Marcus Cole's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Marcus Cole came to Blackwood swamp to film a ghost. His shirt read GHOST FINDERS in white gothic letters, and the camera around his neck was worth more than his truck. Somewhere in the deep heart of this swamp lived a spirit that killed men, and Marcus wanted proof no one could argue with. But now something was hunting him through the reeds, and his camera pointed the wrong way. He had heard it since dusk. A slow drag through the water. A pause when he paused. Every time he swung the lens behind him, the reeds went still and empty. The thing stayed at his back. It matched his steps. It was closing the gap, and if he kept walking blind, it would reach him before he ever saw its face. His guide had warned him. Dakota Osceola, the licensed Seminole who'd taken his money that morning, had spat in the mud and said, "You don't chase what lives out here. It chases you." Marcus had laughed then. He wasn't laughing now. He stopped at the edge of a clearing. Ahead stood an old plantation house, columns crumbling, windows like empty eye sockets. A rotted door hung sideways from one rusted hinge. Marcus made a choice. He would not turn and run. He would turn and film. He raised the camera, thumbed the record light, and spun. Nothing. Black water. Bent reeds. The drag sound had stopped. Then a hand closed on his shoulder from behind. Marcus screamed and swung. Dakota caught his wrist before the camera cracked his skull. The guide's red bandana was soaked. His Black Sabbath shirt clung to his chest. He'd come back through the swamp on foot. "Quiet," Dakota hissed. "It's not behind you anymore." "You followed me?" Marcus's heart slammed. "There was something—it was right there—" "I know. I've been tracking it since you left camp." Dakota pointed past him, toward the house. "It went inside. It wanted you to follow it here." Marcus looked at the sagging door. The camera was still recording. He glanced down at the small screen and his stomach dropped. In the frame, in the dark of the empty doorway, something pale stood watching them. Tall. Wrong. Gone the second he lifted his eyes to the real door. But the camera had held it. Three seconds of it. Marcus had his proof. "I got it," he whispered. "Dakota, I got it on film." Dakota didn't smile. He stared at the house. "You didn't catch it," he said. "You let it know your face. And now it's inside the one place people don't walk out of." Marcus lowered the camera. The proof he wanted sat safe on the memory card. But the thing that made it now knew him, and it had chosen its ground. The only footage worth anything waited in a house that ate men.