INVISIBLE ENEMIES VI: THE hran Part One: The Valley Of The Shadow

The short story "The Valley Of The Shadow" may be found in my first collection "Domains of Darkness." In it we are introduced to the ferociously-bearded Marius Larsen, a giant of a man who stands over two metres tall and is built like a gorilla. Humanity will come to rely on those muscles in the ordeal to come.

Larsen is working on a scientific experiment in Norway's far north. His older companion, Einar Olsen, has noticed that the inhabitants of a nearby valley are suffering an unusally high amount of degenerative diseases. Larsen's cavalier attitude to women leads to a breakdown in the experiment which hospitalises the two men. On recovering consciousness the two men start seeing things and Olsen begins to fear for his life.

Larsen sees what look like a trio of eyes watching him from the shadows. Eventually he discovers that the eyes are real and they belong to invisible parasites who call themselves "the hran." He devises a plan to destroy them but soon finds that the hran cannot be defeated.

Or can they?