A World of Darkness

by Michael Dissieux

  Holding my gun leveled I approach the book shop, whose show windows display atlases and the newest book by Grisham. I cautiously spy through the glass doors, in whose mirror image I can recognize the image of a terror stricken, grey man. The shop seems to be empty. Perhaps there still is a point to Barry’s theory that the creatures avoid man-made buildings.

  Without any hope I long for the copper door knob and nearly would have cried out loud as the door silently opens.

  I just like Barry had done before at the entrance of the supermarket take a step back, hoick the gun and aim it at the darkness inside the book shop. I’m hit by the aromatic, but moldy odor of paper and new covers.

  I enter the shop with caution. Behind me I hear Barry swear anew.

  I know exactly where to go. I don’t need any light to find my way between the few shelves and a palette containing bargains. I soon have merged with the shadows inside my former favorite shop.

  As I pass the news rack near the cash box I pause and stare at the newspapers that are exposed there. In the dull light penetrating through the shop windows the paper seems yellowed as if one was regarding an old photo. And it really resembles me of that as I gaze at the date and the ominous headline of the last day on earth.

  Suddenly I imagine the attractive news anchor, whose entire face had been a mask out of fear. In my ears I still can hear her words, whose sense I then had refused to understand. Her voice was trembling while her hands were playing nervously with some sheets, from which she had been reading the end of the world. But of course we then didn’t know that. But meanwhile I regard the beauty out of my TV as an apocalyptic angel, who had been sent by god to reveal me the end of the world as pleasant as possible. The photos shown at the newspaper seem to mock me. I would have liked best to tear them, by this absurd and childish gesture undoing everything that happened.

  I instead go ahead, stepping further into the darkness inside the room. I hold my gun at the height of my thigh, just like John Wayne might have done.

  I had often walked that path between the rows of books before. Whenever I, after having finished my shopping, had known that Demi and her parents were going to visit us but hadn’t had enough time to browse in the books, I had used to go to the high shelf in an edge of the shop. There, above the rows, is written in squiggled letters “Adventures”. Beneath it there is one lurid cover next to the other. I know how fond Demi is of stories about Indians and the Wild West. On contrary to other girls of her age she never had been fond of dolls. She had preferred some wooden forts with many Cowboy-and-Indian figures, including wagons and horses as toys. She had often old me with shining eyes that she would have enjoyed to have been living at a time, when the ladies had been wearing long, flouncy dresses and had still been treated like a lady.

  The books I’m searching for are standing in the lowest row. A lot of books by Kelton are spread over its entire range. I’m sorry for not knowing which of these books Demi already owns. But I think to myself that in times like these, in which one owns no more than the clothes one is wearing, she will not be fussed about which book I’ll bring her along. Surely some leftover from the olden times would make her heart beat faster, even if she might have read the book a hundred times before.

  Because of the darkness I’m not able to read the titles. That’s why I take along the book, whose cover I like the best. I can see a single cactus and behind it a wide prairie, at whose horizon mountains begin to show like shadows. While now carrying the gun with one hand and letting it lop loosely down at my side, I hold the book pressed tight against my chest.

  I’m just going to leave the shop and by doing so repelling the flood of memories into my surely marred sub consciousness, as I stop before another shelf. I gaze at a book that isn’t standing in a line with the others, but is advertised as a bargain offer on a small placement area in front of the shelf.

  As I read its title my heart clenches. It’s this first volume of Stephen King’s saga about the ‘Dark Tower’, in which the world has moved on.

  Back then I had loved the book, as well as the volumes following it. I now suddenly feel a strong rage coming up inside of me. I don’t know whether I should direct it against myself because I had chosen this unfortunate sentence for my own motto or against the author for having created this sentence at all. A small, ludicrously laughing part of my brain suddenly screams this apocalypse was only the author’s fault. By writing down this one sentence he had evoked some forces, which mankind had soon become unable to control and which had torn the world to pieces.

  Perhaps if I would just rupture the book everything would turn out to be like it had been before. The same should happen to the newspapers inside the news rack next to the cash point. If something doesn’t exist, it won’t be able to occur.

  For the ludicrous moment of a second I think about lifting my weapon, aiming at this unsaintly act and shooting Mr. King’s book of revelation into a thousand burning shreds. My finger is playing plays at the trigger. But before I’m able to put my stupid thoughts into practice I hear Barry’s frightened shouts that are muted by the glass of the entrance door.

  “Don’t worry, I’m here”, I call back in a voice, in resonating rage and even hatred. I would never touch a book by Stephen King again.

  As I get out of the shop, carrying Demi’s book beneath my arm, I see Barry standing beside my caddy. Even from the distance one can see his relieve about seeing me.

  “What do you have there?”

  He throws a short glance onto the book. But as his eyes soon digress from the book and instead watch the surroundings, I’m able to recognize his nervousness.

  “It’s for Demi”, I answer showing him the Kelton as proudly as an athlete would have presented his trophy.

  “We shouldn’t lose more time”, Barry responds, regarding our two carts with a contented nod. In a different world we with the overloaded caddies might have appeared ridiculous. But in this world they even seem to be too small. The stocks wouldn’t last forever. Somewhere down the road we would have to get to Devon again to refill our carts.

  Barry pushes his cart over grating broken pieces of glass and through the entrance door towards the Pick-up. The air that awaits us outside is pleasantly cool. It’s not before now that I learn how much the supermarket had smelled of decay.

  “We’re going to throw everything onto the cargo area and hump ourselves home.”

  Barry lowers the back of the Pick-up and begins to store glasses and boxes onto the cargo area. I for my part take the noodle bags and the beverages out of the caddy. I arrange the bottles between boxes and bags, so that they can’t get broken during the ride. The DVD-player and the book for Demi I do place sideways.

  We work silently and concentrate on storing our pickings as fast as possible. Therefore none of us notices the figure approaching us over the parking lot. It’s not until we hear the tired scratching of feet onto the asphalt that we both at the same time spin around.

  “Damn…”

  Before I’m able to react Barry grabs his gun, which lies on the cargo area of the car, and hoicks it.

  “Wait”, I shout, at the same moment cowering down for being afraid of my voice that resounds over the orphaned parking lot. “She’s a child.”

  Barry’s face took on the fierce decisiveness of a hunter. His cheekbones stand out sharply from beneath his skin, his eyes are narrowed to small slits and his lips are an anemic line.

  “A child?”

  He gives me a short gaze, without letting get the girl out of his sight. The girl has stopped some meters in front of us, examining Barry with expressionless eyes.

  “She’s like Alicia”, he continues with a sizzle that hardly is a whisper. “Just look at her.”

  The child actually remembers me of Cindy Miller. Her pale skin like a thin cloth tightens over emerging cheekbones. Her spiritless eyes lie deep inside her black bordered eye-sockets. Her hair hangs in thin, mazy streaks into her face. I in a grotesque way am remembered of old
photographs from concentration camps, on which Jews had pressed themselves against the fence, looking into the camera with hopeless eyes.

  At the girl’s throat and shoulder I can recognize a deep wound, whose edges have colored to black. The flesh seems grey and dry. Cindy had had the same wounds. And if I may buy into Danny’s words the wounds of his wife had come from one of the creatures that at night are roaming throughout the land. And hadn’t Danny also said that Cindy had been dead, yet after some time had got up again?

  “Take the gun down”, I whisper at Barry, without letting the girl out of my sight.

  Had she, if possible, also been revived, just the way Cindy had done? And the way Alicia surely had done. Or was she only as bewildered and frightened as we?

  The girl keeps staring onto the muzzle of the weapon. She puts her head to one side, as if trying to understand what Barry does. A thin ray of brown spittle runs from her lips and seeps from her chin.

  Then she begins to giggle; a sound that resembles the clangor of chains. Lifting her meager arms that are covered by black spots her hands grab her cobweb like hair and pull out two streaks. I at same time disgustedly and fascinated watch the wind getting hold of her hair and blowing it across the parking lot.

  “What are you doing here”, Barry sizzles.

  From his voice one can hear rage. I’m only too aware of the fact that he sees Alicia in the child, who in such a cruel way had taken Shelley from him.

  The girl giggles, but now looks at Barry. The child’s mouth reveals black snags. A grey tongue is licking lasciviously over the rough lips.

  “I want you”, the girl carks, taking a clumsy step towards Barry.

  He automatically backs off until he gets slowed down by the side of the Pick-up.

  “Nothing to eat …”

  The thing’s words can hardly be understood. On the child’s lips arise bubbles of spittle.

  “… I want you … your flesh …”

  She lifts her hands and with grey fingers, beneath whose dirty nails still glues some hair, reaches into space.

  She lethargically begins to set one step in front of the other. In doing so a torn to threads sports shoe scuffles over the asphalt. The other foot is naked and sore.

  Her legs tremble with each step, being unable to carry the weight of her haggard body.

  “Stop”, Barry moans out between tightly narrowed lips.

  I unbelievingly regard the scene, which seems so surreal that it might have been from an extremely terrible comedy in a cheap theatre.

  I in a gruesome clarity see the beads of perspiration onto Barry’s forehead and how they are rolling down his temples. The edges of his mouth twitch as if his brains were refusing to accept the weird scenery. He puts a dirty finger of his hand onto the trigger of his gun, his horror-stricken eyes stare over notch and bead sighter onto the thing that once must have been a pretty girl.

  “Damn, stay.”

  In the silence the girl’s giggle sounds ghastly hollow. She throws back her head, so that the wound at her throat breaks open, a thin ray of blood running over her shoulder and disappearing beneath her dirty and torn yellow dress. Her teeth between the bared lips resemble the chaws of a hungry beast. She says something, but her voice is no more than the hoarse snarl of an animal. Her dark eyes are set on Barry and for the first time in my life I can recognize pure greed inside a person’s gaze.

  This is no longer a little girl, I think, at the same time trying to imagine what might have become of Cindy. Had she in the meantime also turned into a slobbering beast that is rampaging inside her prison and constantly throwing herself against the walls?

  I imagine her horrid howl yelling through the dark house, while downstairs in the living room flies and grubs are feasting on the leftovers of her husband. This girl is like Cindy. She is like Alicia. And Alicia did kill people. She tore them to tatters and eviscerated them and ate their bowels.

  Alicia killed Shelley. And this girl would kill us. I’m suddenly sure of that. She can’t be rescued. The seeds the Shoggothen had sowed inside of her are flowing through her veins, changing a young girl’s nature into the instincts of a beast.

  She utters nagging sounds that remember me of a hissing snake. Bloody spittle splashes from her lips.

  The next moment the silence of our dead world is ripped by a deafening noise as Barry pulls the trigger.

  In the girl’s shoulder blooms a torn, reddishly gleaming hole. She gets whirled around and like a dumped down doll collapses onto the hard asphalt. But she at once tries to get up again. Her movements look awkward; the useless arm is drooping down at her side like a thin piece of cloth. Blood keeps soaking from the devastated shoulder.

  As the girl is back to her trembling legs and staggering towards Barry her oppressed and dirty face turns into an unhuman mask out of greed and hatred. From her blood-stained lips comes the hissing of a wild cat.

  “Shoot!” I hear a panic-stricken voice shout.

  “Shoot!”

  The child’s head gives a jerk into my direction. It’s not until now that I notice that it’s me, who constantly shouts at Barry.

  I trip some steps back until the empty cart makes me stumble and I find myself lying onto the cold stones covering the parking lot.

  A second shot bursts out into the air and makes the world around me vibrate. Suddenly the only sounds I’m still able to hear are the sweeping of my blood and the pounding of my heart. With terror-stricken eyes I watch the girl’s body in slow motion getting whirled through the air. Her head is away. Where there few seconds ago had been her throat, now yawns a bubbly crater out of flesh, skin and tissue instead.

  Particles of bones and shreds of flesh are thrown against the side of the Pick-up. The girl like a ballet dancer one time spins around herself. I automatically wonder if she during her lifetime might have danced ballet. The thought makes me laugh for, as I believe, all girls of her age seem to like ballet. Even Demi likes to regard this charming dance on TV, though she doesn’t dance it herself.

  The child has finished her pirouette and helplessly knocks down at the asphalt. The meager arms one more time are lashing about, as if she was trying to reach for Barry. Her dress has slipped upside and her oppressed legs that are stained with excrements give one last jerk.

  Then the girl is lying calm and the world around me turns into a sharp screech that together with my blood and the staccato of my heart makes a perfect rhythm.

  II

  We’re driving back in silence. Without taking further care of the girl’s corpse we had jumped into the car and driven off the parking lot of ‘Tenberries’ with our tires squeaking. Somewhere behind us I through the crescendo inside my head could hear the sharp exploding of a glass pane, directly followed by the diabolic roaring of a creature, we thankfully didn’t see.

  Only God knows what had been woken by the noise of the shots we had fired at Devon. And God up till now had never come to talk to mankind.

  This time I’m grateful for that.

  I know that the leftovers of the girl won’t keep lying onto the cold asphalt for long. This is the last thought I’m spending on her. Then my mind falls into a dull silence.

  The world around me, which no longer is mine, rushes me by like a dark belt. The dark shadows of Devon give way to wide, black seas out of grain fields and meadows. Then appear the ducked down hills, pressurizing on the car and bathing the world in a dead grey. The humming of the engine has turned into the mischievous laughter of the devil. I close my eyes, devoting myself to the nightmarish feeling of driving right through hell.

  How long will it take us to reach the fire? Eternal perdition, of which you’re told in the bible and which, against my conviction, really exists. This is the only chance of mankind; the fast, painless death of salvation amidst a dark, cold and silent world; beneath a sky, whose black clouds are chasing over a demoralized earth like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, who had come to bring in their crops. Can there not even be heard her horse shoes
droning through the clouds? Isn’t there their lunatic laughter rolling over the sky like thunder? That’s all what’s left to us. Leaning back and accepting death. Holding on to the silence of the new world and addicting oneself to a black dream that promises the end.

  With the death of the girl my last hope that we, who are living in the darkness of this world, might still have even the slightest chance, had been extinct. God didn’t give us another. He too long had had to watch his creation doing wrong, without being able to do something about it. He now fought back. And the Lord’s revenge is terrible. Hadn’t that already been written in the bible?

  I wish Sarah was here. She would know the words that are written in the Scripture. She would know that everything that happened was the will of God.

  But I claim that not everything that had happened to the world can be the will of God. God helps the ones, who had been tormented. And mankind has sustained a lot more than just anguish and harm. It has come to know death, the devastation of the world and the extinction of its species. Even God isn’t able to ease that kind of harm.

  The world belongs to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and their skeletonized stallions rolling blustering across the sky – and this creature that leads them on, the fallen angel…

  III

  “What do you have there?”

  Barry’s words are seeping inside my mind like through a dense cocoon. When I look at him his face blurs before my eyes. Then I look down to my lap, wherein I hold the book and the DVD-player. I in my panic must have grabbed both and taken them with me into the car. To which useless actions a person is able.

  “Presents”, I whisper. My throat aches. To utter just this one word is difficult for me.

  “Everything okay, Dad?”

  Barry’s lips don’t move according to his words. As he for a short moment turns towards me, then through the windshield staring back at the street, the traits of his face become blurred like colored flow marks.