The Darkest Night

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Twenty-Three

  They waited for the sobbing to become sniffles, and then for the sniffles to become steady, even breathing. Tom kept a close eye on the hall from which Frankie had emerged. When Frankie was calm enough he told them everything that had happened, about his plan to join them in spite of their refusal to bring him along, about sneaking in through the same window that his sister had disappeared through, about finding the Special Room and being set upon by Buddy and the others. They listened with horror and fascination (but not disbelief) as he told them what had transpired in that room. Patricia held Frankie close as the last few dry sobs racked his body.

  “It’s okay sweetie. You’re safe now.”

  Even as she spoke these words she knew them to be a lie, but she felt she needed to say something to comfort him. She looked at Tom over Frankie’s head, and his eyes mirrored the fear and confusion in her own.

  Harry had laid both laptops side-by-side, and he was ping-ponging his gaze between them. Jack walked over to him, taking a look at the screens himself.

  “The readings are spiking across the board,” Jack said quietly, so the others wouldn’t hear.

  “Tell me something I don’t know. The EMF meter, the particle and ion detectors; they’re all spiking.”

  “How about the cameras?”

  Harry clicked a few tabs, alternating between the digital video cameras, two of which filmed in infrared.

  “Negative on both standard and IR motion cams,” Harry said.

  He clicked a few more times.

  “The still cameras haven’t been triggered,” he continued. “So it’s a great big negative on that end.”

  The bell object was humming again, the noise vibrating in the air; Tom felt it as a rattling in his teeth. Patricia joined Jack at his laptop, which he had propped up on one of the overturned suitcases, and her eyes slid across the screen.

  “Should we be worried?” Tom asked.

  Nobody bothered to answer his query.

  “I think we should leave,” Patricia said.

  “Yeah, we should leave,” Frankie agreed.

  “I don’t know,” Harry said. “I mean, we came here to make contact didn’t we? Why should we cut and run now?”

  “Did you hear the same story that I just heard,” Patricia said. “Frankie told you what happened to those boys. Staying now would be crazy.”

  “Calm down, we…” Harry trailed off. “Just calm down.”

  “Tom?” Patricia said, looking over at Tom, still standing near the entrance to the hallway.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” he said. “We have to go. Whatever we might accomplish by ‘making contact’ isn’t worth the risk.”

  “Come on, Frankie,” Patricia said. “Let’s go.”

  Patricia helped Frankie to his feet; his knees felt like jelly, and he wobbled a bit before finding his balance. Tom joined them. Harry looked over at them as Tom put on a light jacket and Patricia patted her pants pockets to make sure that her keys were where she expected them to be.

  “You can go if you want to, but we’re staying,” Harry said.

  “What?” Tom asked. “Why?”

  Harry didn’t respond; he was tapping away at the keys of his laptop again. Patricia looked at Katie, who in turn shot a worried glance at Jack. Some unspoken conversation took place between Katie and Jack, and Katie looked back at Patricia with a look of resignation tattooed on her face; they were staying with Harry.

  “EMF is nearly maxing out,” Harry said. “Still nothing on the cameras, though.”

  “Harry--” Patricia started.

  “If you want to go, then go,” Harry said, cutting her off.

  “Patricia, come on,” Tom said. “If they want to stay, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  The departing trio headed for the door, but stopped short when all of the lights began flickering at once. Tom looked back at Harry and his assistants.

  “What’s going on?” Harry said. “Is the portable battery dying on us?”

  “No,” Jack said. “It still has plenty of juice.”

  Patricia tugged on Tom’s sleeve.

  “Come on; I have a bad feeling,” she said.

  Tom followed her and Frankie toward the door, but when they were just a few steps away from it a cold gust of wind blew at them, catching them by surprise and knocking them off their feet. A couple of the freestanding lights and one of the cameras toppled over as the concentrated gust of wind blew against them.

  “What the hell was that?” Tom asked while he got to his feet.

  Frankie helped Patricia to her feet. Jack and Katie rushed to right the overturned lights and camera. Harry remained at his laptop, and for the first time that night he felt a true pang of terror knocking on the walls of his heart.

  “The cameras didn’t catch anything,” Harry said in disbelief. “Did you calibrate them, Jack?”

  “Yes, I calibrated them.”

  “Let’s go,” Frankie urged. “I want to get out of here.”

  But as Tom turned back toward the door he saw that they would not be leaving that way. A black cloud appeared out of thin air directly in front of the door; it was small at first, but it spread out, like a bat unfolding its wings, growing rapidly larger until it barred not only the door but the windows on either side of it as well. In a flash the black cloud solidified into a smooth, flat wall of the deepest black.

  “Jesus Christ,” Tom breathed.

  Tom, Patricia and Frankie all stepped back from the newly-formed wall blocking their exit, waiting for whatever was going to happen next, but the show was over, and the wall was left to impose over them.

  “What is happening?” Patricia asked nobody in particular.

  “They’re playing with us,” Tom said. “This is a game to them.”

  “Well, what do we do now?” she asked.

  She looked to Harry for an answer, but he looked like a man adrift on an unknown (and perhaps unnavigable) sea, and she knew that he had no answers for her. She felt a hot flash of anger toward him; it had been Harry who had encouraged her to investigate the Home’s sad history, and who had come up with the plan to enter the home in the hopes of making contact with whatever forces dwelt within its walls, and who had assured them that everything was all right, even after the previous night’s scare. But the bright flame of anger dimmed when she realized that they all had gone there that night with their eyes open, aware of the risk. She admitted to herself that even if Harry had never entered the picture, she would have eventually found herself within those walls anyway, searching for answers

  “We have to find another way out,” Katie said. “Jack, you’re coming with us.”

  Jack didn’t argue with her.

  “Are you coming?” Katie asked Harry.

  Harry appeared to struggle with the question, caught between fleeing to safety and staying to ride it out, and perhaps have some of his questions--questions he had had long before he had ever heard of Patricia Gomez and the Home--answered. Another frigid gale blew across the room, sending both laptops clattering to the ground, and knocking over all but one of the lights. One of the fallen lights blinked out as its bulb shattered; nobody bothered to pick up the others, and they cast eerie pools of light that spilled across the floor in strange patterns. The one light still standing cast Harry in silhouette. Harry spoke two words then:

  “Let’s go.”