When the Sky Goes Dark

by Oliver C Seneca

  The end table on one side of the bed had Grandma’s sleeping eye mask and a half-empty bottle of water. Beside it, was her Bible. Behind that was a tissue box with red-stained pieces pulled from its top. Jon didn’t want to look any longer. He had seen enough here. No more blood. He was sick of it. Sick of it all.

  He walked over to the mirrored dresser where various colognes and perfumes stood by rows of rings, necklaces, and bracelets in a glass tray. Grandma had yelled at Jon and his two cousins that one fateful day they checked them out without her permission. Now, Jon had all of them to himself with no worry of being yelled at ever again. It pained him. He would take another yelling if it meant his grandma would be alive for just another moment. Maybe I could’ve helped her. Maybe there was something more I could’ve done down there. I. . .

  Jon picked up a ring from the tray. A silver band with a cluster diamond. He put it back and plucked another. It was an antique brass ring with a blue jewel inside. A sapphire looking gem. He wasn’t sure if it was authentic or not. Either way, he liked how it shined beneath the phone’s white light. He tried to place it on his ring finger. Too small. The ring’s cutting was too tiny to fit on anything other than Jon’s pinky. He pulled it free and pocketed it, something to remember his grandmother by.

  Jon left the room and pulled the door shut behind him, closing the scene in darkness. He entered the hallway again and made his way toward the staircase. At the top, his light made a little spotlight into the dark below. He walked down and creaked every other step beneath the carpet. His hand touched the sapphire ring.

  Stillness. Quietness. That was until Jon’s light found its way to the corner of the living room where a vintage record player stood on black legs between the couch and a Laz-E-Boy recliner. Sounds of John Denver and Kenny Rogers began to play in Jon’s head as he moved closer toward it. Guitar strings picked in the distant. Almost heaven, West Virginia. Jon could hear it now. Blue ridge mountain, Shenandoah River. The orange and white paint on the record player had faded over the years but was otherwise in great condition. Life is old there, older than the trees. Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze.

  Jon lifted the lid to the record player and was astounded to see vinyl spinning. JOHN DENVER’S GREATEST HITS. SIDE A the record read. It was as if Jon put it there in his mind. A memory placed back by sound. There was a rippling fuzz sound as the record spun. Country roads, take me home to the place I belong. . . Jon stood still for a moment, held captive by the music playing from a stationary record in a house void of electricity. West Virginia, mountain mama. . .

  He was there. He was in a memory. Nineteen ninety whatever. One summer day. Jon turned to his right and saw Grandpa Barnes sitting in his cushioned recliner, smiling and singing along, take me home, country roads, with a wooden toothpick sticking out between his teeth. His knee was bouncing up and down, up and down. Jon turned around and saw himself as a young boy sitting cross-legged with his cousins Marie and Bobby, clapping along. Jon smiled as tears budded once more. The face of his yesteryear stared back at him. A baby-faced, brown-haired boy with glasses that made him look like Harry Potter, slapping his hands together to the tune from an era he’d never known. Jon’s lips quivered the words with them. All my memories gather round her. Sunlight streamed through the screen door behind him and his cousins. The day was bright, and summer was here to stay.

  If only. . . if only it were here to stay. . .

  Stay. Please, stay, Jon thought, but his mind’s memory juice was spent. The memory went just as fast as it came. The record player stopped. The sunlight faded, and the living room darkened back into the haunting abyss it was just a moment ago. His younger self and cousins vanished. Jon turned back around to see the Laz-E-Boy empty. The lid to the record player was still propped up but no record lay in the spindle. The needle was tucked away in its station. Empty. It was all empty now.

  What else? There has to be more. There have to be more memories.

  Jon swung around and cut through the kitchen and approached the back door that led out onto the redwood deck. The warm night air returned. Chimes chinged back here, too. He was alone, staring out into the vast grass field that turned into the rows of corn stock which grew beyond. The sky was dark, and clouds were meddling around the stars and the moon. He could smell farmland. Wet grass. Warm, moist ground and hot summer memories.

  Jon touched the ring in his pocket and shut his eyes.

  When he opened them, he saw his father and him jumping through a sprinkler beneath a clear, blue sky. His father was lifting him up through the streams of water, a gargantuan smile beneath his brown walrus stache. Little Jon was even smaller than the record player's memory. He was a toddler, laughing and kicking his legs. He wore a blue and green bathing suit that looked to have the characters from the show Rugrats on them.

  It flashed away. The memory was only a split second. A blink.

  Lightning bolted down from the skies beyond and blackness returned yet again. Jon stood, trying to get back any image he had of that memory that had been as quick as the lightning itself. He let out a sigh and smelled the air. The bushes whistled in the stirring wind.

  With his fingers wrapped around the ring, Jon beckoned the memory back. Even if it was just for one more second of time, he’d take it. Just one more time, give me something. Nothing. The wind blew, and the chimes clanged beside him. The little cushioned, wired chairs out on the deck looked comfortable, but Jon knew he couldn’t stay outside. He had to return indoors and retire to bed. He needed his energy to press on to his final destination.

  ***

  The cans of peaches and corn lay on the foot of the bed in the open beach bag. Jon should’ve been starving, but his hunger disappeared as his body already feasted on an all you can eat buffet of remorse. The memories were sweet, but the poison berry of his grandmother’s passing was a bitter, more overpowering taste.

  His heart raced. It hadn’t stopped since the basement. Still, he was tired now. As he set his alarm on his phone to wake him up at the crack of dawn, he tried to push away the thoughts of his grandmother. Impossible. She was dead and Jon killed her, whether intentionally or not. It would haunt him for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

  I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to.

  You had no choice, it was self-defense. She was going to kill you.

  The thought brought back more tears, which streamed down both sides of his face and onto the pillow. He squeezed his eyes shut and begged for sleep.

  Who put grandma in the washer room?

  He’d do anything to get a few hours of relief. He needed rest to make his final trek back to his home in Springsdale. The end of the line.

  Did she hurt grandpa? Mom? Dad?

  Jon was convinced that if his parents weren’t there, they weren’t anywhere else but lost in the madness. But he had to know for sure. He couldn’t give up just yet, no matter how hard it was to keep going. He needed answers despite his dread.

  What is the cause of all of this?

  The thoughts piled up enough to bring a heaviness to his eyes, the eyes that have seen horrors a young man should never have to witness. He pulled out the ring and felt it again, running his fingers along the edges of where brass met sapphire. His lids fell over his eyes. No memories came, but slumber did.

  As the sleep gave its mercy to Jon, his mind drifted away to a dreamless sleep while the sound of raindrops began falling on the roof.

  Chapter FORTY-FIVE

  Early to Rise

  Before Jon left his grandparents’ house for the final time, he took his grandmother’s Bible from her end table and placed it down on the blue blanket. THE HOLY BIBLE it read in gold text over a brown leather face. It was a giant book that contained all kinds of highlighting and notes scribbled in the margins. It was her personal Bible that she received when she was a little girl. The pages were all browned and some even crumpled and ripped, but it stood the test of time as it lay on top of its rightful owner.
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  “Goodbye, grandma,” Jon said as he placed the book on top of her corpse. He wanted to cry, but he had run out of tears. The basement of this old house would be the resting place of his grandmother. All the memories would be put to rest with her on that rainy May morning. “I love you.”

  The steps creaked as Jon climbed back up to the kitchen. He turned and closed the door as if it were the shutting of a coffin, forever entombing Grandma Barnes in the dark.

  A soft greyness spilled into the house through the windows. The sun was a bulb of light behind a curtain of clouds. Rain pittered and pattered. Jon thought it was appropriate as he stood for a moment. Peaceful. The best way to have the house feel despite what had happened. The madness was done here. The rain would wash it away. Even though the scars would never leave Jon’s soul, it was time to move on.

  Jon put on his backpack and picked up the beach bag of food and headed outside. Glock in hand. One last squeak of the door sounded behind him as he walked out into the wet, grey morning. He took a final look at the giant tree in the yard and felt content that he’d had great memories here. That was enough for him.

  The Honda’s trunk was filled with his bags. The passenger seat held the handgun. Jon started the engine, making the car roar to life as droplets fell onto the windshield. His phone was plugged into the car’s USB port, ready to take him back to his house, back into the madness and, hopefully, back to his parents.

  Grandma Barnes’ ring rested in his front pocket, holding the memories of his family.

  Chapter FORTY-SIX

  Home

  After miles of traveling of what seemed like an eternity, farmlands and rural roads soon gave way to small-town suburbia. Springsdale, Pennsylvania. The place Jon called home. Take me home. . . country road. . . If only that memory lasted a little longer. The Honda drove through familiar scenery of the adjacent neighborhoods and Jon even got a passing look at his old high school where the parking lot looked cluttered. No use going there. School was out at Hillcrest forever. The blue and white knight on the entrance sign would guard the bodies of the students.

  Jon saw nothing he wasn’t used to seeing by now. A car on the side of the road. Smashed bodies. Clutters of debris. Strangers that went by. What else was new? The only thing that frightened him and brought him to a feeling of unease was the quietness of all the suburban homes that lined the back roads that he took off the Simpsonville exit.

  It was so morbid, Jon thought, that these lonely buildings were filled with the bodies of families that once were mothers, fathers, children, and pets. All were most likely dead, maybe even mangled to death by the hands of each other. Those that remained living were destined to move-on if they could muster the mental strength to do so and endure what remained of the cruel new world.

  There was a sense of anxiety as Jon got closer to the turn, the turn that would bring him to the entrance of his neighborhood cul-de-sac. Franklin Court. His hands trembled as they wrapped around the wheel. The shakiness could’ve been from the thought of seeing his parents again, or the thought of finding them dead, or the thought of not finding them at all. It could also be that Jon hadn’t eaten much more than some chips and a half can of peaches. Some lukewarm tap water from Mr. Mirch’s plastic thermos also sloshed around his stomach. Perhaps it was a combination of all those things. Either way, the closer he got, the more he shook like a leaf.

  Keep going. This is it. This is it. He kept repeating sentences in his mind. Here we go. Here we go. This is it. This is it.

  FRANKLIN COURT it read with white lettering on a grey stone-made sign. Jon’s eyes widened. His heart hammered against his tired chest. The moment was finally here.

  ***

  “Mom! Dad!” Jon shouted as if his parents were there to greet him. He flung himself out of the Honda and up the concrete pathway to the door, passing some tulips and daffodils that his mom planted beneath the curtain-drawn window that looked into the living room.

  Locked. Jon forgot to get his keys from his backpack. Damn it! He rushed back to the Honda and popped the trunk open, hands festering with every zipper and compartment as he hunted for his house keys. There was too much excitement to keep a steady hand or heart.

  He ripped the keys out of the backpack’s smallest compartment in the front and dashed back to the front door of his house with zero interest in taking the Glock. “I’m coming! Mom! Dad!”

  A mahogany door with vertical windows on either side showed nothing but darkness as it reflected the morning’s glooming light.

  The rain was steady.

  The key penetrated the lock and Jon turned it so fast, that he could have snapped it in an instant.

  “Hello! It’s Jon! It’s your son!” he cried out but found no response as he stood on the shoe-wiping welcome mat. There were normally New Balances and hiking boots in the plastic tray on the floor beside him, but Jon saw no shoes today. His parents must’ve gone out. “Mom? Dad?”

  No need to flip the light switch. It was second nature to Jon now. This new world was dark. Besides, Jon was so anxious to see his family again that even if the light switch did work, he wouldn’t give a single shit about it.

  Jon began darting around the house like a weasel. The kitchen. The kitchen. “MOM!” he shouted as he raced through the living room. He almost banged his leg on the edge of the glass coffee table and tripped over it.

  The room was filled with photographs of his entire family atop the fireplace mantel, on the walls, and above the brown piano that had once belonged to Mrs. Barnes’ father from Pittsburgh.

  No one was in the kitchen. A couple of L.L Bean and Good Housekeeping magazines lay on the dining table. Newspapers scattered the island. A cold mug of coffee sat on the edge of the counter by the mini TV.

  “DAD! Where are you?” Jon asked as he left the kitchen, shooting back through the living room, and over to the basement door by the upstairs steps. He swung it open.

  An abyss stared up at Jon as he peered down in the blackness. “Is anyone down there?” The silence answered that for him. Still, Jon thought maybe his parents and grandpa retreated to the basement to protect themselves. Perhaps in the storage closet.

  At this point, Jon would be happy just to see that his family was still alive. He’d take psycho parents and a demented grandfather over nothing at all. He just wanted someone.

  The stairs in Jon’s house weren’t bare wood, but nice carpeted steps that led to a furnished basement. In the day, you could see the lovely brown, L-shaped couch in front of the enormous flat-screen that hung on the wall. A billiard table was nearby. Now, it was all shrouded in black. Darkness was now the eternal guest. This basement had zero light penetrating it, only the faint grey of the outside through the living room curtains showed the top few steps of the stairs.

  No sign of his mom, dad, or grandpa. He checked the rear storage closet but found nothing. Jon wasn’t giving up though. He glided up the steps and shut the basement door behind him before running up to the second floor, into the dark hallway. Rushing to the far end, Jon entered the master bedroom. “DAD? MOM? HELLO?”

  Deep seeded fear and hopelessness began to grow in his soul.

  They scrambled getting out of bed after grandpa called, Jon thought, looking at the thrown bed sheets. It was a scene that read urgency, much like at his grandparent’s house, minus the blood. Thank God. His mother’s fur slippers were on the floor by her side of the bed.

  Jon turned back into the hall and popped into every room, finding no one in the bathroom, his bedroom, or the guest room. He sprinted down the steps and back into the kitchen where he caught a glance of the backyard through the window above the sink.

  The fenced-in backyard was green with wet grass. A metal shed lay in the rear corner, its sides streaked with rust. The key to its door was found in the last drawer on the counter. Ignoring the fact that if the key was still placed in the drawer, then his family must not of went out there, Jon grabbed it without thought. He couldn’t leave any stone left unturn
ed.

  He pulled the glass sliding door open from behind the head of the dining table. The rain was picking up as it splashed onto his hair and face. The lenses of his glasses were covered in raindrops. His shoes suctioned and slapped on the puddled ground as he ran through the mud, toward the storage shed.

  Knock knock knock on the shed the door. Jon’s family could’ve retreated inside for all he knew, and he didn’t want to scare them before entering. “Guys, it’s Jon. I’m ok, I’m coming in!” He was talking to no one. The key went into the gold padlock and clicked open the silver metal above it.

  Inside, Jon smelled the familiar and overwhelming fumes of gasoline. The light from outside was enough to see plastic red tanks of it. Sheers, shovels, a weed whacker, and various landscaping tools hung from the sides on metal hangers. Bags of mulch and grass feed were piled on top of each other. A badminton net was wrapped up in the corner. Beside it, mounted on the wall on two black hangers above a workbench, was the Remington 700.

  Jon grabbed it by the stock. Touching it flooded memories back into his mind for a moment like the lightning that took away the memory before. This time, it transported him to a different time and place entirely.

  Jon and his father were sitting in the cold wilderness. He could feel the snow falling around him. Then, without a second to soak in the memory, he flashed back to the shed. For a moment, he thought could see the cold breath flowing from his mouth. But he didn’t have time to enjoy it. The memories are nice. Bittersweet. The real world, however, still had bitter truths to find. He left the wintery memories alone for now.

  He pulled a clear tub from beneath the bench that contained little green and yellow square cardboard boxes. REMINGTON RIFLE CARTRIDGES it read. Ammo. Jon slipped one full set into his back pocket before leaving the shed, back into the rain. Little did Jon know, he would be shooting that hunting rifle again not long from now. Forget the Glock and the massive amounts of ammo Rusty provided, the Remington would be the last gun Jon would ever pull the trigger on.