Excerpt: Final Message

He arced his flashlight suddenly back towards his left. It had taken his mind a second or two to process the impossibility but he was sure he had seen it. His torch fixed on the wall beside the cabinet and there it was: a shadow cast in pitchest black, human in shape but still as any statue.

But what was casting that shadow? There was no one between himself and the wall - he was positive. Had someone painted the shape on the wall? But - no. He had been part of the team that had searched this room earlier and he had noticed no such mural then. It would have been something so odd as to stick in his memory. No, this was no painting, no mural, that had suddenly appeared. This was something else entirely. But there were not many options left for what it could be.

He slowly, deliberately shifted to one side, keeping the torch pointed at the same spot on the wall. The shadow remained in place. So, there was definitely nothing and no one between himself and the wall. He stopped himself from swallowing, determined to keep the rising fear under control. It's nothing, he told himself. A trick of the mind, nothing else.

One of the things they teach you in advanced training is that fear can do strange things to the mind in stressful situations such as combat. Many a soldier had reported seeing impossibilities ranging from angels and demons to ghosts and aliens. So they try to teach you to ignore the impossible. Everything has a rational explanation for it once you see things in the cold light of day. Just keep to the training and behave as if everything is normal.

The shadow shifted slightly - a movement that seemed indicative of someone breathing deeply, calmly in and out.

Ignore the impossible...

The head moved slighly, felt like it was looking directly at him now.

Ignore the impossible...

Two dim, fiery specks of light formed where the eyes would be, swelling slowly until they became swirling globes of pale starlight. Campbell looked directly into the globes and knew there was intelligence there. Cold, implacable, ancient intelligence.

Ignore...

The shadow started towards him. His training kicked in and he brought his rifle up, placing the butt against his shoulder in one smooth, economic action. He pulled the trigger and fired a short, controlled round of half-a-dozen bullets. Campbell had been raised around guns since he had been old enough to hold one. He had learned hunting from the age of six and he was an expert marksmen at close quarters. The bullets hit their mark.

But they did not penetrate.

Campbell looked on in amazement as the six bullets he had fired remained in sight, seemingly stuck to the shadow's chest area. The shadow had stopped advancing and looked down at the bullets. Slowly the bullets began to disolve into the shadow.

Ignore the impossible...

The creature advanced towards him again. Feeling the onset of death approaching Campbell did the only thing he flet capable of doing: he pulled the trigger. This time it was no controlled burst but a continuous hail of death that would have torn a body to pieces dozens of times over. But this was no normal body. This was something else, something inhuman. Every bullet that hit disolved almost as quickly. The clip emptied and he flung it away, grabbing a replacement and fixing it into place swiftly. He squeezed the trigger once more. Only as the shadow drew almost near enough to almost touch him did he think to move himself. He took two quick steps backwards, replacing another empty clip as he did so.

The shadow seemed to be slowing now, the bullets taking longer to disolve. Campbell felt a swift wave of jubilation. This bastard spawn of hell could be stopped after all. He continued his assault, still retreating whenever necessary.

Changing clips once more he took stock of the situation. One more clip - two max - and he was sure he would stop the thing altogether.

He felt something solid behind him and realised he'd backed up all the way to the far wall. No big problem, he guaged. He would just follow the wall round and still keep away from the thing. He sidled right, bumped against something solid. Damn bookcases, he thought irritably, not taking his eyes off the shadow still barely yards in front of him.

But there was something with this bookcase. He could not move around it. It was preventing him. It had hold of him.

It had hold of him...

The last thought that crossed his mind as the pain of his neck being crushed was: there are two of them! It was a strangely serene acknowledgement given the circumstances but Campbell felt strangely detached - as if his mind was no longer connected to his body. The pain increased as veins burst and bones shattered in his neck. There was a final snap and the lifeless body of Sergeant Reginald Thomas Campbell was flung unceremoniously across the room.