Something, or someone, is in your way. Whether you are a stalker about to claim your latest victim, or a lover desperately searching for your partner, or a cop on the hunt for the biggest criminal—the goal is always the same:

"I will always find you."

*

by

August 1995

"Kit!" Before his voice drifted away, I saw him, damp, shivering, trapped.

Tully! I threw aside the rug, sat up on the couch, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

03:17 –– Felice and Spike sprawled in front of the tv, still awake, though worse for wear.

"Where's Tully?"

Felice shrugged, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"He went to crash out," Spike said. "Hours ago. After you fell asleep."

"We have to find him." I stood up and pushed my feet into my runners.

We try not to sleep when we're all together, because it's a waste of the month we've left before the summer ends, but Tully and I had broken the unwritten rules.

"Leave him alone," Felice said. "You're always running around after him."

Ignoring the reproach, I picked my way through the debris of popcorn kernels and empty beer cans. Neither of them stirred as I raced across the hall, upstairs to the small guest bedroom, expecting him to be there.

But he wasn't.

The bed was pristine, floral covers untouched, exactly the way the cleaner left them on Monday.

He must have gone to the large guest room, the one with the en suite bathroom. Out of character, but perhaps he hoped I'd join him there.

With a smile I turned the handle. Moonlight streamed in through a pair of french windows casting the empty room in an eerie light, twin beds sterile and discreetly apart, shadows in unexpected places. Outside, under the full moon, the lush Irish countryside stretched around us, nothing but fields of sheep and cattle, a wide river at one end and an ancient burial site at the other. The silence scared me. Anything could be out there and you'd never know.

I ran on to Felice's room. The door left ajar, floor strewn with jeans and black underwear, duvet in an untidy heap on the bed, Tully would hate this mess.

I couldn't imagine him in Felice's bed, but I yanked back the covers anyway.

Nothing.

That only left Axel's room. Passed out in Felice's dad's bed? Tully? Impossible.

I flew along the corridor, my heart beating as the panic rose within me.

Paused outside Axel's door. Checked inside. Just to make sure.

Empty.

Even the air was undisturbed. Nobody had been in here for days.

I was looking in all the wrong places.

"Found him yet?" Felice didn't budge from her beanbag, merely raised her eyebrows.

"He's in danger." As soon as I said the words, I knew it was true. "He's not in the house."

"Relax, Kit." She ground her cigarette into the ashtray. "There's nowhere else to go."

"Unless he's sleepwalking," Spike said.

The three of us exchanged glances as the thought entered our heads simultaneously.

The river.

"Can't believe we're doing this," Felice muttered as we grabbed our coats. The days were mild but the August nights held a damp chill.

"Take these." She found us each a torch and armed herself with a hiker's stick.

We raced across the lawn, through the gap in the hedge, into the field beyond. Above, the moon was pale in the dark sky. It was so bright we hardly needed the torches.

As we charged towards the river, scattering drowsy sheep, I glanced back at the house. In the distance, the moon shone like a beacon above the prehistoric burial mound.

Tully was dying, damp and chilled through, croaking out my name with his last breath. "Kit!"

But he wasn't drowning.

No, Tully was buried alive.

That was where I'd find him.

"Guys," I shouted. "I'm going to the passage tomb."

"Don't be stupid, we need to check the river first." Felice's voice cut angrily through the silent dark.

"I think he's up there," I screamed back.

"And if he isn't?"

"We're wasting time," Spike caught Felice's arm. "Let Kit go if she wants."

"Alright." Felice shook off his hand, swiping at a briar with her stick. "We'll do the river."

I tore across the field, the dewy black grass soaking my runners.

The passage tomb loomed ahead, mysterious and otherworldly, a relic of Celtic antiquity, a burial ground from a forgotten age. By day, we'd often lain around on top of the mound, Felice, Spike and I, smoking cigarettes and planning our lives, but we'd never penetrated inside. The underground passages and chambers were unsafe and the entrance was kept locked and barred by the Office of Public Works.

Full moon, that's when the crazies come out. That's when weird stuff happens.

Wings flapping, a solitary crow rose into the sky with a harsh squawk. Go back.

Heart in my mouth, I struggled through the hedge, branches scratching my face, trying to keep me out. My jeans caught and tore on the barbed wire fence, but I didn't care.

"Tully," I screamed, "I'm coming."

The megalithic mound glowed with ancient power. And then I saw it.

Under a solitary hawthorn, skeletal in the moonlight, a jagged opening gaped at me.

A second entrance.

It didn't exist. Rationally, I knew that, but I clamped the torch between my teeth and, half crawling, half wriggling, crept inside the cavity.

The darkness was poised, waiting with intent, ancient and weary. It called me and I couldn't resist. Fear is hot. It warms you, but I was cold, numb. I no longer knew what I was doing, why I was crawling, where I was going. Underground, the mound expanded into a mountain. Time ceased to exist. Random memories floated through my mind.

"What brings me joy?" Tully's brown eyes twinkling at my question. "You of course, always you."

Felice called me soft, but she didn't understand -– Tully was way more enthusiastic than me, but I needed that enthusiasm. With his hand in mine, it felt like the world would be ok.

And that was why I had to find him.

The cramped passage widened out into a low chamber. I raised myself to my knees and looked around.

Slumped on the floor in front of me... it couldn't be...

Tully.

I crawled over and turned him gently towards me. His face was blue, his breathing shallow.

His eyes flickered open.

"Kit," he whispered. "You must get out of here."

"No." I lifted my head and swung my torch around the chamber. "Let him go, it's me you want," I yelled at the top of my voice.

"No, Kit. It's too late." Tully's voice was so weak I could barely make out the words.

"I'm here." My voice was calmer. I had its attention, the darkness, whatever it was. "Do with me what you will."

"Noooo." Tully's eyes closed and I was sure I'd lost him.

Through my tears, words came to me, words to share with Tully, words he would never hear, words he would never know I'd spoken.

And then the darkness entered me.

This was the end.

We'd been tricked.

I thought I could sacrifice myself for Tully, but it wanted us both.

It coursed through my blood, turning it black, invading me, possessing me. And for a blissful moment, the universe was laid out in front of me and I held its secrets in the palm of my hand and I understood the key to infinity and that there are fragments of eternity everywhere.

I tumbled back to earth, light shining in my face.

"You scared the crap out of us," Felice said, her torch pointed straight at me.

"Look at the lovebirds," Spike said.

Tully and I lay curled around each other in the hollow on top of the mound. His warmth enveloped my darkness and the ghastly blue pallor had left his face.

I'd no idea how we got there, but he was alive. We both were.

"There's another passage," I whispered. "The entrance is under the hawthorn."

"No way!" Spike ran off to investigate.

Felice sighed and lit a cigarette as Tully pulled me to my feet and warmed my hands in his.

"There's nothing here." Spike's voice came from over the crest.

"Yes," I said, "there is."

We half-scrambled, half-slid down the slope of the hillock.

I scrabbled at the spot, pushing aside leaves and twigs, but Spike was right. The opening had disappeared.

"Look," Felice said, "it's a full moon and this is an old place, loaded with atmosphere. You probably just had a really vivid dream."

"Yeah, maybe you were bewitched," Spike said with a laugh. "What do you think, Tully?"

"I don't know." Tully scratched his head. "I don't remember anything. I've no idea how I got here."

"You ever sleepwalk?" Felice asked him.

"Yeah, when I was younger, but that was years ago."

"There you are, Kit," Felice stared me down, convinced she'd proved her point. "Just as well Tully didn't go down to the river, isn't it?"

Could it really have been a dream? When it felt so real?

As we crossed the field, I turned to look back at the passage grave silhouetted against the dawn.

A surge of darkness, a presence older than time, rushed through my veins and a chilling voice whispered in my ear.

"I will always find you."