Detective Sergeant Nick Scott kept watch on the ambulance in his rearview mirror as it sped the opposite direction. At least one person survived, or wasn’t dead yet.

He followed the narrow country road through a picturesque countryside of rolling hills and farmland, taking turns as directed by his GPS. The final turn took him into a wooded stretch and to his destination, a holiday cottage.  

As he climbed out of his vehicle, he kept an eye on the fire brigade as they wandered what was left of th...

The rig doors opened with a jolt. The frigid early morning air seeped in, circulating through the stale atmosphere of the ambulance and clearing the charred smell that lingered with the ghost of antiseptic. Under normal circumstances, the breeze might have offered some relief, refreshing and calming the senses. Instead, it triggered a wave of anxiety accompanied by burning pain through his left hand. A natural reaction would be to draw his arm in towards his body, perhaps to cradle it in a prote...

Everything was so loud. The metal catch and release mechanisms of the second door and breaks on the gurney ricocheted like gunshots through the night. Even the wheels screamed beneath him on each revolution. He sympathised with them and would have joined in if he hadn’t been struck dumb. Since leaving the security of the ambulance, he couldn’t emit a single sound, even to save himself.

The tremors increased as the crew began to move him from the ambulance bay and into a&e. He could see the light...

Khyra’s heart broke for the man. As one of the first paramedics to the scene she had witnessed the devastation. The guy was only a month older than her - she’d been the one to write his chart. He’d been so traumatised that he couldn’t remember his own name, and they’d been forced to use ID recovered at the scene by the firefighters. Jesus. It hit home for her because it could have been her. Michael could have been one of her friends. In any other circumstance, Michael would have been her type. H...

The next couple of days were a blur to Michael. He found his memory was playing tricks on him and he was exhausted. His left hand was now bandaged and the doctor had said he may need a skin graft in the future. The same doctor had also explained that he may suffer some shortness of breath or coughing, but that the smoke inhalation had been offset by the oxygen they’d been administering. On the face of it, it had sounded as though he would be discharged soon. It was just a matter of addressing th...

An unfamiliar woman stood in the office. Michael could see her through the window even though her words were muted by the locked door. Everything was locked here. For safety. Michael wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion though. Keys suggested doors. Doors gave places for monsters to hide. The nurses told him he needed to “interrupt the thoughts” so he wouldn’t obsess and panic. It was worth a try, so Michael focused on the woman instead. 

The way she was interacting with staff and looking his ...

He’d made sure to check that the lights couldn’t be turned off in his room or the corridors. That’s how they would get you, you see. It only took the tiniest bit of dark - the wisp of a shadow, for every known evil to hide and ensnare you before you knew what was happening. A simple spark and the world could come falling in ashes around you. He didn’t even trust his own shadow not to mutiny against him. You were safe all the while you were in your room - with every light on, but the staff forgot...

He was safe here. For now.

“Michael? Michael Jones?”

The nurse jiffles a stack of files and doesn’t look up. “No visitors, sorry.”

He coughs, steps closer, flips open his ID and lays it on the top of her folders. “DS Scott.”

Now she looks up. Sighs. Scott senses the curse words in her thoughts, gagged by her professionalism. Her eyes are black-ringed in reflection of his own. He’s not the only one tired today. He softens, slumps a little, and starts over.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a long night?” It’s both a statement and a qu...

At the front desk, DS Scott repeats the rigmarole. Says his name, flashes the ID, shuffles his feet while a keyboard is tapped. He should’ve got a coffee. He stifles a yawn, ignores the vibration in his pocket. It’ll only be Mary, wondering if he’s going to get home for dinner. Or tomorrow’s breakfast. Or anything, ever. It’s not been twenty-four hours yet but it feels like weeks. His clothes cling to that acrid smell of charred house and human flesh and he thinks he should have gone home to sho...

When he returns, the nurse has gone, the desk unmanned, the corridor silent. DS Scott slumps into a hard plastic chair that creaks in protest, and sips the coffee, eyes closed, head against the wall. The coffee does little to dislodge the persistence of the smoke. Almost immediately Scott flickers open his eyes; the images of the burned-out cottage are imprinted on the undersides of his eyelids. Goddammit, you’d think he’d get used to it, one of these days. He stares at the wall opposite, trying...

Minutes later she returns. He is led to another room. A barer, clinical, disinfectant-hued room with a table, more of those plastic chairs, and a window with safety bars breaking the view into four separate rectangles.

“Wait here,” she says again.

When she returns this time, it is with a nurse. The nurse has a hand on the hospital-robed arm of a young, red-eyed man with dirty blond hair and a haunted expression. He glances around with jerky movements, his eyes and right arm as jittery as fleas on a dog. The left hand is swathed in a dressing as fat as a boxing glove and held across his chest in a defensive stance, as rigid and still as the other is not.

Dr Warne nods at the nurse, who propels Michael Jones to a seat. Once he is seated, th...

The patient is led back to wherever he came from, taking with him the nurse’s nodding agreement at Dr Warne’s suggestion of, “Something to help him rest?”

Scott tips back on his chair, rocking the legs an inch from the floor. Only once the door’s fire safety mechanism has done its work, bringing the door to a slow, silent close, does he let the chair rest. “So, five university friends, holed up in a remote cottage, one admits to setting the curtains on fire. Four friends die, and the one who sta...

An insistent ringing woke DS Scott from a deep slumber. It took him a moment to orient himself, realizing the sound didn’t exist solely in his dream. Also disturbed by the noise, his wife shifted in her sleep, allowing Scott the opportunity to carefully untangle himself, having wrapped his arms around her sometime during the night. Quickly rolling over, he tapped the green accept icon as he noiselessly walked out the bedroom door into the hall. 

“DS Scott,” he whispered. 

“I apologize for callin...

Michael sees them again, this time in the distance. Two, floating, red dots. No matter how much he looks away, pretends they’re not there, they remain. He knows they’re something sinister, something alarming, something ominous. He knows it, because they haven’t moved while he’s watched them. They just float in space, surrounded by a darkness that feels heavy. It’s a heaviness that seems to hang on you like a shawl, dragging you down and constricting you without remorse. 

However, this time is di...

Nick Scott turned into the unsignposted morgue’s small car park, pulled his car into a bay marked Medical Examiner 3 and turned off the engine. With a sigh of relief he closed his eyes, then massaged his temples to try and ease the tension headache that had been brewing for the last hour as he’d sat in traffic. He could have used his blues and twos, but the more you used them the less effective they were. ‘Late for lunch’ was the public perception, especially for Police. He logged off the car’s ...

Nick knew Su Lee from old. Su Lee’s family had emigrated to the UK when Hong Kong had been returned to the Chinese in 1997. She’d studied at Kings, then interned at Addenbrooke’s where she had specialised in pathology. She was, Nick knew, very well respected and he was more than happy that it was her, rather than the brusque know it all idiot he usually found himself with.

“Doctor Lee,” Nick said and smiled.

“DS Scott,” Su returned the smile. “Now that the formalities are over, how is Mary?”

“Sh...

“How are you feeling?” 

The hell does she want now? 

“How do you think I’m feeling?” He demanded, eyes shifting up quickly when the light flickered. 

Damn thing’s been doing it ever since he got here, his heart racing every single time, on the edge of a panic attack. He’s asked twice now for someone to replace it, listening to the irritating hum of the fluorescents before flickering again.

“I know you’re upset, Michael, but answering a question with a question is not helping us.”

He adverted his...

Detective Sergeant Nick Scott manoeuvred his grey Nissan through the Cambridgeshire lanes. He always felt a little tense driving through these parts, as it brought back the bad memories of visiting friends homes. Friends who had more money than he and his family had. Those friends lived along lanes like these. Lanes that were sometimes private roads, and were always lined with the homes of people who were wealthy, or on the way to being so.

He lifted his hand of the steering wheel to run a finge...

The front door banged shut and a pretty young woman breezed into the conservatory calling out,

“Hi, mum” 

“Hi, dad” 

“Hello,” Jo and Greg called in response. 

“It’s our daughter, Helen. She is very close to Michael.”

DS Scott indicated that he wanted to speak to Helen. She came into the conservatory. She had an inquiring look in her eye. It cleared somewhat when her parents introduced him and said he would like to ask her some questions. Helen said she had just spoken to the psychiatrist Dr.Warn...

DS Scott was lucky.

There was a spot in the designated law enforcement parking area near the entrance, a rarity this time of the morning.

He stopped at the coffee kiosk, got himself a fresh cup—extra cream, half sugar—then headed over to General Admissions.

A somewhat elderly woman was at the desk, reading one of those romance novels, the kind his wife’s Mum had stacked up at the house.

From the number of commemorative pins on the front of her blue volunteer vest, it looked like she’d been doing...

The smile disappeared as soon as he left.

“Still in bloody PEW is it? Whatcha hiding, Jonesy?”

The Psychiatric Evaluation Ward was a bit of a sore spot to a lot of cops.

Too many promising cases had been stalled when the suspect had been declared---or had themselves declared---mentally unstable.

After that, it was hard going to get anything out of them or have the kind of access to them that a proper investigation required.

If this guy was still in Psych, it’d be a bit more of a dance to get any...

Nighttime is when the dark reigns. It frolicks. It cavorts. 

Where there is daylight, it splashes everywhere. But without the sun, the feeble light that humans throw on things stays where it’s put. And apart from that narrow area, the dark does as it wants.) 

Somewhere in Nurse George Bergi’s scientific education, he will have been taught that, actually, there is no such thing as dark — not as an entity in itself; you can’t, we are told, add “dark” to something, you can only add light or not. Wh...

Wednesday the 9th was overcast but dry. Nick Scott had dragged himself to the kitchen where Jane already had coffee made for them both, bless her. His phone began to chirp and their eyes locked for a second — an unspoken “here we go, already.”

“Can’t Denny give you just a few…?”

“It’s not the desk,” he said, shaking his head. Then, into the phone, “Scott.”

“Detective Scott; it’s Lisa Warne — Michael… he’s gone!”

“I wouldn’t have though a psychiatric ward would allow self-discharge…?”

“We don’t. ...

The hospital, when he got there, was infested with uniformed police. Dr Warne met him at the main entrance, but she knew next to nothing.

“When I got in early this morning, Michael was just gone. Noone seems to have seen him, nor do we know quite how me managed to get out,” said Dr Warne.

“What time did you arrive?” Nick asked.

“Six-ish,” she said.

“Interesting — is he likely to have ventured out while it was still dark?”

“I don’t know … yes, if he felt it the lesser of two evils,” she said.

Gre...

Light rain was coming down while Detective Sergeant Nick Scott parked his car on the lot in front of Addenbrookes hospital. A faint echo from the blaring siren reverberated as he pushed open the driver door. The cool wind cleared out the stale air and coffee smell that hung around since late last night. From a distance he could see a woman with an umbrella standing just outside the entrance doors. Even though she was waiting patiently, an anxious look was painted on her face like graffiti on a c...

Looking through the patient room didn't reveal much. Looks like he took all of his belongings with him, though Nick. I was almost expecting his shoes to be left behind, at least my sock theory would have been stronger. He take a closer look around. "The door doesn't look forced open."

"We are not a prison, detective. The patients are allowed to go out of the rooms to walk or get a drink. They of course aren't allowed to leave the floor without supervision. They also know we have cameras to watch...

Nick shook his head, his imagination was running wild again. He knew once he got back home tonight that his wife Mary would cure it, as she always did. Damn, how I love that woman, thought Nick.

As he glanced back at the video screens, past Dr. Warne, who calmly stood by the side, Nick noticed a shadowy figure walk through the picture. Was that my imagination again, thought Nick.

"Pause, and go back. Did you see that?"

Dr. Warne's hand already reached for the controls as he said it. "Yes, I saw ...

Detective Sergeant Nick Scott let out a sigh of frustration. He was back in his car on the way to the police station. He and the other officers had spent the better part of the day searching the hospital and interviewing anyone that was around the hospital that morning. Now he had to go back and report what he had found.

"Nothing!" Nick struck the steering wheel with the palm of his hands. He took a sip from the coffee he had gotten from the cafeteria. He hoped it would calm his nerves till he g...

Shit! Nick got into his car, slammed the door shut, and grabbed the police radio. “Dispatch, this is DS Scott. I need a BOLO on a Michael Jones. He’s a witness in the holiday cottage fire case.”

“10-4 DS Scott. Go ahead.”

“The individual is a white male, twenty years old, six feet tall, with short brown wavy hair, a slim build, and a bandaged left hand from a burn injury. He escaped from Addenbrookes Hospital while under psych. eval., is presumed to be on foot, and was last seen wearing white ho...

Detective Sergeant Nick Scott sighed and stared at the stack of case files on his desk — nine cases that had come in over the last 24 hours. 

There was the male suspect in his mid-20s who had led a group of forty-five to trespass in a lumber mill. When the police arrived, the man, who had been there moments prior, vanished. His cell phone was traced back to the party, but no one could find him. 

There was another male suspect, late-20s, who drunkenly wandered into a family’s home, slept on thei...

The aroma of roasted garlic and onions wafts through the air as Nick enters the kitchen. Mary stands in front of the stove. A pot of water boils on the back burner. In a saucepan, Mary uses a turner to break down ground beef. She looks up when she hears Nick. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair. 

“It smells good.” He says. 

“I thought that you could use some comfort food.”

“I could. Thank you.”

Nick leans against the counter while Mary continues cooking. He’s thankful that M...

The dark isn’t a physical thing, just like cold isn’t really anything: it’s just the absence of something else. Light and heat; without them you have dark and cold: space empty of those mysterious photons and excited electrons that make a space livable and navigable. 

Crazy might be a sort of absence, too: an absence of hope.

Red light fell like a pool of blood onto Detective Scott’s car as he parked near the tall lighted sign in front of the market where someone fitting Michael’s description wa...

Mary pulled a green parrot feather away from her face like a veiled dancer. Leaning over she whispered it along Nick’s neck as if she were slitting his throat. Turning the feather Mary scribbled a love note behind his ear with the pointed tip. Scott knew this from the expository narration his wife was providing of her attempted seduction. 

“Nick mumbled, pretending to be deep in the throws of sleep,” Mary said. 

“Mary remained unconvinced. Mr. Scott had a long history of playful obfuscation. She...

The ring of his phone was a welcome relief for DC Nick Scott, he needed a break from this madness, he felt his shoulders relax as he exited the interview room with some haste and an apologetic smile to Michael and Dr Warne.

 That Dr Warne was an intense woman, he was sure that ten minutes alone in a room with her and she would know all his deepest secrets, not that he had many, still it was a scary thought, and just for a moment he had an image in his mind of Michael as a terrified mouse cornere...

The light in the room was as blinding as ever. It was not of nyctophobia that we should have been afraid so much as of blindness – Detective Scott knew that only too well, he who, during his not-so-distant past, had taken part (but had he really participated or was he just an inactive witness to the horror? One could not know; it was better not to know anyway) in the terrible acts of torture committed in the name of His Majesty in Afghanistan. 

Doctor Warne had lost control of the situation. She...

In the courtyard of the hospital, a smoking area was set up. Neither of them had any cigarettes left, and at this hour few patients dared to venture downstairs. To compensate, Scott discreetly grabbed his flask and took a sip. Then two – it was some Beluga; you could hardly blame him. In this kind of situation, vodka could bring up ideas, the right question to ask or could help you find the inconsistency in the interviewee’s answers, something like that. He finally offered some to Warne, but she...

Michael had calmed down, a little solitude under the blinding light had done him good. Detective Scott resumed the interview: "At the time the number 5 appeared, the house was not yet on fire. Tell us what came next, please."

After a short pause, the student replied: "Darkness, darkness, everywhere, in every room, it was gaining ground, I could hear the laughter, the threats of the monsters. I had to do something."

More vodka. Not Beluga this time – the UK’s three million heavy vodka drinkers so...

At this point in the story, Michael was again covered in sweat, nevertheless, he was able to speak clearly. He paused, as if the bathroom also meant something else – indeed, it was at this point that he realised he was completely screwed. "My room was on fire, the bathroom was joining the fireworks, but I couldn’t stay there either, and if the flames gained ground, I still had three quarters of the house to put on fire and totally get rid of the darkness."

He walked out of the room, remembering ...

Doctor Warne and Detective Scott looked into each other’s eyes – did they think the same and understand each other, it was not certain. Scott had just obtained the confession of an arsonist – that was good, but he would have preferred the confession of a murderer. Warne, on the other hand, had begun to tremble for her patient – she was thinking of a way to make Michael irresponsible for his actions; she didn’t know if nyctophobia would be enough. That said, she was not too worried: nyctophobia, ...

“What is going to happen to him?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

Doctor Warne took another bite of her beet and vegetable salad. She looked at the detective's untouched burger and chips platter.

"You're lucky it's Thursday. Only day of the week you can get fried anything on the hospital menu. Healthy eating and all that."

Detective Scott looked down at his plate. The macabre didn't sit well with his appetite.

The doctor took another forkful of red beets. "I'm curious. What do you th...

“We're not going to talk about the dark.” Doctor Warne had entered Michael's ward room with evident purpose. There was a new tone, a new firmness in her voice. “Just for now I want us to talk about the light. Okay? Can we take a moment to do that? My, the lights in this room are very bright, aren't they? I'm just going to adjust this chair, so you can put you head back and relax. Lots of light here.” Warne reclined the chair back and motioned for him to sit there. “I know you're concerned about ...

“So that's the thing, isn't it?” Scott pushed back in his cafeteria chair. “You will have to tell any court that he is messed up in the head and then it won't matter what he did or didn't do. All respect, Doc, but that kind of thing doesn't sit right with me.”

“I can only speak as a psychiatrist, but what would you have us do? Perhaps a man thinks he is slicing a loaf of bread. Do we condemn him if it is instead someone's neck he is cutting? Or maybe a fellow thinks he is with all his might stru...

“Let's try a little exercise, Michael. I want you to just focus on what is happening right now — just here, just now in this moment. Breathe out for me. Drop your shoulders. Let your tongue fall from the roof of your mouth. Good. I'm just going to lay my hand on your shoulder, for a moment.” She stood beside his chair and let her hand rest lightly just touching his shoulder. “Here we are and you are safe. There is nothing you need to do right now. You can relax in this moment.” 

The effect on Mi...

“What will you do now, Detective?” Doctor Warne rose from the table and Scott stood up with her.

“He could certainly be run up on an arson charge — we have that at least — but with your diagnosis, Doc, it won't stick.” Scott exhaled heavily. “But then, besides the obvious circumstantial evidence in the morgue, all we have is Michael's testimony about what happened that night at the cottage. And we can't take that at face value now can we? We'd have to say the dark did it.”

“A difficult warrant t...

Michael's eyes were closed and he would keep them closed now. His body was more relaxed. Warne could see his weariness lulling him to it. She continued to talk and to guide him — letting him listen to her voice as she moved about the room. Things were going well. Perhaps this could all be made easier than she had thought.

“I wonder, Michael, have you ever heard of the Stampfl technique. Well, I don't suppose. But perhaps you took a psychology course in college. It's a kind of cognitive-behaviora...

Tap tap tap

Her fingernail on his window brought Detective Sergeant Nick Scott back to reality.

“Ah yeah. Hold on.” 

He fumbled with the window button locking the already locked doors. The back passenger window went down. Mumbling to himself he just pulled on the door handle. Nothing happened. Doors still locked. 

“Good morning Detective Sergeant Scott.” Sarah smiled through the window at him as she backed away.

Finally hitting the right combinations of buttons, Nick was able to open the door. T...

On a cold November morning, the silent suburban air was broken by the shrill sound of an ambulance. Tom Peppercod was just leading the herd of his and neighbour’s cows to their usual pasture, as he had to stop by the road and let the red-and-blue light flashing van pass. He just shook his head without saying a word. The ambulance should’ve been heading to the Addenbrookes, and even though the doctors at the emergency department have never refused to help, it was still infamous among the locals. ...

“Michael? Michael Jones?”

The nurse jiffles a stack of files and doesn’t look up. “No visitors, sorry.”

He coughs, steps closer, flips open his ID and lays it on the top of her folders. “DS Scott.”

Now she looks up. Sighs. Scott senses the curse words in her thoughts, gagged by her professionalism. Her eyes are black-ringed in reflection of his own. He’s not the only one tired today. He softens, slumps a little, and starts over.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a long night?” It’s both a statement and a qu...

At the front desk, DS Scott repeats the rigmarole. Says his name, flashes the ID, shuffles his feet while a keyboard is tapped. He should’ve got a coffee. He stifles a yawn, ignores the vibration in his pocket. It’ll only be Mary, wondering if he’s going to get home for dinner. Or tomorrow’s breakfast. Or anything, ever. It’s not been twenty-four hours yet but it feels like weeks. His clothes cling to that acrid smell of charred house and human flesh and he thinks he should have gone home to sho...

When he returns, the nurse has gone, the desk unmanned, the corridor silent. DS Scott slumps into a hard plastic chair that creaks in protest, and sips the coffee, eyes closed, head against the wall. The coffee does little to dislodge the persistence of the smoke. Almost immediately Scott flickers open his eyes; the images of the burned-out cottage are imprinted on the undersides of his eyelids. Goddammit, you’d think he’d get used to it, one of these days. He stares at the wall opposite, trying...

Minutes later she returns. He is led to another room. A barer, clinical, disinfectant-hued room with a table, more of those plastic chairs, and a window with safety bars breaking the view into four separate rectangles.

“Wait here,” she says again.

When she returns this time, it is with a nurse. The nurse has a hand on the hospital-robed arm of a young, red-eyed man with dirty blond hair and a haunted expression. He glances around with jerky movements, his eyes and right arm as jittery as fleas on a dog. The left hand is swathed in a dressing as fat as a boxing glove and held across his chest in a defensive stance, as rigid and still as the other is not.

Dr Warne nods at the nurse, who propels Michael Jones to a seat. Once he is seated, th...

The patient is led back to wherever he came from, taking with him the nurse’s nodding agreement at Dr Warne’s suggestion of, “Something to help him rest?”

Scott tips back on his chair, rocking the legs an inch from the floor. Only once the door’s fire safety mechanism has done its work, bringing the door to a slow, silent close, does he let the chair rest. “So, five university friends, holed up in a remote cottage, one admits to setting the curtains on fire. Four friends die, and the one who sta...

"Nick Scott, this is the Fire Brigade Incident Commander. You need to come down to the cottage at Cambridgeshire. There has been a suspicious fire." Scott looked at the alarm clock and the red letters read 4:00 am. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and got out of bed. His wife Mary opened her eyes and asked, "Another case?" Mary has become accustomed to the bed shifting and Scott inadvertently waking her up to answer the phone. Scott answered yes and walked towards the bathroom to freshen up.

S...

The start of a new day. Yet another glorious marvelous magical mystery…

Lisa sighed as strands of hair fell out of the loose bun she had tied a moment ago. Fine, it was going to be one of those days then, she thought as she tied her hair up in her usual ponytail, and washed her hands in the sink. 

“What are you trying to prove to yourself, you silly ijit,” she said to the face scowling back at her, and sighed again. New cases always made her a little nervous and this one promised to be one of th...

In the 33 years of Dr Steven Mallory’s career as a forensic pathologist, the four new arrivals at the morgue would turn out to be a bit of a pickle.

The operating tables were arranged in the shape of the letter T, two for the arms and two side-by-side for the post. Steve had just sewn up the third boy, and Vincent Price, the autopsy photographer, added a new sheet of paper, an autopsy form, on Steve’s black clipboard. Steve’s other assistant, Jessica Price, was summarising the morning’s autopsy results on the computer at the foot of the T. The three boys were done; work on the girl had only just begun.

A rasp on the door. The DS. Jessica ans...

AVERY, John

• Died from blood loss

• Wounds indicate cause of death: accident / suicide / homocide

[Photographs of John’s wounds on head, neck, and chest]

[Photographs of John’s organs; evidence of severe internal bleeding in liver]

BAKER, Andrew

• Repeated head trauma — likely caused his death

• Blunt weapon

[Photographs in various directions of Andy’s head wounds]

[Photographs of Andy’s internal organs, all appearing intact]

WILSON, David

• >80% burns (Jessica said “burnt to a crisp” when she first presented this slide to Nick)

• Toxicology report pending; heart attack suspected

[Photographs of Dave in foetal position; face, arms and legs severely charred]

[Photographs of Dave’s internal organs: enlarged heart with scarring]

[Figures in 2-by-2 square: 

• Top: Lung scans of John, Andy

• Bottom: Lung scan of Dave, a black rectangle labelled “Claire, pending”]

Another click, and the slideshow returned to “AVERY, John”. Jessica clicked her way to the lung scans again.

“This,” Jessica pointed at the screen. “Each of these three lung scans is somewhat clear. None of the boys died of the fire. And it turns out the same is true of all four of them. Here.” She held up an X-ray scan marked “Claire Holloway, chest region”. “I fetched it just now, hot off the press.”

Nick traced his fingers on the X-ray scan and circled the trachea. “It’s a bit blurry around h...

Nick observed the gash on Claire’s head. According to Steve, she too had a broken skull like Andy, but she had shallow fractures rather than Andy’s deeper dents.

“Could she have been hit by the same blunt instrument as Andy?”

Steve made signs to Vincent. “Possibly,” said Vincent, interpreting for Steve. “That might not have killed her though. Oh—” Vincent turned to Steve. Steve held up his fingers in numbers in what seemed to be instructions.

In his mind, Nick pictured the five young people at t...

Michael sat shivering on the cold, tile floor in the sliver of light coming through the window of his psych room door. Nothing could stop the shaking. Not the blanket. Not the drugs. Nothing. And his arm burned. BURNED. He wiped his forehead with his one good hand and blew out through his mouth—trying to release the pain. He’d never be able to forget. Never. It was too much like … the last time. Last time. 

Suddenly, the room exploded in white florescent light and Dr. Lisa Warne entered the room...

Detective Nick Scott guided the car parallel to the curb, not wanting to pull into the driveway. He turned down the radio and double-checked the numbers on the house, confirming the address with his paperwork: Greg and Jo Jones at 10 Leys Cl. The tires rubbed against the concrete as he came to a stop and he winced, rubbing his thumbs across the steering wheel in an apology to his car. He’d been on the road too long. 

Before he got out of his car, a teenage girl erupted from the house, the screen...

His mother had been silent all morning. It was a Saturday, and she had allowed him to sleep in, which was unusual. He finally climbed out of bed and made his way to the kitchen, where she sat at the table, staring straight ahead at the wall. Her cigarette had burned down to the filter, and she didn’t notice the thin column of ash balancing between her fingers until he’d sat down across from her. “Is everything okay, Mom?” Nick asked.

“Of course, Nicky,” she refocused her eyes and forced a smile....

DS Nick Scott stepped out into the gray afternoon and made his way to the door. 

He pressed the button and heard the cheery bell ring deep inside the house. The curtain on the window rustled, and he saw a blonde head poke around. The girl had taken off her hat, but still had the neon pink scarf around her neck. She pulled open the door and gave him a smile that conveyed slight suspicion. 

“Hello. Are your parents at home?” Nick asked. 

“Of course they are. You don’t think I’d open the door to a ...

DS Scott was lucky.

There was a spot in the designated law enforcement parking area near the entrance, a rarity this time of the morning.

He stopped at the coffee kiosk, got himself a fresh cup—extra cream, half sugar—then headed over to General Admissions.

A somewhat elderly woman was at the desk, reading one of those romance novels, the kind his wife’s Mum had stacked up at the house.

From the number of commemorative pins on the front of her blue volunteer vest, it looked like she’d been doing...

The smile disappeared as soon as he left.

“Still in bloody PEW is it? Whatcha hiding, Jonesy?”

The Psychiatric Evaluation Ward was a bit of a sore spot to a lot of cops.

Too many promising cases had been stalled when the suspect had been declared---or had themselves declared---mentally unstable.

After that, it was hard going to get anything out of them or have the kind of access to them that a proper investigation required.

If this guy was still in Psych, it’d be a bit more of a dance to get any...

Nighttime is when the dark reigns. It frolicks. It cavorts. 

Where there is daylight, it splashes everywhere. But without the sun, the feeble light that humans throw on things stays where it’s put. And apart from that narrow area, the dark does as it wants.) 

Somewhere in Nurse George Bergi’s scientific education, he will have been taught that, actually, there is no such thing as dark — not as an entity in itself; you can’t, we are told, add “dark” to something, you can only add light or not. Wh...

Wednesday the 9th was overcast but dry. Nick Scott had dragged himself to the kitchen where Jane already had coffee made for them both, bless her. His phone began to chirp and their eyes locked for a second — an unspoken “here we go, already.”

“Can’t Denny give you just a few…?”

“It’s not the desk,” he said, shaking his head. Then, into the phone, “Scott.”

“Detective Scott; it’s Lisa Warne — Michael… he’s gone!”

“I wouldn’t have though a psychiatric ward would allow self-discharge…?”

“We don’t. ...

The hospital, when he got there, was infested with uniformed police. Dr Warne met him at the main entrance, but she knew next to nothing.

“When I got in early this morning, Michael was just gone. Noone seems to have seen him, nor do we know quite how me managed to get out,” said Dr Warne.

“What time did you arrive?” Nick asked.

“Six-ish,” she said.

“Interesting — is he likely to have ventured out while it was still dark?”

“I don’t know … yes, if he felt it the lesser of two evils,” she said.

Gre...

Lisa led Nick through a maze of anonymous corridors in the hospital's administration block. Although this was an area never visited by patients - or even, if they could possibly help it, medics - the scent of antiseptic permeated even these corners, and the walls were painted the same shade of battered white. Eventually they stopped at a door labelled "Jane Hodges - Hospital Administrator."

Stepping through the door, they might have been teleported into another world. Hodges' office featured fre...

Michael sat on a bench with his head down, catching his breath. He had to stay out of sight, that much he knew. But doing that while remaining in the light was tough. In front of him, strangers' feet marched past him, heading in directions and for purposes unknown.

His ears were assaulted by the sounds of the space - not just footsteps, but distant clatterings, snatches of voices, the hum of air conditioning. And smells he couldn't even guess at. 

The floor was polished and shiny, the walls were...

Nick found the right door and marched in, brandishing his warrant card at the startled man reclining in his swivel chair in front of a wall of screens. "DS Scott, Cambridge CID. I'm looking for someone and it's urgent."

The man in the chair turned slowly to face him, nestling a cup between his hands. "Nice to meet you, DS Scott. I'm Bert. Anyone in particular you're looking for, or are you not fussy?"

"No need for the wise cracks, Bert, I'm on police business and I'm sure you wouldn't want to be...

Michael sidled down the quiet corridor, searching for a suitable bolt hole. He looked around him: there was nobody in sight as he eased the door open, letting the light from outside seep into the space. He reached around the corner with his hand and fumbled for the light switch: it took a moment before, finally, he felt the little plastic lever under his fingers and clicked.

Now he could face the room: bright fluorescent lights buzzed gently as they drove away the demons. He slipped inside and c...

Lisa’s intention had been both good and straightforward – find her missing patient. Of course, he could be anywhere by now, but there had to be at least a chance that he was still on the premises and, if he were, it looked like it was her job to find him. The question was, where to look? Where would a man in his situation go?

Nowhere dark, obviously, so that ruled out a lot of murky corners in service buildings and basements. But hospitals generally do tend to be well-lit, 24 hour sorts of place...

Nick's eyes were glazing over. Who knew that there were so many exit points from a hospital? And a steady stream of people coming and going, all of whom had to be examined closely to see if they looked anything like Michael Jones. Many could be discounted immediately, but six foot caucasian males weren't exactly rare in these parts and all demanded a closer look.

He'd noted in his book half a dozen remote possibilities, but in each case there was something not quite right - he'd bet at least one...

Michael stood up and stretched. He was rested now, and it was time to move on. The shopping centre where he'd holed up for the morning was getting busier, and it surely wouldn't be long before some cleaner needed access to the stores he was keeping company.

Time to get out there, in the middle of the day while the light was strong and there were plenty of people to mingle with. Besides, he had somewhere he needed to be.

Shit! Nick got into his car, slammed the door shut, and grabbed the police radio. “Dispatch, this is DS Scott. I need a BOLO on a Michael Jones. He’s a witness in the holiday cottage fire case.”

“10-4 DS Scott. Go ahead.”

“The individual is a white male, twenty years old, six feet tall, with short brown wavy hair, a slim build, and a bandaged left hand from a burn injury. He escaped from Addenbrookes Hospital while under psych. eval., is presumed to be on foot, and was last seen wearing white ho...

Mary pulled a green parrot feather away from her face like a veiled dancer. Leaning over she whispered it along Nick’s neck as if she were slitting his throat. Turning the feather Mary scribbled a love note behind his ear with the pointed tip. Scott knew this from the expository narration his wife was providing of her attempted seduction. 

“Nick mumbled, pretending to be deep in the throws of sleep,” Mary said. 

“Mary remained unconvinced. Mr. Scott had a long history of playful obfuscation. She...

Scott’s phone buzzed. Warne and Michael shifted to look at him expectantly, tension draining from their bodies. He cursed silently and stretched his leg to dig around in his pants pocket for the device. One bloody moment where they had actually been getting some place with the kid, and it was gone. Gone. He pulled out the phone: Martin. His boss.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, not meeting their eyes as he swung out of his folding chair with a smooth rubber screech. Warne leaned back in her seat, runn...

Lisa was already waiting for him at the swing doors that led to the Psychiatric Unit.  Nick felt perspiration on his brow. The hospital was stuffy and hot and he was slightly out of breath. He had taken the wrong exit corridor from the Addenbrookes Concourse and had gone in several incorrect circles before retracing his steps and starting again.  Lisa by contrast looked calm and collected in tailored light grey trousers, and a crisp white cotton shirt. 

Once again Nick thought how she made an im...

At the count of 5 he was back there. Suddenly he was on the landing of the holiday cottage in the coal black night. Gripping the bannisters, blinking in the relentless dark, so dizzy he could hardly stand, feeling like he might vomit.  Worn carpet prickled his bare soles.  What had happened to his slippers?  His socks ? His shirt ? He was only wearing jeans.  Why was there no light ? 

There was a searing, burning pain in his chest, it covered the whole area.  Shaking Michael drew one hand from g...

A woman's voice. Michael could hear a calm woman's voice through the roar of the flames. 

“Did you want to die ? ” He tried to think, to answer.

“No, No not die. I wanted...to .. be .. have.. A second chance. To be Strong. Yes, that’s it. I wanted to be Powerful.  I wanted to be a King.  For a while I was a King.”

“Listen to my voice Michael.  It's Dr Warne and I’m bringing you back. I’m counting now. Starting with …”

“1..Listen .. 2..Focus.. 3.. waking up.. 4.. open your eyes .. 5 

Instantly Mi...

“What is going to happen to him?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

Doctor Warne took another bite of her beet and vegetable salad. She looked at the detective's untouched burger and chips platter.

"You're lucky it's Thursday. Only day of the week you can get fried anything on the hospital menu. Healthy eating and all that."

Detective Scott looked down at his plate. The macabre didn't sit well with his appetite.

The doctor took another forkful of red beets. "I'm curious. What do you th...

“We're not going to talk about the dark.” Doctor Warne had entered Michael's ward room with evident purpose. There was a new tone, a new firmness in her voice. “Just for now I want us to talk about the light. Okay? Can we take a moment to do that? My, the lights in this room are very bright, aren't they? I'm just going to adjust this chair, so you can put you head back and relax. Lots of light here.” Warne reclined the chair back and motioned for him to sit there. “I know you're concerned about ...

“So that's the thing, isn't it?” Scott pushed back in his cafeteria chair. “You will have to tell any court that he is messed up in the head and then it won't matter what he did or didn't do. All respect, Doc, but that kind of thing doesn't sit right with me.”

“I can only speak as a psychiatrist, but what would you have us do? Perhaps a man thinks he is slicing a loaf of bread. Do we condemn him if it is instead someone's neck he is cutting? Or maybe a fellow thinks he is with all his might stru...

“Let's try a little exercise, Michael. I want you to just focus on what is happening right now — just here, just now in this moment. Breathe out for me. Drop your shoulders. Let your tongue fall from the roof of your mouth. Good. I'm just going to lay my hand on your shoulder, for a moment.” She stood beside his chair and let her hand rest lightly just touching his shoulder. “Here we are and you are safe. There is nothing you need to do right now. You can relax in this moment.” 

The effect on Mi...

“What will you do now, Detective?” Doctor Warne rose from the table and Scott stood up with her.

“He could certainly be run up on an arson charge — we have that at least — but with your diagnosis, Doc, it won't stick.” Scott exhaled heavily. “But then, besides the obvious circumstantial evidence in the morgue, all we have is Michael's testimony about what happened that night at the cottage. And we can't take that at face value now can we? We'd have to say the dark did it.”

“A difficult warrant t...

Michael's eyes were closed and he would keep them closed now. His body was more relaxed. Warne could see his weariness lulling him to it. She continued to talk and to guide him — letting him listen to her voice as she moved about the room. Things were going well. Perhaps this could all be made easier than she had thought.

“I wonder, Michael, have you ever heard of the Stampfl technique. Well, I don't suppose. But perhaps you took a psychology course in college. It's a kind of cognitive-behaviora...

By the time he pulled his Mercedes into the sloping gravel drive, the fire was out.

An afterthought of grey smoke still plumed up from behind the trees ahead of him, but it was so faint now that it was hard to pick out against the dull grey of the dawn sky. It would soon be quenched completely by the autumn drizzle.

He followed the driveway downhill amid a swirl of sepia-coloured leaves, then veered right with the bend as it levelled out, and the full scene revealed itself. The cottage - what re...

The couple were lean and wiry - probably holidaying joggers or cyclists here to make life hell for locals who just wanted to get their cars down the lanes at more than ten miles an hour. He introduced himself and asked them if they lived in the cottage on the hill, already knowing the answer.

“Just renting,” said the woman. “For the weekend, I mean.” She looked at the man and reddened.

“Mr and Mrs Huxham?”

“Oh no. We’re not married,” she said.

All three of them looked at her wedding ring.

“Not t...

The firefighters seemed to be packing up and preparing to leave. Officers Freckles and Paunch were standing before the remains of the front door with a roll of police tape, seemingly not knowing where to begin.

Nick sat in his car punching Addenbrookes Hospital into the satnav - he lost his bearings any more than a few miles outside the city - and thinking about that kid ranting about the dark. Maybe this was a case for Columbo after all. Rather him than me, thought Nick. Still, with any luck, b...

The rig doors opened with a jolt. The frigid early morning air seeped in, circulating through the stale atmosphere of the ambulance and clearing the charred smell that lingered with the ghost of antiseptic. Under normal circumstances, the breeze might have offered some relief, refreshing and calming the senses. Instead, it triggered a wave of anxiety accompanied by burning pain through his left hand. A natural reaction would be to draw his arm in towards his body, perhaps to cradle it in a prote...

Everything was so loud. The metal catch and release mechanisms of the second door and breaks on the gurney ricocheted like gunshots through the night. Even the wheels screamed beneath him on each revolution. He sympathised with them and would have joined in if he hadn’t been struck dumb. Since leaving the security of the ambulance, he couldn’t emit a single sound, even to save himself.

The tremors increased as the crew began to move him from the ambulance bay and into a&e. He could see the light...

Khyra’s heart broke for the man. As one of the first paramedics to the scene she had witnessed the devastation. The guy was only a month older than her - she’d been the one to write his chart. He’d been so traumatised that he couldn’t remember his own name, and they’d been forced to use ID recovered at the scene by the firefighters. Jesus. It hit home for her because it could have been her. Michael could have been one of her friends. In any other circumstance, Michael would have been her type. H...

The next couple of days were a blur to Michael. He found his memory was playing tricks on him and he was exhausted. His left hand was now bandaged and the doctor had said he may need a skin graft in the future. The same doctor had also explained that he may suffer some shortness of breath or coughing, but that the smoke inhalation had been offset by the oxygen they’d been administering. On the face of it, it had sounded as though he would be discharged soon. It was just a matter of addressing th...

An unfamiliar woman stood in the office. Michael could see her through the window even though her words were muted by the locked door. Everything was locked here. For safety. Michael wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion though. Keys suggested doors. Doors gave places for monsters to hide. The nurses told him he needed to “interrupt the thoughts” so he wouldn’t obsess and panic. It was worth a try, so Michael focused on the woman instead. 

The way she was interacting with staff and looking his ...

He’d made sure to check that the lights couldn’t be turned off in his room or the corridors. That’s how they would get you, you see. It only took the tiniest bit of dark - the wisp of a shadow, for every known evil to hide and ensnare you before you knew what was happening. A simple spark and the world could come falling in ashes around you. He didn’t even trust his own shadow not to mutiny against him. You were safe all the while you were in your room - with every light on, but the staff forgot...

He was safe here. For now.

DS Scott pulled into the car park at Addenbrooke’s Hospital with a feeling of dread. It wasn’t so much that he had to interview the surviving student as it was the hospital itself. A leading trauma centre, Addenbrooke’s had pioneered lifesaving emergency transplants for decades, which had given him nightmares when he was a child—gorilla heads sewn onto human bodies kind of thing. He’d been three or four years old when the former hospital had closed and he’d probably heard rumours about it, but t...

An insistent ringing woke DS Scott from a deep slumber. It took him a moment to orient himself, realizing the sound didn’t exist solely in his dream. Also disturbed by the noise, his wife shifted in her sleep, allowing Scott the opportunity to carefully untangle himself, having wrapped his arms around her sometime during the night. Quickly rolling over, he tapped the green accept icon as he noiselessly walked out the bedroom door into the hall. 

“DS Scott,” he whispered. 

“I apologize for callin...

Michael sees them again, this time in the distance. Two, floating, red dots. No matter how much he looks away, pretends they’re not there, they remain. He knows they’re something sinister, something alarming, something ominous. He knows it, because they haven’t moved while he’s watched them. They just float in space, surrounded by a darkness that feels heavy. It’s a heaviness that seems to hang on you like a shawl, dragging you down and constricting you without remorse. 

However, this time is di...

Nick Scott turned into the unsignposted morgue’s small car park, pulled his car into a bay marked Medical Examiner 3 and turned off the engine. With a sigh of relief he closed his eyes, then massaged his temples to try and ease the tension headache that had been brewing for the last hour as he’d sat in traffic. He could have used his blues and twos, but the more you used them the less effective they were. ‘Late for lunch’ was the public perception, especially for Police. He logged off the car’s ...

Nick knew Su Lee from old. Su Lee’s family had emigrated to the UK when Hong Kong had been returned to the Chinese in 1997. She’d studied at Kings, then interned at Addenbrooke’s where she had specialised in pathology. She was, Nick knew, very well respected and he was more than happy that it was her, rather than the brusque know it all idiot he usually found himself with.

“Doctor Lee,” Nick said and smiled.

“DS Scott,” Su returned the smile. “Now that the formalities are over, how is Mary?”

“Sh...

“How are you feeling?” 

The hell does she want now? 

“How do you think I’m feeling?” He demanded, eyes shifting up quickly when the light flickered. 

Damn thing’s been doing it ever since he got here, his heart racing every single time, on the edge of a panic attack. He’s asked twice now for someone to replace it, listening to the irritating hum of the fluorescents before flickering again.

“I know you’re upset, Michael, but answering a question with a question is not helping us.”

He adverted his...

The water tasted like home. Julia set the cup down too sharply, and flinched at the hard ring of glass on granite. Overheard, the familiar metronome of her father pacing across the creaking floorboards paused, leaving a heavy moment of embarrassed silence that was softened by the white noise of mother washing her hands, again, through a closed door. These two sounds also felt like home.

With both Michael and herself now aloft from the nest, their parent’s recently found loneliness had turned int...

Detective Scott shielded his eyes from the reflection of the harsh overhead shining off the freshly waxed floor. The smell of antiseptic stung his nose and the brewing headache threatened to take over. 

“Dr. Warne, may I speak with you?” he asked as he saw the busy psychiatrist walking down the hall. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he willed the headache away.

“Detective.” Her voice was terse. Detective Scott needed to play his cards right if he was going to get access to Michael Jones. He was ...

“John was inconsolable after Claire’s death. The darkness, you have to understand. It got Claire. We didn’t know. We didn’t understand yet.”

His rocking intensified as a shadow crossed over the sky, diminishing the light streaming in through the windows. 

“Please,” he said, desperation tinting his voice. “We need more light. It will get us all if you don’t. I can’t leave the light. You have to understand. You can’t let the darkness in.” Michael wailed as he jumped up from his seat. “It will get ...

Nighttime is when the dark reigns. It frolicks. It cavorts. 

Where there is daylight, it splashes everywhere. But without the sun, the feeble light that humans throw on things stays where it’s put. And apart from that narrow area, the dark does as it wants.) 

Somewhere in Nurse George Bergi’s scientific education, he will have been taught that, actually, there is no such thing as dark — not as an entity in itself; you can’t, we are told, add “dark” to something, you can only add light or not. Wh...

Wednesday the 9th was overcast but dry. Nick Scott had dragged himself to the kitchen where Jane already had coffee made for them both, bless her. His phone began to chirp and their eyes locked for a second — an unspoken “here we go, already.”

“Can’t Denny give you just a few…?”

“It’s not the desk,” he said, shaking his head. Then, into the phone, “Scott.”

“Detective Scott; it’s Lisa Warne — Michael… he’s gone!”

“I wouldn’t have though a psychiatric ward would allow self-discharge…?”

“We don’t. ...

The hospital, when he got there, was infested with uniformed police. Dr Warne met him at the main entrance, but she knew next to nothing.

“When I got in early this morning, Michael was just gone. Noone seems to have seen him, nor do we know quite how me managed to get out,” said Dr Warne.

“What time did you arrive?” Nick asked.

“Six-ish,” she said.

“Interesting — is he likely to have ventured out while it was still dark?”

“I don’t know … yes, if he felt it the lesser of two evils,” she said.

Gre...

Light rain was coming down while Detective Sergeant Nick Scott parked his car on the lot in front of Addenbrookes hospital. A faint echo from the blaring siren reverberated as he pushed open the driver door. The cool wind cleared out the stale air and coffee smell that hung around since late last night. From a distance he could see a woman with an umbrella standing just outside the entrance doors. Even though she was waiting patiently, an anxious look was painted on her face like graffiti on a c...

Looking through the patient room didn't reveal much. Looks like he took all of his belongings with him, though Nick. I was almost expecting his shoes to be left behind, at least my sock theory would have been stronger. He take a closer look around. "The door doesn't look forced open."

"We are not a prison, detective. The patients are allowed to go out of the rooms to walk or get a drink. They of course aren't allowed to leave the floor without supervision. They also know we have cameras to watch...

Nick shook his head, his imagination was running wild again. He knew once he got back home tonight that his wife Mary would cure it, as she always did. Damn, how I love that woman, thought Nick.

As he glanced back at the video screens, past Dr. Warne, who calmly stood by the side, Nick noticed a shadowy figure walk through the picture. Was that my imagination again, thought Nick.

"Pause, and go back. Did you see that?"

Dr. Warne's hand already reached for the controls as he said it. "Yes, I saw ...

Detective Sergeant Nick Scott let out a sigh of frustration. He was back in his car on the way to the police station. He and the other officers had spent the better part of the day searching the hospital and interviewing anyone that was around the hospital that morning. Now he had to go back and report what he had found.

"Nothing!" Nick struck the steering wheel with the palm of his hands. He took a sip from the coffee he had gotten from the cafeteria. He hoped it would calm his nerves till he g...

Nick checked his watch. This was gonna be bad. Really, really bad. His captains were gonna be furious. He heard a buzzing. His phone. Great. Something to distract from his inevitable firing. He took his phone out of his pocket. A missed call from Antonio. Damnit, what did he want now? It had been 6 years since the fight that had torn them apart and now after all this time, Antonio wanted to call? Unknowingly, Nick had clenched his fist. Well, at least there was something worse than getting yelle...

Nick’s first port of call was the hospital. Michael had lied to him, he had lied to everyone. And Nick had to know why. Or how the doctor could have let Michael get away with faking mental illness. The receptionist let Nick right in and Nick went straight to Lisa’s office.

“Did you know?” Nick was yelling. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a security guard at the door to his side. She was looking at Lisa as if to ask ‘Should I do something?’ Lisa shook her head, but the guard stayed at the do...

On his way back home, Nick turned on the radio of his car. He had contacted a local radio station to put out a BOLO for Michael. It should be playing right about now. He sat back and listened. It was also being broadcast on TV, but Nick wasn’t rich enough to have a TV in his car. A few minutes later, his phone buzzed. Antonio. Again. Nick should really have blocked him, but this time the message intrigued him.

‘I’ve seen that guy the news said you were looking for. Meet me at our old spot in hal...

Captain Taylor was standing on top of Bob’s body. Well, she doubted she’d be a captain much longer. How can you be a captain of a police station that doesn’t exist anymore? She pushed a big red button on her phone. The explosives set around the police station up above would likely kill everyone inside. Good. She always hated being a police officer. Luna she had some regret about killing Luna, but her death served an important cause. Taylor would get what she always wanted, the destruction of the...

Nick was driving past when he saw the explosion. It appeared to be the police station. Oh god, it was the police station! It looked like it was collapsing! As the rubble from the building started falling towards him, Nick sped up, trying to avoid it. He managed to escape, but when he looked back, he saw a lot of people who didn’t. And he looked back at the crater that used to be his police station. So many dead officers, so many dead people. Nick couldn’t help himself, he threw up.

After he fina...

Detective Sergeant Nick Scott sighed and stared at the stack of case files on his desk — nine cases that had come in over the last 24 hours. 

There was the male suspect in his mid-20s who had led a group of forty-five to trespass in a lumber mill. When the police arrived, the man, who had been there moments prior, vanished. His cell phone was traced back to the party, but no one could find him. 

There was another male suspect, late-20s, who drunkenly wandered into a family’s home, slept on thei...

The aroma of roasted garlic and onions wafts through the air as Nick enters the kitchen. Mary stands in front of the stove. A pot of water boils on the back burner. In a saucepan, Mary uses a turner to break down ground beef. She looks up when she hears Nick. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair. 

“It smells good.” He says. 

“I thought that you could use some comfort food.”

“I could. Thank you.”

Nick leans against the counter while Mary continues cooking. He’s thankful that M...

The dark isn’t a physical thing, just like cold isn’t really anything: it’s just the absence of something else. Light and heat; without them you have dark and cold: space empty of those mysterious photons and excited electrons that make a space livable and navigable. 

Crazy might be a sort of absence, too: an absence of hope.

Red light fell like a pool of blood onto Detective Scott’s car as he parked near the tall lighted sign in front of the market where someone fitting Michael’s description wa...

The ring of his phone was a welcome relief for DC Nick Scott, he needed a break from this madness, he felt his shoulders relax as he exited the interview room with some haste and an apologetic smile to Michael and Dr Warne.

 That Dr Warne was an intense woman, he was sure that ten minutes alone in a room with her and she would know all his deepest secrets, not that he had many, still it was a scary thought, and just for a moment he had an image in his mind of Michael as a terrified mouse cornere...

The therapy room was bright but warm and stuffy - hospital standard temperature, thought DS Scott, wishing he hadn’t spilt coffee down his shirt earlier and had to keep his jumper on to hide the stain. Sweat beaded on his upper lip - four bodies and a sole survivor, now having a psychotic break - that sort of thing didn’t happen every day out here in the sticks. The local news were all over it, camped out on the Station doorstep demanding answers - and he’d seen a Sky News van on the road throug...

The Costa coffee house bustled with activity at lunchtime. The constant dinging of the door with patrons coming in and out, the buzz of voices placing or picking up orders, and loud chatter  competed with the echo of machines whirring in the back. 

Dr. Warne sat in a corner, at a table up against a wall, unfazed, staring intently at the image on her smartphone. Detective Sgt. Scott's avatar,  and upside-down teardrop tagged with his chiselled face and a million-watt smile, glided smoothly across...

The room Dr. Warne chose for Michael’s therapy session was spacious and unencumbered by furniture. The walls were off-white and bare. There was but a single table and two chairs placed at the centre of the room. Per Michael's request, Dr. Warne had two large fluorescent floor lamps brought in to brighten the space. Overall, the room looked cold, sterile and devoid of any nook or cranny in which something frightening could hide.

Warne was sitting at the table, slightly hunched over with stylus in...