The dark within us the c.., p.1
The Dark Within Us (The Calladon Chronicles Book 1), page 1
The Dark Within Us
Book One of the
Calladon Chronicles
By Sage Marrow
Sagemarrowbooks@gmail.com
Copyright © 2022 Sage Marrow
All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
The Worlds Stir
MY SHADOW TRAILING AHEAD of me rippled on the ground, fizzing in and out at the edges like a bad connection to the earth.
That made me slow to a standstill and stop talking mid-sentence, phone gripped too-tightly in my hand, my skin prickling with goosebumps, my veins suddenly feeling like they were full of ice shards. Something was watching me. I could feel it, like the ghost of a hand grasping the back of my neck, starting to dig in claws.
Something was here.
Boots scraping, I spun on the spot, the torn jacket I held in one fist dragging in the dirt. The rest of my clothes weren’t in a cleaner state; I had grass stains and flecks of blood dotting my white t-shirt and holes in the knees of my jeans.
Squinting against the glare of the sunset, I only saw the empty road I was walking and dead leaves scattering before the wind, whispering deviously as they scratched across the pavement. The same wind made the oaks bow back and forth, waving solemnly my way, filling my nose with the smell of dust and growth, deep and green. Was I about to get jumped again? I had left Remold, the foremost idiot that had taunted me for weeks, unconscious a mile back with his goons flittering around him like frazzled hens. Clenching my hand tighter on my jacket sleeve, I felt my split knuckle protest as my skin stretched further, sticky blood half-dry between my fingers, dripping onto the ripped fabric. The throbbing of my black eyes and my ripped-up knees intensified. Maybe they’d returned. I’m sure they had more to say about my mom and her “episodes”.
I was used to the rumors that were whispered—and oftentimes said straight to my face—regarding my mother's sanity. She wasn't shy about her beliefs that another world existed, that demon creatures were real, and I lived with the consequences. Ignoring people's insults and insinuations wasn't very difficult, most of the time; it just became impossible when their stupidity was coupled with a few rough shoves and a certain stink-breathed moron refusing to get out of my way.
One straw too many, I suppose.
But this… this felt different, like nothing I’d encountered before. Behind me, my shadow was spitting furiously again, like it was trying to come alive.
Obviously, I’d been hit too hard.
“Kal?”
Lifting the phone again, I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sorry mom. You were scolding me?” This wasn’t a rare occurrence on her part. I made no false claims that I was a role model daughter. I blamed Jan, my best friend, and his propensity to find trouble no matter where we went. Resuming my strides, with a lot less fury and more trepidation, I continued onward, casting suspicious glances over my shoulder. Huh. Getting jumped on my way home from school was filling my head with paranoid thoughts. Shrug it off, Kal, and keep your ears open. Go get an ice pack for your bruised brain and make it stop seeing things that aren’t real.
“Honey,” she sighed into my ear. I could just picture her, sitting in her favorite spot by the back window that overlooked the vast woods, anxiously tugging at the purple headscarf I had gifted her for her birthday to help brighten up her despair at her losing her lovely hair in chunks. Her shrunken frame would be shivering even beneath the soft throw my little brother had given her as his present. I was no doubt deepening the worry lines around her storm grey eyes. "You need to ignore those who try to anger you. If you try to pick a battle with every person who angers you, you'll spend your whole life fighting.”
She had a point, admittedly. At seventeen, I was the older sibling and the supposed example to Nate, the nefarious dweeb who, at twelve, liked to do whatever he pleased. The trembling in her voice made my gut coil with guilt. For the millionth time, I wished she would return to seek medical help so we could figure out what was causing her body to waste away into nothing, her mind to slowly dissolve into an emptiness that was, little by little, taking her away from us. For the millionth time, I wished my dad or older brother were around so I could defer to them on what to do. Have someone else in charge. But they were hardly more than memories kept alive by my mom's voice, gone before I could create many solid recollections myself.
The thing was, I really could have used the help. My mom would ramble sometimes, in increasing frequency as of late, losing her grasp on reality and speaking inanely of stuff that wasn’t real. She’d go on about names I couldn’t pronounce and creatures I couldn’t describe, and some made up place that she would cry helplessly over. In her decaying mind, my mother thought the stories in her head were just as real as I was then, walking along with my straight, dark brown hair in knots around my shoulders from Remold yanking on it and my afternoon-blue eyes rimmed with blood that was draining into my eye sockets from the blow he had landed between my brows. It was giving me one whopping headache. All the bruising no doubt made the freckles sprayed across my cheekbones seem darker, my skin paler.
But you should have seen the state I left him.
I had Jan, my best friend, to thank for that. After my first spectacular fail in trying to defend my mother’s name months ago and getting my ass handed to me, he had insisted on teaching me to fight properly. No doubt due to the enormous responsibility he felt for my wellbeing, really for anyone he cared about, despite him being only two years older than me. It had been an unspoken pact to never tell my mother about the lessons. Under Jan’s tutelage, I had grown a lot stronger and quicker, and Remold had underestimated me when he and his gang surprised me outside the schoolyard.
By now, I had plunged into the woods behind my home, lilting into a light jog, unable to shake the uneasiness that clung to me like a second skin. With the sun slinking below the mountain range, everything was splashed with purple hues that made the pockets of dark stand out starkly and I couldn’t distinguish my own shadow anymore. As pep talks went, I sucked at listening to myself. “Alright, mom, you got it. Good behavior from this point forward.”
"I heard that, hag. You’re such a liar."
Craning my neck, I grimaced as I spotted Nate perched above me on a branch, swinging one leg lazily, shoes untied as always. The ridiculous patchwork hat that practically lived on my brother’s head shifted as he leaned forward, its long end trailing across his shoulder; it was a hideous clash of bright colors and crudely sewn together fabric, with a brim fraying from use and a sagging tassel that danced around his neck. Tufts of wavy black hair poked out under the hat's rim and his midnight blue eyes were lit by the flashlight on his phone, the freckles he and I shared chaotically dusting his cheeks.
“I found Nate,” I said into the phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll drag him home.” Clicking the call to an end, I switched on my flashlight and held it up, hugging myself against the chill that gripped me. The shards of ice in my veins were growing bigger.
“Sheesh, what happened to you? You look worse than usual. That’s an impressive feat.”
I ground my teeth together. “You’re such a joy in my life. Get down and let’s get out of here.” My fingers dug into my arms as I stood tense, trying not to jump at the rustling of the wind through the brush.
Nate’s feet thumped the ground as he landed, admittedly with more balance and grace than I would have managed. His white shirt beneath his unzipped black jacket had sap stuck to it, and I sighed in dismay over the plant stains dotting his jeans. Between my clothes and his, I had my work cut out for me with laundry.
“What’s your problem? Besides the usual,” he added offhandedly.
“Right now, it’s you, if you don’t start marching and get your butt home.”
“You look like you got into a fight with a lawnmower, and the lawnmower won.”
I jutted a stiff finger out, pointing down the path. “Home. Now.”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” Nate offered me a mocking salute and turned sharply on his heel, joints locked as he plowed onward with his knees unbending and arms swinging disjointedly by his sides. His flashlight bounced wildly across the landscape as he swung it.
Squinting suspiciously into the tangle of shadows behind me, I started after him, unable to stop my teeth from chattering. What was wrong with me? I could all but taste my own pulse, as if I had drunk melted pennies and my body was prickling like someone was jabbing at me with needles. No, more like pulling at me, trying to rip off pieces of myself.
I jumped a foot in the air as my phone rang, and a glance to the screen showed me Jan was calling. My stomach swooped, like a bird taking flight, as it usually did when Jan got back in touch with me after being away. Sometimes he was gone for months, which was beyond annoying. I mean, I didn't have many friends. Which is to say, I had only one. People were difficult to crack, to know exactly what their intentions were and whether they were being truthful to you. I didn't trust people easily by nature. As a kid, running into Jan for the first time as he offered a hello, I could sense something was different. Inexplicably, he had known me, questioning whether I remembered him. He was easy to read so long as I could take a good clear look at his eyes. Right from the start, he could handle my temper and my sarcastic nature with ease. Whenever we argued—and with the two of us, that occurred a lot—and Jan grew tired of it, he'd give a brief kiss on my brow to get me to shut up. It was his signal that we'd agree to disagr ee.
Oh, by the way, my having a crush on my best friend was the worst.
I answered his call without a greeting, knowing what he was calling about, and set him to speakerphone. “I take it my mother texted you?”
“She did,” he affirmed on the other end. Just his voice helped to push away some of the shadows that seemed to be crawling my way. “She said you were attacked.”
Glancing away from where Nate raised his eyebrow at me, I muttered, “I handled it.”
“But?”
I blew out a puff of air, my bangs flying for a moment. It was sometimes annoying how well he knew me. “Well, Remald must have an abnormally thick skull because my hand is killing me.”
“I’m sure I taught you how to swing properly, Twig-limbs, so yeah, we’ll go with that.” I could just see him rolling his eyes in my mind. Sheesh. I had yet to best him in an arm-wrestling contest, even using both my hands, and I’m stuck with this dumb nickname forever. “I told you when you’re outnumbered that the objective is to run away.”
“I was already lectured by my mother,” I told him curtly, “so I don’t really need a second one. Where are you, anyway? I could’ve used your help.”
“I’m on my way now.”
“What is that?” Nate suddenly said, voice tight.
Raising my head, I found Nate a fair distance ahead on the trail, halted in his tracks in a near crouch, his flashlight sweeping left to right and back again.
“What are you talking about?” I drew even with him and stopped, lifting my phone’s light to add to his, seeing nothing but foliage and rocks and clinging ivy. The air around us was as silent as a graveyard, no buzzing of insects or rustling of small animals burrowing, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “I swear if you’re pranking me—"
Nate’s hand clamped onto my arm, and he pulled my light to the side and up, pairing it with his as he aimed it towards a ledge of rock and dead trees.
Four eyes glowed back at us.
I felt my jaw unhinge and the ground beneath my toes vibrated as the thing stepped forward, foam dripping from jaws the length of my torso. Each foot it set down cleaved rocks in two as its massive, jagged claws sliced through them like a hot knife through butter.
Fido the dog, apparently, had found himself some steroids.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
Jan’s voice was urgent. “Kal? What’s going on?”
The monster flickered in and out of sight like a hologram, lips quivering as they were pulled back into a vicious growl, four huge saber-teeth extending from its upper gums. Black spikes, flashing off sparks of light like sharpened metal, protruded from its neck. Its blood red fur bristled into needle-sharp points. Tail-less, with four eyes pinned on us, it stood on four legs, and the log beneath it was crushed to wood shavings, smashed to kindling like nothing more than snapping a toothpick. Though it moved in a sloping gait down an incline in the beam of our flashlights, it had no shadow stretching from beneath its body.
“W-What is that?” Nate’s phone shook in his hand.
“How should I know?!” I demanded shrilly.
“What is it?” Jan all but barked.
“I just said I don’t know!” A twig snapped beneath my heel as I took a step back. “Nate, run!”
Holding my phone steady while trying to run pell-mell down a rock-smothered dirt trail was something else. Nate stumbled over his stupid untied shoelaces, and I hauled him up by snatching his jacket collar and dragging him along for all I was worth. Shoving him bodily ahead of me, I risked glancing back, shining my light so I could see the monstrosity tearing through the woods. It burst through the trunk of a tree that stood in its way like it was nothing, sending wood splintering through the air in various sized daggers. I yelped when the tree came barreling down, a giant wooden arm in the dark that was going to crush us, and I barreled into Nate, launching us sideways. We spun down the side of a dried-up riverbank, crashing into rocks and tree roots. The side of my skull collided into something, and I saw sparks before the world managed to come into focus again. Nate was yanking on my arm now, shouting. Dizzily, I got to my feet.
“It’s catching up! Move faster!” Nate’s fingernails bit into my forearm as he gripped me. A hasty glance up the riverbed showed the red-furred thing was mere yards away, bodily shoving boulders from its path by its snout or clawing them in two.
“Go,” I panted, planting my hands on my younger brother’s shoulders, shoving him up the side of the bank. “Go find help. I’ll slow it down.” Somehow.
“Are you crazy? It’s going to eat you!”
“Thanks for your faith in me.” With a grunt, I hefted up a large fallen tree branch. Could I impale it? Given it’s flickering, I wasn’t entirely sure it was solid. I had no choice but to try, though. Maybe I’d be able to smack it, disorient it. Just enough to give me time to run.
Who was I kidding? Nate was so right. I was going to be Steroid-Fido food.
“Kal!” Nate screamed, pointing, hoisting his flashlight up.
The beam swept over the monster as it barreled down, ten steps away from me, now seven…
Rocks pelted it in the face as Nate hollered; given his panic, I was surprised his aim managed to stay steady. He may as well have been hitting it with cotton balls for all the attention it paid to him. No, all four of its eyes were set firmly on me, and I could smell its hot breath as it panted, like mold and long-since-dead meat and something acidic all rolled into one. Lifting the tree branch, I shouted at Nate to run, unable to tear my eyes away to see if he listened. Probably not. His track record didn’t speak towards obeying me, ever.
The monster launched at me, jaws spread wide, tongue rolling, saliva splattering all over me—
And as I fell to my bruised knees, digging the end of the branch into the ground, it just up and vanished.
A rush of air slid over me, throwing my hair back, flinging dust and gravel into my face and I cowered, trying to cover myself. Certain I was going to be chomped into pieces at any moment. Waiting for teeth to tear into me.
Everything stilled, though, and I knelt there gasping for air, trembling like a flame near an open window and I dared to peek around. Nothing responded. The thing was gone. Just gone.
My body seemed to melt as I sat back, barely catching myself on the heels of my hands, adrenaline making my limbs feel like squashed putty. I couldn’t seem to draw in enough air.
“What was that? What just—did you see? How did it—?” Nate clutched at his hat, as if trying to reassure himself that he still, in fact, existed, and blinked down at me. “Whaaaaaat?”
“You and me both, kiddo.” Groaning, I gathered my feet beneath me, bending to swipe my phone from where it lay abandoned on a pile of pebbles. The screen was cracked, and it wouldn’t turn back on. Great. Wiping my palms down my spit-drenched shirt, I gagged at the stench. The first drippings of rain began to pelt around me, and I glanced up, scowling at the darkening sky. “We need to get out of here, in case whatever that thing is shows up again.”
For the first time in his life, Nate agreed with me.
THE FRONT DOOR WAS NEVER mean to be handled in such a way. It all but unhinged from its place as I smashed it open with such force in my haste that it banged against the wall and reverberated, shuddering. Nate―quite eager to get out of the dark and into whatever semblance of safety our home could offer form creepy red beasts―crashed right into me, bowling me flat like a pancake, and we collided into the floor.
Our entrance probably measured on a seismic graph somewhere.
“Get off me, you barnacle. Oof.” His foot planted right into the middle of my back sent me sprawling again and he raced forward, shouting for our mother. By the time I managed to shut the front door behind me and step into the living room, he was already poised before Mom’s sitting place, stirring her from her nap, arms waving akimbo as he narrated in frenetic sentences what had just happened.
Storm-gray eyes blinked at us drowsily. "Did you run into a stray dog? Should I call the pound?" Then my mother noted my appearance and she sat up with a start. “Kal! You didn’t tell me Remold hurt you.”
