K.LSamuel Author

We Keep What is Ours.

Prologue

They leave the lights off; voices speak in low whispers. Their movements slow, specific and controlled. The only light coming from a single candle almost burnt to the wick, its flames stuttering with each pass, casting thin shadows across white walls.

Draws remain open as clothes are pushed into waiting bags.

“Take only what you need.” Glen says his voice barely there.

“I am!” She hisses.

She isn’t.

She pauses, glancing towards the door, then the window, searching for any outside motion beyond the glass.

“Nancy, we need to go-now!”

She grabs both bags, not enough for a life, too much for just a night. Turning quickly, one of the packs catches a tall ceramic vase, it wobbles, judders. Glen throws himself forward, catching it just before it falls, catching it inches from the floor.

They freeze. Their eyes meet, breathing loud and synchronised.

The curtains shift slightly, but the windows remain shut. They both notice.

“We’re too late,” Nancy whispers, “they know.”

He doesn’t reply, just swallows audibly and reaches out for her hand, pulling her towards the darkness of the hallway. He steps forward first, his free hand reaching out at nothing, fingertips skimming the walls until he feels the cold metal of front door handle. He stops, listening.

Nothing. Too much nothing.

The front door opens without a sound, and they are hit with an intense cold, forcing a breath from both of them. Outside, the street lies empty, rows of identical stone built houses, barely visible, each window lit with a single guttering candle.

“Just go!” Nancy gasps.

They move fast, keeping to the shadows, every step learnt, judged, rehearsed. Their steps quicken as they pass the stone barn on the left, it’s shape looming, swallowing the last stretch of village. The Hollowsedge sign stands just beyond it, wood faded, edges splintered.

They see the road. Almost there now.

The air tastes different here, like somethings been removed.

“Just a little further.” Glen says, his voice settled.

Nancy doesn’t answer, she’s fixated at something in the road in front, at something he can’t yet see.

The light comes first. Spilling across tarmac in a sudden blinding sweep, devouring the darkness before they have time to react. Nancy turns instinctively, dazzled, still grasping Glen’s hand, but it’s too late. There’s no time to think.

The sound follows, a violent, crushing impact that tears through the silence. Taking them in a single brutal moment. Then nothing.

A few seconds pass; one headline blinks wearily, the other shattered and exposed. The silence interrupted by the soft ticking of the engine.

Doors open. One by one, the villagers step out without urgency, calm and measured. They move in a loose line toward the wreckage. Up close, it looks worse. The front is crushed inward, metal folded in on itself, the windscreen fractured like a spider’s web.

The driver is still inside. One of them reaches inside and pulls open the door. It groans. There’s a brief pause as he leans in, checking- confirming. He steps back and gives a small nod.

“Three.” he says.

No-one questions it, they know what to do.

Two lift Glen first, cleanly, one at the shoulders, the other at the legs. Another carries Nancy’s smaller frame, bright red reflecting in the dying headlights. The bodies are handled with a kind of efficiency and precision. The driver is taken last. He is heavier, caught behind the wheel, and it takes a moment of force to free him.

They don’t carry them far, just beyond the barn, where the soil is rich, darker, holding an unfamiliar scent. Behind them, a second group gathers around the car. For a moment nothing happens, then- movement. Hands find their grip on metal, doors, and what’s left of the frame. Not dragged, not rolled-lifted. Guided carefully and steadily away from the road. Into the darkness beyond the houses and then, it’s gone.

The road is left empty.

One-man steps forward as the others return, stopping at the edge of the bend. He looks into the distance and for a beat they all stand in silence. Their work is done.

“The scores uneven.” He says.

It is met without resistance, they already understand.

A brief pause settles over them, something unspoken passes as they make their way back towards their homes, as they do, the candles in the windows go out, not one by one, all at once. Every flame extinguished in the same breath-until the village disappears back into its darkness.


Horror for Halloween 🎃
By K.L Kathryn Samuel

Third book in process…


📖 Exclusive story preview

🚌 👠 Leaving Utopia.
K.L Samuel.

Sarah blinks rapidly against the high-pitch ringing in her ears. She breathes in air that’s thick with unsettled dust and tastes burning rubber that coats the back of her throat. As her head shifts slightly to the side, her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she senses a shift in balance.

She brings a shaking hand to her forehead and winces. It’s wet and sticky and for a moment, nothing sits right.

Her body is pressed against something ice cold. A jagged edge cuts sharply into her left side, and she gasps as her fingers graze across splinters of glass illuminated by a thread of light. The yellow beams shoot out vertically, catching the road in front, highlighting tarmac and white lines that fade into nothing.

The bus is on its side.

The drilling in her skull thins out, and beneath it sounds of the aftermath filter through. A loud constant ticking noise like an engine trying to restart. The scratching of glass shifting, and a low whimper emerging from the shadows.

“Sarah?”

Her heart struggles to recover from a missed beat, settling with relief as Lisa’s voice calls out close by. Her body sags against warm hands that find her shoulders, foreheads finding each other, pressing close, their erratic breathing coming in fast waves.

“Oh god Lisa, what the hell just happened.” Sarah gasps between tears that come unbounded.

“Sarah, we need to find Becky and Gemma.” Lisa’s voice is kind but controlled, possessing a deep empathy for her friend’s fragility.

Lisa scans the bus front to back. The pale light skims the tops of upturned seating, twisted metal and windows where the floor should be. She shakes her head once, disorientation overpowering common sense.

“Come on.” She says grasping Sarah’s hand and guiding her through what remains of the carriage.

Crouching on heels, slowly shuffling through the wreckage, hearing the shards crunching under foot. Lisa surveys all the empty seats.

“Gem, Bex?” She calls, her voice catching in the small space.

Sarah squeezes Lisa’s fingers that are slick with sweat. “Where is everyone?” She whispers.

A figure ahead stirs as they approach. Gemma. Her vibrant red hair clogged with dust, mascara bleeding down her cheeks. They turn abruptly at a sudden bout of coughing in front of them. Becky is wedged between two seats.

“Someone get me the f**k out of here!” She croaks between another coughing fit.

Accessing each other as well as they can in the limited conditions, they move in line formation, making their way steadily towards the front of the bus.

They pass two more passengers, looking shocked but uninjured. The driver although still alive, is secured into his seat by a thin metal rod, piercing the flesh of his shoulder.

Sarah exhales audibly.

“Guys, there were over 30 people on this bus when we left the club.” She swallows.

“Where the hell did they all go?”

They stare out through the fractured windscreen, a single red stiletto sits in the road, its red glitter twinkling in the fading wisps of light.