Prologue
The car hummed as Jeremy drove down a long and narrow gravel road. It seemed to stretch on forever, disappearing below the horizon where the last vestiges of the sun now collapsed. A subdued purplish-blue light remained, its pallor a cold reminder of the coming night. Pine trees that grew impossible tall lined his path, their gnarled trunks twisting and turning in misshapen angles, their needles bristling. The radio was humming an old song he did not recognise.
He glanced to his right. A leatherbound volume rested neatly on the passenger seat. He brought his eyes back to the road. Maud was going to be so interested. At least he hoped she would be. Jeremy’s daughter had become somewhat of a recluse, shunning the outside world like it would eat her. It was becoming draining to find new things to get her outside. None had worked so far.
It’s not her fault, he thought.
“You’re right. It’s yours.” came a reedy voice from just behind his seat.
He spun around in his seat, gooseflesh appearing all over his body. No one was there. The backseat was empty, save for his suitcases that had been stowed there. All he saw was the Moon rising, its blood orange glow staining his backseat.
“What the hell,” he breathed shakily.
Gripping the wheel tightly, he twisted back around and nearly choked on his tongue in shock. The car had somehow drifted off the road, a warped tree awaited in front of him. Without time to break, the vehicle slammed into the trunk at full speed. Jeremy’s vision blacked out immediately.
The movement of trees woke him up, their rustling leaves sounding like conspiratorial whispers.
“Ugh,” he grunted as he sat upright, having faceplanted into the steering wheel. His vision quickly sharpened as he took in his situation. He was still in the car. What had once been dying light was now replaced with a darkness that felt isolating. Above him the Moon blazed a malevolent red. Thankfully, the broken headlights still provided some illumination to his surroundings. The car’s windows were all shattered, their glass littering the seats.
Jesus Christ, he breathed out, barely believing his luck. I am never taking my seatbelt off again. Even more miraculously, was that nothing hurt. He could not find even a single mark on him.
That can’t be right, he thought, I should at least have something to show. Come to think of it, he found it incredibly damning that he had even crashed in the first place. Maybe it was the disbelief from the shock of the accident, but he could not possibly have been looking away for too long. Right?
Shit! The book.
Looking at the passenger seat, Jeremy saw not but glass resting upon it.
He looked around frantically, Where the hell is it? He was so sure that this tome would be the key to bringing Maud out of her shell. It had to be. He could not lose it; especially to getting into some stupid and completely avoidable accident.
He looked everywhere in the nooks and crannies of the car but found it nowhere to be hidden. C’mon it’s gotta be somewhere— it couldn’t have just disappeared! Just then his attention was diverted by a noise he heard. Looking out the window bordering the ancient pine forest, he watched as trees swayed and cracked, the wind animating their movements. The trees grew thickly around a bed of lichen, their trunks disappearing into the night as if being swallowed up by the darkness. Every now and then trees, pushed by the wind, would emerge from the shadows and into the meagre light provided by the car’s headlights like apparitions, and then vanish without a trace. And resting upon a tall stone, was the barely visible book he was looking for.
What? The hairs on his nape prickling. How— It should not be possible. If anything the book would have been ejected in front of him, not metres away to his right. Jeremy knew something was off but he could not let it stay there, he needed it.
He opened the slightly crumpled driver’s door, its hinges giving a loud protest, and stepped out, glass crackling underneath. He made his way around the car but hesitated at the edge of the road. Trees lurched back and forth in his direction, as if trying to reach out and grab him. Deep within the forest, he heard the sounds of something rustling about. He hoped it was a deer.
Hesitantly, he placed one step in front of the other, furtively glancing about, not quite looking for anything but keeping watch nonetheless. Quickly the light faded as he journeyed further in. It was as though merely the presences of the trees siphoned the light from space.
The sound of a branch being snapped broke the relative silence.
What was that?! The noise had come off to his left behind the book. Looking in that direction, he willed his eyes to see in the night to no avail. Waiting, he picked up no further sound, only the swooshing of the leaves far overhead could be heard.
He did not like this. Not one bit. But there was the book, not but a few metres away. Once he had it, he could slip back into the car and call for help. Pressing forwards he reached the book and noticed that it was open. Strange. It was open to a page he could not see, as the light offered no illumination this far into the forest.
Not wanting to dally any longer, he scooped up the tome and turned back to hurry to the car. It was not there. He could see no headlights. Now Jeremy was well travelled, he had seen odd things before, but this— this he had never seen before.
In a state of panic, he raced out of the forest, looking up and down the road, hoping on hope that he would see his car. Nothing but darkness stretched around him. Either ends of the road dissolved into shadow, it was like the world stopped there.
This can’t be real. There’s no way. He remembered going in a straight line into the forest, coming back basically the same way.
The splintering of a large branch broke him from his thoughts. He whipped around. The noise had come from within the old growth trees.
“Is someone there?!” he shouted. Jeremy was not sure if he wanted a reply or not.
No response came. He began to back away, not trusting the lack of an answer.
He made it a few steps before a primordial wail pierced the winds, turning his veins to ice and his muscles into concrete. What the fuck. Noisy crunching grew in volume, as the sounds neared him. Branches snapped what felt like halfway up the trees. Whatever was making the racket was monstrously tall.
Scared beyond measure he broke out into a sprint, book in arm. The sounds of heavy treading and branches snapping followed him from the forest at an alarming pace. Soon the sound eclipsed him and halted ahead of him with a loud, “THUMP!” He could see the canopy of a tree shake violently.
Frozen to the spot, heart pounding, Jeremy watched as a being of immense size emerged from the forest. It was unbelievably gigantic, its limbs unnaturally longer than its torso, stretching out as if they had been pulled by its maker. Atop its neck rested a skull devoid of flesh, its decayed teeth visible and arranged in the grimace known only to the dead. Horns that resembled antlers sprang from its cranium. Jeremy, completely alone with kilometres of wilderness, trapped along a bizarre stretch of road, felt wholly helpless to the whims of this beast.
It took a great lumbering step towards him. Then another. And another— till Jeremy’s animal mind cried out to him, RUN FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!
Finally finding his legs working, Jeremy hurtled to the opposite side of the road, bounding through thickets of bush and weaving between deformed trees. He could feel his heart hammering, his breathing coming in great spasms of fear, and his mind praying to whatever would listen that might save him from this nightmare.
A surreal cry of anger erupted from the creature behind him. Sounds of branches snapping, trees being slammed into, and the ground trembling, sent Jeremy’s mind into to utter panic. No thoughts came to him, only his primal desire to escape was present.
To his terror, he realised that despite his best attempts, the creature was gaining on him. The noises of crashing through the forest had become deafening and he was nearly tripping by how much the ground was shaking.
Suddenly, a great force knocked him to the ground, causing him to tumble about.
Nonononono! God please no! He despaired as iron strong hands grabbed him by his legs and chest, its fingers wrapping entirely around his body. A roar of triumph resounded around the forest, vibrating the very bones in his body. This was it. He was going to die here— to a being of impossible existence. The book in his arms slipped out of his grip and fell to the ground in a heap. He was never going to save his daughter from herself.
The sound of bones breaking and sinew ripping apart filled the forest. It was tearing him in two. He began to let out a guttural scream as he lost his vision.
“—GGAAAaaaaaahh!!” he yelled, taking in deep gulps of air. Wild-eyed, he looked around taking in his surroundings. Cheap beige walls stared back at him. The creature that had attacked him popped into his mind. But he was not there. In fact, he was no longer in the forest with its bloody Moon. Jeremy was in a hotel room. There was no creature from hell.
“Oh thank god.” he exclaimed, a massive weight lifting from off of his chest. He lay still for a time, unmoving, taking in the calm of his room with all the happiness of a man leaving prison. It was just a dream. A very realistic one, but still— a nightmare all the same.
He registered a damp feeling coming from the covers and pillow. I must have sweat like crazy. Feeling a tad bit disgusted, Jeremy made to get up but realised that something was nestled in his arms as if it were a baby.
It was the book. The one from his dream. The book he intended on presenting to his daughter. Odd. He could have sworn that he had left it on the table opposite the foot of the bed. I must have slept walked and grabbed it, remembering all of the times his mother had acted out her night terrors.
Putting it aside, he got up and headed for the shower. He had a long day of flights ahead of him. Munich to Ottawa. At least it’s not a redeye. God he hated those. He got into the shower and turned it on, the cold water washing away the last feelings from his nightmare. Despite the looming travel time, Jeremy was beyond excited. He had a feeling that the book was going to change things. It needed to.
