still outside. Our only refuge were emergency raid shelters spread across town, and a few bunkers constructed by the rich and wealthy for their own protection.

Alas, the closest shelter was several miles down the road, a sanctuary I’d never reach in time…

Still dazed by the crash, I started rushing along the empty toad. My only solace was a small gas station about a mile’s walk down the road. Though it wouldn’t stand a chance at keeping the Praetors out, it might serve as a decent hiding place as I awaited the break of dawn.

With a quick estimate, I guessed I had fifteen minutes before the last rays of sunlight vanished below the horizon. A fit man might have easily made it to the gas station by then, but in my current condition, I knew I didn’t stand a chance. Despite that fact, I kept limping my way down the road, practically betting on a miracle to happen. All the while the memories of years passed haunted me, knowing exactly what would happen if the Praetors would find me.

Long shadows were cast by the trees along the road, obscuring the mysteries of the forest. Though no one had been able to confirm it, some believed it to be the creatures’ origin. Thus it was a place avoided by most, not even visited on sun filled, summer days. Strange whispers started to emerge from the treeline, marking the beginning of the raid.

The sounds resembled human chatter, speaking in incomprehensible words, mimicking familiar voices, but filled with eerie yelps and broken groans. I tried to shut them out, a task that would become excruciatingly easy as another sound penetrated the air, pummeling the rest of the world into silence.

It was an old tornado siren, one programmed to mark the last five minutes of daylight. It rang with an overwhelming sense of impending doom, giving people one last warning to get to the nearest shelter.

But reaching safety was not an option, so I had to settle for the next best option. I was about two thirds of the way to the gas station when I felt the pain in my head intensify. With it, I started to feel dizzy, causing me to stumble and fall to the ground. Yet I had not given up, so I tried to crawl, anything to escape the clutches of the Praetors.

I stared up into the sky just in time to witness the last bit of daylight vanish in the distance. With that, the siren finally stopped its foreboding song. The raid had begun, and I was trapped outside. A blanket consisting of a strange, dark substance crawled across the sky, swallowing not only the hidden sun, but the emerging stars, the Moon; and with it, the only remaining semblance of hope. All the while, the pain inside my head got stronger, until I could no longer fight it. I stopped crawling, letting my wound take its toll, once again bringing me to the realm of sleep.

***

I’m not sure how much time passed between the beginning of the raid, and my second awakening. Without a sun or a moon, there was really no way of telling. The darkness had effectively created a timeless void, one filled but little more than terror and death. Yet, I could see an unexpected glimmer of hope: the dim outline of a light shining in the distance.

Using what little remained of my strength, I got back on my feet, moving towards the light on shaky legs. For a while, I wondered if I’d been killed. I thought the light might be my entrance into the afterlight, but as I got closer, that hope was brutally shattered.

Down the road I could recognize the outline of the gas station, illuminated by a car parked a few hundred yards further ahead. It essentially left me with two options: either run for the car and attempt a futile escape, or hide inside the building. Considering my dazed state, I opted for the latter, knowing the Praetors would be quick to investigate the unexpected lightsource.

Using the gas station’s backdoors, I could enter the building out of view of the lights. I was depending on the place being empty, hoping the bright lights had attracted the Praetors away from my chosen hiding spot.

Holding my breath, I turned the handle to open the door. It produced loud creaks as I pulled it, a sound that shattered the otherwise silent atmosphere. But before I could even get it half way open, I felt something punch me in the chest, shoving me to the ground. Coughing for air, I could only stare up at my assailant, waiting for the next blow to tear through my flesh.

But instead of more pain, I was greeted by a voice filled with a mixture of fear and anger.

“Stay the fuck down,” a man whispered aggressively.

In spite of the darkness, I could tell he was a well built man, most likely in his mid forties. He held a revolver to my face, his hands trembling as he held the gun. I could tell he was terrified, but I also knew that I wasn’t the object of his fear.

“Are you one of them?” he asked, a bit louder this time.

Had he mistaken me for one of the Praetors? Or was he blinded by the darkness and confused. Nevertheless, I was too frozen in fear to even form a coherent response. Only once he asked me a second time, did I find the words to beg for mercy.

“Please, I just need a place to hide.”

The terror in my voice seemed to disarm him. He mumbled a couple of profanities under his breath, before holstering his gun and grabbing my hand. He pulled me inside, carefully closing the door behind us. I let out a brief sigh of relief, confused, but glad not to be alone.

“Stay quiet,” the man said, before leading us into a small office, lit up by a dim lamp. Within, stood a terrified looking woman, holding tight onto a boy that couldn’t have been older than five.

It was a family, hiding in the gas station during the raid. Though I was thankful to have found other survivors, why hadn’t they taken refuge within one of the shelters?

“Roger, what’s going on?” the woman asked with a jittery voice. Her son sobbed silently, deathly afraid, but equally exhausted.

“I’m figuring it out, just stay quiet,” Roger mumbled in frustration.

He ordered me to sit down, putting a firm hand on my shoulder. Then he bent down to my level, making sure I noticed his hand resting on the gun.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“David,” I said.

He inspected my face, almost as if expecting me to change shapes and attack him. Though Praetors could poorly mimic human speech, there was no way he could have mistaken me for one of them. Only when he noticed the blood dripping down my temple, did he appear to calm down.

“You hurt?” he asked, showing a bit more concern.

I touched my wound, feeling it sting upon contact. I could tell it wasn’t serious, and though my mind still lingered in the haze of the crash, I felt mostly functional.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Just a bit frazzled.”

“Did these things do this to you?” he went on.

“No…” I began, still trying to figure out what had led up to the accident. “I was in a car crash.”

As I spoke these words, a faint memory flashed before my eyes. I remembered speeding towards an intersection I had expected to be empty, only to get cut off by a group of trucks speeding down the road. Trying to avoid t-boning the trucks, I swerved off the road, landing in a ditch. Still there were details missing. Why hadn’t anyone stopped to help?

“Alright, David, do you have any idea what the hell is going on here?” Roger asked.

It was a peculiar question, not because I actually had the faintest idea what the Praetors were, or why our town was cursed, but because of how honest the question was. The man before me, Roger, hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on. He didn’t even seem surprised by the monster's very existence. Only then did it hit me why they hadn’t sought out safety in the shelters.

“You’re not from around here?” I asked in shock, knowing that no visitors had been allowed into town for over ten years.

He shook his head. “No, we were heading to Arlington, but we got lost… I don’t even know where we are.”

“Silverwoods,” I explained.

“Silverwoods?” Roger asked. “Never heard of it.”

His obliviousness was understandable, as our town hadn’t been marked on any maps for decades, nor had it been open to the public since the ‘night of reckoning,’ thirteen years ago. The roads had long since been blocked, which begged the question: how had they even gotten into town?

“I’m sorry. You never should have come here,” I mumbled, feeling pity for the unaware family.

“No shit. This place is a nightmare. We were just driving down the road as those things, those animals attacked. They killed my brother,” Roger said, his voice getting louder with each spoken word until he finally caught himself. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

“Listen, if you know what’s going on, you better talk right now.”

Though I fully understood the gravity of the situation, I lacked the vocabulary to properly explain just how screwed we were. I hesitated, trying my best to find a reasonable explanation.

“Every year, on the night of the thirty-first…” I began, still not sure exactly what to say. “Something happens to Silverwood. It’s like the world falls away, collapsing into a dark abyss. The sky vanishes, and these creatures, Praetors, emerge from the dark. People that hide in the bunkers are usually fine, but for the rest, people like us, they get taken.”

“Taken?” Roger asked to clarify.

“When the Praetors attack, they don’t kill you. They just form deep wounds that refuse to bleed. No matter how much you suffer, no matter how much you beg for death, they won’t let you go. Only way out is to cremate the bodies before they’re used as spare parts for those monsters. We’ve tried to fight back, but our weapons barely do anything to them.”

The woman looked at me with terror in her eyes, begging for me to reveal that it had all been a cruel joke. But such a relief would never come.

“What do we do?” she asked.

There was no reasonable suggestion for me to give her. Hiding would be our best bet, but if our hiding place were to be discovered, we’d have no choice but to run.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, just trying to bring a nominal amount of normalcy into the conversation.

“Kassandra,” she said. “This is Derrick, our son.”

She paused, looking at me with begging eyes. “Can you help us?”

Any amount of hope I could provide would be a thinly veiled lie. But when death was all but a certainty, false hope was all I had to give.

“We’ll hide here until sunrise. If we stay quiet we might have a chance.”

She nodded in agreement, just slightly relieved by my hollow reassurance. My thoughts wandered to Roger’s brother, who he thought was dead. Truth be told, I knew the man was stuck inside the car, suffering from wounds that should have been fatal. But as morbid as it might have been, his suffering could have been the only thing keeping the Praetors distracted from our presence within the gas station.

“How many times have you been through this?” Kassandra asked, her voice still shaky.

“Thirteen,'' I said without needing to think twice about it.

“Thirteen? Why would you stay here? Why not just leave?” she whispered in a hail of questions.

“It’s not that simple,” I simply stated, hoping she wouldn’t pry too deep.

Roger sat by the wall, staring into the dark through a crack in the door with his hand on the revolver. I didn’t even dare to tell him how inefficient it would be at keeping the Praetors at bay. Best case scenario, it could slow them down. But keeping that information from him just might have left him with the slightest sense of control in an otherwise hopeless world.

***

About an hour passed as we sat in silence, none of us daring to speak a word, lest the Praetors find us. I counted the seconds, trying to calculate how long we’d have to sit before being greeted by the first rays of morning light.

But our bout of silence would be abruptly interrupted by the distinct sound of knocking. Shocking us all back to attention. It was coming from the back door I’d used to sneak inside.

Three, successive, slow knocks, followed by a tiny voice calling out through the cold night.

“Let me in. I’m scared,” it said.

“Did you hear that?” Kassandra asked.

“It sounded like a little girl,” Roger said with panic in his voice.

We didn’t dare move, each of us wondering if we’d imagined the whole thing. But that glimmer of hope was quickly shattered by another set of knocks, before the voice called out again.

“I know you’re in there. I want to come inside,” she said, her voice young and innocent, yet without emotion or soul.

“Shit, there’s a kid out there,” Roger said, instinctively getting up to help the girl.

I quickly jumped to my feet, grabbing onto Roger’s arm to stop him. He stared back at me, his eyes filled with anger. I could only shake my head “no,” to keep him from investigating the sound.

“Don’t,” was all I dared to mumble.

As we stood there, another three knocks emitted from the door, and once again the little girl called out for help.

“Help me. I will die.”

Her voice cracked between each iteration, a poor copy of a child’s voice. The creature clearly struggled to maintain the facade. Despite its initial display of innocence, that was no child. But for those unaware of the Praetors’ capabilities, it could be enough to fool them.

“Get your hands off me. I’m not letting a little girl stay out there to die,” Roger growled as he pulled away from me.

“It’s not a damn child!” I whispered loudly, grabbing onto his arm again.

With that, he punched me in the face, causing me to stumble towards the wall. Before I could regain my balance, he grabbed my shirt, putting his gun to my face.

“Touch me again, I fucking dare you,” Roger said.

The others sat speechless on the floor. Derrick wanted to cry from the commotion, but Kassandra kept him occupied. She could only stare helplessly at the unfolding situation with her mouth agape. And once again, three knocks were heard before the little girl called out for help. Each time sounding slightly less human.

“Listen to it, Roger. That’s not a girl,” I explained. “It’s a Praetor, if you open that door, we’re all dead.”

He stared at me in disbelief, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d most likely spent his life in relative safety, unaware of the true horrors hiding in the darkness. The mere existence of monsters challenged his understanding of the world, leaving him in a state of horrific realization and confusion.

“Come on, Roger. You know I’m telling the truth,” I begged. “Do not do this.”

We waited for the same, three knocks, followed by the broken voice begging for our attention. That time, Roger finally seemed to understand what was going on. He lowered the revolver, looking at me with pleading eyes as the truth finally dawned on him. At that moment, I was staring at a man on the brink of utter desperation.

“What do we do about her?” he asked.

“There’s nothing we can do,” I explained. “It’s a mimic, they seek out survivors and alert the rest. If it’s knocking on a door, it’s just a matter of time before the rest come.”

“So we keep hiding?” Kassandra chimed in.

“No, it’s too late for that. There’s only one option left, and it’s not a good one.

“What?” Roger asked.

“We have to run for our lives.”