A World of Darkness

by Michael Dissieux

  She looks after the car. Her streaming hair makes her look wild. I automatically am remembered of the African child soldiers, who had often been a theme at TV. And yet I’m sure that, if I would be able to look into her eyes right now, I wouldn’t find anything but fear and pain inside them. I would have liked best shouted at Barry to stop the Pick-up. To see my “midget” inside the mirror becoming smaller and vaguer is more than I can bear.

  When Demi is only to be seen as a pale shadow in front of the silhouette of the house, I close my eyes and lean back into my seat.

  “Pay attention to grandma, midget”, I murmur in a low voice.

  I can hear the wheels rumble over sand and stones; the hoarse squeaking of the auto body and the creaking of the whirl as Barry shifts gears.

  Demi like a ghost appears to my thoughts: her petite figure that becomes smaller and smaller till it is away; till she vanished from my life.

  I can’t fade out this cold horror as much as I’m trying to do so. Neither of us says a word as the car reaches the street and Barry slowly steers the Pick-up towards Devon.

  Devon

  I

  As we reach the first houses something inside me dies. Perhaps it’s the last hope my sub consciousness had been trying to preserve; the last believe in a future.

  But I rather think that my memories of this town at the sight we have to see now disappear from my head like resounding echoes.

  Barry steers the car against the roadside and turns off the engine. One can hear the rhythmical clicking of the flasher system. It’s an old habit that Barry, like I, evidently isn’t able to deny. Apart from that there’s only silence.

  One often talks about a cloth that lays itself over calm places and in doing so absorbs all sounds. Here in Devon it feels like I was able to grab this cloth and pull it right over my head. A deep, ghastly silence covers the roofs and streets inside the town. I even believe to be able to hear this silence as a constant, deep hum inside my head. But I think it’s just my own blood swooshing through my veins.

  The streets are orphaned, the shops dark. At one corner, some meters ahead of us, a torn curtain flutters out of a broken shop-window. The wavy, dull movement inside the cold wind seems out of place, destroying the idyllic painting, whose theme is death.

  I can see open front doors, wherein have gathered brown leaves. I can see shattered windows that numbly and dark stare out to the roadside. The wind seizes paper and empty bags, drives them across the asphalt and stirs them up. At the walls grass and pulled down branches are gathering up to heaves.

  Above that all hangs a penetrant fetor that remembers me of the rubbish bins behind my house. I try to convince myself that the odor is only caused by foul food and waste pipes. But a voice inside me keeps shouting that among that there’s the abhorrent fetor of decaying flesh.

  I feel Barry that is looking at me and turn to him. His eyes look sad and seem to vanish inside their holes. His lips are tightly pressed against each other.

  “We shouldn’t stay here longer than necessary.”

  His voice sounds small and forlorn, the words getting lost inside the ghastly silence of the town.

  I nod and lay my hand onto the butt of the gun.

  “Drive over to ‘Tenberries’. They got all we need.”

  As Barry restarts the car and the infirm engine acting under protest comes to a clacking life again, I lean my head against the side window and glance at the frontages passing us by like an alley of death.

  They are the same houses we once had used to stroll along with our girls linked to our arms. The shine of the street lamps had been painting gentle spots of light onto the sidewalk. From the houses had come the flavor of freshly cooked vegetables and the happy-go-lucky laughter of kids.

  In one of the houses along our way towards our favorite restaurant a baby had used to cry. I still remember how sadly Sarah had used to look at the window, where behind closed curtains the baby had been crying.

  As we now pass that house I see dark, empty windows and a front door hanging from its hinges. From its handle hangs an empty plastic bag seeming to forlorn wave at me inside the wind.

  I for a moment close my eyes to block out the memory of Sarah’s sad eyes from the past. I believe to hear the baby cry from behind. As I open them again house fronts like an endless ribbon pass me by without me really noticing them. Everything is bathed inside a deep, depressing shadow. I get the feeling that I was driving past age-old, long forsaken ruins, which makes my heart freeze.

  I get overwhelmed by a drooping fatigue. The world around me begins to spin. Thoughts of Sarah and Demi are trying to pave their way up from the quagmire inside my brains. But before I can get afraid for my two girls I notice a movement between two flat houses lying on an undeveloped real estate that is overgrown by grass and bushes. My body abruptly clenches. It gets difficult for me to breath.

  Over there, in the middle of the meadow, in the shadow of a crippled tree, stands a little girl. Her long hair is streaming in the wind like cobwebs and her dress that once must have been yellow, but now is scattered by dark spots flutters around her haggard body. She looks to us, in doing so turning her head at the speed of the car. Her skin is as pale as the skin of a dead body. She like in slow motion lifts an arm, as if intending to grab us. I in a horrible way get remembered of Cindy. In spite of the distance I can see the girl move her lips. I know exactly what she says. Though I can’t hear her voice her words stab into my body like the fervent blade of a dagger.

  Then she is gone and we instead pass by the dark shop-window of a hardware store, lying there in silent dignity. With my heart pounding I bend forward and look into the side mirror. But I can only recognize the empty property as a bright streak onto the asphalt.

  I gaze at Barry, who with a fierce expression on his face stares through the window pane that is gummed up by flies. He with his eyes and his mouth looking frighteningly absent resembles as if wanting to fade out all emotional moments. I wonder whether he has seen the girl, too. If he did he doesn’t show.

  Though it’s cold inside the car I feel sweat coming to my forehead. With a nervous movement of my hand I wipe it away and keep my hand lying over mv eyes. The movement makes me aware of a deep fatigue behind my lids.

  Keeping my eyes closed I try to calm down my heartbeat.

  The girl was around Demi’s age, I think. Then I remember what Barry had told about what had happened in Boston. I think of his words about Alicia, the survivor he had found in the ruins of the city and who had been like Cindy. Barry’s horrid words of when he had tearfully narrated us what had become of Alicia and what she had been able to, are echoing inside my ears.

  Would the girl become the same?

  According to Barry’s narration people, who had been infected by the Shoggothen after some time turn into bloodthirsty, unhuman creatures. Cindy someday will fare the same, even if she – enclosed inside her bedroom – would not be able to find something to eat. But what about the girl? She’s on the loose at Devon. Would she go hunting at night? Even if she no longer would be able to find some prey inside the town there surely is some game and other animals to chase. And what if she hungers for something bigger, more nourishing? The thought of the girl hoping for some prey is creeping through the hillside – and how she is coming up to my house – makes me shudder They probably are even able to smell their prey. She would smell Sarah and me and in the shelter of the night creep up to the house and …

  A jolt wakens me from my nightmare. As I open my eyes I see Barry driving the Pick-up onto the large parking lot in front of ‘Tenberries’. A single car is standing beneath one of the young, freshly planted trees. Aside of that the lot is empty.

  “I propose that I drive up to the entrance backwardly and in doing so block out access for …”

  Barry doesn’t have to speak on. I just nod, desperately trying to soothe my thoughts. The horrible image of the girl has burnt itself into my mind like a blinking neon sign.

  “Eve
rything okay?”

  Barry stopped the car and looks at me worriedly. I for a millisecond tinker with the thought to tell him about the girl on the vacant lot. But then I think of Alicia again and nod with a bitter smile.

  “Everything okay. It’s only pressing a bit on me.”

  Barry’s lips become a thin line again. “It doesn’t press on you alone. Let’s get over with and then we should do best to forget everything we had seen in Devon.”

  I look at him, wondering if he might as well have seen the girl out of the edge of his eyes. But before I’m able to research into it Barry already drives up to the entrance of the supermarket, turns the car and drives backwardly against it. He only stops the car when he is just below one meter in front of the glass doors.

  “We’re going to turn the motor off. Otherwise we would blow the whole dirt into the shop. And we possibly would miss to hear some noises.”

  Barry’s voice sounds certain – and very frightened. As he turns off the motor the car stutters once or twice. Then a huge wave of silence that buries everything beneath itself is running across the roofs and streets. We sit in the car like beaten dogs, ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬hectically browsing around all sides. It needs our eyes almost two minutes to meet each other. Barry for a short moment looks me over and I notice that he is seriously afraid for his father.

  “We should both get hold of a caddy”, I therefore say in a demonstratively sure voice. In truth it only comes out as a caw.

  “Okay. But don’t take something perishable”, Barry answers, while anew browsing the parking lot. “Take only cans and noodles; and canned fruits. Something like that.”

  That makes me laugh, whereupon Barry is looking at me with wide eyes. I think of Sarah, who when he had been a little boy had always paid attention to that Barry was feeding on fresh vegetables and freshly cooked meat. What would she say to this last statement of his?”

  “Do you really believe that we’ll still find something perishable in there? I mean something that isn’t already affected by a fine, thick layer of mold.”

  Now Barry laughs, too.

  To be able to look behind his mask out of tension does me so damned good.

  “I think there you’re right”, he says and strikes my thigh. “We should leave behind everything that got eyes and looks back at us.”

  He lays his hand upon my gun. “But we’ll take that with us.”

  Then he becomes earnest again.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” I say without conviction and grab the weapon.

  Barry for his part tears this gun out from the leg area, looks around one last time and then opens the door at his side. The clicking of the lock like strikes from a hammer booms over the parking lot. I also open my door, getting frightened like a little child when I’m welcomed by the cold autumn breeze. When getting out I instead of my fear can’t refrain from laughing.

  “One caddy for each of us”, Barry repeats again. “We at first will go to the supermarket and then to the drugstore. Is it still at the place where I remember it to be?”

  I nod and hang on to my gun.

  “Nothing changed there.”

  Barry walks up to the door. At other days the two sling doors had slid aside automatically. They already would have done so when Barry had driven the car so close to the glass. But today the leaves don’t move. Barry for one second regards the glass, on which one can see numerous imprints of small and large hands. Then he, intimating me with a hand sign to step back, takes his weapon at its muzzle and hammers the butt against the glass. The noise is deafening. Again a noise as if someone was beating a hammer onto a detonator cap breaks the silence. At the third blow the pane of the right wing window explodes with a hollow sigh and tumbles down.

  Barry had jumped back instinctively. Now he tears up his gun, aiming it at the dark hall of the supermarket. I follow him suit and build up beside him.

  We stare into the twilight inside the supermarket, at any time ready to fire our weapons. We like by a wave of brackish water are hit by a moldy, warm air. But there’s no sound.

  “I don’t believe that these creatures hide inside buildings”, Barry breaks the silence. “When still in Boston I had searched numerous offices, shops and drugstores. And I nowhere had come across these monsters.”

  His words don’t soothe me a lot. My heart pounds as loud that I’m assailed by the foolish fear it could be heard throughout Devon.

  “We should hurry.” Barry looks at me earnestly. His forehead is wet with sweat. “I don’t know what the noise we had made with the car and the window pane allured out of its hideout.”

  I imagine the shadow of the girl I had seen at the vacant lot. I wonder if she already was on her way to follow the car.

  Barry enters the supermarket, browsing to all sides again. Because of the skylights inside the roof and the numerous, narrow windows, running beneath the roof like an edge out of glass, there is enough light to the building. The shelves tower before us like sleeping monsters. To our right side there are the orphaned cash points. I’m assailed by the absurd thought that this would be an Eldorado for pilferers. But of which value the age-old scourge of humanity – money – should still be today?

  Barry determinedly heads for the caddies, which are beaming dimly in the twilight. He puts his gun into one of them, doing it in a way that its butt projects from it and therefore anytime is at hand.

  I follow him suit and, as I don’t any longer sense the weight of my weapon in my hands, suddenly feel defenseless and naked. To bear down my arising panic I with both hands hang on to the cold handle of the caddy.

  “If you see anything that seems unusual call me”, Barry whispers. “Whatsoever. Each bagatelle could turn up to be a danger.”

  I nod in doing so making the world around me automatically begins to spin. I don’t admit me the thought how often I had been shopping here together with Sarah.

  Barry disappears between two shelves. The next moment I can hear him throw a large amount of cans into the caddy. The rattling metal sounds like exploding bombs.

  I push my cart to a shelf, where I know that I will be able to find pasta.

  The bags are covered by finely granulated dust. In the darkness they look as if there were twisting grubs behind their viewing windows. Without a second thought I fill in half the caddy with noodles. I then head towards the beverages and grab umpteen bottles of sparkling mineral water and lemonade. I automatically grab for Sarah’s favorite brand; something I had always used to do each time I had been here alone.

  At the shelf that contains the spirits I stand still. I had only random been drinking alcohol and remember my aversion against seeing Barry with the bottle of whiskey.

  But I without hesitating grab some of the bottles, not knowing what they exactly contain. It all comes down to that time has changed. Perhaps these bottles are one of the few possibilities to take the future.

  I from afar can hear Barry gruffly storing his things into the cart and many a time abutting it against something. One time I hear the high-pitched clinking of glass and Barry swearing. I instinctively reach for the weapon. But the next moment I hear my son emptying the next shelf.

  In the grey light that sluggishly seeps in through the skylights I can see the shadows of the electrical goods department. I abandon the caddy, putting it even aside, so that nobody should be endangered to trip over it and then disapprovingly go over to the display showing the devices for playing films and something. I don’t know what exactly I’m looking for. But small signs at the shelves soon lead me to the DVD players and portable DVD players. As I catch sight of a device that nearly looks like the one, with which Humphrey had visited us some days before, I feel my pounding old heart jump happily. I grab for it, search for a cable and then remember that my device I got at home had been battery run. In addition to that – of what use might a cable be in this new time?

  I cautiously put the device onto the pile out of bags, boxes and bottles ins
ide my cart. Then I call for Barry, in doing so needing two attempts until my voice is able to form the words.

  “If you’re ready get near the entrance and wait for me there,” Barry answers from some ranges beside of me. In the large room, in which one otherwise had heard the hum of the freezers, some low music and the murmur of people, his voice sounds strangely unsubstantial.

  I think the music is what I miss most. Although they had never played the kind of music I like to hear.

  “I’m just going to foray the drugstore and will follow you then.”

  Barry utters a hoarse laugh. While I hear him rifle through the shelf, at which he treats the things far less smoothly than me, I push my caddy towards the exit. As I pass the cash point I nearly expect to see Helen sitting there; a woman, who had been left by her husband but whenever she had seen me nevertheless had always wrenched a smile from herself. I had been very fond of Helen and had been sorry for her for this scumbag running out on her and her three kids.

  Well, Helen was not there and she probably wouldn’t sit on her worn to threads stool behind the cash point in the near future, too. And her husband, I think she once had mentioned that his name was Chris, surely already got the rightful punishment for his behavior. Just like all of us.

  Nobody stops me as I stir the cart past the cash point towards the entrance. I stop there and take the gun out of the cart, what for I in the bustle had stored most of the bags over the muzzle crystalizes to be rather difficult.

  This could have been a fatal mistake, I think sadly, listening to the noise coming from Barry. In doing so I gaze at the small shop that is settled between the bakery and a shoe shop opposite the cash boxes. Once ago this had been my favorite shop for being the shop, where I used to buy my books by Lovecraft and my magazines. It had also been there that I many years ago had bought this one baleful book by Stephen King. I had enjoyed roaming for hours between the shelves, searching for some worthwhile new publications.

  Now the glass doors are shut and the room behind them is dark.