Dark

by JD Jones

Chapter Three

  John walked through the Mist with the same wonder and awe of his first time. The sparkling flashes of energy that danced and whirled around his slowly moving arms were always a source of great interest to him. They held his attention much more than the first time since he now understood exactly what they were. The Mist was responding to his caressing movements as he walked through it. The response was miniscule sparks of light flashing with the energy of the shared caresses of the walker and the Mist.

  This was no ordinary mist. Once John had believed it was a very thick, extraordinary mist but he had since learned differently. The Mist was alive. It was composed of once physically, living entities from many planes of existence. He had stumbled into the Mist when he was searching for his then girlfriend, Kathy. He had called upon the help of the Mist to save her and now he was a member of the Mist.

  It was a short history with a lot of experiences packed into a small period of time. Not only had John learned of the existence of other planes of existence, he had also learned that when people die they choose where they will spend eternity. Not the simple, easy to recognize version he had learned in church. It was far more complicated and took place on a scale more conducive to a big god than any church goer ever dreamed.

  The Mist was also where he had met Marcie. Marcie was a little girl when she was killed in a heinous, deplorable way. This violent death had caused her ghost or spiritual entity to maintain its little girl form after her death instead of allowing her to be seen as her grown up self. That was the little girl John had met in the Mist. Her form kept oscillating between the little girl body and that of the little girl's grown up, beautiful form. John had been forced by circumstance to have sex with the little girl and her adult version before he was allowed to pass through the Mist to save Kathy. That experience had played itself out in his mind so many times that he was embarrassed to admit he could not get over it. He was a good church boy at heart. Having sex outside of marriage may not have been a foreign idea to him but having sex with a little girl definitely rated as way out of his comfort zone.

  That experience, defined by Marcie as a one hundred and thirty year old ghost with a young man, still haunted John. He could not get the vision of that little girl with the dark, hurting eyes out of his head. Although Marcie had assured him in too much detail about how much she had enjoyed his sacrifice of fluids to her, he could not help feeling like he had somehow added to the little girl's pain and suffering. He knew it was just him but he was embarrassed to be around Marcie. That was why he had gone so long without contacting her.

  After the experience and the rescue of Kathy, John had tried to return to a normal life. What he and Kathy discovered was that their lives had been irrevocably changed by the incident and nothing would ever seem normal again. What they had learned about the universe they lived in had forever altered their perspective of life. And John's attachment to the Mist through that experience with Marcie was a lingering reminder of it all.

  Kathy had been young, only seven, when she had sacrificed her fluids to the Mist in order to escape the man who was trying to kill her. Hers had been a dream experience. She barely remembered the experience and could only remember the fact that she had gotten back home. Though she was attached to the Mist in a similar manner as John, she had been so young that she had not absorbed the ideas in her mind and it had eventually just faded away for her. Not until John had rescued her from the ghost of her father had she been brought back to the full awareness of the Mist and her walk through it many years before. Although she was technically of the Mist, because of her young age at the time of sacrifice, she was not fully committed because she had not yet reached the age of understanding back then.

  That was why John was walking in the Mist now. Kathy had asked him to do something for her. And John loved her so much that he would swim across the ocean in a storm if she asked him to.

  John walked leisurely through the dampness of the Mist remembering his first time back in the Winter. He had not been leisurely then. He had been on a mission to rescue Kathy. He was once again going into the Mist because of Kathy. She wanted to find out if they could utilize the information contained in the lives of the Mist to solve cases the police had given up on. Her own background in police work and her desire to rescue others who went through what she did, or worse, drove her to press him. John harbored a suspicion that part of it had to do with making amends for her father's horrible hand in the serial killings of so many young children.

  Kathy had her own demons to exorcise. Not the kind that made good theater or a great novel. The kind that made people rethink their life choices and desire to help others get whatever they feel is missing in their own lives. In Kathy's case it was closure.

  Kathy could never get closure because the person who had kidnapped her as a child was not only her father but he had found a way to live on in the plane of Air as an evil spiritual force. John had made a deal to send him away from them in order to rescue Kathy. He knew a part of her was grateful for that deal. He also knew another part regretted that she would never have closure. He would always be out there doing gruesome things to living, breathing humans. Worse yet, there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  In her own way, Kathy was dealing with her own situation by raising up a desire to help others with similar problems. Because of their relationship with those of the Mist, especially John's new friend Marcie, Kathy believed they could uncover and use evidence that was unavailable to normal police procedure. Of course, they would still have to find the physical evidence that linked the guilty persons to the crimes, but she believed that would be easier if they knew exactly what to look for and where to look. John could not fault her logic or the good that it might do. His concern was for his own peace of mind.

  His own history with Marcie was marked by a stark sexual reality that embarrassed him. He hated to admit it. It shamed him at a level so deep it hurt. He had been aroused by a little girl. It made him wonder if he was some kind of pervert. That's why he avoided her, not because he was afraid of the Mist or anything else. Truth be known, he was excited about knowing this other plane existed. He had been there and experienced it. He only wished the experience had not colored his own feelings about himself so badly.

  After about thirty steps into the woods through the Mist, John stopped and spoke out loud.

  “Marcie?” with his physical voice.

  Then again with his mental voice, thinking the name and the process of calling out for her in his mind.

  “Marcie?”

  “Right here.” The answer was almost immediate. Her voice was in his head. Clear and filled with a sense that she might laugh at any minute, like always.

  “Where?”

  “Oh, you want to see me?”

  He knew what she meant. The last time they had talked, he had made it clear that her little girl visage made him uncomfortable because of his memory of her and what they had done together.

  “Yes.” He spoke the words in his head but he lowered his head in embarrassment just the same.

  “Right behind you,” Marcie spoke. He would have to turn toward her if he wanted to see her. His choice. She had her pride, too.

  He chose to turn around.

  “I need to ask a question.” John wanted to get this over with.

  “Sure, John.”

  Marcie smiled up at him with her battered, small, child like body. The smile was made sad by the beaten shape her body had been in when she died. Her voice sounded clear and child like. Happy. A contrast to what John saw. And just as he was getting used to seeing her small, battered child body, she transformed before his eyes into the beautiful, tall, slender visage of her womanly form. That long, dirty blond mane swirling almost like a painting around her face which now held a sardonic smile and sported a small, pointed noise. Still, those sad, hurt eyes pulled at him, drawing him in like the first time he had met her. Pools of dark, deep hurt that invited him to search her soul for the happiness someo
ne had stolen from her.

  He had forgotten her nakedness in his own embarrassment of their former experiences. It seemed he could only remember her as a child, not the woman she was destined to be. He could not make himself believe he had performed their intimate act with the woman side of Marcie's presence. In his mind, Marcie was the little girl who had been killed. He had knowledge of her age and her destiny to become this beautiful woman he now viewed before him. Still, he could not get over the fact he had had sex with a child and was aroused enough to complete the act with her. If there had been a shrink who could have understood all this, he would have been glad to get the help he believed he needed to move on. As it was, he would never be able to tell this story to anyone. Even Kathy only knew the basics. He was too embarrassed to reveal to her the depth of his feelings of perversion over his apparent arousal at the hands of a child.

  The worst part was that he took out his inability to deal with his own problems on Marcie. He knew she wanted to help him and be his friend. But being her friend seemed like a continuation of the very perversion he was trying to avoid. What if he could not control himself and it happened again? Marcie had made it very clear that she would welcome the chance to repeat it. It was how she collected the life forces necessary to sustain life at her level.

  “Kathy was wondering,” John began. “If there was a way for you in the Mist and maybe with the help of others wherever you may have access, to help her … uh … us, solve unsolved crimes in this plane?”

  “First, let me say hello, John.” Marcie made the statement with the throaty, husky voice of her fully formed adult version standing unclothed before him.

  “Yes. Hello.” John observed the amenities. “Sorry.” He knew Marcie liked relationship as much as anything else. Saying hello was important to her.

  “Now, for your question.” The form of the woman flickered and the battered child in the tattered clothes replaced her.

  “If you mean, Can we help find clues or something like that, I suppose it's possible. Why?”

  “Because Kathy has this idea to help people in this plane by solving unsolved cases. The problem is that the cases are at dead ends and need some other clues to jump start it.”

  “I see.” The child's smile grew wide and looked like it might crack the dirty, bruised face of the little girl. The irony of joy on the beaten face was not lost on John.

  “She asked me to inquire as to what would be necessary for us to get this help.” John continued.

  “Why does she not ask herself?” Marcie asked point blank.

  “She says that I have a better relationship with you because we are current and it was so long ago that she even contacted the Mist.

  “Do we, John?”

  “Do we what?” John asked.

  “Do we have a better relationship? Do we have a relationship at all?”

  A long pause filled the stillness of the swirling Mist around John and his small friend. The form flickered again and the little girl was replaced with the form of the naked woman again.

  “Yes, we have a relationship, Marcie.” He forced himself to say her name. It was not her fault he could not handle what they had done together. She was the well adjusted one who did exactly what was supposed to be done in her existence. He was the one who struggled with the teachings of his upbringing and the necessity that had made him abandon those teachings.

  “What kind of relationship, John? I feel like you would prefer we did not have a relationship at times.”

  The frankness of her words and the beauty of her very womanly, naked body always shocked John. His mind considered her a little girl despite all her pleadings that he would see her as a woman. He thought it was some trick of his mind to torture him for his departure from his upbringing.

  “The most intimate of relationships.” John answered carefully.

  “It was at one time,” Marcie agreed. “Since then, it has been rather strained. Don't you think?”

  “I've explained that, Marcie.” John did not want to get into it again. He always came out sounding like a little boy who refused to grow up.

  “Yes, John. And I have explained how silly your reticence is. Still, you persist in your desire to inject pain into the relationship in order to cleanse your own soul.”

  “It's not that bad.”

  John had to smile. Marcie had a very negative view of the impact of religion upon the human race. Not that it was wrong. Just that it was so stringently applied in such a watered down, narrow view that she could not understand anyone ever coming to know the Creator of Life through it.

  “It is if it keeps us from talking and visiting, John.”

  He knew she was right. He wanted to talk. He wanted to visit. It was that other thing she wanted to do that scared him. He loved Kathy. Kathy was his wife, now. Not that Kathy had complained or even said the first word against what he had done to open the way so he could find her and rescue her. It was all him. All his own neuroses.

  “Sorry.” John said it again. He did not know what else to say.

  “Okay.” the little girl was back and she seemed genuinely pleased to accept his apology. “Friends again?”

  “Friends.” John acknowledged.

  “Great! Want to have some sex, now?” Marcie squealed with delight as she asked the question that always made John cringe.

  John did indeed cringe.

  “Only kidding, John.” Marcie laughed. Her little girl visage lit up by the humor that had no place on that battered, grime smeared face.

  “Well, only halfway kidding,” she amended. “Whenever you're ready again, I'm ready.” She laughed again.

  “Please, Marcie.” John pleaded for mercy.

  “Okay you party pooper,” Marcie giggled. Her form flickered back to that of the woman. The giggle became a sexy chuckle.

  “What about the help with the crimes?” John steered her back to his purpose for this visit.

  “Sure. We can do that. Others have tapped into the spiritual planes to answer unanswerable questions before, you know?”

  “No. I didn't know.”

  “Sure. All kinds of tricks and stories. But the reality is that somehow they accessed information on another plane and used that information to answer the questions they had.”

  “You mean like psychics?”

  “Not all spiritual entities are evil, John?”

  “I know.” He meant her.

  “If not all spiritual entities are evil then it stands to reason that some of those entities can also be helpful if they are somehow brought into this plane or someone from this plane goes to them, right?”

  “I follow.” He felt she was trying to teach him about her existence again. Curiously, that was one thing about her he really did want to have a relationship about.

  “Well, in order to help you, because your relationship is so much stronger than most, because of our history, we can actually confer and relate to one another on a level that allows you to ask and us to answer.”

  “That's good. Exactly what Kathy was hoping.”

  “We can do more, though.”

  “How?”

  “Several ways. One, we can help with any investigation from our side while you do what needs to be done on yours.”

  “And?” John wanted the other ways spelled out, too.

  “Kathy can have her own connection with the Mist.”

  “I thought she was connected already.”

  “She is, but not the same as you.” The form flickered back to the little girl. “Her connection began when she was a child, before the age of understanding. Her mind could not fully engage or commit back then. She can make a new connection now that she is old enough and enjoy the same full relationship that you and I do.”

  “You mean she can make another sacrifice, now?”

  “Yes,” Marcie answered.

  “I...uh...I'm not...uh,” John stuttered. He had no idea how to answer that.

  “Listen, John,” Marcie began. “If we are goi
ng to have a relationship, let's get one thing straight. I want to help you in whatever you do. I am not ever going to hurt you. Nothing I would say or do would ever be designed to hurt you or Kathy, who in your plane, are the same person to us. Unlike the human condition, our plane of existence does not need deceit or pain to exist. We are adjusted by the presence of the Creator of Life, himself. We have no desire to replace him or triumph over him. Therefore, when we talk, you need to understand that what I say and do is for things to be good between you and I. I am always trying to help.”

  The form flickered back to the woman.

  John nodded. He said nothing.

  “If Kathy was inside the Mist with us as you are, there would be a better connection between the two of you.”

  “Better?”

  “Always available to talk to each other no matter where you were. And the three of us could talk together without you relating my words to her and vice versa.”

  “Really?”

  John was truly impressed with the idea of improving communications and also in letting Marcie and Kathy talk without him being in the middle. This was way off the normal track of the human experience, but since he had met Marcie in that Mist, his entire life had been way off track. Still, he was struggling with Kathy making a new sacrifice to enter into this relationship more fully. Part of him wanted it to happen. Part of him wanted to protect Kathy from any further involvement. Besides, sacrifice meant she would have to have sex with someone in the Mist. Either that or let out her blood and give up her spirit energy, which were not good choices if she wanted to go on living in the human plane.

  It struck John as funny that he was thinking about how strange his life had become as he stood in a living Mist talking with a little girl ghost.

  “Woman.” Marcie injected into his thoughts. He forgot that she could hear him think.

  John laughed out loud, physically. His life really was strange.

  “Who would Kathy have to sacrifice with?” John asked the inevitable question.

  “Actually, there is a young man here who asked if she ever came into the Mist.”

  “You mean he is...” John did not finish the sentence.

  “Yes, John. He was hitting on your wife from our side. We are dead to the human plane but not blind.”

  “You mean, you guys think about getting with the living?'

  “Come on, John.” The little girl form flickered back. “You know that for those of us in the Mist fluids is the life we most seek out. We offer a place to those lost in violent death but most of our life forces come from sex. Between those who are among us and those who are on other planes.”

  “I am still getting used to that.”

  “I know, John. But sex in our plane is not like sex in your physical existence. There, it is a matter of procreation. There is no procreation here. Sex here is for enjoyment and fulfilling of the life commitment. Your commitment is to another human there. Ours is to enjoy life in all its fullness and never take it for granted here. Two very different things. That's why you have such trouble comprehending our sacrifices. We only call them sacrifices when they come from your plane to ours because we know what you have to give up to offer yourselves up to us. Here we just call it sharing.”

  “I know,” John answered her. “I'm trying.”

  “Yes, you are, John.” Marcie giggled again at her small joke.

  “So, what's this Romeo's name? Maybe they should meet.” John tried to sound convinced of his decision to press on with this inquiry.

  “His name is Emil.”

  “Nice name.”

  “Nice guy, too.” Marcie spoke as if she knew. Of course she did. John harbored no thought that Marcie was waiting on him to have sex again. He sure wasn't waiting on another experience with her.

  “Let me talk to Kathy and we'll get back to you.”

  “Sure, John. You know, you don't have to come out here to the Mist to talk to me.”

  “I know,” John said. “I really wanted to walk through the energy again. Thought I might need the stimulation to remind me of our relationship again.”

  “Did it work?” The woman flickered back.

  “I think so.”

  “I can't wait for the day you can think of me kindly without the stimulation of the Mist.” Forthright as ever.

  “You know, me too.” John tried to sound upbeat. Over his problem. He wasn't but he wanted to sound that way. He wanted to be that way.

  “You'll get there, John.”

  “I hope so.”