Author's Preface
“Andrew, t-talk to me…” pleads Alice, “… what’s here?”
Her words reach his ears, though he can barely hear them anymore. “I-It’s here…” he repeats tremulously. His hands curl over his chattering teeth, his fingernails digging into his gluey palms—this crippling fear has him looking like a head case now.
“Andrew—”
“The Gazer…” he finally answers, “… it’s coming for me.”
“The Gazer??” parrots his friend to make sure she heard right. “As in…?”
“I can h-hear it…” Andrew presses on, “… it’s slithering our way.”
“Are you…?” She chugs a swelling lump in her throat, not knowing what else to respond with. “Are you s-sure?”
“Don’t look into its eye!” he croaks urgently, whimpering further—since there is a high probability that they’re as good as dead, he may as well spill the beans and pray for another intervention. “Y-You…” he gulps himself, “… you have to warn Carol.”
Without skipping a beat, Alice hurtles back to her side door so she can unroll its window to stick her head out in the battering downpour, her drenched, inklike hair sticking to her face. “THE GAZER IS COMING!!” she echoes at the top of her lungs to the unsuspecting deputy sheriff, an effort that scrapes her throat. “IT’S HERE!!”
Officer Carol, who barely heard the girl’s words, wings a hand to her ear while mouthing “What?” to her.
Alice, with the base of her palm, drums her door ferociously as she again shouts, “THE GAZER!!” Her breaths too become ragged. “IT’S HERE!!”
Having received this warning properly, Carol takes a beat to process this turbulent information. Water trickles from the nose of her gun as she stands there, recalling what she saw in the drone footage the other day—never mind that her clothes are almost entirely soaked now, or that her grip is getting rather loose on the safety… and slippery around the trigger.
But poising her own nerves, she sluggishly jogs over to Alice, closing their distance so they can talk quieter. “How do you know that?” she questions dourly.
Alice shakes while pointing back to Andrew. “Ask him.”
“Andr—” Carol prepares to question the young man until she is cut off by the sight of his convulsion. “Hey…” her voice softens into worry, “… what’s wrong?”
“Panic attack,” explains Alice before returning to soothe her friend with another round of careful strokes. “He says he can hear it coming.”
“Hear it?”
“Yeah…” the girl nods, puzzled herself, before veering her glance emptily.
“Well, just—” Carol sneezes into her arm, sniffling as she checks around herself. “Just lock your doors and keep your heads down,” she commands with a downward wave. “And don’t come out until I say so.”
“Okay.” With another brisk nod, Alice rolls up her window, only to stop midway so she can yell through the gap, “Don’t look into its eye!” And just like that, she and Andrew are sealed in.
Left out on her own, the deputy sheriff turns away from the blue car, taking out her comm unit to call for backup. “Dispatch, this is Deputy Carol Marston! Requesting backup! Over!” Her first few attempts are met with literal radio silence—there is too much interference from the weather and terrain, so of course she wouldn’t have much luck. She keeps trying regardless. “Dispatch, officer needs assistance! Repeat, officer needs assistance on…” she squints wearily to remember which road they’re on, “… Randall Road! Do you copy!?”
But again, there is no response—just static.
For all she knows, they could have heard her… but she can’t yet be sure.
Inside the car, Alice redoubles her efforts to calm Andrew down. By now, he is leaking sweat like oil from a machine, especially from the back of his hands as she holds them firmly, but also tenderly—even his face looks just about ready to melt off.
Alice had also never seen anybody’s chest, which had bloomed a fresh puddle, heave so rapidly before… like it could explode at a moment’s notice—this is a level of fear that cannot be faked… a forbidden level.
“Hey, come on…” she croons while stroking his face, “… it’ll be alright.”
In truth… she has no idea… but what else can she say?
Her anxious thoughts rebound to the Gazer, which her friend says is closing in on them—to have him this terrified… it has to be real. She’s even done her own research about this creature… so what reason would Andrew have to lie about its existence on the fly?
At the same time, she wants him to be wrong. She wants all of this to be a practical joke so she can deny reality. But more than that, she would rather wake up from this undying nightmare—but of course, life can never be that simple… can it?
For Andrew, it feels like he is suffocating… like he’s trapped inside a coffin. Not only can he feel his heart crashing like waves against a rock, but he can almost swear that his soul had taken a life of its own in a perilous attempt to wriggle free from his body, rendering him as helpless now as he was in the Black Forest.
But there is a voice…
“Andrew!”
… a mellowing touch.
“C-Come on, I’m right here!”
Faint at first, they envelop him in a warming brace…
… tethering him back.
“A-Alice…?” he grunts thinly, his throat caught in a drought.
“Yeah,” she wheezes while wiping the wet sheen out of her eyes. “You okay now??” she asks with a distinct quiver and dryness in her own voice.
“I…” he tries to sit up, “… I th-think so.”
But Alice, remembering Carol’s orders, holds him down. “We can’t.”
Despite his nausea, Andrew understands immediately. Groggily, he flips himself over, noting the moistness of the seat’s leather as he faces the back of his friend’s car to find that… he can no longer hear any movement from the snakelike entity.
“Where is it…?” he mumbles tautly— it can’t just be gone.
In an effort to tighten his hearing, he squints while holding in a rugged breath for any other signs… but finds nothing.
Did I overreact…?
Did my mind just play tricks on me…?
He listens again… still nothing—not even a murmur.
No… he knows what he heard. It’s here somewhere… just biding its time for whatever—
A remote voice, heard only by himself, drowns his inner dialogue as it resonates from deep within the surrounding wilderness. Pulling a face now, he listens harder… it sounds like… agonized moaning. Worse still, it carries the same voice as the one he heard when the Gazer had him pinned…
… Edge’s voice.
But just like then… something is off about it.
He hears it again, clearer this time—it sounds like a distorted mimic, a voice that shouldn’t belong in its origin… yet, it does. But why…?
Why is it doing this…?
Is it trying to lure him…?
Or is it toying with him…?
His concern drifts to Alice, who doesn’t yet seem to be aware of this—what might she do if he told her this… or worse, heard the supposed voice of her lost boyfriend herself? The branching possibilities frighten him more…
But back outside, a different resonance hauls Carol’s attention to the closest rearing trees next to her, prompting the deputy sheriff to raise her gun with her flashlight pointed at where she believes the source to be—it sounds like a bellow… deep and raspy… which wouldn’t be as alarming if not for their current inescapable predicament.
Through scrunched eyelids, she locks her sharpened gaze behind her firearm while her other hand, the one holding the light, rests on her trained forearm to partially obscure her vision from the potential threat… assuming that Andrew is right.
To detain her fluctuating aim, the woman undertakes a round of breathing exercises to steady her airflow and reduce the intensity of her heartbeat… which works for the most part. But even with her years of firearm training, this seasoned officer can’t help but feel more like bait that is waiting to be bitten.
“DEPUTY SHERIFF!! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!!” she cries out, reminding herself of the likelihood that their prowler could be a person as well—by this point, she is ready for anything. “DON’T THINK ’CAUSE I’M ALONE THAT I WON’T OPEN FIRE!!” Her voice, while hoarse, is steeled with conviction. “LAST CHANCE, WHOEVER’S OUT THERE!! THERE WON’T BE ANY WARNING SHOTS!!”
She holds her ground, her feet planted, pressing into the inner soles of her boots, as she awaits in fossilising suspense. There are other present factors tempering her line of sight, like the refracting raindrops streaking through her cone of light in boatloads —in a sense, her one tool helping her see in the dark is also working against her.
But surely enough, a pair of eyes glint in the shrouding blackness—they bear a resemblance to beads that were made from ruby. Footsteps clop towards her with a measured stride. Its profile emerges… four-legged and massive, with a thick neck bearing the weight of a seemingly oversized crown.
Wait a damn minute…
As the officer lowers her weapon, the figure steps out, revealing its hooves… a snowy hide draping its vast body… a long, droopy snout… and an enormous pair of antlers pointing skyward— what a magnificent animal.
“Hey… what are you doing way out here?” she inquires, gentling her tone to avoid startling it while a wave of relief washes over the tired woman. “Are you lost?”
“What is it?” demands Andrew, his voice muffled.
“It’s just a moose,” Carol answers with a smirk. “A white one too, I’ll add.”
The young man wears a befuddled expression. “Did she say a moose?”
“Yeah,” Alice confirms for him. “If only you could see it—I mean…”
Instead of responding, Andrew recoils into his mind, processing this new development. A moose? Way out here? How come…?
For a moment, this ‘curious’ mammal stares at Carol, as if looking through her soul, before steering its interest to Alice’s car… or more specifically, the people inside it. The woman watches in stunned silence as the furred creature approaches the driver’s side, bringing its face close so it can peer through the showered windows.
“What’s it doing?” questions the blind passenger, still nervous.
Alice tilts her head with a squint. “It’s just… looking at us.”
“Looking at us…” he parrots under his breath… and then it hits him. “Can you see what colour its eyes are?” It comes off more as an instruction rather than a request…
… but she complies. “They’re… red,” she affirms, her voice deflating instantly.
“Just like the cat earlier…” her friend concludes, the hair on his arms standing—this alone proves his worst suspicion. “It’s the Ga—”
CRASH!
With one whip… the moose rears its head before ramming one of its prized antlers through Alice’s window—almost impaling her—while spraying glass slivers all over the dashboard, seats, and interior… which forces a sonorous, bloodcurdling shriek out of the goth.
“ALICE!!” screams Andrew, equally staggered, as he blindly reaches for the only friend he has left. When he seizes her by the arm, his adrenaline and protective instincts kick in to wrestle her as far away from the danger as he can—disability be damned.
“Hey! Get away from them!” The bewildered officer, thinking fast, fires two rounds into the air, hoping this will frighten the deer off…
BANG! BANG!
… she gets its attention—just not in the way she expected.
With some resistance, the moose plucks away from the car window, its grazed horn trickling more glass onto the road, before it turns to Carol with a venomous glare—this, paired with the bloodstains on its bone-white skin and foam oozing from its mouth, gives this otherwise passive herbivore the appearance of a zombified predator.
“I…” with notable reluctance, she aims her gun warningly, “… I don’t want to hurt you, friend!” She swallows hard, steadying her hands like before. “Don’t make me—”
Instead of retreating… it charges at her, full speed.
“STOP!!”
The sheriff, in her desperation, opens fire, the muzzle flashing like a firecracker… until a blunt, near herculean force sweeps her off her feet, flipping her sideways in the air, before landing her hard on the wet asphalt, her back absorbing most of the impact.
Winded and disoriented, Carol tries to get up… only for that same force to strike down on her left leg like a sledgehammer, breaking it. The pain from that resounding crunch ripples throughout her body like a searing electrical current as she wails from the pit of her heart. Through the narrowed crack of her eyelids, she spares a glance at the towering moose above her—it has her leg pinned under its hoof.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
She doesn’t think—only reacts—as she promptly squeezes the trigger several more times, her eyes clamping shut, until the deranged animal, with one final gurgle, collapses its full weight onto her… motionless now.
“Officer!?” cries Alice, who sneaks a peep from her ruined window.
“I’m okay!” she responds through a pair of compressed lungs, fortunate not to have been crushed to death. “It just…” she grunts, biting through the injury while struggling with all her might to worm free, “… I, uh… had to put it down.”
Wriggling free at last, Carol uses this moment to catch her breath and another to discern the expanding pool of blood beneath the fresh corpse she had ruefully created.
Next, she directs her inspection to the severity of her leg, wincing as she rolls up the leg of her jeans, trying not to move too much; the storm by now had thinned a little, making this task easier. Like a branch that had been stepped on, her leg was snapped clean down the middle, now swelling with bruises—at the very least, there are no bones protruding through her flesh. “Goddamn…” she hisses bitterly.
None of this changes the fact that she can’t move now.
Suddenly, a distorted, static voice—unmistakable to the deputy sheriff—buzzes from her communicator, which is luckily unscathed, springing her into an urgent response. “Deputy Sheriff Carol Marston! Responding! Do you copy? Over!”
The man from the other end responds, “Dylan here! Where the hell are you!? Over.”
“Randall Road!” she replies vigorously, clearing her throat. “I’m hurt and I need backup, now! Over!”
“Randall Road!?” repeats Dylan in utter disbelief. “The hell are you doing way out there!? Over!” An audible sigh escapes through the speaker.
“Doesn’t matter!” she roars, fatigued and impatient now. “Can you send me backup or not!? Over!” With bated breath, she awaits her partner’s response.
“Request received! Sending backup now!”
“Thank God…”
“But backup could take up to a few hours or more to arrive based on the conditions and your location. Over.”
Shit… “Copy that… over.”
Grumbling, she drops the radio in her lap— better late than never, she figures.
Alice, upon seeing Carol’s condition for herself, scrambles to exit her car, only to be tugged back. “What are you doing!?” she questions Andrew cuttingly, trying to wring free from his rather strong grip.
“We’re not…” he struggles with her, “… we’re not out of the woods!”
“I know that, but she needs help!” She carries on fighting him…
… but he isn’t having it. “No… NO! LISTEN to me, Alice!”
His sharp, frantic tone subdues her finally.
“Think! Why would the Gazer send a deer to attack us?”
She opens her mouth, but no words come out—her mind right now is too agitated to think straight…
… but he then answers for her, “It was probably using that deer to survey the area and plan its attack.” He releases her to wipe his face aggressively. “It was using that deer as a pawn,” he concludes with a sniffle.
Alice, while massaging the soreness on her arm, gives herself a minute to try and grasp this concept. “If all this is true… then—”
For the second time, ‘Edge’s’ voice blares from the forest… this time, whipping all heads to its origin—it’s louder now… closer too than ever before.
Alice, without meaning to, straightens up in her chair, her heart fluttering like it hadn’t for so long. “Th-That voice…” her lip quivers, “… that sounds like—”
“Alice, no!” Andrew snaps, catching on immediately. “I know what it sounds like… but I promise you it isn’t!”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW!?” she claps back, desperate now.
They hear it again… it’s circling them now.
“It… it’s going to flank us from the front…” he remarks hauntingly.
But his friend, the girlfriend of his missing best friend, blocks out his pleas as she attempts once more to hop out of her car, throwing all caution to the wind—like a siren’s lure, the temptation to seek it out is all too intense to resist…
“Stay… in the damn car!” barks the deputy sheriff again, her voice strained.
… whereas Andrew’s resolve to protect her, even from her own reckless actions, is made stronger by his adrenaline—he does NOT want to lose another friend this way.
“Listen— LISTEN TO ME!!” he shouts again, his voice threatening to dry up. “Do you remember… what you first told me about the Gazer when we were in the car with Edge!?” He waits again for Alice to cease her struggle. “I think you told me… that it could wear the faces of its victims….” he pauses to catch his breath before calmly elaborating, “… so what’s to say it can’t mimic their voices either?”
“The hell’s going on in there!?” Carol interrupts, having observed their commotion from the corner of her eye.
“It’s coming!” yells Andrew through the hole in the glass, listening again for its movements cautiously… its rumbling underneath them—apparently, it can bore through the earth as well. “It’s about to attack from the front!” he warns.
“But how—!?”
“JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT!!” he howls, fed up with everyone’s incessant questioning. “AND WHATEVER YOU DO…” he hurries to remind her, “… DON’T LOOK INTO IT’S EYE, NO MATTER WHAT!!”
“Copy that!”
“Andrew…” Alice drops her voice to a whisper, her eyes widening into discs as they reflect a strange light from below—so, she didn’t imagine it.
He turns to her, currently oblivious and equally annoyed. “What is it??”
“Your hands…” she points limply, “… they’re glowing.”
He tilts an eyebrow, baffled by her statement.
When the girl glances up again, her shock expands as she stifles a gasp. “Your eyes too,” she proclaims almost tacitly. “You’re glowing, Andrew…”
Frowning some more, he shakes at her. “I still don’t under—” but then he feels it… the coursing energy again—it pumps through his veins, from his hands up to his temples. “What… is this…?” he burbles vaguely.
Meanwhile, back on the rain-pattered road, Carol clenches her metallic weapon for dear life, having reloaded its chamber profusely, then trains its barrel over the barricading log in front of them where she expects their supposed otherworldly assailant to rear its ugly head.
Just close your eyes…
… point…
… and shoot.
She may as well be shooting in the dark… that is, until a lightbulb goes off in her head. Of course, it makes all kinds of sense now. Fumbling through her other pocket, the quick-thinking veteran extracts her smartphone to open its camera and hit record—since she can’t directly look into this monster’s eye… why not view it through a digital screen instead? Surely, this will work…
… it has to work.
And there it is… lightning slashes through the sky, followed closely by an explosion of thunder, as its blinding flash unveils a hulking, twisting, ophidian silhouette looming just beyond the blockade, its face, which is still shrouded in secrecy, arching towards her.
Carol’s mouth rips open, stretching wider than it ever did before, as this nightmarish visual, captured on her phone, exorcises a muted scream from her. Almost like an automatic, her gun rattles off, popping away bullets like there’s no tomorrow.
Alice ducks under her dashboard, her hands shielding her head, while Andrew remains frozen, propped halfway between sitting up and laying back down. He ‘stares’ ahead at the boisterous confrontation unfolding before them.
“Andrew!” Alice motions him. “Get down!”
While he hears her, the boy doesn’t listen—he is too transfixed.
This inner vibration… it’s getting stronger, more obvious now…
“Andrew, come on—”
With a battle cry of its own, this unseen predator drives the log towards them with immeasurable ferocity and calculation, using it both as a makeshift shield and battering ram…
… Carol, who was barely given enough time to pick herself up and limp away, is the first to get thrashed. Her phone flings out of reach as the trained enforcer uses this last-ditch momentum to roll out of harm’s way—at least she wouldn’t get pancaked. But with the wind knocked out of her, she sprawls on the highway, incapacitated and unconscious now...
… Alice’s car, on the other hand, takes the full brunt of the collision as it spins out of control, its tyres screeching on the road, trailing marks, until it eases to a stop soon after… thankfully without flipping onto its head.
At first… there is nothing… no darkness… no light… and then she comes to, her vision blurring into focus, reviving the driver’s awareness of her surroundings. He feels a hand shaking her, a distressed voice beckoning to her…
“Alice! Come on, wake up!”
At long last… she moves while massaging her aching head. Of course, since she was hiding under her dashboard, it makes sense that her head would end up bouncing off the underside—it’s a miracle she isn’t dead yet. “What…?” she manages a croak.
When she squints up at her friend, she not only sees the clouded lens of his eyes burning brighter than ever on his consoled face… but behind him, just outside the car… something she should only see in a dream.
“Embers…”
Andrew again dons a mask of confusion. “What did you say?”
“Embers!” she repeats louder, pointing past him.
“Embers—” realization dawns on the blind man as he swivels his head. “Here??”
The girl nods heavily before noting the direction of their movements. “And it looks like they’re… circling us.” She blinks rapidly, making sure she isn’t hallucinating them.
“Are they blue or orange?” he asks her strangely.
“Blue… ish,” she answers right away.
Just like at home…
“Wait!” She balks, eyes flaring now. “How did you—!?”
“Stay down and keep your eyes shut!” he orders with haste.
Without waiting for her response, Andrew inhales through his nose as he straightens up in his chair, facing the front once more.
“What are you doing!?”
He doesn’t know why, but this vague clarity envelops him like a warm shower… it holds him steady, even in the face of certain death.
“Why aren’t you—!?”
He shushes her. “I don’t know—I just…”
It’s right there… its ginormous, slithering mass closing in on them surely. There is no doubt that he’s in its line of sight as its growl conducts a tremor through his entire body, almost audaciously… like it knows it has him.
Closer…
Andrew has no clue what’s about to happen, only that this energy brewing inside him has just about reached its boiling point— am I going to explode…??
Closer…
And if he does… will he take Alice with him? How big will it even be??
Closer…
Alice, through the gap of her fingers, sneaks another glimpse at him, absorbing with her sight what her brain is still struggling to process… this solar heat rivering beneath his skin to the area behind his eyes.
Just like that… Andrew hollers at the top of his lungs as a blinding heavenly flash, the same one as when the obelisk robbed this young man of his eyesight, strobes from the back of his eye sockets… like he had unleashed a heat ray… but also not.
The girl hiding next to him shields her eyes fully as she curls into a tight ball, screaming from the pits of hell to the heavens… until the light passes just as abruptly.
Whatever he did, it must have worked… because all at once, zillions of tortured voices— Edge’s among them—spill out from that creature—the Gazer —as it seizes without a hint of restraint… before it bustles off, its cries fading into the distance… gone now.
The last thing Andrew hears before passing out indefinitely… Alice scrambling back to her seat, whimpering to him. The last thing he feels… her long fingernails digging into his arm while shaking him. Whatever had just happened… it took everything out of him. At last… he succumbs to exhaustion.
“Andrew! ” His friend's pleas fall on deaf ears now. “Stay with me… please!”
