1.
This is a sneak peek into the Interbred series. The rest of the book is available on Galatea.
‘Shut the windows, quick!’
Carolyn raced around their little home. Slamming down shutters. Pulling closed curtains.
‘Double bolt the doors! Turn off the lights.’
Together, Carolyn and her sister pushed shut the front door’s heavy lock into place. Their mother was sitting on the couch, looking very small as she huddled in her quilt.
‘Douse the fire,’ she said.
Carolyn sighed. It was freezing. ‘Can’t we …?’
‘No. There can’t be any signs of life, lest we attract the monsters.’
‘There hasn’t been a disappearance in over a year, Mama. Whatever was here is gone. Or maybe even dead,’ Carolyn said, as she doused the flames. Darkness fell, all except for one flickering candle. Moonlight turned the curtains white.
‘You can’t know that for sure,’ their mother said wisely. ‘We must be careful.’
‘There’s no point to being careful if we freeze to death,’ Carolyn grumbled.
Carolyn’s breath came out in a mist. Belinda’s eyes glittered against the candlelight. Their mother’s dark figure rose from the couch. The floorboards creaked beneath her footsteps. The two sisters followed her into the bedroom.
Together, they slept, bunched up close, keeping warm, keeping safe. Hearing each other’s breaths. Every night it had been like this. Every night for the past three years. Ever since the disappearances. Ever since the pile of human bones found deep within the trees. Ever since the rumours of a monster that could tear a human being apart.
Carolyn shivered.
But it had been three years.
Three years and she was freezing!
Carolyn turned onto her back with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. Belinda was shivering against her. Her mother was curled up in a ball. Carolyn was not going to fall asleep. It was an exceptionally cold night. The coldest she’d known in years.
She rolled over, gazing at the doorway leading into the living room and the fireplace. Several heartbeats later, she sat up. Belinda stirred. ‘Where are you going?’
Carolyn just shook her head. Climbing from the mattress, she stumbled in the dark. The candle had flared out but the moonlight beaming through the curtains was enough to see by—just. The floorboards creaked. She paused to look over her shoulder, but her mother didn’t wake.
‘Carolyn!’ Belinda hissed.
Carolyn ignored her. Grabbing up her tinder box, she knelt before the warm coals. Within minutes, she had another little fire stoked up. Carolyn groaned as warmth beat against her front. It felt like it was thawing the ice from her veins.
She looked over with a start at a creak—but it was only Belinda. He sister’s eyes were wide but she nestled down beside Carolyn and held out her hands too. Her fingertips were white.
‘Oh, God,’ she groaned. ‘What in heaven could feel this good?’
Light from the fire flashed across the room. It flickered against the windows. It shone against the gold streaks in her sister’s plaits. They both turned at the sound of the sheep bleating in the barn. Carolyn turned back to the fire with a frown. The back of her neck prickled.
Myths and legends and rumours were hard to shake deep in the middle of a cold, miserable night. She thought about that pile of bones with a shiver. She’d had nightmares—they all had. Of big lurking figures. Of outstretched claws and fangs the size of fingers. Growling. Snarling. Roaring. She’d never heard it. She’d never seen it. Her imagination was enough.
They both turned again when there came more bleating. There followed thudding, as though the sheep were barging the door. As though trying to get out.
‘They’re scared of something,’ Belinda squeaked.
Carolyn’s neck ached as she continued to stare over her shoulder, listening, seeing nothing in the darkness. Her long dark fringe tickled her nose. Belinda ducked with a squawk when a shadow passed across the moonlight. Something big. Something fast.
Ice flooded Carolyn’s veins.
‘Put out the flames,’ Belinda hissed.
Carolyn tossed the bucket of dirt on top. Blackness descended. Even the moonlight seemed dim. Belinda grabbed onto Carolyn as they both stared at the window, waiting, hoping.
The shadow passed again and this time Belinda leapt to her feet, scrambling back into their mother’s room. Carolyn heard her mother’s surprised yelp. She twisted around at the sound of something at the back door. Something that made the door shudder in its frame. Carolyn couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. The ringing in her ears drowned out the screaming of her mother and sister.
Vaguely, she saw them. Their hands were upon her. They were shouting in her ear. A small cold hand took hers and dragged her to the front door, just as the rear door burst open. More than burst open, snapping free from its hinges and slamming into the opposite wall.
She barely heard that either, muffled by the blood roaring in her ears.
A huge dark figure stooped beneath the doorframe. It filled the doorway. A figure bigger than the biggest man she’d ever seen. Her heart lurched, her belly swooped, as she was dragged staggering through the front door. The cold air hit her in the face like a brick.
‘Carol! Run!’ Belinda screamed.
Their mother was right beside them as they sprinted towards the road, but their mother was slow and small and was holding the two sisters back. Carolyn grabbed her arm, steadying her before she fell, keeping her footsteps in pace with hers. The breath rattled in her mother’s chest.
The freezing grass of their little field crackled beneath their slippered feet. It was so icy she could feel the cold of it deep in her ankle bones. Her little sister was up ahead, pulling further and further away. Carolyn glanced over her shoulder but could see nothing chasing them.
Then she heard it—an animal-like roar that made the hair on her arms stand upright. She could hear her mother crying as she tried to keep up.
‘Leave me,’ she gasped. ‘Leave me to the monster.’
‘No! This is my fault.’
Her mother staggered. Carolyn tried to grab her but she collapsed to her knees. ‘Mama!’
She wouldn’t get up, couldn’t get up, quietly sobbing, her skin white in the moonlight. She was shivering violently.
Carolyn looked around but her sister had disappeared—thankfully. Where was the monster? Her heart thrashed in her chest as she spun around, scanning the darkness. Their little farmhouse seemed so small and vulnerable. She could hear bleating and banging from the sheep shed.
Their nearest neighbour was miles distant. The road was still several minutes of hard running away. And what then? How would the road protect them? There were no carriages or wagons at this time of night. Not that anyone would bother helping three distressed farm women babbling about monsters in the dark.
‘Carol!’ echoed Belinda’s voice from somewhere up ahead.
Why was she calling her? Shut up!
‘CAROL!’
‘Shut up!’ Carolyn yelled back. ‘Run! Go!’
Her mother yelped, grabbing onto Carolyn’s arm at another dreadful roar. It was coming from their house. The monster was still there. The sheep started screaming.
‘Come on, Mama,’ Carolyn hissed, dragging her to her feet.
Her mother scrambled behind her but only managed a short distance before stumbling again.
’I can’t. I can’t,’ she gasped, bending over as she struggled to catch her breath. Her woollen nightdress couldn’t keep the ice at bay; her gasping breaths came out in a mist; her lips were white. She’d lost one of her slippers.
’God,’ her mother croaked. ‘Go! Go to your sister. She needs you!’
Carolyn glanced over her shoulder.
’Go! You fool. Go!’ She shoved Carolyn weakly before collapsing to the ground a second time.
Carolyn stepped back at the sound of another terrible roar. It was so loud, so deep it seemed to make the air vibrate. There was loud banging. It sounded like it was pulverising the walls, ripping up the floorboards. Breaking anything it could. Like an animal. Like the monster it clearly was. It was angry. It was looking for them.
‘Mama. I love you,’ she croaked.
’Go!’
Carolyn was sobbing as she fled. The cold grass crackled beneath her footsteps. The icy air was like fire in her throat and lungs. It made her eyes tear up. She stumbled and almost fell, her toes numb in her shoes.
At the end of the field were low bushes. Her woollen nightie ripped and tore. As a poor lowly farm family, the fabric was priceless. Any other time, any other day, when her mother wasn’t destined to die and she wasn’t about to suffer a night of terror and frozen temperatures, it would have hurt her heart.
If she survived.
Her heart leapt into her throat at the sound of her mother’s scream. Carolyn briefly turned back, the urge to call for her mother on the tip of her tongue, but she turned away and sped on.
The road was up ahead. Where was Belinda?
Clutching at her chest, she slowed, then stopped, huddled low to the bushes. ‘Belinda,’ she hissed. ‘Belinda!’
No answer. The moonlight gleamed against the road. It made her white knitted shawl blaze. Too bright. It was all too bright. She whipped it off and balled it up under her armpit.
‘Belinda!’
Perhaps she’d actually managed to jump a wagon? Unlikely. Impossible.
Her eyes drifted over to the forest. Surely not. Surely she didn’t go in there. Where the monster itself was rumoured to dwell. Not its home. Not the bones. Carolyn chewed on her lip. She wiped at her eyes, the tears turning cold upon her cheeks.
At another echoing bellow, Carolyn fled into the trees.
The air was catching in her throat. The cold air was making her eyes ache. She gripped at a stitch in her side.
Her gasping turned to wheezing. She stumbled. Her foot caught in a root and she tripped and fell to her knees. Whimpering and sucking down each tearful breath like she was dying, she bunched her fists into the cool earth. Her body trembled. Her thighs were aching and so stiff they felt like tree trunks.
‘Belinda!’ she hissed between panting breaths. ‘Belinda!’
Pointless. The forest was huge and was filled with so many noises she didn’t recognise, strange and terrifying. She hadn’t heard her mother since that terrible scream. No more roaring either. She didn’t want to think why.
Carolyn turned her head with a wince. She turned her head again at the snap of a breaking stick. The air left her lungs. Her eyes darted between the trees. Her tired heart was thudding in her ears.
A growl, low and drawn out.
Carolyn froze. Her teeth chattered. Her eyes felt hot in her head as she studied the darkened trees. Her breathing sounded much too loud.
Leaves crunched underfoot. A shadow moved. Huge and horrible. Carolyn’s heart pounded madly. Then something unstuck in her mind, in her body. Her senses caught up. She leapt to her feet and ran.
‘Belinda, run! It’s in the forest! Run! Run away!’
Carolyn didn’t know how she didn’t trip. She didn’t know how she dodged between the trees, evading the low-hanging branches. The moonlight flashed less and less through the leaves as the trees grew close.
It was almost completely dark now, thanks to the forest’s dense canopy. Her running slowed and she was forced to raise her hands in front of her, slapping the almost invisible branches away. She no longer saw the ground. She slowed to a walk.
Carolyn glanced over her shoulder pointlessly. She couldn’t hear it behind her. If she couldn’t see, it wouldn’t see either. If it couldn’t see, then maybe she could hide.
Now that she was no longer running, she began to shiver violently. Dropping to the ground, she crawled her way between two big rocks. There, she curled herself up on the cold moist earth in between. She wondered what was worse: being eaten alive or slowly freezing to death.
Carolyn jerked as a bat burst through the treetops, flapping its wings and squawking loudly. She pictured the pile of bones. She recalled the terrible roaring, the sheer size of the monstrous figure stooping through the doorway. Wrapping her arms more tightly around herself, she shivered.
Freezing to death. Freezing to death was definitely preferable.
Carolyn didn’t move, shivering incessantly, teeth clacking together, legs jerking, as the night became colder and colder. The tip of her nose was going numb. Her fingers were burning in pain as they quickly lost circulation.
Belinda. Mama. Would her entire family die tonight?
Carolyn had no idea how much time had passed as she lay there. All she knew was that it was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. Her body was aching from the constant shivering. She could no longer feel her fingers or toes now. It felt like ice had replaced the tip of her nose.
Frequently, she would jerk and gasp and curl up more tightly at the sound of the forest’s many movements: its innumerable animals and insects and the shifting of the branches in the breeze. But that soon stopped. Her body turned numb. She no longer moved at all. At each new noise, it got harder and harder to care.
Her eyes closed.
Noises. A heavy body shifting. Her eyes snapped open again. Different from the regular sounds of the forest. Measured. Subtle. Maybe even intelligent. Something didn’t want her to know it was there. Carolyn rolled her eyes as she tried to squint into the darkness but her eyelids kept wanting to stick together.
A shadow between the leaves. A slight rustling of leaves. As big as it was, it moved as effortlessly and quietly as a snake. Carolyn didn’t make a sound, anchored to the ground like the rocks beside her. Exhausted in her terror and the unrelenting cold, she didn’t even feel fear as the tall, menacing figure stood over her. This was it. Time to die. It wore a cloak, looking almost human. Maybe it was human. Maybe this wasn’t the monster at all!
Could it be? Did she have hope?
‘H-help,’ she stuttered. ‘H-help.’
She reached out an arm, then dropped it. She could hear it breathing. Him breathing. Long and steady, unaffected by the cold at all. And then she realised what a fool she was. What kind of man would venture through the forest during the deepest darkness of a freezing night?
Carolyn tried to sit up but flopped back down. ’No—no.’
She tried to scream as the monster swooped over her.
