They said the red dirt of the Outback could stain your soul. But no one told Jack Marlowe what lived under it.
Jack, a rugged zoologist from Perth and seasoned tracker, had spent years studying invasive species across Australia's harsher regions. But when a series of livestock disappearances swept across the Northern Territory, locals whispered one name: Akulinta.
Part dingo, part serpent, all nightmare.
Jack didn't believe in ghost stories.
Until the station's CCTV showed something enormous moving under the sand. Then, silence. Then… nothing left but a goat's skull on top of a metal fence post.
---
The expedition was planned: Jack, Aboriginal tracker Uncle Tobin, and two interns from Darwin University—Casey and Liam.
By day five, Liam vanished.
Jack found his boots upright in the red dirt, as though he'd stepped out of them. Not a single track leading away. The boots were still warm.
Uncle Tobin didn't speak until sundown.
"It listens when the ground is warm."
---
Casey wanted to call for extraction. Tobin agreed. Jack, as usual, stayed stubborn.
They split up.
By the next morning, Casey's satellite phone was found snapped in two, sitting on her sleeping bag. No Casey.
Jack found long gouge marks leading into a sinkhole, then saw the ground shifting beneath his own feet—ripples like something swimming just below the surface.
Uncle Tobin whispered, "You can't run from what knows your shadow."
---
Jack climbed onto the rusted water tower of a long-abandoned cattle station. No service. He lit flares, set traps.
The traps didn't catch it. They just… vanished.
He recorded everything in a voice journal:
> "The Akulinta isn't an animal. It mimics. It stalks by memory. I heard Liam laughing tonight—but he's dead. I know he is. The desert remembers who walks it."
---
The last recording on Jack's handheld came at 2:47 a.m.:
> "It's cold tonight. That means it's hungry. I can feel it under the tower. It's listening to me breathe."
Wind.
Then crunching gravel.
Then silence.
---
Weeks later, rangers found the tower collapsed. Jack's camera was buried in red dirt, lens cracked.
The footage was corrupt—except for a single frame.
A wide grin under Jack's face. But his eyes… weren't his.
Locals say dust clouds rise at night now, moving against the wind.
Tourists vanish, and wildlife avoid entire regions.
Something's hunting.
And the ground is always warm.