Prologue
Message in the water
The base of Adirondack Mountain, upstate New York
A snow covered south easterly blew through the almost empty forest. Smoke tumbled through the wind as a small camp fire bellowed it out. It was deathly quiet in the forest; no animal was making a single noise. Most animals had moved to a warmer climate or had started to hibernate. A thirty or so year old man stood hidden in the tree's surrounding the house where his target resided. The house was quite plain and was a common occurrence in those parts of the mountain. A wooden two storied cabin essentially. It had an overlooking balcony that surrounded the entire house. The man spied as a young boy came out onto the balcony. The boy had brown hair; short cut. He would be only seven or eight just by the look of him. He was sporting the current trend in pyjamas for his age; winter New York Jets uniform. He had a red robe surrounding his body, hugging him gently and protecting him the small amount of snow that was on the wind. The man smiled to himself. This was going to be easier than he thought.
The man was dressed in a black fighting suit, light but without any insulation. The man was freezing but that wasn't an excuse for his master. He had a knife on his side, hitched through his belt, which the man deemed quite absurd in a fighting suit. A small pistol in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other, the man started to climb a bent snow covered pine tree that over hanged the top of part of the balcony using his arms to squeeze the tree and his legs to push himself upwards. The man whispered a small phrase out. His body contracted and impossibly withdrew into itself. Where the man once stood was a small rep tipped scorpion. The scorpion scampered towards the boy in the pyjamas. "John! Come inside out of the cold!" A young woman scolded the boy as she walked out onto the balcony. She was a tall woman with red hair. "Yes Mummy" the little boy replied. The mother of the boy looked down and saw the disguised man/scorpion. She kicked the scorpion over the balcony and walked back inside, shutting the door behind her.
The scorpion flew over the balcony edge and slammed into a pine tree. The scorpion suddenly expanded back into the man. The man looked at the glass doors that the boy was behind being tucked into bed by his mother. The man scowled. This was only a minor setback he thought to himself. The man once again swung himself over the balcony's rail and instead of going to the little boy's room, started to make his way to the master bedroom. The glass doors barricading the two adult's bedroom were slightly ajar. The man placed his hand inside the small gap and pulled open the door. Nobody was in the room. He made his way to the bed and crouched down. He slipped underneath the bed and waited.
John was a simple boy. He had light brown hair with a tinge of a rusty red blended in it. He went for the New York Jets, his local team. He lived with his parents on Adirondack Mountain, which can be cold at times during winter. His mother pulled off his night time robe and helped him slide into his large sized bed. She sat next to him, on top of the plain blue covers. "John" she said. The boy looked up at his mother and smiled. He knew that she loved his smiles; she said they brought happiness to the world. "Which song shall we sing tonight?" she asked the boy tucked snugly in his bed. "I love you!" the boy squealed excitedly. The mother grinned at her son. "Very well, shall we begin?" And so mother and son sung a duet. As soon as they finished John yawned and drew closer to the blankets. His mother lent over and kissed him on his cheek. "Good night my beautiful" she whispered. "Good night mummy" he whispered back. His mother stood up and walked to the doorway and turned off the light. "Good night" she said once again and closed the door.
John's mother paced down the hallway and into the master bedroom. "He's asleep" the wife said to the husband. He grunted in response. The wife slumped onto the bed. "Do you ever regret gi-"She started to say when the husband cut her off. "No! We agreed about this before. We shall have no talk of this anymore." His voice was grafted and rough. His hair was the only thing that John's mother could see of him; a light brown colour. John's mother never knew why he changed so much after they got married. He used to be such a nice and loving man, but now? Vile and venom was unleashed ever time it opened. She sighed and laid her head down upon her pillow, facing the opposite direction, instead of looking at her husband as tears started to roll down her dimpled cheeks.
After two hours of lying on a hard wooden floor, the man was starting to get a back ache. As quietly as he could, he moved from under the bed. He removed the knife from his belt and raised it to the ceiling. He looked down at the man he was about to kill. He smiled and plunged the knife downwards. The knife descended and pierced the man in the throat. Blood gushed from the exposed freshly made wound. John's father woke up and saw the man standing over him. He tried to speak but found he could only gasp. He grabbed his wife's leg, jolting her awake. "What is it Howard?" She asked and turned around. She saw the man standing over her husband with a knife embedded in his throat. She was about to scream when the man pulled the knife out of her husband's throat and slashed sideways, cutting her throat. She fell to the ground, desperately grabbing at her throat, trying to stop the flow of blood. Her face turned pale and the blood rushed from it and onto the floor. The man picked up the dying woman's body and flung it at the glass door's. She sailed through them and toppled over the balcony, falling to the ground one story down. The man turned back to her husband and saw that he was indeed dead. He was about to say "Like taking candy from a baby" but stopped himself. He believed that it was too clichéd and over used. He tried to think of something original but couldn't. "Maybe later" he said instead. He tilted his head and thought. Yes maybe that. Maybe later.
John woke up to the sound of shattering glass and like any eight year old, was paralysed with fear. He stayed in his bed and listened hard. He couldn't hear anything. He heard his door open as the light hit him from the moonlight being reflected by the mirror coated hallway. A shadow fell upon his light frame. He turned his head and saw a man standing in the doorway. "Dad is that you?" John asked. The man started toward John when a powerful blue light erupted around John. The man was blasted backwards into the hallway. John stared in wonder. The blue light was some kind of shield that protected him. The man stood up and started to run down the hallway towards the stairs. The blue light dimmed and the room became lit by the moon once again. John threw off the blankets and started running out of his room. "MUMMY!" John screamed. He pelted down the hallway toward his parent's room when he slipped over. All over the floor was blood. John tried to get back up but fell once again. He slid across the wooden floorboards towards his parent's room. He pulled himself up on the door's frame and pushed the door forwards.
Blood covered the floor and bed where a figure lay. John ran over to the figure in the bed and tried to wake the dead man. "Daddy wake up!" he cried. John suddenly jumped as the front door slammed. John raced to the window and watched as the man ran into the surrounding woods. He looked directly below at the mutilated body of his mother; her eye's twitching from side to side. "Mummy!" He screamed. John ran through the blood soaked bedroom and through the blood slick hallway to the stairs. He raced down the stairs, slamming into the wall where the "L" bend was. He threw open the front door and pelted toward the ground where his mother lay dying. He reached her body and collapsed onto it. "Mummy!" he screamed again. "John…" came a very faint whisper. John looked up and saw his mother looking directly at her son. "John…Run…" she rasped. Tears poured down from the young boy's cheeks. "But why Mummy?" he sobbed. John's mother's eye's widened as a shadow fell upon them. "Just…Run…" and flung herself forward with the last of her energy. The knife pierced straight into her heart. She tried to scream out but couldn't. John flew backwards onto his backside and watched as his mother was stabbed by the man. John screamed. "NO!" he said in a defiant voice. He looked at his mother once again and turned on his heel and started to run. The man pulled the knife out of John's mother's heart and wipes the blood onto his fighting suit. The man smiled. He always liked a chase. He started running after the young boy into the woods.
John ran his hardest, trying to stay well ahead and get away from the house. He stopped and put his bloodied hands on his knees, gasping for breath. A twig snapped to his left. John stopped breathing. He held his breathe for what seemed an eternity until he thought it would be safe to do so. John remembered reading in a book that nobody ever looks up. He started to climb a tree when something caught his leg. He was thrown into the air and fell back to the ground. Branches cut him as he fell. The man in the dark suit leaped down from his position on the tree. It seemed to John that this man must have read the same book. "Did you really think that climbing a tree would save you? It's one of the first lessons the master teaches us you stupid brat!" The man spat out. John whimpered as blood started to ooze out of the cuts on his arms. "Oh! Did baby get a boo-boo?" The man snicked. He started to pull the knife once again out of his fighting suit belt when the man was suddenly thrown sideways. A humungous "RAAAWWW!" exploded from behind where the man was once standing. In his place was a large brown bear, standing on its hind legs. John screamed and threw up his arm as a feeble attempt to protect himself from the bear. As suddenly as before, the blue light erupted around John. The bear's arm came down and bounced off the shield and pulling the bear, spinning out of control into a tree. The bear slammed into the tree, making a large crack in it doing so. John watched as the bear slid down the crumpled tree. He turned on his heel, and started to run away from the scene of devastation.
Darkness quickly devoured John as he ran blindly into the wood. Blood pulsating through his veins, John pushed his way through the shrubs and dodged the oncoming trees. An opening in the darkened forest loomed into view, moonlight spinning it in its silver silk. John burst through into the opening and hunched over, breathing heavily. A cave protruded from a rocky outcropping. John staggered inside the cave. The cave is in complete darkness. John shuffled forward and tripped on a rock. John fell to the ground and cried out in pain. Tears started to well up in his eyes. He pushed himself up onto his knees, and crawled to the side of the cave. John propped himself against the wall of the cave and let his head droop onto his chest. He was asleep within minutes.
The next morning, the sun was battering down on the mountain. The mountainside was doused with water. The rain clouds of the previous night that appeared and disappeared in what locals would soon describe as 'supernatural like' were gone. John woke to see sunlight streaming into the front portion of the cave. Pushing himself up, John walked outside. A slight breeze was in the air, blowing straight through his pyjamas. He hugged himself as a torrent of memories from the previous night washed over him. He started to cry again. John stood there crying for the next ten minutes. Wiping the tears from his face, he started towards the forest once again. Knowing he was lost, John tried to recall his flight the previous night. He stumbled through the forest. Something ahead catches John's eyes. A pool of water had collection under a tree. It was pulsating the same colour as the light from last night. John walked over to it and crouched down. He dipped his hand into the water and swirled the glowing substance. Nothing happened. He stood up again and put his hand on the trees trunk. He gasped and quickly retracted his hand as blood started to ooze out of the new wound the tree had made.
Blood ran off his palm and spilled on the water. The liquid stopped pulsating. The water started the churn and impossibly started to form a whirlpool. The whirlpool rose out of the small pool. John took a step back and fell over a tree root. John started to slide towards the whirlpool, being pulled by an unknown force. John screamed as the mass of water drew him closer. The water sucked john in. He thrashed in the vortex, being thrown from one side to another. A face erupted from the swirling mass. John stopped moving as he was drawn to the centre of the whirlpool.
"Kill the boy. He is your first priority. Then kill his parents." The voice boomed. The face melting away into the water and in its place was a strange looking mark. "W" John looked at the mark confused. He looked down and saw he was suspended in the middle of the whirlpool. John's eyes widened. John was thrown to the side by another unknown force, forcing him backing into the whirlpools outer wall. John tried to scream, but water flooded into his mouth.
Ten Kilometres from New York City
Matt Harding was moving his front lawn on this beautiful morning. Birds were chirping from their nests hidden in the trees, dogs happily wagging their tails while they went for a walk with their owners. Matt was a simple man, he had a footballers build even though he never played the sport. He was 36 years old, much younger than his older brother. His house was a two story white bricked, what he though was more appropriate, cottage. He was going down his lawn a third time when the swirling mass of water erupted in the sky. Matt stood there, his mouth wide open with surprise covering his face. In the sphere of water was a small figure thrashing about. The globe of water hovered for a moment then started to descend onto his front lawn. As soon as the water touched the grass, it fell away from the figure inside it. A young boy stood there in his New York Jets pyjamas. He recognized the face. It was his nephew.
"John!" he yelled and ran to his nephew. He crouched down and pulled the boy to his chest, using his well-toned arms. Matt realized that the boy wasn't wet. He pushed the boy away from him at arm's length. "John. What happened? Where are your parents?" he asked. The boy looked up from the ground and stared into his uncles bright blue eyes. He opened his mouth as to speak but nothing came from it. Matt looked at his nephews hands, they were covered in blood. "John. I need you to tell me. Where are your parents?" the boy opened his mouth again and a single word escaped before it closed again. "Gone…"