We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Unfinished, a new young adult horror novel by Cheryl Isaacs, out now from Heartdrum.
When small-town athlete Avery’s morning run leads her to a strange pond in the middle of the forest, she awakens a horror the townspeople of Crook’s Falls have long forgotten.
The black water has been waiting. Watching. Hungry for the souls it needs to survive.
Avery can smell the water, see it flooding everywhere; she thinks she’s losing her mind. And as the black water haunts Avery—taking a new form each time—people in town begin to go missing.
Though Avery had heard whispers of monsters from her Kanien’kéha:ka (Mohawk) relatives, she has never really connected to her Indigenous culture or understood the stories. But the Elders she has distanced herself from now may have the answers she needs.
When Key, her best friend and longtime crush, is the next to disappear, Avery is faced with a choice: listen to the Kanien’kéha:ka and save the town but lose her friend forever… or listen to her heart and risk everything to get Key back.
I tracked back from the trailhead a bit to what was barely enough room to pass through the bushes lining the path. An opening onto a deer trail. Sometimes… I stood on the balls of my feet and peered over and through the brush, and sure enough, the trail seemed to open up a little. Enough for me to run, anyway. Definitely not enough for a stroller. It was barely enough to wriggle through, yet as I continued to look, the bushes seemed to open. They were pulling back on either side, ready to accommodate me, ready to welcome me if I’d like to enter. If I wanted to take just a few steps in, surely I could find my way. I wasn’t supposed to leave the main trail any more than I was to run on the highway alone. But the difference was that no one would see me here, a thought that drifted through my mind, which had suddenly gone honey-soft and warm.
It was quiet under the canopy of trees, just my footsteps, the twittering of unseen birds. Even the buzzing stalker was gone. The light cast a soft rose-gold glow over every leaf on every tree, the filter that colored my best memories. It was hot, but the wind had picked up, making the heat enjoyable rather than hellish. This was already better than the main loop. The sun beat down and I closed my eyes for a moment, letting my head drop back, soaking up the heat warming my muscles, the sound of insects buzzing, and the delicious knowledge that school was almost behind me and summer stretched out as far as I could see. No pressure, no stress—just me and the forest trails.
The little voice in my head was soft and soothing.
The tree canopy is so pretty.
It was.
Quiet and dark and soft. Perfect for a run.
Just a little one.
Noise from the trail made me look back. Back? How had I gotten here? I turned in a slow circle, feeling fuzzy like I’d just woken. I hadn’t stepped through the bushes. I’d never left the main trail. Yet I looked back through the brush and saw the colorful flash of three cyclists heading along the trail to the main loop.
I should definitely go back.
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The Unfinished
I got only two steps back when I felt it. A tickle in my brain. Not a thought, but an actual itch. A scratch from the inside. And even though I knew I shouldn’t, I turned my back to the main trail.
Keep going.
I did.
Three steps into the brush, and the dark waxy leaves leisurely brushing against my legs made me pause to consider ticks. Spiders. Things that bite. But bravery, faith in modern medicine, and my body begging to run sent me gingerly hop-shimmying through the bushes with their deep red berries until I saw it. The trail showed itself, clear and welcoming, after thirty feet. No stroller or cyclists here.
Perfect.
It was the best feeling, to need to pay so much attention to the footing that my head emptied and went quiet. There was no school, no job, no parents, no worries. My eyes tracked the ground coming up in front, relayed the information to my body, and together, we just went. Mindless bliss.
My first run had been for cancer research when I was seven, and that was all it took. Ever since then, I ran. For fun, in races, on teams. It had been and still was the closest thing I could imagine to flying.
The buzz of my watch startled me out of my zen. A little satellite-shaped thingy with an x through it blinked up at me. Signal lost. I slowed to a walk, checked my heart rate, and looked around to find the brush and bushes were gone, replaced by a grove of pine trees, so close together I couldn’t tell how tall they really were. I continued in farther until the trail was gone; a uniform carpet of pine needles spread out in front of me that swallowed my footfalls whole. Without a trail to follow, I came to a stop.
The air here was still and cool. Dense. It gently enveloped me with a hint of sweetness. A snug and comforting embrace. I could sit down and lean against one of the corrugated tree trunks. I could sit down and stay here, content to not take another step, ever. The thought of running vanished from my mind. A bead of sweat slipped down the center of my back.
I looked up into the branches and spun slowly. Shades of green everywhere. The tips of the branches were covered in needles that were still soft to the touch, fresh and bright. Closer to the trunk, the needles were older and thicker, a green so dark, it bordered on black. Above my head, the branches wove together to form a vaulted ceiling. A forest cathedral, that’s where I was. No wonder the GPS had crapped out. Not even a sliver of sunlight could make it through to the ground.
Which, I now realized, made it hard to know the direction I’d come from. A slow 360 was no help. The forest looked the same in every direction. Pines. I bit down on my lip, but it wasn’t an emergency yet. I hadn’t walked that far inside the grove, just a few steps. Right? Another circle gave me the same information as the first. Pine trees, all I could see. And the sun was—where? Trail runner’s code—keep track of the sun.
Shit.
Okay, okay. I closed my eyes and took a breath to soothe the fluttering tightness in my chest, a calming technique perfected in the hours and hours I’d waited at school for Dad to remember to pick me up, watching everyone else leave, half-convinced that I’d be waiting forever.
In through the nose for four, out through the mouth for four more.
Okay. You’re in the forest. Somewhere. You’ve spun around so many times now that there’s no hope of determining which way you came in. But! It’s not anywhere near dark yet, and your watch battery is at a healthy 65 percent. Conclusion: walk until you find a signal.
Okay, but which way? I just had to go far enough to get out of the cathedral and back into the sun. A sunny sky meant a happy watch.
Crack.
A single branch snapped. I spun, because bears. A wave of adrenaline swept over me, my skin tingling in its wake, my hands curling into fists. I searched the darkness of the pines and saw nothing. I looked up, scanning overhead. But that didn’t feel right, either. The noise had definitely come from down here, on my level. A single crack like a gunshot, and now silence. If it was a bear, it wasn’t coming any closer. Not yet.
Time to go.
Once I picked a direction, it was really hard to walk. Didn’t running from bears make things worse? Maybe that was dogs. My mind hummed as I went along at a pretty good pace, periodically checking my watch for signs of GPS life.
The instant I spied it out of the corner of my eye, relief flooded my body. The glint of sun on parked cars. I had no idea how I could be so close to the parking lot, but thank God. I’d gotten myself all worked up for nothing. Walking again, I changed direction slightly to aim for the lot. If there was a fence, I’d hop it, climb it, barrel right through. Whatever it took to get out of the forest that no longer felt like a friend.
The pine branches closed in a little here, suddenly stubborn and unaccommodating. I had to push to get through, one arm extended out to protect my face.
You’d think that the opposite of relief flooding your body is relief receding, but it isn’t. It’s your heart sinking. When you realize that what you glimpsed through the trees isn’t a parking lot—it’s water, and you’re farther out in the middle of nowhere than you feared you were.
I emerged from the trees and stepped into the edge of a huge circular meadow. The comforting sweetness of the pines had dissipated. The view here was different but still pretty. Mounds of long, soft grass sloped down to a perfect circle of a pond in the middle.
But even as I thought it, the word pond seemed wrong. It was water, sure. It had to be. This was what I’d mistaken for the parking lot, the sun glimmering on this pond. But I’d never seen water like this. The longer I looked, the more I got the impression that it was the sunlight itself that was moving, shimmering. The water was so still, it looked fake.
I stood for a long time, for no reason. Just looking. The air stirred against my skin, breath on the back of my neck, raising fine hairs and sending a shiver down the length of my spine. The longer I looked, the more seeing felt like… remembering.
I shook my head. Fake water or not, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I had no idea where I was. Every year, I marked up little side trails and shortcuts that I favored on the forest maps handed out at the park gate. This pond wasn’t on any map I’d ever seen, but I was definitely nowhere near the parking lot where I’d walked in. I let out a long, slow breath, envisioning the building panic leaving me in a plume. Calm down.
I should just turn back into the trees and try again. Choose a different direction.
And I would. That’s exactly what I’d do, as soon as I finished looking at the pond. The… water?
It was water. What else could it be? It was weird, this clearing in the middle of the forest, like the pond had just been dropped here. No stream seemed to be feeding it; it was just… there. It wasn’t big, no farther across than the swimming pool at the community center.
A breeze picked up and brushed the side of my face, but nothing else around me moved. No insects buzzed, no birds sang. The panic I’d felt a moment ago was gone, suddenly absent like the natural noises that should be there. I stood, aware of the stillness watching me, waiting to see what I’d do. The pond remained unrippled, the grassy moat unruffled. It was pretty here. Or it should be. I stared at the pond. The water.
I blinked slowly, my mind warm and fuzzy. An unknown pond in the forest. It sounded familiar, but the more I tried to grasp the thought, the further it floated away and out of my reach.
Chirrrp!
I jumped a little. My watch, reconnecting with its people. Thank God.
Chirrrp!
Actually, a glance confirmed it was telling me that my heart rate was climbing. While standing still. Which was unlikely. I frowned and held my wrist up to the sky, as if that bit of elevation could help it connect with the satellite. Still nothing. But back into the trees was the way out; it simply had to be. Okay. Time to go. I scanned the tree line and chose my point of entry, back and to the left of where I stood. Let’s go.
Okay.
This was me, going.
No reason to wait.
Except, what was that? Something down there, right at the water’s edge. It was hard to see from this angle. I squinted upward. The sun was still high in the sky, no worries there. I had plenty of time. Why not take a look? I just wanted to see what was out there. There was no harm in getting a little closer.
One step into the meadow and I discovered that the mounds of grass were solid. Hundreds of tiny mountains of earth covered with long silky grass. An illusion of fluidity where there was none. I picked my way carefully between the mounds, slowly approaching the water.
Wouldn’t want to break an ankle here.
The thought—mine?—almost stopped me, but I was so close, and I really wanted to see the water, if that’s what it was. I scrunched up my nose and tried not to breathe too deeply. It definitely didn’t smell great. There could be some contaminated sludge that the county was hiding out here where they thought no one would find it. A few more carefully placed steps forward and I stopped.
Nope. Not sludge.
Just water. Staying out of the mud to protect my fairly new and expensive shoes, I gazed down into the pond. Just water, but perfectly still. And perfectly black—a fluid, inky well. The only thing visible was my own hazy reflection and a muted version of the sky behind me. It was just water, but it was… There was something not right. The longer I looked, the more I was sure of it. Like something standing off to the side, just far enough that I couldn’t make it out. I knew what it was, I knew it. It was on the tip of my tongue; I just couldn’t quite get hold of it. I leaned over a little farther, closer to my reflection in the water. I hated this feeling—knowing something but not being able to name it. I frowned.
My reflection smiled.
Excerpted from The Unfinished, copyright © 2024 by Cheryl Isaacs.
