Wilde's Fire (Darkness Falls #1) Read Online Free PDF

inconspicuous. They must figure we’re up to no good. Five or ten minutes pass before they collect their children from the river.
    I tip my head in their direction. “Look, they’re getting out.”
    At last, we’re free to go explore our cave.
    I place the gear on a rock and undress down to my underclothes while Brad turns his head, once again.
    Brit eyes the gear. “Do you really think we need the rope and camera right now?”
    “No,” I say.
    We each carry a flashlight; the rest of the gear we leave behind.
    I can see at least a foot of the top of the cave above the water, but Brad cannot. “Are you sure you can’t see it?”
    “I swear,” Brad says.
    Brit and I exchange glances.
    “Can you see it under the water?” she asks.
    Brad dunks his head. “Yes.”
    With a quick wink, Brit and I decide we should enter from below.
    I smile. “Ready?”
    They both nod.
    We all take a deep breath and immerse ourselves.
    As soon as we swim through the mouth of the cave, the water evaporates, and our bodies slam into cold, hard ground. I stand, confused, and wipe off the dirt and stones covering my wet skin.
    The air is at least twenty degrees cooler than the air on the other side, and smells of rotting wood and mildew.
    Intuition tells me the situation is wrong.
    We need to go back.
    We are not in a cave.
    “We should go—”
    Something so horrible, so powerful, takes control over my body—I fall onto my hands and knees and scream.

he cold ground makes my bones ache. My soul is in agony from the wicked atrocities playing through my mind. The vision of gruesome creatures slicing through the terrified, helpless people before me is too much to bear. Their misery becomes my own, like an overpowering poison simmering inside my skin. Fire ignites women and children; as they burn and are left to die, the flames scorch through me. Plumes of blackened smoke rise from cottages, bodies, and from the forest, making the air unbreathable.
    “Please stop screaming, Kate. I promise we’re gonna get out of here,” Brad says, rocking me in his lap, forehead pressed against mine. His heart beats so hard, it thumps against my right shoulder.
    Gasping for air, I wish I wasn’t here. I wish we were back at home where this hallucination would be gone. But, for all my pleading, it doesn’t go away; the painful vision of devastation only plays stronger in my head.
    The beautiful blue sky turns black. Mothers cry out for their children, husbands for their wives. A shrill scream comes from a young girl standing alone. Men and women both run for her, but aren’t fast enough. I watch as the child is torn limb from limb by fiends.
    “Kate, shut up, please, just shut up,” Brit says, her voice trembling.
    I’m scaring her with my screams, but if she could understand I’m seeing and
feeling
the creatures of my nightmares from the past six years, she would never ask me to be quiet.
    The tall, mangled beings murder hundreds, thousands of people. These beasts seem to become stronger with each life they steal, moving from one victim to the next, faster and faster until they look like blurs of gray. There is no hesitation, no remorse. They kill with excitement.
    “K-Kate, s-s-stop screaming.” I haven’t heard Brad stutter since fifth grade, when he had to give a speech about Patrick Henry in front of our class.
    The fear in Brad’s and Brit’s voices registers in my brain. It’s not the breathless fumbling of my sister’s words that bothers me so much, but that of Brad’s. When his mom collapsed in front of us three years ago in his barn, he didn’t even flinch. He grabbed his cell phone, dialed 9-1-1, and began CPR on her. Brad saved his mom’s life then. Something tells me he’s trying to save my life now.
    I take slow breaths, in and out, force the visions to the back of my brain, and open my eyes onto this strange, dark place.
    Brad helps me to my feet and holds onto my hand, steadying me.
    There is no moon, there are no stars