A shadow suddenly blocked the moon. It was a human silhouette, one that swiftly stretched across the crude mouth of the well.

The figure, now bent over the rim, made a gesture.

Only after Sam had screamed out “Help me! Please!” did he conclude that this shadowy visitor must be the man who’d attacked him.

Words came down the chute, ricocheting off the wooden walls. They were indecipherable, guttural, almost inhuman. Regardless of whether there was meaning to them or whether it was merely the vibration of the alien voice, the ground began to shift in response to the stimuli. And soon Sam felt himself being flung as the cushioned base upon which he’d been lying began to rise and scale the side of its den.

It was immense. Sam foolishly wondered how long it must have taken his attacker to find a log large enough to shelter such a creature. By the moon’s pallid glow Sam could just see the man aboveground raising his arms to imitate the flailing mandibles of the great scuttling thing that bucked its head in mirror-perfect mimicry of its keeper’s gestures. The barbarous words were now being bellowed in a euphoric tone. Their rhythm matched the clacking of the thick stingers that parted and shut on the insect’s rump.

Horror and irony besieged Sam in a great steely wave. He could only listen to the sound he’d so longed to hear: the patter of tiny feet. Only this time they were multiplied a hundredfold. Sam almost laughed, and a second later his light went out.

The Rasping Absence

The Rasping Absence

Trent Fenner was unable to gauge his supervisor’s reaction to the re-edited news segment. Upon the mounted television, animated galaxies spun like tops within simulated space.

“Astonishing as it sounds,” (Trent never liked the way his voice sounded on television, even after two years of reporting), “some physicists suspect that the longstanding model of reality, which suggests that our universe is made up of atoms, is in fact wrong. This mysterious substance that they are calling Dark Matter, along with a repulsive force dubbed Dark Energy, make up ninety-six percent of our universe. It seems that the universe is much darker than we suspected.

“Dark Matter cannot be seen. It neither reflects nor deflects light, and it seems to be part of a reality completely distinct from our own. And yet, billions of Dark Matter particles surround us. As Dr. Douglas Newman of Newfoundland’s EXCEL physics laboratory put it, ‘Dark Matter represents the distinct possibility that our universe is a vast haunted house, where billions of these mysterious particles pass through the walls, and even our bodies, every day without our knowing or feeling it.’”