It had been almost a year since the central market of Silver Creek’s black market had been declared a forbidden zone. By now, merchants had grown used to its closure and moved on. They busied themselves clearing away corpses; just yesterday, these had been living, lovely women. Now, they were bloodied bodies filled with resentment.1

Amid the bustle, no one noticed the eerie changes unfolding in the old guard house of the central market.0

Previously, no sign of anything strange could be found there. But after so many people died so close together, all cursing and hateful to the very end, those deaths unleashed a malignant energy.1

On the dim, shabby bed inside the guard station, a faint moldy odor began to spread. The wooden bedframe creaked, but not from someone’s weight above. It seemed to groan from below, as though something beneath it was pressing upward.  0

In the stillness, there came the sound of someone, or something, ramming a door from inside. Then...3