The Long Night’s Chase
A Blackwater Inn Story (Dietrich Sloane)
The storm rolled in without hesitation—no build-up, no warning—just a violent wall of rain and wind smashing into Appledore like a fist from the dark. Windows rattled along Irsha Street. Boats groaned on their moorings. The estuary rose in lurching, uneven surges that slapped against the quay like something alive.
Dietrich knew storms. But not like this one.
This one had purpose.
He’d stepped out of the Blackwater Inn barely five minutes before when he heard the scream—sharp, swallowed by thunder, coming from the direction of the slipway. By the time he reached the cobbles, he saw a dark van fishtail around the corner, its tyres skidding across sheets of rain-water. A door slammed. A figure inside struggled.
Kidnapping. And in this weather.
They were counting on the storm to hide them.
Dietrich sprinted after the van, boots splashing through an inch of fast-moving water as wind tore at his coat. The van barreled toward the Burrows road, its brake lights jittering red in the gale. Another scream carried on the wind—fainter now.
He forced himself faster.
THE BEACHES
The van veered off the tarmac and lurched onto the sand, heading toward the dark length of Westward Ho! beach. Waves, swollen by the storm, punched the shore with enough force to shake the ground. Wind knifed sideways. Rain stung like grit.
Dietrich followed on foot, lungs burning.
Thunder cracked overhead—white and total.
For a moment he saw it clearly:
A silhouette in the back of the van. Hands bound. Head jerking toward him.
Then the darkness swallowed it again.
The van powered across wet sand, fishtailing wildly as the storm tried to rip it apart. Dietrich chased it until the engine whine shifted—higher, strained. They were stuck between two tide ridges, wheels spinning.
He sprinted.
But the kidnappers abandoned the van, dragging their captive toward the rocks at the northern end of the beach. Lightning split the sky, illuminating them as black cutout shapes hauling someone limp but alive.
Dietrich followed, slipping, scrambling, soaked through to the bone.
THE COVE
The kidnappers disappeared behind a curtain of spray where waves smashed into a narrow cove mouth. It was barely accessible in calm weather—tonight it was suicide. The sea flung itself at the stone with enough power to break a man in half.
Dietrich pressed in anyway.
Inside the cove the world narrowed to a tunnel of noise—wind roaring, water erupting against rock, the storm’s voice amplified tenfold. He caught the kidnappers’ torchlight bouncing off slick stone walls ahead.
When they saw him, one man fired.
The pistol shot vanished in the storm’s roar, but the muzzle flash lit the cove like a dying star. Chips of rock spat past Dietrich’s face.
He ducked behind a boulder, waited for the next lightning flash— Then moved.
He hit the gunman full-force, both of them skidding across algae-slick stone. The torch hit the water and died. A wave surged in, dragging the gunman away with terrifying ease.
Dietrich didn’t watch him go.
The others were hauling their captive up a steep path cut into the cliff.
He followed.
THE BURROWS
The storm hit the Burrows like an angry god, flattening grass, tearing at the dunes, turning the sand into needling sheets that scraped skin raw. The kidnappers’ lantern jerked wildly ahead of him as they staggered inland, the wind reducing them almost to silhouettes.
Dietrich felt the ground shift beneath his feet—floodwater running in rivulets, channels overflowing, familiar paths erased. The dunes became a maze of moving shadow and white water.
A scream carried again—closer now.
He forced his way up the next rise just as lightning carved the entire Burrows into stark, skeletal outline.
He saw everything:
The kidnappers. Their captive. And a waiting car on the far track, engine running.
They were seconds from escape.
Dietrich threw himself downhill, half-running, half-falling. The wind hammered him sideways, nearly flipping him over. The kidnappers saw him, shouted, drew something metallic.
He didn’t stop.
He hit the first man like a breaking wave, knocking him straight into a flooded gully. The second swung at him with a length of steel ladder tubing. Dietrich blocked it with his forearm, pain snapping up to his elbow—but he held on. A punch. A second. The man collapsed.
The third kidnapper shoved the captive into the back of the waiting car and jumped into the driver’s seat.
The headlights flared. Tyres spun. Mud sprayed.
Dietrich dragged himself upright, breath shuddering.
He had one chance.
As the car skidded past him, he lunged, grabbed the passenger door handle, and was nearly torn off his feet. For a moment he dangled sideways above the mud, body screaming, storm clawing at him.
He hauled himself inside.
The kidnapper’s eyes widened. They struggled—violent, desperate, blind in the rain. The car fishtailed, slid across the Burrows track, hit a rise—
—and rolled.
THE LANES
Dietrich crawled from the wreckage into a world of darkness pierced only by screaming wind. The captive lay dazed but alive beside him. The kidnapper was trying to limp away toward the narrow lane leading back to Northam.
Dietrich followed, stumbling over uprooted grass and debris.
Lightning lit the lane.
The kidnapper froze.
For a moment they faced each other— Dietrich’s silhouette framed against the storm, the kidnapper soaked, desperate, finished.
He bolted.
Dietrich caught him before the next thunderclap.
By sunrise, the storm had passed. The Burrows steamed. The estuary gleamed with silt and debris washed up from the night.
But the captive was safe.
And Dietrich—exhausted, bruised, coat torn and heavy on his shoulders—walked back into Appledore knowing one truth:
Whatever came next, this storm wasn’t the worst thing brewing.
