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  The cigarette that he took a final drag on, surely wasn’t going to help.

  ‘Mr Rowe.’ Franklyn offered, before looking around for a place to dispose of his smoke. ‘Agent Jones.’

  ‘Please, call me Ken.’ A strong, wrinkled hand extended with an ashtray which Franklyn stubbed his cigarette out on.

  ‘Thanks, Ken.’ Franklyn turned. ‘And this is my partner ...’

  He turned to Denham, who’s one eye rolled in its socket with disappointment.

  ‘Partner?’ Ken chuckled as he stared into the blank space beside Franklyn. ‘You sure that was a normal cigarette, sonny?’

  Franklyn felt his cheeks blush, the embarrassment burning inside him. Literally the first sentence and he’d already fucked up. The ‘normal’ people couldn’t see the Otherside. A lifetime of being called insane or being gazed at sceptically should have hammered that home. Flicking a cautious eye towards his hidden partner, he searched his brain for a get out of jail free card.

  ‘My partner is this beauty of a motor.’ He directed the old man’s gaze to the Mercedes that glistened in the sun like a game show prize. ‘I’m going for a whole Knight Rider type of vibe.’

  ‘It’s a fine motor.’ The man agreed with a nod, ignoring the reference. ‘Not practical for these parts.’

  ‘Well I don’t live in the woods.’

  ‘I imagine not.’ A groan could be heard from within the house, attracting both Franklyn, and Denham’s attention. The old man snapped into panicked action. ‘Please come in.’

  Ken scuttled back through the door, not even holding it open as he rushed into the cabin. Franklyn trotted up the steps onto the wooden decking and caught the door before it slammed shut, holding it open, and suppressing a giggle as the hefty Denham shuffled over the threshold, his chest scraping the doorframe.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh.’ Denham commanded as they ventured into the welcoming living room, his single pupil burning a hole through an obviously amused Franklyn. They both turned their attentions to the living area, an unwelcoming space, overwhelmed with clutter. Piles of clothes lay scattered in random piles, the table was a sea of unwashed plates and empty mugs, all of them stained brown from a caffeine memory. A thin layer of dust sprinkled atop the entire room like a fresh, morning frost.

  ‘He’s messier than you.’ Denham uttered, his eyes scanning over the photos that sat disjointedly over the faux fire place. Franklyn ignored the jibe, instead following the sounds of movement that echoed from the back room of the chalet. As he approached the door to the hallway, he could hear Ken’s voice, calmly reassuring someone. To the left, Franklyn glimpsed the kitchen, the overload of cutlery was creeping over the sink, with little threat of being washed.

  A small toilet and bathroom was ahead of him but cautiously, he gently wrapped on the door to the right.

  ‘Come in.’ Ken’s voice responded. The door opened silently and the reason for the neglected house became clear. Ken sat on the edge of the bed, welcoming Franklyn with a sad smile. Between the sheets, the crumpled body of a frail old woman lay, her limbs twisted like someone had scrunched her in their palm. Her face lay at an irregular angle, her eyes vacantly looking towards the wall. Her blue tinted hair wrapped around her head like a cloud, a hearing aid clamped onto her ear.

  Ken wrapped his hands around her unmoving fingers.

  ‘Tabitha.’ His words were soft, full of resounding loss. ‘We have company.’

  She didn’t move. Whatever her condition, Franklyn could see it was serious. Ken was in the middle of a vigil, a refusal to leave his wife or let nature have its way with her. Franklyn admired it, the true love that he’d begun to realise had never existed between him and Angela. While he loved her dearly and still wore their wedding band around his finger, he knew she wouldn’t sit at his bedside. She’d watched, as pain stricken as she may have been, as they tore him from the world and locked him away.

  She didn’t fight for him.

  Denham, who had wriggled into the room, coughed gently to draw back Franklyn from his heartbreak.

  ‘Sorry.’ Franklyn smiled warmly, stepping forward. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs Rowe.’

  Nothing. Her gaze turned to the corner of the room, locking onto where Denham stood. The mighty Neither looked at her, then back to Franklyn with a shrug.

  ‘She doesn’t talk much.’ Ken spoke, more to himself than anyone. ‘Hasn’t for the past week.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was right as rain about a week ago. Then I came home one day and she was gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Franklyn asked, his eyes flashing to the motionless body on the bed. Ken tapped the side of his head.

  ‘Gone up here. Can’t walk, talk, move. Nothing.’ His voice slowly began to break. ‘My Tabitha, the life, and soul. Reduced to this.’

  Franklyn shuffled uncomfortably on the spot. Ken dabbed at his eyes with a tissue and pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry, sonny. She can’t hear you.’ He pointed to a box of hearing aids by the bed. ‘None of them work. The batteries are dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your wife, Mr Rowe.’ Franklyn reached out and rested his hand on the man’s shoulder. The grieving husband smiled his thanks.

  ‘You didn’t come here for this. You needed some information about those missing people, is that right?’

  Franklyn nodded, flashing a quick glance to Denham who seemed to approve of his caring nature. He smiled at the old man.

  ‘Just a few questions, yes. Some hikers have gone missing in these woods and my bosses say you’re the man to talk to.’ Franklyn flicked open his notebook, trying to re-read the messy notes he’d made before he left.

  ‘I would have been.’ Ken’s words were steeped in dejection. ‘It’s been a long time since I worked in these woods. I was a groundsman for many years, for the park. But it’s been a long time and my memory isn’t what it was.’

  Franklyn drew his lips tight in frustration, the stale smell of the chalet beginning to take prominence. Before he could respond, a loud clutter echoed behind them and the box of hearing aids hit the floor and burst forward, the defunct apparatus fanning out with reckless abandon.

  All eyes shot to the box, with only Franklyn observing Denham cautiously trying to step by wearing a worried expression. To Ken, the box had somehow launched off the bedside table to the floor. To Franklyn, his giant partner had been a little clumsy.

  ‘Let me get that.’ Franklyn offered, crouching down, and shovelling the debris back into the box with his hand.

  ‘Things like that keep happening,’ Ken murmured, venturing towards the war zone that was his kitchen. ‘Feels like this place is haunted.’

  A shiver ran up Franklyn’s spine. Something that didn’t sit right.

  What had he noticed?

  What was it that felt out of place?

  As the sunlight outside was slowly beginning its grand finale, he knew that the window of opportunity to search the grounds for any sign of the Otherside was drawing thin.

  Tabitha lay motionless on the bed, her eyes staring into the abyss.

  As Franklyn lifted the box and returned it to its table, he looked around the room, replayed the scenario of what he was hunting in his head, and wondered if Ken knew that it wasn’t just his house that was haunted.

  It was the whole damn world.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The fallen twigs and leaves crunched under his foot with each step as Franklyn slowly wandered through the mighty trees. They shot up from the ground like rockets, their thick, impenetrable trunks fastening them to the ground. Their first branches didn’t reach out until at least twenty feet above, blocking out the sun and washing the new agent in a deathly shadow. With a click, his torch shot to life, a beam of light propelling itself forward, before splashing against the surface before him.

  The ground was warm and stiff, while the air carried the warmth of a cool summer evening
. That, and a waft of nicotine as Franklyn drew another cigarette to his lips and let the greyish smoke filter behind him like an echo.

  Denham strode purposefully behind, his leather, fingerless gloves clasped around his meaty hands, neither of them more than a few inches from the handles of his blades.

  They had been walking the woods for over an hour, the senile groundsman keen to send them on their way and return to his rapidly declining wife. He had suggested they head north, upon which Franklyn looked to Denham who rolled his eye, nodding to inform his new recruit that he knew the way. Since then, not a word had been uttered, the two of them casually strolling through the woods, the flick of the torch lighting up the increasingly regular dark pockets.

  ‘You ever seen The Blair Witch Project?’ Franklyn asked with smoky words, not turning back to his other-worldly mentor.

  ‘There was a creature known as the Fair Witch who roamed the distant plains of my world. She would capture, skin, and then dissect creatures both feral and free. She would try to incorporate them into her medicines, the outcome of which lead her to become feared and hunted.’ Franklyn had stopped in his tracks and was staring at his partner in disbelief, the cigarette hanging lazily from the side of his mouth. ‘It was a memorable day when I slid my blade through her spine.’

  Silence hung like death between them, with Franklyn directing the light of his torch right into the fearless, scarred face of his superior.

  ‘You’re a terrifying creature, you know that?’

  Denham flashed a row of pearly teeth before Franklyn returned to his search, stubbing his smoke out on the trunk of the nearest tree and letting it drop to mud.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Denham asked, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, pressed against the base of his spine.

  ‘I think you’re a fucking scary dude.’

  ‘Not about me. About the case?’

  ‘Well, I will say I don’t envy that man. As sweet as he was, that cabin smells of death and it must be terrible to see your other half deteriorate so fast.’ Franklyn felt his heart clench, realising his other half was to marry someone else.

  ‘The human condition is weak and pathetic.’ Franklyn stopped and turned to the mighty Denham. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken. Although I’ve never heard of a disease or anything that would render someone as disabled as that poor woman. Something from your side?’

  Denham shook his head decisively.

  ‘Not a chance. Our world and its diseases are too complex for your genetic makeup.’ His lone eyebrow rose. ‘Well, maybe not yours.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Franklyn spoke, peering into the darkness that brushed the edges of his torch. The sun had faded, bathing the woods in a haunting, empty blackness.

  ‘You really have no idea?’

  Before Franklyn could respond, his torch flashed across a black figure which rapidly began to climb the trunk of the nearest tree. Screaming for it to stop, Franklyn shot forward, accelerating into the darkness. Stopping at the base of the tree, he shone the torch up. Four creatures perched on the branch, their clawed hands, and feet wrapped around like a chimpanzee. Their skin was a deep grey, scaled like an alligator. They had no eyes, their entire face was like a polished stone, except for two slits across the front like coin slots. As Franklyn peered at the creatures with amazement, the heavy footsteps of Denham slowly encroached behind him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Denham spoke, a seriousness to his tone.

  ‘Look.’

  Franklyn scanned across the creatures again, the two larger ones huddled around the smaller ones, like protective parents. Were they a family? Franklyn realised he hadn’t given much thought to the inhabitants of this other world. While a few of them had come across as varying species of human, such as Denham, Vincent, and the legendary Argyle, there were those such as these and the one perched opposite his daughters house that were distinctly feral. They were wild animals that more resembled beasts of prey than they did humans. The largest creature reared its lips back, a stretch of thin, razor teeth shone beneath the slots.

  ‘Maybe they took those people?’ Franklyn mused, shining the light back, and forth across the four of them.

  ‘Unlikely. We call them Sticks. They may look vicious, but they are fairly docile. They feed on your avian species.’

  ‘Birds?’ Franklyn offered.

  ‘Avians.’

  Franklyn sighed and returned to the creatures above.

  ‘Maybe they saw something?’

  ‘Unlikely.’ Denham slapped him powerfully on the shoulder, knocking him slightly off balance. ‘Even I upstage them in the vision stakes.’

  Franklyn chuckled, before taking one last glance at what appeared to be a terrified family. With a click of the torch, the entire vision of the tree became entrenched in darkness, the Sticks disappearing forever into the night sky. Franklyn turned and followed Denham, the moonlight cracking through the branches and illuminating random pockets of shrubbery.

  ‘Where are you heading?’ Franklyn asked, hurrying his pace to walk alongside his gargantuan trainer.

  ‘I say we call off the search, head back, and feast.’ Denham patted his stomach, the powerful muscles pushed forward like a body builder. There was no fat on the paunch, just a ball of pure muscle. Franklyn, who had started to notice the definition appearing in his own stomach due to the weeks of training, compared Denham to a brick wall.

  You couldn’t run through either.

  ‘So we’re just giving up?’

  ‘No.’ Denham continued walking. ‘We are ending it for the evening.’

  ‘Those people are missing and if a creature from that other fucking world has taken them, I’m going to find them.’

  Denham stopped in his tracks, turning with a reluctant sigh, his mighty hands on his hips.

  ‘That “other fucking world” happens to be my home.’

  Franklyn smiled sheepishly.

  ‘Sorry.’ He offered meekly.

  ‘Don’t be.’ Denham waved it off. ‘It’s a shit hole.’

  The two trudged through the darkness in silence for a few moments, with Franklyn wondering if Denham had kept track of their route. Caught up in the excitement of hunting down this body snatching creature, and the discovery of the strange, eyeless family that lived in the trees, Franklyn had forgotten leave a trail of bread crumbs. All he’d discovered was that the old groundsman lived a life beyond torture, watching his wife slowly wither like a flower out of time. The wife, crumpled, and broken in the bed, not understanding her body shutting down. The hearing aids that Denham had knocked to the floor a tribute to her rapid decline.

  Something still didn’t sit right with him.

  Something that was strange, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘You seem troubled.’ Denham’s one good eye was casting a concerned look over him.

  ‘I just don’t like the idea that this forest is like some strange Bermuda Triangle.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Bermuda Triangle.’ Franklyn replied. Denham’s face demanded an explanation. ‘It’s a myth. A place out in the ocean where planes and people go missing.’

  ‘And you think the same thing is happening here?’ Denham asked sincerely. Franklyn shook his head, walking forward, and scanning the trees above with his torch.

  ‘Not at all. It’s just so many people are going missing from one place and I’m pissed off that you want to give up and go home.’

  ‘Bermuda, huh? I like it.’ Denham smiled to himself. Suddenly, he reached a desperate hand forward. ‘Hey, Bermuda, watch out!’

  Denham’s words echoed through the trees to the right and Franklyn only just realised then that his thoughts had steered him off course. Before he could adjust, his ankle hit the fallen trunk, the pain shimmying up his body like a pinball. He tumbled over, hitting the ridge, and rolling down the dark hill, his torch tumbling after, and lighting up flashes of the tree tops as he hurtled further into the dark. A
fter what felt like an eternity, he came to a stop, hitting the flat ground with a thud, his bones aching, and his body throbbing. His bare arms were caked in dirt and grass, a twig lodged in his scruffy brown hair. As his breath slowly returned to him, he stared up at the night sky, the brightness of the moon washing the tree tops with a pale glow.

  ‘Fuck me,’ he muttered, the pain shaking his words. With a pain filled sigh he pushed himself up onto his elbows, his eyes peering into the darkness. A thin, white stone lay next to him, then another. As his eyes peered into the shadows, the brightness of the stones etched their way into his vision. His brain was still shaking from the fall and above he could hear Denham’s voice, laced with worry. As his eyes continued to adjust, they landed on his torch, which was still burning a small light into the blackness. His eyes followed the beam.

  A dead human stared back at him.

  ‘Jesus!’

  Franklyn scrambled to his feet, the pain tunnelling through his body replaced by panic. As he scanned his dark surroundings, the white stones popped with clarity.

  They were bones.

  His heart pounding like a samba parade, Franklyn reached out with a shaking hand and retrieved the torch. Sweeping it to the left, he felt the contents of his stomach leap towards his throat, hunching over, and then vomiting as hard as he could. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he flashed the light back upon the pile of bodies before him.

  They lay stacked on each other, a horrible pile of broken limbs and bloody clothes.

  Their skin was missing.

  Retching once again, Franklyn illuminated the dead, the image of their fleshless muscles burning itself into his memory forever. Teeth marks were evident in the muscles themselves.

  Something had skinned and then eaten these humans.

  Franklyn tried to take a few steps but felt his knees weaken, dehydration now taking control of his body. Refocusing, he flashed the light to a nearby stack of possessions, the likely belongings of the hikers who had been missing for a while.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Denham asked as he approached from the shadows, his concern obvious.