The Wild Dark, a supernatural horror novel, follows the story of ex-cop, Elizabeth Raleigh, as she traverses the New England wilderness during an apocalyptic event with the ghost of her dead partner by her side. Liz must overcome grief, desolation, and terror as she finds herself up against other survivors, giant murder wolves, and a slowly spreading forest realm that heralds an ominous horror. Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from the first chapter of Katherine Silva’s The Wild Dark, which releases on October 12th 2021.
SYNOPSIS
Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Raleigh has lost everything: her job as a police detective, her partner, her fiancé, and her peace of mind. After a month of solitude at a cabin in the woods, she finally feels as though she’s ready to move on.
But in one terrifying night, everything changes. Liz’s partner, Brody, appears in the form of a ghost. He’s one of millions that have returned to haunt their loved ones. Brody can’t remember how he died and Liz is determined to keep the secret of it buried, for it means dredging up crushing memories. Along with him comes an unearthly forest purgatory that swallows up every sign of human civilization across the world. The woods are fraught with disturbing architecture and monstrous wolves hungry for human souls. Brody says he escaped from them and that the wolves are trying to drag him and others ghosts back.
As winter closes in and chaos erupts across New England, Liz fights desolation, resurfacing guilt, and absolute terror as she tries to survive one of the most brutal winters she’s ever seen.
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER ONE
Dreams cocooned me, wrapping me in their silky embrace like a thousand scarves. I didn’t care if I never woke. In them, I wasn’t guilty. I wasn’t alone. All was as it should be. But something yanked me out before I was ready to leave.
I opened my eyes to the darkened room. Rain poured outside, its white noise a strange comfort outside my bedroom window. I pulled the thick wool blanket closer. The small room had put me on edge at first, before I knew where everything was. As the days passed, I recognized the outline of the chair next to the door, the trunk full of blankets at the end of the bed, the small flickers from the fire in the woodstove outside my bedroom door. This place had become more than a temporary retreat. I turned onto my side and looked out at the rain.
Why did I wake up?
A board creaked on the porch.
I stilled. It wasn’t the old cabin making its usual sounds: the structure groaning in the wind, pipes rattling, treads loosening on the stairs out front… This was something heavy walking across the floor of my front porch toward my door.
No one lived within several miles of this camp. I was in the middle of the woods.
I slipped my legs out from under the covers, goosebumps instantly growing on my skin. Quietly reaching behind the side table, I curled my fingers around the baseball bat there. An inch of safety nudged me as I tiptoed to the window and peered out. The bushes blocked most of my view and the downpour made it hard to make out any shapes in the night.
It could be anything, I told myself as I slid my sweat pants from the top of the chest and pulled them on. I crept toward the main living area. Another window looked out on the deck next to the front door. I steeled myself as I looked out.
The deck was cloaked in shadows. To my left was an upright shape. A person, walking in an ungainly way, shifting back and forth as though they couldn’t get their balance.
Must be some drunk hunter looking for a place to sleep it off, I thought. I kept a firm hold on the baseball bat and moved to the front door. The memory of my days as a cop rushed back to me like an old friend. It had been months since I’d carried a badge. But more than anything, I wanted to see the look on the guy’s face when I ripped open the door and shouted for him to get down on the ground with his hands behind his back. He’d probably pee his pants. He’d probably stumble off the deck and run back into the rain from wherever he’d come from. Then, I could get some sleep.
The creaks stopped in front of the door. I braced myself, my hand on the doorknob. As I readied myself to jerk open the door, cowardice got the better of me.
“Who’s there?” I called.
There was no answer. Not even the sound of another footstep.
“Hello?” I shivered, realizing how cold the room was. I’d let the fire burn down too low. “Do you need help? Are you lost?”
Nothing.
The rain was pretty loud. Maybe they hadn’t heard me.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it. Drowned by the deluge and wind, a faint voice blended with the static ambient.
“Liz.”
My name. They’d said my name. As quickly as I could manage, I jerked the door open and swung my bat up. “Who the hell is—”
My voice echoed into the empty night. I frowned and stepped out onto the deck, looking from left to right. There was nobody. I stopped at the end of the deck, staring into the bushes. Water splashed against my bare toes as I tried to find some shape hiding within. I couldn’t have been hearing things. There had been a shape out here. The creaking was loud. I checked the other side of the deck. No one. There weren’t even any wet shoe prints on the wood.
A twig snapped in the trees. I trained my sights on them, squinting through the deluge and the dark. Something stood there, staring straight at me. The eyes were golden, barely catching the licks of the firelight from within the house. A low growl rose up. I took a step back, a board squealing under me. I glanced down for only a moment. The brush rustled as something dashed off into the thicket.
I backed into the cabin and locked the door behind me. The crackle of the woodstove seemed loud in the quiet space. I added another log to the fire, and stirred the embers with my poker. I wasn’t going crazy. Someone had been here: a human someone. Whatever animal had been in the forest was different.
Grabbing a fleece blanket from the chest in the other room, I curled up in the chair in front of the fire and stared through the glass window into the stove, watching the flames. I listened for anything out of the ordinary. Soon enough, I determined I had to have imagined it all.
I waited for sleep to take me but I was too wired, the voice on playback in my mind. I forced my eyes to close and lay my head against the soft upholstery. The sounds of the rain merged with the crackling of the fire, washing in and out of my ears. The heat warmed my chilled skin and the blanket suddenly became a netherworld of comfort.
Even in sleep, that voice called to me from the darkness. I knew that voice. It knew me, too. No amount of sleep could change the impossibility of that voice’s owner being here now.
He was gone.
He was dead and gone
