Blackdamp: The Novel. A Nerve Shredding Suspense Novel

Prologue

        Silver Creek, Oklahoma, 1998

Pain.

It shot through Jacob Hennessey's shoulder as he slammed into the front door, forcing it open. But his pounding heart, and cold terror, made the pain inconsequential. It was out there. He hadn’t believed the stories. He thought it was all bullshit. Nothing but inference and paranoia. That had all changed now.

Hennessey spun on the spot and slammed to door shut, the sound echoing through the modest home.

His wife Elanor and son, Dylan were sitting on the sofa, the TV bathing the living room in an electric glare.

‘Jake, what are you doing?’ Elanor said, with concern and alarm in her voice.

But his racing mind consumed by panic and fear kept him from answering. He continued to press his weight against the door. The ancient, primordial part of his brain telling him he this would prevent another intruder from getting in.

Elenor stood and started walking towards him. ‘Jake, what the hell is going on?’

He still said nothing. Only reaching up and pulling down a small plank of wood that slotted into two hooks behind the door. He took several steps back, observing the locked door. His racing mind and thumping heart were working too fast for him to answer his wife. The only thing he could fixate on was whether the door was strong enough to hold. The hopeful part of his brain assured him with the door shut nothing could get in.

For the first time since entering he turned to look at his wife. His chest still heaving.

‘What is it?’ she said.

Again, Jake said nothing. He looked over her shoulder, meeting the gaze of his son. He was standing, looking at his father. His face pale, and his breathing becoming panicked and shallow.

Jake shifted his gaze back to his wife.

‘Elenor, I want you to take Dylan. I want you to go down to the basement.’

His wife began to look around; her breathing becoming erratic and panicked as his.

She snapped her head towards the door before looking back at her husband.

‘What is it? What’s going on?’

Jake’s gaze was stolen away from his wife back to the door. The overwhelming feeling in the back of his mind telling him what was in the woods.

Elanor went to say something, but she barely got a sound out with Jake raising his hand in a gesture of silence.

An uncomfortable hiss of silence filled the small room. Jake moved closer to the old wooden door, turning his head and pressing it up to the door. He heard the low register of his hearing. It sounded deafening with his ear pressed against the wood. But through the sound he could hear something else.

Movement.

It wasn’t the sound of leaves being rustled; it sounded like the air outside was being disturbed. The wood surrounding the cabin started to let out creaks, as if pressure was being pushed against it.

The sound caused the pounding in Jake’s chest to accelerate. Slowly, he backed away and turned to look at his wife.

‘There’s something outside. It got Sean. I think… I think he’s dead.’

The colour in Elenor’s face drained.

‘Your brother. What happened?’

The outside disturbance seemed to grow. As if a storm or weather phenomenon were occurring.

Jake continued to back away, holding his arm out across his wife, with caused her to follow his movements. Before he knew it, he and his wife had their backs up against the door to the storage compartment.

He moved his body as slowly as possible. With every small movement he made, he felt he was making twice as much noise.

With a trembling hand, he reached down, grasping the door handle and opened the door. A piercing creak broke the heavy silence, with the door opening on neglected hinges. The noise caused a sharp, spike-like sensation in his chest at what he perceived as a loud, piercing sound. Although it couldn’t have been any louder than a whisper, it caused a reaction.

A deep, guttural sound, as if someone were clearing their throat came from the door.

‘Oh my God, what is that?’ Elenor said, her voice loud and filled with fear and despair.

Jake didn’t answer. He wrenched the storage door open, uncaring about the noise it made. He plunged his hand into the storage space, desperately grasping around, finally feeling the polished wood and metal workings in his hand. Feeling a moderate respite, he pulled out the twelve-gauge shotgun. Then, with his other hand, he pulled out a small, worn cardboard box, dumping several 12 buck cartridges into his palm.

‘It’s been following me from Pine Bluff.’ He said as he started furiously loading the gun, his hands shaking uncontrollably. As he continued, he turned to look at Elanor. Her face awash with panic and terror. Her bottom lip was wobbling, and her eyes were welling up. Jake gestured with his head towards the other end of the cabin. ‘You and Dylan, in the basement, now.’ He yelled the last word.

This time, she didn’t object. The young boy was still standing on the other side of the sofa, shaking and sobbing quietly.

Elenor hurried over and began pulling him towards the back of the house. Jake heard the creak of a door opening then closing. Now it was just him and the unwelcome visitor on the other side of the door.

Sweat was pouring down his neck and his forehead. The perspiration ran into his eyes, causing them to burn with irritation, he swiped his wrist across his eyes to wipe away the sweat. His heart pounded relentlessly, threatening to burst from his chest. A burning, almost sickening sensation in the back of his mind told him that the next few seconds were likely to be his last.

The lazy creak of old wood continued. It was as if the intruder was surveying the structure, trying to find the best point of entry. Jake stared at the door and the wall surrounding it. His breathing was fast and laboured. His attention on the door was such, that he hadn’t realised the shotgun was fully loaded, and he was trying to force an extra cartridge into the loader.

Realising his mistake, he discarded the cartridge and pulled back on the loading mechanism. The double click-click sounded deafening, but being armed filled him with the smallest of comfort.

The intruder was moving up and down the wall. Seemingly inspecting every inch of the building. More lightning flashes of panic filled erupted in Jake’s as thoughts of an open window upstairs entered his mind.

Still terrified, a small part of him took comfort in the fact that the intruder was still at the front of the house. Maybe the intruder was stuck. Unable to get through the closed door.

Suddenly, a deafening silence fell upon him. The movement stopped, leaving Jake hearing nothing but was the tense hiss of stillness, and the internal thumping of his heartbeat. He didn’t know what was worse. The movement from outside, or the abrupt muting of sound.

Perhaps the intruder had left. Maybe deciding it was too much effort to break in. Or maybe something or someone else outside had drawn their attention away. If someone else was about to take his place, being stalked and hunted, then it was something he was willing to live with. His only concern was his family. Everyone and everything else were expendable.

Jake to a step forward. The house was eerily silent, the only sound being the hiss of white noise and the pounding of his heart. There was no sound. Even the old creaky house had gone quiet. His only companion the hiss of white noise, and the adrenaline-infused beating of his heart.

He pointed the business end of the shotgun towards the door. The hopeful side of his brain was telling him there was nothing outside. That he and his family were safe, and that danger had moved on to someone else. But negative side invaded his mind, telling him that they were miles from town, and there was no one else close by. No. The night was only just starting.

Jake moved a shaky foot forward, and an explosion of sound and mess erupted in front of him. The door blew apart, splintering and disintegrating as if a bomb had been set off. Jake felt himself being lifted off the ground, and a suffocating wall of hot, acrid air hit him like he’d been struck by a car. Instinct took over, and he felt his finger pulling the trigger. The boom of the shotgun was barely audible. Lost in the wave of tearing and snapping.

Jake hit the ground. Shards of wood were dug into him, stabbing at him like an army of angry stinging insects. But his sense of survival told him not to care about that. He needed to defend his home. He needed to kill. But the familiar feel of metal and wood was gone from his grasp. The shotgun had fallen somewhere, torn from his grip in the whirlwind of activity surrounding him.

He willed his body to move. The unyielding emotion of desperation to find the gun and shoot this evil malevolence that had invaded his home.

A numb, freezing sensation took a hold of him. Before he knew it, darkness had enveloped him, feeling like an endless, eternal void of desolation. He wanted to fight back, but a debilitating weakness filled every fibre of his being. He tried to swing his arms in an attempt the fight back, but all this did was fill him with a cold exhaustion. He was feeling weak. So incredibly weak. Seconds later, his vision faded, and he fell back into the darkness.