When Darkness Falls (Book 1, the Darkness Falls Series)

Chapter One

If walls could talk these would be screaming. I shivered, a moan of wind whisking my blonde hair into a scraggly mop.  

Greylark Asylum loomed in the distance, a huge structure of abandoned grey stone. The windows were like hundreds of unblinking eyes glaring out, and the places where stone had worn away like never-healing wounds, still weeping dust and mortar. 

I swallowed past the cotton-wool dryness in my throat. I really didn't want to go into the asylum.  

Riley jabbed a sharp elbow into my ribs. "You can't chicken out now, K-girl. Not with that cute guy watching." 

I rolled my eyes and didn't bother turning to see who she was talking about. As far as Riley was concerned, there was always a cute guy watching.  

"This is stupid," I said. 

"A dare is a dare, Kiara." 

"Yeah, but we're not kids anymore." 

Riley nudged me again. "That's why we turned Truth or Dare into a drinking game." 

As if I needed reminding. I would never have agreed to a stupid dare if it wasn't for the vodka. A whole bunch of us had come out here, to the bare patch of English meadowland that surrounded Greylark. Dalwick, the small town where we lived, was cut off from the asylum by a swathe of woodland and that was usually how people liked it. The asylum hadn't been used in years, an eerie relic of the days when people with mental issues were treated like freaks or monsters. Nowadays the only people you'd find out here were groups of teenagers looking for somewhere to drink in peace. That was the only reason I was here, for the booze and the bonfire. I hadn't reckoned on being sucked into a silly drinking game and then being presented with the challenge to actually go inside the asylum. No one went inside Greylark. Even people who didn't believe in ghosts stayed away from it. 

"It's okay if you're scared," said a silky voice from behind me, and I gritted my teeth.  

"I'm not scared, Georgia," I said.  

Riley deliberately placed herself between me and my rival. For some reason she seemed to think I needed protecting from the other girl, that I wasn't able to stand up to Georgia. I just let her get on with it. Better than her knowing the truth. 

"My girl wouldn't agree to anything she couldn't do," Riley declared. 

"Whatever," Georgia smirked, flipping dark hair over her shoulder. 

I didn't say anything until Georgia had moved out of earshot. I'd been having a great time until I'd been slapped with this dare, and time spent in Georgia's poisonous presence was only going to ruin my evening even more. 

I snatched the plastic cup of vodka and coke from Riley's hand and drained it in one gulp. "Okay, I'm going in." 

Riley whooped and clapped her hands. "Guys, Kiara's doing it." 

There were scattered claps and cheers from the teenaged throng around the bonfire behind us.  

I strode down the sloping meadow, away from the warmth of bonfire and voices, and towards the grim presence of Greylark Asylum. The vodka I'd just chugged sat uneasily in my stomach.  

Greylark loomed over me, blackened windows like blind eyes. I swallowed the anxious knot in my throat. Everyone in Dalwick told stories about the ghosts that haunted Greylark, and in the shifting night-time shadows it was easy to see why people thought it was haunted. Lucky I didn't believe in ghosts. It was the other things that went bump in the night that frightened me.  

I paused at the door, my hand frozen a hairsbreadth away. It wasn't too late to turn back. Glancing back, I could see the bright blob of bonfire and hear the mixed voices and laughter drifting over from the party. I could go back over there, admit I was too scared and just cope with the mocking. But something stopped me and it wasn't pride. Kids at college already thought I was weird and did their best to avoid me, so it wasn't that I cared whether or not they thought I was a coward. I had to go into Greylark because I wasn't going to let my fear conquer me. Ghosts were hardly the worst things to stalk the night.