The Song of Hidden Stars

Zack McDonald

The Song of Hidden Stars

Copyright © 2024 by Zack McDonald

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Zack McDonald asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Zack McDonald has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

Zack McDonald has no responsibility for the functionality of QR Codes included in this work.

First edition

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To the Great Composer,

Contents

QR Codes

To the Many Who Have Contributed

Prelude

1. An Explosion of Color

2. The Man in the Rain

3. The Four Trials

4. In the House of a Feeler

5. Emberring

6. First Classes

7. Unwanted Attention

8. Morgan’s Secret

9. The Opus

10. The Selection

11. Midnight in Montreal

12. The Tunnel

13. Shadows in the Fog

14. The Swallowed

15. Worms and Dirt

16. Blood and Water

17. A Hole in the Sky

18. The Song of Hidden Stars

19. The Anointed

20. Homecoming

About the Author

QR Codes

Magic becomes real.

As the reader may know, The Song of Hidden Stars is accompanied by an original soundtrack. These songs have been written by artists so that you, the reader, may hear the spells characters play on their instruments, in the location that they are played.

Throughout these chapters, there are QR codes that you can scan with your device. These link to various music streaming sites the soundtrack has been released on.

I hope you give them a listen as you read this story, bringing it to life in an immersive, never before seen way.

Rock on,

Zack McDonald

To the Many Who Have Contributed

To my illustrator,

Ethan Zehnder

To my music help,

Luke Mercer (Producer)

Riley Furey (Assistant Music Supervisor)

To my artists,

Wyatt Sprague

Teesa (Theresa D’Agostino)

Tariq Harb

Noah Richardson

Liam Brock

Nathaniel T. Banks

and the others I got to sign on last minute

To my beta readers,

Gabriel A. Hines

Rose Hines

Connor Peters

Kira Tjomsland

Siri Dewey

Jess Ryan

Melissa Perman

Asa Caviness

Raya Whittington

To my editors,

Lisa Edwards

Lucia Ferrara

and my Mom.

Thank you for your tireless work on helping make this dream of mine become reality.

Prelude

The night was dark, the sky a velvety black. And the moon, it shone pale, shimmering on the water below. A tide lapped quietly on the rocky shore, breaking over the body of a man. He gasped sharp, painful breaths that hung frozen in the air until another replaced it. The man struggled to lift himself from the shallows. Upright, he was met with warm lights, blurry in the distance. His eyes stung from the salt, but they were used to darkness. The stranger managed a step toward the lights, his bare feet dragging over the rocks turned smooth from the gentle surf. Ragged shreds of cloth clung to his naked body, wet and cold. Scars riddled him; some fresh, some years old. His fingernails were gnawed off. Overhead, the squawking of gulls echoed. A rock clipped his foot, and the man fell. Barnacles cut into his side, which the man returned with blood. Though the fall was painful, he made no noise. This was a man to whom pain was familiar.

Far off, he could hear voices. The stranger dragged himself off the barnacles and behind a boulder, leaving behind a crimson trail. He fought for each breath against the cold stone. He looked up at the sky; starlight refracted in his eyes and off a silver pendant he wore around his neck. Although shadows concealed his face, his eyes shone with emotion.

What voice was left in the man spoke a single word and that was all.

Opus.

1

An Explosion of Color

"I’m sorry, Riley."

Of all the words, he hated those two the most. The monotonous beep of a dead phoneline sounded against his spinning head, messy with dirty-blond curls of hair. Memories played in his mind, vivid in a distant, unreachable way.

Riley Taylor stared at his wall covered in pinned posters and pictures of all the places he wished to see: great snowcapped mountains, towering blue glaciers, waterfalls wrapped in forest. All were national parks across North America; all places yet unknown to him, save a picture that hung next to them. It was of a girl, and she was his last reason to be content with where he was, home in Florida.

A knock promptly sounded on his bedroom door, followed by a small head that peeked through not three feet off the ground.

Riley? said a fragile voice. Mom said she wants you downstairs for when the people arrive.

Annie was five, and the youngest of his already young siblings. With tears trapped behind unwilling eyes, Riley turned to face his sister’s wide, wondering ones. I’ll be right there, he said, forcing a smile.

As she skipped back downstairs, Riley walked to the picture of the girl hung on the wall. He stared at her dark hair and blue eyes, sighed, and ripped it off. Before answering his mother’s summons, he pulled a shoe box out from under his bed and placed the picture in it. With a weight mounting in his chest, Riley willed himself to examine the contents of the box. Old notes, movie stubs, any scrap of a memory with her, all together in one place, now accompanied by their only picture together. Riley apathetically closed the box, running his fingers over the name written on the cardboard lid: Macy.

Chaos resounded as he appeared downstairs of 1172 Orange Grove Lane. His two younger brothers, eight-year-old twins Mason and Liam, yelled at each other as they set three tables for dinner. Another sister, ten-year-old Juliet, listened to music and griped about them as she dusted the living room furniture. Among the noise, Riley heard Annie’s slight voice talking to their mother, who stood in the foyer atop a ladder adjusting a banner that read, Congratulations, Aunt Janice!

Mom? he said to alert her of his presence.

People will start arriving in ten minutes. I need you to take the trashcans in from the driveway so that our guests don’t have to smell them when they pull in. And I need you to get your father from his study.

Satisfied with the banner, Evelyn Taylor turned her crystal blue eyes down at her eldest son, and in a moment, she could read him. Is something wrong honey?

No, he whispered, turning toward the front door. Evelyn caught his arm before he could leave, studying his expression a moment before letting him go. Empathy welled in her troubled, blue eyes. I’m fine, he groaned.

But he wasn’t, and she knew that. He hadn’t been the same recently—at least, that’s what his mother kept telling him. They had tried it all; counseling, therapy, stricter discipline. None of it had worked. Joy seemed to evade him. The phone call upstairs didn’t help, but she hadn’t even known about Macy.

I know you don’t really get along with them, Evelyn sighed. "But they’re your family. You need to be accepting of them tonight."

That’s not— but he lacked the energy to finish.

Then what is it?

You know by cleaning up the house you’re forcing an unrealistic expectation of cleanliness on everyone else.

Disrespectful, but, she inspected him, more normal at least. Her eyes squinted in a last effort. So be it. Go get those trashcans.

The sun shone hot on the asphalt of Orange Grove Lane. It was summertime, which in Florida was a year-round season. Humidity made the air feel like a wet film that blanketed you the moment you stepped outside. Puddles on the side of the suburb road indicated that it had rained the night before, and it looked to continue on that night. Dark, gray-blue clouds sat threatening on the late afternoon horizon.

In a bitter silence, Riley walked down to the curb and began pulling up the trash cans, stopping once to look at his stepfather’s red 1969 Pontiac Firebird. It sat sparkling on a curbside of cookie-cutter homes. Every ounce of him wanted to drive it, looking for an escape. He stared longingly at the vintage muscle car, then continued to drag the metal trash cans, scraping up the driveway.

As guests began to knock on the front door, Riley slowly walked the hallway to his stepfather’s study to complete his next task. It was dimly lit and stuffy, with wooden floorboards that squeaked under his every step. At the end of the hall, a single heavy door stood closed. He approached it slowly, not so much out of fear as of reverence. It was a well-know, unspoken rule in his family: no one was to interrupt his stepfather’s writing. A thought is fragile, any interruption could shatter it, is what the award-winning novelist would say. The rule was a strict one for Charles Taylor, making the task of fetching him for the party better left to the eldest of the Taylor children.

As quietly as he could, Riley pushed against the heavy door into the study. Charles sat behind his desk with his back turned to the door. From where he stood, Riley could see the back of his head where the hair had begun to thin out. His stepfather continued to survey his bookshelf, bending beneath the weight of his many books, seemingly unaware of Riley’s presence.

Charles had reached middle age. He was a kind man of few words, at least of the ones he left off the page. His constant pondering had knit his brows together, and intensified his gaze. He cared greatly for his family, and equally for his collection of books, which was vast. His study was red carpeted and surrounded with bookshelves, the greatest of which had a small, brass ladder on wheels attached to it.

Riley waited as Charles finished his thought, meanwhile studying the cluttered elements of his stepfather’s desk. Pencils, scraps of paper littered with notes, annotated books, and a few old pipes for smoking. Charles’s obsession with his writing was one of his many traits that challenged his relationship with his eldest child. It didn’t help that Riley was the only stepchild of the five; all his younger siblings arrived much later. But Charles was the only father Riley had ever known, and the only father who had accepted Riley as his own. Silence thickened the room. After enough waiting had past, Riley opened his mouth to speak.

N-not now, Charles cut over him with his signature stutter before Riley’s words existed.

Sorry for interrupting—

Forgiven. N-now… He whisked his hand dismissively, continuing to stare at the bookshelf in front of him.

Mom—

Riley.

Tempted to take the answer and leave, Riley turned out the door. But instead of leaving, he stopped.

Mom wants you to come out and greet people, Riley said before he could be interrupted again. Charles let loose a deep sigh.

I’ll—I’ll come when I can, Charles stammered. Even still he appeared to be in his fictional world, which was his disposition most of the time. It was a habit that made it hard to cultivate their already weak father-son relationship.

A chatter had grown in the main part of the house by the time Riley returned. Distant family members began to crowd the living room, talking, hugging, and interrupting one another. The last was most common for Riley to experience. Even though he was the oldest of his siblings and cousins, the rest of his family treated him like the others: just a kid. None of them really listened when he talked, or if they did, they wouldn’t treat him as anything more than a rambling child, incapable of significant thoughts or feelings. And now, he completely lacked the energy needed to be polite to them and even greater, the energy to pretend he felt at home around them.

First it was his grandparents who greeted him with stooping hugs and Oh, how you’ve grown-s. Then it was his aunts and uncles with I remember when you were-s. As the afternoon faded to evening, cousins greeted him with excited jumping, screaming, and enthusiastic yelling. Before long, it was his Aunt Janice’s coworkers who filed through the front door. None of them really paid any attention to him, so Riley stared as much as he wanted as they stood on the outskirts of conversation waiting for Janice from work to arrive. All of them carried a similar, peculiar look. All looked and dressed alike, each wearing a thick pair of glasses and a bland-colored suit. Some of them still wore nametags. Above their names was an engraved picture of a sailboat with Coastal Florida Museum of History written under it.

Finally, late in her usual, eccentric fashion, his Aunt Janice walked through the door, accompanied by a man far too young for her. Coincidentally, Riley had the sudden urge to visit the other side of the room.

Oh little Riley! a shrill voice said, stopping him mid-step. He’d been spotted. Riley turned to face his aunt, who promptly greeted him with a red-lipped stain on his cheek. The kiss had an unsettling wetness and ended with a smack. Riley had to try his best not to return it with a smack of his own: one from the back of his hand. You’ve grown so much! How old are you now, twelve? Thirteen?

Fifteen, Riley said uncomfortably while making eye contact with the ferret-skin shawl that bounced from her neck with every word.

"Oh. Well, I’d like you to meet my, erm, colleague, Morgan Squier. He helped me with my latest discovery." She gestured over to the man who accompanied her. He was tall, deceptively young, and wore a knitted sweater that matched his brown pants and dress shoes. He smelled distinctly of coffee beans. The man looked to be late into his thirties, even adventuring into his forties, but his eyes still shone with the excitement of youth. They were a misty, sea-blue, yet dampened by dark circles under his eyes.

What do you do again? Riley asked as politely as he could, but it came out as a grumble.

Riley Taylor! his aunt scolded. "I’ll have you know that this party is a celebration of what I do. And what it is that I do is museum curation. Riley’s face remained blank. You know, putting things in museums so you can take your little field trips there?"

Oh. Yes, the little field trips. My favorite, Riley murmured.

The man named Morgan smiled.

Your aunt has found a very old piece of history, he said. She’s been nominated for several national archaeological awards you know.

Cool, Riley said, wanting nothing more than to be alone, away from this extended family.

"Don’t you want to know what it is that I found? Aunt Janice asked. Before Riley could answer, she was back at it. It was quite exciting, really. A spyglass, dating all the way back to the Spanish explorers that settled here in Florida." Whenever she talked, she made wide, sweeping hand gestures to sell the grandeur of everything that she did.

That’s … amazing. Congratulations, Aunt Janice.

"Thank you very much, she huffed. Say, Aunt Janice bent, whispering to her nephew, You wouldn’t happen to know if my brother-in-law will be attending tonight? Not your stepfather … the other one."

"Uncle Ernie? You mean scary Uncle Ernie?" Riley asked in a low voice, his attention finally given.

Correct. Her lipstick-caked mouth smacked with disdain.

I—

Just do me a favor. Keep him occupied tonight. I wouldn’t want him to scare any of my coworkers. Thank you, dove.

Without waiting for a response, she stood back up and strutted into the crowded living room, reveling in the attention. Her escort, Morgan Squier, smiled warmly, even apologetically, and followed her.

With a shiver of disgust, Riley wiped the moist lipstick mark from his cheek, grumbling to himself. Then, a loud, repeated thud sounded rapidly on the front door, and continued until it was opened. Darkening the door frame was a ragged-looking old man, whose one eye bulged considerably more than the other.

Hurry up and let me in, boy! the man barked in a hoarse, gravelly voice, pushing past Riley into the house. He spoke as if all his words were one long one. Dangerous place you decided to live, eh?

The man who entered the house moved abruptly; too quickly for someone of his age. He had a tangle of gray hair and long, frizzy eyebrows of the same color. His figure was hunched, his limbs were knobby, and his arms held closely to him like he was hugging himself under his oversized coat.

Uncle Ernie, Riley said, quietly adding, So nice to see you, why don’t you come on in. After he closed the door, Riley turned just in time to catch his uncle’s moldy coat thrown at him. It was heavy and smelled like onions and dust. As soon as he pulled it off his head, Riley was confronted with Uncle Ernie’s vulture eye pressed close to his own.

Must keep the creatures away, he said, pulling a piece of metal from his pocket and putting it to his lips. It was a jaw harp. Riley watched as his uncle flicked and blew into the instrument, producing weird sounds like boinggg and doinggg. His uncle continued to play the weird song over the closed door.

Uncle Ernie, what are you doing?

"Keeping them out of course, out there where they belong. Far away from us in here," Ernie said slowly, like he was trying to explain something as obvious as gravity.

"Oh, of course," Riley agreed sympathetically.

Not as sharp as I thought you were, eh Johnny boy? his uncle chuckled, then surveying the room, immediately returned to his suspicious and fearful gaze.

He watched his uncle’s overgrown eyebrows rise and fall with every anxious syllable he spoke. Over the years, his uncle had become more worrisome. He used to be normal, but years ago, he started to isolate from the family, then ran away, or so Riley’s mom told him. He didn’t blame his uncle for that. He didn’t like being around them either.

When he started showing back up again, everyone said that he’d changed. Although, this was how he always knew his uncle, a little … strange. Riley saw how his friends had left him and how his family looked down on him. Deep down, he felt bad for Uncle Ernie.

Something’s off here, his uncle snapped. I can hear it … something’s aloof … someone … mustn’t think about anything important—just to be safe—crows, lettuce, catalytic converter, the Magna Carta … And on and on he went, mumbling in gibberish.

Let’s get you to the dinner table, Riley said, taking his arm to direct him deeper into the party.

Soon, friends and family were sitting down to eat: the family at the long, center table, work friends at another, and the kids sitting down at the smallest one off to the side. Riley was seated at the smallest table, surrounded by younger siblings and cousins, with his knees pressed firmly against the bottom of the table. His undersized chair made him stoop, bending his back into a C.

At the family table, Riley’s mother stood and began to speak. Before she did, she surveyed the room for her husband, who, to her disappointment, was not to be seen. Riley envied him for that.

Welcome, everyone! It’s so good to see all of your faces, smiling around our table again. Before we eat, I just wanted to once again congratulate my older sister. Janice, what you’ve accomplished with your work, award-winning might I add, is something to be celebrated. While his mother took a quick breath, Riley eyed his smug aunt, obviously enjoying the attention and praise with a haughty expression. He knew his mother didn’t mean what she was saying—how could she? Just look at her, he thought. Unbelievable. I’m so proud of you. To call you my sister is an honor. Here’s to you!

The rest of the family and friends voiced their approval with clapping, the clinking of glasses, and with an eagerness to begin dinner. As Riley picked at his food with a reduced appetite, he could feel the weight of eyes—eye—a bulgy one on him. He looked up from his plate and found his uncle’s suspecting gaze. However, when he followed it, it went past him, all the way to the table full of Aunt Janice’s work friends. His uncle’s lips moved, and under the roar of conversation, Riley heard the ends of words he muttered. Dreadlocks, leather socks, the water cycle …

Riley tried to finish his food quickly, if anything, to get away. The chatter from the other room quieted as he took his plate to the kitchen sink.

A long, heavy sigh left him as he washed his plate. The dull rush of the tap water grew into white noise, allowing him to wander through his thoughts. They were not a happy place to be now. They were filled with nauseating pain, images of dark hair and blue eyes, of a shoe box full of no more than memories. He had given her everything, his first girlfriend, and totally gotten blindsided. Riley regretted loving her so soon. He felt like a fool, humiliated that he had never seen it coming, that he had trusted her with so much so fast.

The jubilant spirit active in the next room pushed him further into this state of mind. They were too happy to be around, too happy for him. The tap continued to run over his thoroughly clean plate. Riley stared blankly into nowhere.

I need to leave, he thought, and he had long wanted to. Now that Macy was out of the picture, he had nothing, at least to him, that held back his longing to leave home. Something glittered across the room that pulled him from his mindless state and gave him an idea. On a night where everything had gone wrong, what really could make it worse?

He made for the back door, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. As he reached for the knob, his hand met his uncle’s chest. The sun will be down soon. I hope you’re not thinkin’ of going out there.

Geez! Riley flinched. I’ll be right back.

"Oh, you don’t know do yeh? I’ll be right back, his uncle mocked. Bah! That’s what you think. Anxiety was ever present on his uncle’s face, his bulgy eye always moving, surveying. Someone’s here that’s not supposed to be, I know it … mustn’t let them in—slushies, jackhammers, Louis the 14th."

Look, if this is about mind reading again—

NO, no, NO! Uncle Ernie shouted. The unkempt old man stopped and began to mumble either to himself or an imaginary someone, Although I do believe that.

Uncle Ernie.

What? Oh yes! Yes, it’s far too late to go outside.

Frustration mounted as Riley clenched something cold in his left hand. If he could just push past him.

There’s a beast that stalks these parts you know? I’ve seen him myself—but I was only a boy then. His uncle raised his hands to resemble claws. He’s a monster, a creature of blood and moss. His spineless body … dreadful head, with teeth the size of your arms! No place out there is safe from him after sundown … Uncle Ernie began muttering under his breath again.

All right, I’ll be back before sunset, how’s that? This will only take like five minUTES—

Uncle Ernie grabbed either side of Riley’s head with his leathery hands, aggressively pulling his face close to his own.

Yah best be, boy. Yah best be. With that, his uncle released his head and retreated into the other room, muttering as he went. The Mona Lisa, fried chicken, air traffic control …

Dumbstruck, confused, and a little annoyed, Riley left the house through the back door, wiping away the lingering smell of dust and onions.

Out on the street, Riley stared down his stepfather’s vintage 1969 Firebird, anxiously fiddling with the keys between his sweaty fingers. The next thing he knew, the key was in the ignition. Stealthily, he shifted the gear into neutral and rolled the car down the road. He waited to turn the engine over, all the while watching for prying eyes through the windows in the house. After the car had reached the end of the street, Riley turned the key. It sputtered and growled, coming to life. He could feel the rumble of the antique engine in his fingertips. Breaths of excitement lightly fogged the windshield while Riley inhaled the aged smell of the interior.

Wind grew louder and blew through the open windows, throwing Riley’s dirty-blond hair back and forth. Excitement stretched a smile across his face, creasing lines next to his eyes. In moments, Riley was cruising down the block, driving underage, and loving every minute of it.

Palm trees and muddy puddles whisked by as the car picked up speed. Light was quickly failing, painting a soft orange horizon that faded to a pale blue, and then, darkness. On the other side of the car, Riley watched as heavy clouds sat threatening, occasionally illuminated by flashes of silent lightning, momentarily revealing the outlines of massive storm clouds. Two-toned weather was normal in Florida.

For a while, Riley was content with listening to the wind and its howling song. But presently, his euphoric smile fell into a blank expression of sorrow. The name Macy cut into him.

He turned on the radio. It was tuned to his stepfather’s favorite classical music broadcast. Discontented, Riley turned the dial to a local classic rock station. The reverberating guitar over the radio cried, and the pounding drums beat life into the boy who drove the stolen car.

Before long, the Pontiac Firebird turned onto a long stretch of empty road, flanked on either side by swampland. A couple more turns and he could be at her house, looking on at it, hopeful that maybe, by chance, Macy would walk outside. They’d talk things out and it would be better again. A lie, and he knew it was. Instead, the car flew straight, chasing down the last glimmer of golden light fading on the horizon.

The frame of the car rattled as the tires slowed and stopped just off the road on a gravel turnoff. In front of the car lay an open stretch of land, with groomed grass and long strips of asphalt flanked by blue and red lights. Planes flew here, coming, going: things Riley himself could not do. Under the last light of that summer day, Riley sat on the roof of the car, looking up at the remnants of the August sunset outlined with jet trails that glowed orange.

At that moment, a small plane was taking off from the far tarmac. Cross-legged, Riley watched it lift into the air, growing ever smaller and quieter as it flew away. Often, he’d wondered where they were going, only knowing that it wasn’t here. He dreamed of flying one, chasing the light, traveling to places unknown to him. The same mournful longing shone in his eyes. A desire for a true adventure burned within him. It was the only feeling he had left powerful enough to overwhelm the dreaded one. If he could think about that, he wouldn’t be thinking about her.

The summer air smelled like rain as the sun said its final goodbye. As night overtook the sky, so did the nauseous ache overtake the resolve in his chest. Rain began to tap against the metal roof on which he sat. She had retaken his mind. The storm had arrived.

I hate you, Macy, he told the sky. But what he really hated was the way she made him feel, like he was something that needed to be let down easy, like he was deserving of her sympathy. You can keep it.

Riley slid off the roof and fell back into the driver’s seat. Once the windows were rolled back up and the car turned around, Riley took one last look at the hollow place the sun had left, and a sort of unspoken understanding passed between them. Thunder clapped, and his attention was once more directed at the open road in front of him. The wind changed, and immediately it began to pour.

Water flew as the windshield wipers whisked heavy sheets of it away. It beat against the roof trying it’s best to get in. Despite the headlights’ fight against the torrent of rain, visibility was quickly deteriorating. Riley could only see for the half seconds after the wipers shoveled away new blankets of water. Fearful someone was bound to notice the absence of himself and the car, Riley pressed the Firebird down the road. The classic rock station blared Billy Idol over the din of rain.

Thunder rumbled the car as it sped through the storm. Riley’s eyes strained hard to see through the windshield when something immediately appeared in the weak headlamp beams.

Someone stood on the road. A shock of terror pulsed through Riley’s whole body as he stomped on the brake and swerved right, narrowly missing the stranger on the road. But the wet asphalt didn’t allow him to stop completely. His wheels drifted over puddles of water until—WHAM!

A deafening crash and crunch of metal rang into the night, soon overwhelmed and quieted by the sounds of the raging storm. The Pontiac Firebird creaked in a ditch just off the road, headlamps still burning, and radio still crackling with discorded music.

Riley’s vision was dark and tunneled. Colors danced across it, flashing, running, changing, then fading.

At first, all that Riley could do was listen to the pelting rain, and feel the hot blood trickling from his forehead. He blinked his eyes as the colors disappeared. In a daze, he saw the steering wheel painted in red: blood. Beyond it through the windshield, steam billowed up from the mangled hood of the car. Riley had to kick the door open.

He stumbled out into the storm, tripping and falling into the mud. Blood and rain stung his eyes, making it impossible to see. From the wreckage, the radio still sputtered.

With ringing ears, Riley raised a trembling hand and touched the gash in his forehead. He winced, wiping away what he could. Thunder cracked again, reminding him of the fact that he was not alone. Riley looked around for the man in the rain, but neither saw nor heard anything but the rain itself.

Hello? he yelled across the road and into the surrounding swampland. There was no reply. Riley panted and shook with adrenaline, almost bringing himself to tears because he couldn’t use any of it. He couldn’t do anything, or at least couldn’t think of anything to do.

Then, something vibrated through his body. Riley looked across the swamp, squinting, and straining for any sign of the man. Then the feeling came again. The cut above his brow throbbed, and his vision blurred. Dim, green colors played across the lower half of his vision, throbbing faintly with his head. A croaking growl vibrated from the swamp again and into his body. Something moved out in the darkness, concealed by the night and the rain. Something large.

At first, Riley’s mind made him believe he saw the form of an alligator, its glowing eyes marking him. They were fairly common, but no less dangerous. He had even heard stories of disappearances. Everyone who lived there knew what