"What's wrong with your face?" Kane asked.

"What?" Viv choked.

"Your face, it's got a look. An expression. A cloud of darkness. There's something wrong with your face, what's up?"

Viv stared at him over the top of her beer glass and sighed. How could she ever begin to explain it? "I had a weird weekend. I climbed the mountain and just, there were these weird guys, and... It was just nuts. That's all."

"Well, that's extremely vague," Kane grumbled.

"I don't really want to talk about it."

With a concerned frown, Kane leaned over and put his hand on her arm. "Hey," he said quietly. "Seriously, you're scaring me..."

She patted his hand and smiled at him. "It's nothing, just stupid girl bullshit."

Kane looked unconvinced, but let it go. "Come on, finish up or we'll never get out of here. I promised your dad I'd kick his arse at Halo tonight."

"The friendship between you and my dad is totally weird, you know that right?"

"No, the friendship between YOU and your dad is totally weird. He and I are bro's and that's totes norms."

Viv sighed theatrically and finished her drink in one long swallow. "I give up, you're both freaks. Alright, let's go."

The Brooker died of all traffic by 10 P.M. Kane and Viv walked along the dimly lit highway. They kicked at cans, picked the odd purple flower, and talked rubbish about TV shows. This time, when the great lumbering creature emerged from the trees beside the lacrosse field, Viv didn't lose her mind.

As one massive arm took a swipe at Kane she dropped her shoulder and barged him back out of the way. The trick saved her best friend's head, but cost her a nasty gash across the back of her shoulder and neck from claws both jagged and dull.

"Shit!" Kane yelled as he scrambled to his feet.

"Run!" Viv screamed at him, and he did. He grabbed her hand and they tore off up the Brooker towards the intersection with Risdon road where they could cut across into Lutana and come at her house from behind. "Go go go!"

Their saving grace was that it wasn't fast. The limbs were too muscular, too short, and it had to hobble along on feet which were almost like hands and ill-suited to running. The lights were against them but with the lack of traffic, it didn't matter. They crossed the highway and veered left, up the small hill towards the church.

"What the hell is that thing?" Kane asked between laboured breaths.

"Who knows? Don't stop!" Viv gasped as her lungs burned.

By the time they’d swung left past the corner store and across the park both she and Kane struggled to breathe, while the thing that chased them had settled into a smooth rhythm. It gave the impression that it could run thus for hours, and it was simply waiting for them to tire.

"Where are we going?" Kane gasped.

"Dunno. Can't get home. Don't stop!" She couldn't make complete sentences as her oxygen-starved brain started to have difficulty making decisions.

The monster snorted and grunted behind her as it loped along. It propelled itself with massive legs and used its arms to lurch forward like a gorilla. There was nowhere to go. They needed to be able to go faster, a car or something, but it was kilometres to anywhere that might be remotely helpful. No time to stop and call the police...

"Police." Viv gasped.

"What?" Kane gasped, though he scrambled at his pockets for his phone.

"Don't." She looked around as she ran. There was a car parked on the side of the road, as she ran past it, she kicked it and the alarm went off. "Make noise!"

Kane's face was mottled red with exertion but he followed her lead and kicked or elbowed every car they passed for half a block. About a third of them had alarms that went off and soon there were faces in windows and on porches to watch the impossible chase them up the street. "Up there!" Viv gasped as she saw a kindly faced older man gesturing for them to duck inside his house.

Kane veered right and in three bounds was up the steps and past the old man. Viv didn't veer. She pumped her arms and tried to ignore the way her leg muscles burned. From behind she heard Kane's cry of chagrin and fear, but as she was sure it would, the creature continued after her and completely ignored him.

Viv turned left and powered down the hill. Her heart hammered in her ears and her vision started to blur. She ran straight past her house, unwilling to lead the creature home to her father. Just as she thought she'd collapse, a light came around the bend behind them and illuminated the road. It was a motorcycle. Viv chanced a look back and nearly tripped over her own feet. It was HER motorcycle, and Kane rode it with wobbly and inexperienced desperation. He had a garden rake tucked under one arm like a lance. It jerked around in front of him with the shaft resting against the handlebar.

"Duck!" He yelled, his voice unencumbered as he'd left her helmet in the top box on the back of the bike.

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Vivien cried out as she fell into a painful roll which ended in a collision with someone's fence. Kane kept the rake as steady as he could and it slammed into the creature's back and went right through. The creature howled and turned with the metre and a half of the rake protruding from his back. It reached out with its massive arms and plucked Kane from the seat. The bike continued down the hill until it lost balance and toppled over to skid the rest of the way on its side. Kane hung suspended in the air by his torso, where the creature's claws had punctured him to get a good grip. He looked down at Vivien in complete astonishment and screamed only once, when the other clawed hand swung up at his face.

The great monster appeared to be vindictive because it proceeded to tear Kane's body apart. Tears streamed down her face and a helpless whimper she couldn't stop escaped her as Vivien clambered to her feet and half ran half fell down the slope to where the bike had come to rest. She picked it up and begged quietly 'please please please' when she tried to start it. Mercifully it kicked on the first try and she got on. When she looked back, the sound of the bike's engine had caught the creature's attention and it seemed to remember what it was meant to be doing. It threw what was left of Kane's mutilated body over a fence and started to lumber towards her. Unable to do anything else, Viv grabbed a fistful of the throttle and took off down the street.

It was twenty minutes before she was prepared to pull over. She had to though, even in the middle of the night, someone would notice a rider with no helmet and call the cops. Her fingers shook uncontrollably as she struggled into her helmet and gloves. There was fuel in the tank, she had no other gear, and monsters were real and chasing her.

"I can't go home," she said out loud to the uncaring streetlight she'd parked under. "Shit. Shit..."

The night was freezing even at the modest speeds a 150cc motorcycle is capable of. Vivien shivered and her teeth chattered as she left the city lights behind. Her headlight was woefully inadequate, which forced her to go even slower. The sun was well up and doing a terrible job of heating the air by the time she rattled to a stop on an unsealed and unused road in the middle of nowhere. There were no signs as such, but she could make out a walking track, which was exactly where Google said it should be...

Viv took a deep breath and started across the old, moss-covered railway bridge. Deep in this nowhere sat the abandoned town of Pillinger. That was what Aidan had said, and since this was the only thing to come up when she googled it on her phone she didn't have anywhere else to go. It was a two-hour walk into the bush to reach the ruins. Roads didn't go that way anymore, but once she hit the train tracks she could follow them all the way in.

The first sign she'd made it was a low stone wall which ran along the front of a set of ruined foundations. The stones were so square and so perfectly set, Viv was struck by how sad it was to have just abandoned something that took so much effort to build. The town wasn't large, and she made her way through the shells of old cottages and storehouses down to the waterfront. The remains of machinery rusted solid and unrecognisable for the function it once served, clogged an otherwise beautiful beach. The wind tried valiantly to tear her light cardigan from her shoulders and undo the messy bun of her hair, but she ignored it and started to gather wood for the fire. She shivered and fumbled as the temperature dropped again.

She stacked a miniature funeral pyre with kindling and fluff in the middle, building to larger pieces of wood on the outside, then she lit it with an old-fashioned zippo lighter. There, sheltered partially by the sad old machinery and a half-tumbled-down-wall, she sat to wait.

The sun sank lower and lower into the water and as the darkness crept over Pillinger, she started to wonder if she was mad. Had she walked for hours out into the middle of nowhere to wait for figments of her imagination to protect her from monsters that didn't exist? But then she thought of Kane. Sweet, brave Kane, whose family had probably noticed he was missing by now. Who would be worried sick about him. But he's not coming home. Not ever. Because he saved her, and he died.

In the darkness around her, blue flecks of light began to appear. At first, they seemed erratic and far away, like fireflies, but they moved closer and Viv could see that they were people carrying the same kinds of weapons as Aidan and his friends. She mumbled to herself over and over 'don't lose your nerve' as they approached. In the lead, an older man with white hair and a deeply lined face examined her with blue eyes that gave away nothing.

"Who gave you knowledge of this place?" He asked quietly.

Viv took a deep breath and as clearly as she could, said "Aidan Kaplan."

The group looked at each other and finally, the old man nodded. "Go get Aidan," he said to the man beside him who disappeared back into the darkness. Then they waited.

They all stood in silence. She wasn't sure how she'd make small talk with these guys anyway. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to ward off the chill. After maybe 20 minutes the lights began to bob in the darkness again and this time Aidan walked along with the other guards, his eyebrows knit together in a worried frown.

"Vivien? What's wrong? What happened? What are you doing here?" He asked in rapid succession as he crossed the uneven ground to take a firm hold of her upper arms.

Viv opened and closed her mouth a few times trying to formulate an intelligent response, but after the failed attempts she gave up and began to cry. Softly at first, with just a trembling of her lower lip to give her away in the darkness. Once she'd started she couldn't stop and soon great wracking sobs shuddered through her and she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain that suddenly seemed much more real than it had on her ridiculous journey through the scrub.

Unsure what else to do, Aidan put his arms around her and let her wail against his chest while he looked over her head at his companions. All stood, calm and stoic. Indifferent to the broken-hearted tears of an outsider.

"Talk to me Vivien, what happened?" He said in a rumble Viv more felt than heard.

"One of those things," she whispered in a cracked voice, "It was waiting for us. Near my house... Like it knew... Like it knew I would be there. How could it know that?" She looked up at him and took a deep breath to try to steady herself. "It killed Kane." She breathed, afraid to say it too loudly. "He tried to protect me and it killed him and," she gagged and nearly threw up before the sobs began again, "and I ran! It killed him and I ran away!"

Crushed under her own fear and shame, Viv didn't see the meaningful looks that passed between Aidan and the others. Significant glances, frowns and once or twice a grunt until at last some kind of decision was reached.

"Come on," He said gently. "Come with me. Nothing can hurt you here, I promise."

He led her through the darkness to where the land started to slope upwards. Somewhere above them there were craggy peaks covered in moss and a light dust of snow, but they didn't climb. Instead, Aidan walked them straight towards a large rock which jutted out from the mountain. The older man in front of them held his hand out and waved it from left to right, as though he were swiping on a massive touchscreen Viv thought vaguely, and as he did so the rock rolled aside and revealed a tunnel into the mountain behind it.

"You've gotta be kidding..." Viv breathed.

Aidan asked quietly, "Not claustrophobic are you?"

"No," she said and glanced up at his face.

"Just hold onto me," he kept one arm around her shoulders and she put one of hers around his waist so that she was plastered to his side.

"This is nuts.”