Chapter 1
I ran as fast as I could, my breathing laboured as cold hard fear coursed through my veins. A mist had descended over my eyes through the darkness. I couldn’t see the thing that was stalking me but I knew it was there; could smell it, could hear it. Heard the crunching of gravel beneath its mutated feet as it sauntered after me through the abandoned subway station.
Inhuman growls echoed around the empty tunnels from the creature as my legs pathetically urged me onwards. I was tiring, and my fear became more prominent. I wanted to get out. I couldn’t remember how I had even gotten into the abandoned subway, but somehow I was there now, fighting for my life with an unrecognizable thing on my pursuit. Hunting me, toying with me, playing with me until it was ready to pounce upon me.
I could feel my chest beginning to tighten as I gasped for breath. Petrified tears filled my eyes as I ran from my death. My screams had ceased a long time ago. They had been useless, for no one could hear me, only the thing that hunted me. I knew it relished my fear, enjoyed each time that I pleaded for it to leave me alone; its unnatural screams and rasping screeches stifling the air with rancid mockery.
The blackness was suffocating, and I could feel my life being drained from out of me as bit by bit I began to give up chase. Each time I rounded a corner into the blackness my mind screamed that the thing would be waiting for me, and my death imminent. I wanted it to be over. Exhaustion consumed every part of my body, legs burning furiously as I began faltering slowly as tears of fear and defeat flooded from my eyes.
I slumped to my knees in the darkness, my back against a grimy stone wall and wept.And wept hard.
Suddenly, my cries ceased as I heard a grunt come from the darkness that was surrounding me. I froze, my eyes transfixed into the blackness. My heart accelerated at the sound, and a cold sweat glittered upon my brow. My body began shaking violently as my mind whispered for me to run, but it was useless, the creature was fast and intelligent. It knew the darkness well for it was its home. Every crook and every cove the thing knew. There was no chance of hiding. It would sniff you out in an instant.
Slowly, my body pressed against the wall, back straight. With shaking hands I fumbled inside my dirty jacket pocket, desperately searching for my phone. Pulling it out, I fought clumsily to switch on my screen so that a small light would penetrate the dark.
Another growl. Nearer.
Tears began to fall again and as I was about to slip into a panic hysteria. My phone lit up the darkness. gripping it tightly with shaking hands, I saw for the first time around me the mould infested grimy walls of the subway, rusty tracks broken, glass shattered upon the gravel floor and then for a brief moment, two red eyes, menacing and evil staring out at me through the blackness.
They vanished as quickly as they came.
My breath hitched. The sound of my phone clattering to the floor echoed through the silence. Shaking desperately, I panicked, reaching blindly into the darkness searching for the only source of light that could be my eyes.
There was the sound of air rushing past where I sat. A frightened scream escaped my lips. Hands rose to my mouth to stifle any others that may escape. Hot tears fell from my eyes, the sound of my heart hammering against my chest piercing the darkness. Again, I attempted to search for the phone that had fallen to the floor from fright upon seeing such eyes, my hands sifting through muck and gravel and other unknown substances until fingers clasped around the small rectangular object.
From behind me there was another scream from the unknown creature that lingered in the abandoned subway. Panicked, I battled desperately to flick my screen light on but it refused. Anxiety filled me as I lost my only source of light, my breathing wild and my fear beyond safe. The thing was close, so very close, I knew it was there, I could feel its presence.
A heavy thud sounded next to me. My breathing stopped. A low hissing penetrated the silence. Terrified hands slowly fumbled with the phone in hand as eyes stared in the direction from where the sound emerged.
And then its hot foul breath brushed against my face. I could not scream, I could not cry, all I could do was stare in to the dark, blindly knowing that something menacing was there, thirsting for the kill.
The light flickered on. The potent smell of death filled my nostrils and when my fearful eyes turned they’re distorted vision to look down to where I sat the first thing that I saw was the disembodied figures that lay at my feet. Faces unrecognizable and horribly distorted, bloodied and mutilated. Trails of slick intestines painted the gravel floor the colour of brown mucus, rotten and decomposing. I retched. The smell of decomposing flesh making me sick to my stomach, mingled with fear. It suddenly became apparent that I had violated this creature’s lair and that I the hunter had now become the hunted.
Drawing my shaking knees up to my chest, I tried to kick away the rotting remains and turned my head away into the darkness. Blood red eyes stared into my soul with evil intent. Face mutilated and unrecognizable, teeth pointed and sharp like razors, thick saliva drooling from its rancid lips as it snarled with a viciousness that made my skin crawl. I stared in mute shock, unable to move, unable to breathe.
Suddenly, my boot scratched against the gravel catching the attention of the great beast. A great roar vibrated from the creature so loud that I could almost feel the entire Subway shake. The thing growled low in the back of its throat before a long red tongue shot from out of its mouth and onto my face, tasting me. I screamed. It liked it. Red eyes looked at me long and hard.
And then, darkness!
