View our Copyright Policy
From Chapter 1
...instead of the familiar click she expected as the seatbelt was fastened, it made the loudest sound she had ever heard. Marie's whole world exploded, and she felt great pain as her body was thrown about in her seat, straining against the restraint she had just fastened. Marie lost sight of Stephanie in another second, not because the girl was not still there, but because they were being tossed about with such force. There came the sound of shattering glass, and the roar and scraping of metal, another bright flash, and then the smack of debris hurtling about the darkened cabin. And all this amid the loudest, snarling crashing sounds she had ever heard.
And then Marie's world went quite
black and silent.
From Chapter 6
"There's a kid on board, Andy. A twelve year old girl." Sarah's voice crackled to life inside Andy's reeling mind, and was then echoed a moment later by something Natalie had said just before they parted.
"It's not your fault, Andy. Don't hate yourself. Just let it go. You can do more good alive today, than dying every day, living in the past." He could still see her saying the words.
From Chapter 7
It took a moment to realize. Jonesy's boat was in the water - the raging water, with a snaking rope tail following mutely after it. The boat had slipped quickly and silently down the timber slipway into the torrent. And Andy's one true love had been drawn in with it. Andy could feel his heart pumping, not with love now, but with awful, merciless fear. She slipped out from beneath the capsized vessel. Then she was turning, splashing and twisting in the flooding water, grasping the trailing rope with all her strength, carried along toward destruction.
Noooooo!
That scream had echoed in Andy's
mind for twenty years.
From Chapter 9
Take me, but not her! Please, don't take her. So much pain - can barely think. Rosalind! Hang on, Rosalind! Love her so much, don't let her go. Please no, please no. NOOOOO! It was an agony which would reach to the bottom of his soul forever - NOOOOO!...
Jonesy's boat exploded, airborne,
disintegrating, as though struck by a huge basalt fist from somewhere in the
belly of the river. Boom! He could hear the sound of it splintering above the
roar of the river. Timber splintering, failing him. It was supposed to save
her! But it was weak. It splintered so easily. So completely . Can't you
hear the timber splitting, Andy?...
With his face twisted in pain by
the rising, forgotten memories of detail, and with tears streaming down his
sweating face, Andy suddenly heard the splintering sounds again. His mind snapped
to attention, just in time to realize that it was not the sounds of Jonesy's
boat splintering that he was hearing, but that of the bridge.
Beneath Andy's feet, after the best part of a century's service, the rope-bridge finally failed.
He would never be hers...
But a chill colder than ice filled the pit of her stomach.
"What have I done?" she asked softly. "Oh, what have I done? Andy, I'm so sorry. I should never have sent you up the hill. My whole life's been a lie, Andy. I've chased you my whole life, and now look what I've done. I think I might have ruined all our lives. What am I gonna do, Andy?"
Andy pounced upon the creature which he knew deep down had caused him all his pain so many years ago... He was quite out of his mind, his heart pounded in his chest, as a shrill grunt burst forth from deep inside him when the two made contact. This was it, Andy! This was it twenty years ago! Remember now, Andy! Remember now! Grab it, Andy! Wrestle it this time and subdue it! Don't let it escape your grasp this time.
Remember now, Andy? It hurt, didn't it? Remember how it hurt, Andy? You missed the beast last time. Remember that? You weren't quick enough, were you? Remember how that felt, Andy? You were too slow, and the thing cost you the love of your life? Didn't it, Andy? Didn't it!
...this time there were two monsters, not just one. Twice the battle. Little wonder he had not been able to save her? The monsters were so strong. Strong, aren't they, Andy? Remember now, Andy? Remember the monster now, Andy? Remember me? This is what destroyed you so long ago.
Another screech heralded the arrival of the second beast from the fog. It slid into view, speeding past on his right just like the other had tried to do. This one will kill you if it gets you, Andy! It'll kill you if it can! Remember now, Andy?
And while he did not recognize the beast at first, he remembered it as if from a terrible, deep dream. It was cruel and awful, tearing him to the very depths of his mind. This was the thing that had caused him so much pain. Yes, I remember it now! It will have to kill me to escape this time. It will not take another life, except through me! I remember now. I remember! Yes, I remember it all!
...he blinked as he tried to focus on the thing. It writhed beneath him, snorting. This was the thing which killed her, Andy. Remember it now? Yes, I remember now...
Andy cried aloud with shock, his body shaking violently. He surrendered, unwilling and unable to fight any more, his mind reeling. As the dirty face rose from the mud beside him , its soft brown eyes studying him all the while, Andy saw the face and knew it well. She was just how he had imagined she would be, had she lived. It wasn't possible...
Instead of the face of a beast rising
from the mud, it was the face of Rosalind Stedman.
From Chapter 17
The fuselage of the chopper took a hammering, but held up to the onslaught, while two windows imploded in a frightening, jarring spray of timber and glass. Much worse, several large pieces, some as large as the leg of a man sailed fully over the chopper, embedding deep into the soft earth below. One did not make the distance and torpedoed the thrashing machine with a direct hit on the whirring rotors...
...Two rotors were shattered, flinging
lethal pieces away from the stricken bird in an instant. The projectile which
had caused the fatal wound was then itself smacked hard like a ball on bat,
its trajectory changing so that it thumped down hard on the top of the pilot's
cabin.
????? heard the explosive crash of
thunder, then the terrifying thump of the bough striking rotors, and instantly
was horrified to see the roof over the pilot's head smash in a full hand span.
Immediately he read the scene, and saw that while ????? was reeling like the
rest of those present, he was not wounded so much that he could not fly the
chopper. A heavy series of violent shudders later though, and Blake knew that
the bird was going down...
From Chapter 23
"Andy! Andy!" He heard Sarah's voice above him. An upward glance and their eyes met. She was still mouthing his name over the dull roar of the Choppy River as he slipped beneath the bridge. The last thing Andy saw of any of them was the eyes of both Barry Blake and Marie Townsend boring into him as he swept by...
Sarah's voice crackled in an hysteric scream as Andy felt the water begin to froth about him. Seconds later he was in white-water, his body rising and falling with the currents caused by the lurking boulders beneath the frothing surface of his lifetime enemy...
Sarah Emerson watched from the river
bank, her mouth wide open in a wrenching scream as for the second time in her
life, Andy Hardy was washed away in the flooding water of the Choppy River.
From Chapter 24
Finally, as though in one last desperate effort to smash him, the river struck out with one more hidden monster, a mossy boulder which smashed his left temple as he spun in the water, gouging his ear and scalp... Andy felt terror as consciousness began to evade him, but he was unable to fend off the cold, inky blackness which enveloped him.
Not now, a voice screamed inside
his head. But he could not fight it. Darkness gathered, crushing the tiny lights
he had seen. Then came silence. His last conscious thought was of horrifying
sorrow, as he realized his arm no longer held the young girl he had fought so
valiantly to save. His body surrendered to the cold, dark blackness which had
striven for so long to claim him.
Then slowly, he began to sink.
Would you like to:
© Copyright I Q Cameron, killernovels.com, 2005