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Copyright © 2019 by Spectrum Audiobooks, Troy Neenan
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Words from the author
More books from Troy Neenan
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Within the Red Sands
1
1 Chapter One
The usually silent night was disturbed by the howl of some alien threat and the smashing of glass. The creature, for there was no better word for it, had sent its fist through David's windscreen.
As its hairy reptilian claw searched wildly for its latest victim, said victim kept his foot on the accelerator, not daring to ease off or slam on the breaks. He screamed as the monster attempted to claw his face off, its four clawed fingers leaving gouges in the upholstery. Was it David's imagination or was the horror saying something? It was hard to tell as he was trying incredibly hard not to shit himself.
David could feel every bump and small lizard that was unfortunate enough not to get out of the way. The thing that he had hit had seriously taken him off-road and it was taking all of the call centre agent's flabby strength to wrestle the steering wheel. He wanted to see where he was going, but it was a moonless night and the furry son of a bitch on his hood was taking up most of his view.
There was a hard bump which was immediately followed by the sound of paint being scraped off both of the car's doors. He could feel something come loose below him. All of this quickly became irrelevant as David's night-time drive came to a sudden and harsh end when he hit solid rock.
His head bounced against the steering wheel like a rubber ball and all became dark.
The creature hadn't fared much better. The car had been going eighty kilometres an hour when he drove into the mouth of the cave, practically stomping on the throttle with his substantial weight. When the car crashed into the cave wall it was the creature’s spine that had absorbed the impact. Sandwiched between solid rock and a speeding pick-up truck, the monster’s stomach was compressed like a tube of toothpaste.
It was alive long enough to vomit and defecate blood, its body twitched spasmodically in reflex. As the light drained from the creature’s eyes, its hideous maw continued to open and close. Its body wanting to get one last fleshy meal in before it finally stopped.
Stuck in the car seat, David slipped in and out of consciousness for several hours. There were no dreams, just an endless parade of jumbled thoughts and dizzy spells. Through some of these moments of semi-lucidity, David caught sight of dirty red shag carpet and yellow bent nails. At some point during one of these episodes, he managed to open the door to his ute.
The truck door slid open and the punch drunk occupant attempted to be free. Forgetting to take off his seatbelt, he hung there, his head dangling just outside like a pendulum. At that time, David was beyond pain, the darkness that fogged his senses thankfully numbed him. He was so out of it that he failed to register the bloated flies that were currently trying to use the gash on his forehead as a nest.
A drop of blood flowed from the wound, navigating its way through the invading army of pests, travelling down to the tip of David's broken nose. There, it stayed for just a moment before bending to gravity's rules and falling to the cave floor.
In his fevered delirium, David thought that he heard a small voice saying, “Say yes. Say yes.”
Not knowing anything and utterly lost to the world, David whispered, “Yes.”
A voice pierced through the blackness, cutting right into David's psyche. David's very being was scarred for all of time and he felt as much as heard the howling voice of an ancient being that was not meant for this world.
WELCOME, DUNGEON MASTER.
Pain and pleasure struck the trouble shooter like a comet. What he could only best describe as his soul was yanked from his broken body.
Everything he was and had been was weighed and judged. His mind was segmented and put back together again dozens of times. His grief, his anger, his frustrations, his desires were all laid bare before something incomprehensible. And every second of it, David was screaming.
***
David awoke with a strangled scream. He jumped onto his feet feeling himself for wounds, “What's happening?”
The last thing he remembered was going to that stupid coms station. The bloody thing had broken down and the first guy they sent over hadn't reported in, yet. So the company, in its infinite wisdom, failed to call the police but did manage to send in a second lemming. Enter David.
David had been to the tower before. It was a very memorable moment for the dispensable corporate cog and not in a good way. He remembered suffering heatstroke the moment he got out of his air-conditioned car.
This time the naïve computer monkey had thought himself prepared. He had loaded his car up with large bottles of water, had double checked his spare tire, and he had even made a point to get a new phone charger. It was an utter pain in the arse. Then, he got to the tower and things went to hell quickly.
The tower had been a literal bloody mess. The guy they sent over had been torn into chunks and what was left of him was scattered across the dirt like sticky confetti. The tower itself had been sabotaged by something that clearly wasn't human. David had thought he had seen bloody claw and teeth marks all over the upholstery.
Having seen enough horror movies, the tubby trouble shooter got into his car and tried to call the