He shouldn’t have brought them here.

It was hard to navigate the bush at night. He ran through the landmarks in his head; the edge of the road, the path by the stream into the bush, and then crossing over the tape the council had put up warning people to go no further. He’d been here less than a week ago and the hat he’d left behind must be here somewhere . . .

Slowly he turned 180 degrees, the phone torch shedding a jagged beam of light, making the trees jump out, appear too close. He took a deep breath, rubbed his free hand down his jeans. Despite the cold, he could feel a thin sheen of sweat rise on his forehead. He breathed out slowly, spun the torchlight again, this time behind him in a wide arc.

The girls’ faces appeared ghost-white in the spear of light and they covered their eyes with their forearms.

‘Are you lost?’ the younger girl, Sarah, asked. ‘Evan, are you lost?’

‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘I need to listen.’

‘What even is this?’ Sarah’s older sister Emma, the one who mattered, asked. ‘You bring us all the way out here with barely any light and you tell us we’ll hear something cool, and now you don’t know where we are?’

‘Quiet.’

‘Jesus, Evan, I’m going. C’mon, Sez.’

Emma turned, but not before Evan heard the disgust in her voice. She probably thought he was making it up just to impress her, or worse, so that he could… well…

‘Wait!’

‘Enough, Evan.’ Emma’s voice was sharp and it made him shrink. She’d probably tell everyone at school he was even more of a loser than she’d first thought.

The girls began walking back in the direction they’d come.

‘Wait!’ he said again. ‘I—’

And then they heard it. At first, a low moan. The girls turned back to him open-mouthed and in the light he could see their horror plainly written. He felt it too, a dark turning in the pit of his stomach. The moan grew louder and the girls rushed to him so the three were almost hugging. Louder still as Emma tried to pull them all back along the track.

‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘Who’s out there?’

Abruptly – silence.

‘I want to go home,’ Sarah said, and the two girls started walking quickly along the darkened path.

‘Is this some trick?’ Emma turned, vicious, towards him.

‘You think this is funny?’

Her face was not as he thought it would be. Instead of huddling up to him, she was as against him as always. He’d got it wrong again…

Continue reading the extract here…

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