boyutpedia Chapter 362 The Black Shadow
Chapter 362 The Black Shadow
Twenty-three people were crammed into the wooden house.
The main house, converted from a barn, was originally quite spacious and could easily serve as a dining room.
But at this moment, everyone huddled inside, adults against the wall, children surrounded in the middle, even their breathing was deliberately suppressed.
Kenny crouched on the ground, his eyes pressed against the gap between the two wooden planks, peering out.
The shotgun rested horizontally on his lap, his index finger on the outside of the trigger guard, ready at any moment.
"Kenny, what did you see?"
Jackson's voice was very low and came from his left.
Kenny did not answer.
Because he saw it.
As the children said, darkness was descending.
It's not the kind of darkness that comes with deepening night.
It was a substantial blackness, pressing down from the sky onto the ground.
It was as if someone was slowly pulling down a huge black curtain, covering the entire valley.
The edge of that darkness had already touched the distant mountaintop.
It is spreading towards the bottom of the valley.
"Kenny!" Jackson called out again when he saw that Kenny hadn't spoken yet.
"Don't make a sound," Kenny said in a low, hoarse voice, turning around. "Don't make a sound."
The twenty-two people inside fell silent upon hearing this.
Even Pete, who was sobbing, had his mouth covered by Sophie.
The darkness continued to press down.
Kenny could see the moonlight neatly sliced off at the edges of the dark patch of grass. It felt as if an invisible knife had separated light and darkness into two worlds.
As he watched in disbelief, darkness gradually spread across the farm.
The silvery moonlight disappeared.
The world outside the wooden house had turned into pure black.
I can't see anything.
"Hold……"
Another man next to him, who was also peering through the gap, couldn't help but mutter a curse.
Kenny squinted.
He was trying to adjust to the darkness, attempting to discern anything through the cracks.
Then he saw it.
He saw something even darker moving within that pure blackness.
A human figure?
But then he was horrified to discover that there was more than one shadow moving in the darkness.
Three, five... more than a dozen.
They are shaped like humans. They have heads, torsos, and limbs.
But it lacks facial features and any details in its outline.
It was a pure black humanoid figure, moving slowly like a human.
They moved very slowly, as if searching for something.
One step at a time. One step at a time.
Heading towards the wooden house.
Seeing this, Kenny gripped his shotgun tighter.
Behind him, Jackson also peered through another crack and saw what was happening outside.
"What the hell is that..." Jackson's voice trembled.
"Shut up," Kenny whispered.
The shadowy figure drew closer.
ten meters.
five meters.
three meters.
The nearest dark shadow had reached the outside of the cabin wall, so close that Kenny could see it right in front of him through the gaps.
To say that you saw it is not accurate.
Because it is black, it is almost indistinguishable in the dark.
But Kenny could sense it was there. Less than half a meter away from the gap in the wooden planks.
Kenny stopped breathing.
Everyone inside the room stopped breathing.
The dark figure stopped outside the wall.
It stopped moving.
One second. Two seconds. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
It did not break through the wall.
They didn't leave either.
It just stopped there.
It looked like something was blocking its way. Or perhaps it was waiting for something.
Kenny glanced at the room out of the corner of his eye.
All the adults' faces were barely visible in the darkness, but he could hear their rapid, desperately suppressed breathing.
In the corner, Linda held her two children tightly.
Amy was being held by Tommy, the two little ones huddled together tightly.
Modi huddled alone in a corner, hugging his knees, burying his head between his arms, and trembling violently.
No one spoke.
No one dared to speak.
The dark figure remained outside.
More than one.
Looking through the gap, at least seven or eight dark figures could be seen surrounding the wooden house, all motionless.
Time passed by, second by second.
This sense of oppression is more terrifying than any direct attack.
Because you don't know when they will move.
I don't know what they're waiting for.
I wonder how long this thin wooden wall can hold out.
The entire camp fell into a deathly silence.
Only the suppressed breathing of twenty-three people could be heard.
Outside the wooden house, there was a faint rustling sound as the dark figures occasionally moved half a step.
……
At the same time.
Huaguo, Shu Province.
In a mountainous area deep in the mountains, where it should have been midday, darkness still enveloped everything.
Unlike the desolate valleys of North America, there are people taking action here.
A twelve-man PLA reconnaissance team has been trapped in this area with no signal for three whole days.
Three days ago, they received orders to enter this unusual area to conduct reconnaissance.
Once inside, they discovered they couldn't get out.
There is some kind of interference within this area that has caused all electronic devices to malfunction.
The communicator, GPS, and even the compass were spinning.
What's worse is that no matter which way they go, they just keep going in circles.
Team leader Zhou Yuanshan has already marked seven groups.
Each time they walk straight for two kilometers, they eventually return to their marker.
"Captain, we're back."
Scout Zhao Yang crouched under a tree, shining a flashlight on the red spray paint markings on the trunk.
"This is the eighth time."
Zhou Yuanshan glanced at the mark, his face expressionless.
He took out his notebook from his combat vest, turned to the page with the sketches, and made another note.
"Change direction, 30 degrees east."
"Captain," said Li Qiang, the assistant marksman beside him, "I have a suggestion."
"explain."
"Maybe we shouldn't go any further?"
Zhou Yuanshan glanced at him.
Li Qiang's face was clearly visible in the flashlight beam; his lips were chapped and his eyes were bloodshot.
Not only him, but the entire team of twelve people hadn't slept for three consecutive days and had barely rested; their mental state was on the verge of collapse.
"What I mean is," Li Qiang pursed his lips, "that we can't get out by simply forcing our way out. Shouldn't we try a different approach?"
"What's the thought process?"
"This place is trapping us, perhaps because of some kind of... rule. We've been marching in the normal way, but normal logic might not apply here."
Zhou Yuanshan was silent for two seconds, then closed his laptop.
"Just say what you want to say."
"I observed it for three days. The darkness in this area is cyclical. It's slightly lighter during the day and darkest at night. And those things appear every time it's darkest at night."
Those things.
No need to explain what it refers to.
Everyone knows.
Every night, black, human-shaped shadows appear in this dark area.
At first there were only one or two dishes, but later there were more and more.
They don't attack people, but they will approach them.
Each time it gets close enough, it stops and then disappears before dawn.
"My assessment is," Li Qiang continued, "that the window of time when the darkness is at its lightest during the day might be the only breakthrough."
"Haven't we already tried?" Zhao Yang chimed in from the side, "We can't get out even during the day."
"During the day you were walking in a straight line," Li Qiang shook his head. "I didn't mean walking in a straight line. I meant walking against the direction those things came from."
"What do you mean?"
"I've observed that those dark figures always come from the same direction whenever they appear."
If they're coming from that direction, then that direction is the 'source.' We've been trying to get away from the source, so we're stuck."
"You mean... going to the source will actually lead to a way out?" Zhou Yuanshan frowned.
"No."
Li Qiang shook his head.
"What I mean is, if going in the opposite direction from the source doesn't work, then try going perpendicular to it. Due south or due north."
Zhou Yuanshan did not respond immediately.
At that moment, communications soldier Xiao Sun raised his hand: "Captain, it's just dawn now, shall we... give it a try?"
Zhou Yuanshan made the decision: "Everyone prepare and move due south. Maintain a tight formation, with no more than two meters between each other."
"Yes."
Upon hearing the order, everyone immediately began to prepare their equipment.
However, before they could act, strange noises came from the woods again.
"Oh no, those things are back, at the three o'clock position!" Zhao Yang was the first to spot them and shouted in a low voice.
Upon hearing this, everyone turned their heads.
The next moment, they saw one dark figure after another appearing in the woods not far away.