The Horror From The Earth: Creepy Thriller

By John Devlin

Me.

David Corcoran.

Corcoran David.

Names.

Words.

Lute.

I slept fitfully that night. And although I had gone to bed quite late, I woke up very early. I was wide awake and felt a strange restlessness inside me. I got up and walked barefoot to the window of my London hotel room. Outside, a gray day was dawning.

A haze had settled over London. Light drizzle trickled from the sky.

I looked out and took a pinch of the salt of life.

That calmed me down a bit.

Suddenly I saw a face with incredible intensity in front of my inner eye.

The woman whose face I saw had shoulder-length hair with a red cast. She was wearing a light summer dress. Her eyes were wide with fear, her mouth half open. She was trembling. In the background I thought I could make out something like a gravestone. A cemetery! The realization shot through me like a ray of lightning.

The whole thing lasted no longer than a heartbeat.

Then it was over.

What does that mean, I asked myself? A picture from the future? Or from the past? Or from a faraway place?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215672976

Book preview

John Devlin

The Horror From The Earth: Creepy Thriller

Me.

David Corcoran.

Corcoran David.

Names.

Words.

Lute.

I slept fitfully that night. And although I had gone to bed quite late, I woke up very early. I was wide awake and felt a strange restlessness inside me. I got up and walked barefoot to the window of my London hotel room. Outside, a gray day was dawning.

A haze had settled over London. Light drizzle trickled from the sky.

I looked out and took a pinch of the salt of life.

That calmed me down a bit.

Suddenly I saw a face with incredible intensity in front of my inner eye.

The woman whose face I saw had shoulder-length hair with a red cast. She was wearing a light summer dress. Her eyes were wide with fear, her mouth half open. She was trembling. In the background I thought I could make out something like a gravestone. A cemetery! The realization shot through me like a ray of lightning.

The whole thing lasted no longer than a heartbeat.

Then it was over.

What does that mean, I asked myself? A picture from the future? Or from the past? Or from a faraway place?

All of this was within the realm of possibility. Mostly I saw images from the future. A possible future. What I saw did not have to happen exactly like that with one hundred percent certainty, but there was a great probability of it.

In any case, I would surely meet again sooner that face that had been marked by such infinite despair and fear of death....

The next day I met Brother Tom Brown at a snack bar in Picadilly Circus.

Hey, what are you doing, you redheaded rat?

I've been greeted nicer, I said.

Are you in a huff now or what! Gee, Corcoran, old bag, we've got something important to do. I just came from Clairmont.

I haven't been to our regular monastery in a long time, Tom Brown.

I know, Corcoran.

I don't trust anyone there anymore.

Don't leave me hanging, Brother David Corcoran! The Order of the Holy Light needs your help!

Fuck you, Tom Brown. I don't even know why I'm here.

I rose.

Tom Brown grabbed me by the arm.

Wait! Look at this!

He pulled out a DVD from under his jacket.

What is it?

It's about incidents on the Isle of Wight.

I hesitated.

The Demons of Dawn?

Yes, that's right. Take some of the salt of life, then you can see what happened there recently...

I'm already taking way too much of this stuff. I'm already really addicted!

Please, Corcoran!

I took a deep breath.

Okay.

I took a pinch and concentrated on the contents of the DVD. While doing so, I pressed the disc against my forehead and murmured a formula that supported my concentration.

On a mental level, I got direct access to the data.

At first, it was a bit difficult to find one's way in the tangle of images and control characters of the data sets, but then clear shapes formed.

What I saw was pure horror....

*

Gloomy shadows danced on the graves in the pale moonlight. Ancient, gnarled trees grew up between the crooked tombstones and looked like many-armed monsters.

With trembling knees, Elaine Ralston stood in the sudden cold breeze that blew across the weathered cemetery.

Goosebumps covered her arms.

In her hand she held a torch.

The flame blazed high up and began to dance in the wind.

The pure, all devouring fire! it went through her head. This fire should protect them against the forces of darkness... At least that's what the old legends claimed.

A cracking branch sent Elaine spinning. The shoulder-length, flame-red hair swirled in disarray. She looked down at the ground while her pulse pounded up to her neck.

Something was there. Or someone. Desperately, her eyes searched in the darkness for the source of the sound. She hardly dared to breathe.

I should never have come to this place! she thought as she stood frozen.

Cold shivers ran down her spine.

She felt an uncomfortable squeeze in the stomach area.

There are secrets that no man should try to unravel! she thought.

But now it was too late. She felt it instinctively. She would have liked to scream out loud for help. But a thick lump constricted her throat.

She felt something pulling at the bright summer dress she was wearing in the next moment.

She jumped to the side. The hem tore. And then Elaine could not believe her eyes. Her eyes widened in horror. Her face became a mask of sheer horror.

She stared at the floor, half-mad with fear.

Something had burrowed through the heavy, musty-smelling earth and the jumble of plants sprawling wildly across the ground....

Elaine's blood threatened to freeze in her veins at that second.

In the glow of her torch, she saw a pair of shimmering green hands protruding from the ground.

Dead hands!

The smell of decay took Elaine's breath away.

She staggered backward as the sinister hands dug further out from under the ground. The earth seemed to be cracking open.

But before the head belonging to the hands could emerge from the musty soil, Elaine hurled her torch at him.

A muffled, growling sound came from the ground.

It sounded half angry, half pained.

The arms retreated.

The fire went out in the damp grass.

Elaine bumped her foot against a large, stone sarcophagus, with distinctive decoration, and nearly tripped.

She gasped. At a distance of only a few steps, she noticed how one of the tombstones began to move. It swayed, then tilted to the side. A groaning sound, distantly reminiscent of a human voice,