ASCENDING SHADOW
By Church K. Calvert
Copyright © 2020 Church K. Calvert
All rights reserved.
First published 2020
Manufactured in the United States
ISBN: 9780999298725
No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Acknowledgments
This book is about the growth that can happen at the darkest points in life. I want to dedicate this book to my Grandparents, Linda and Doug Bowe, or Gram and Granpi. Thank you for being a light for in some of my darkest times, and for always supporting me, accepting me, and taking me on amazing adventures that opened my mind and my eyes.
A special thank you to my readers who expressed a desire to read my story and share the connection they felt. Also, to my biggest supporters: Golden Papaya- Lauren Thomas, Jake Luria, and Charis Roberts. Your contribution to this book is priceless.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One Stifled Darkness
Chapter Two Tantalizing and Deadly
Chapter Three The Gig with a Hitch
Chapter Four Lawless
Chapter Five Entertaining Your Demons
Chapter Six Reverse Baptism
Chapter Seven; Vulnerable
Chapter Eight No Mistakes
Chapter Nine Not Alone
Chapter Ten The Cult Life
Chapter Eleven Roots
Chapter Twelve Who Are You?
Chapter Thirteen Fighting for Your Light
Chapter Fourteen Trust
Chapter Fifteen Casting Shadows
Chapter Sixteen Loyalty
Chapter Seventeen The Darkest Place
Chapter Eighteen Healing
About the Author
Chapter One
Stifled Darkness
A curious thing happens when you pretend your disease doesn’t exist. It doesn’t go away, and this does nothing to treat it or decrease its power. No, it sits beneath the surface, gathering anger and hatred. If you suppress it long enough, it will feed off the neglect. Eventually it will manufacture its own way out, destroying everything in its path, inflicting collateral damage to anyone and anything within proximity of its projected rage. If you look for nourishment among the things that kill, you only poison yourself. I was naïve to this fact in my youth and paid the price.
I had not been offered an assignment in twenty-two days and my dark side was starting to clamor for a taste of chaos. I had done all I could to keep my shadow at bay in the meantime, supplying it with dirty deeds to quench its desires. Over time, it more. The pills were no longer doing their job. I had taken eight that day already and they provided no relief from this constant craving.
I was four minutes away from my bus stop as I headed home. My palms were sweating, hands were shaking, and my vision blurred in an attempt to obtain a grip on reality and suppress the urge inside of me. It was like withdrawals from an addiction and it never passed; it only grew stronger as time went on.
I yanked hard three times on the stop request cord. The bus driver glanced back with an annoyed expression and turned the request light off. I sighed with impatience. A man sitting next to me, across the aisle, briefly looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and then quickly averted his attention. I saw my shadow sitting next to him on the empty seat to his left. It had a look of starvation, as it reached out and ran its hand over the man’s shoulder. The man became visibly uncomfortable immediately. He began coughing, sweating, and acquired a pale hue. I prayed this appetizer would sustain the demon. I watched it, a look of sick pleasure on its face as it fed off the energy of this man, delicately peeling each aspect of his essence back to absorb. I felt the effects surging through me, but it wasn’t enough, only a droplet of water at a time of desperation. It was merely a tiny taste of what I wanted. However, I did not want to make a scene; I rode this bus daily and it was my primary form of transportation. If the bus driver did not stop soon, I knew what could be unleashed.
I felt a tingling sensation run up my spine. It was an itch I could not avoid scratching. I clenched my fist and tried to prevent it. I dug my nails into my left forearm, as I felt the urge manifest. It ripped away from me and grabbed the forearm of the man next to me.
“Why aren’t you looking for her?” I yelled at him.
My outburst produced a bewildered expression on the man’s face. He ripped his arm away and quickly proceeded to the front of the bus, to my dismay. As he scurried to the front, he repeatedly looked back at me, as if he was concerned I might follow him.
“Fucking drug addicts,” he whispered underneath his breath as he left. I wish he hadn’t, I knew this would contribute to my shadow’s desire for destruction. It was easily offended. I reached into my back pack next to me, producing my prescription, and popped another pill. I closed my eyes, searching for relief.
Two minutes until my stop.
“Please stop the bus, please stop the bus,” I whispered over and over to myself. I yanked one time on the stop request cord, too hard, causing it to snap.
“Hey!” the bus driver shouted back at me as he looked up through the rearview mirror. “We’re two blocks from our scheduled stop. You need to calm down. I’m not going to tell you again.”
I felt a ringing noise in my ear, as I felt the sensation overcoming me, and stood up.
“Ma’am, sit down!” he commanded.
“Can you just stop the bus?” I said angrily. He ignored my request.
One minute until my stop, but it was already too late. The familiar crimson color began to bleed over my vision. I observed five people on the bus: the driver, the man who had been sitting next to me, a young homeless man resting across the handicap seating, a woman consumed by the music in her ears, and another young man simply awaiting his stop. A twinge of sympathy coursed through me before my shadow consumed me.
“I said to stop the bus.”
Like a wave crashing into me from behind, my shadow enveloped me, and a flood of destruction erupted, flowing out. Row by row, the windows imploded, cascading glass throughout the bus, as my shadow wrought chaos. The screaming began. The shockwave of destruction hit the front of the bus in small explosions, igniting the engine. Flames began to spread to the passenger compartment as the passengers jumped out of their seats to seek refuge, stumbling over one another. Some escaped the bus through broken glass windows, others sought escape through the doors. I watched my shadow feeding off their fear with delight.
I shook my head at their stupidity and grinned. As all the passengers managed to exit the bus, I proceeded to exit as well. Glass crunched underneath my shoes and small flames attempted to penetrate my skin. I glanced over at my shadow in its continued celebration.
“Come here!” I said angrily, and it quickly retreated back into its cage inside me.
I exited the bus feeling sated. I inhaled the cold fall air into my lungs and tranquility washed over me. I turned to the left and started walking. Chaos continued around me as people reached for their phones to dial police, yelled, and helped one another as the flames from the bus died out. The homeless man from the bus had already found a new destination on the sidewalk and appeared to have no concern for anything. He simply sat against a brick wall and covered his head with his hood. He had it figured out. I stepped in front of him and proceeded to my destination. Moments later, I turned to face the front of my building, the bus flames dying out only yards behind me.
; “Well, we almost made it.”
A lot had transpired in the past year. My shadow had grown exponentially stronger and it was now the one primarily running the show, while I was the one enjoying its indulgences and paying the consequences. I was doing well for a few months with the finances from my trust fund; it aided in financing my living and funding my deplorable habits. I had a place to live, a car, nice things, and a relatively bright future. However, the money was gone in no time, my car was wrecked, and the majority of my belongings were repossessed. I was clearly not in a situation to be financially responsible for myself. Now my possessions simply included my apartment, a mattress on the floor, an old couch, a fold-out table, an empty fridge, and the contents of my backpack.
I opened the door to my building. My apartment was on what was once a decent side of town that had begun to take a downward turn. It was a four-story apartment building in which I lived on the third floor. I proceeded up the steps and listened to the laughter or shouting emitting from the other rooms as the steps creaked underneath my feet on each flight I ascended. I rounded the corner once I reached the top of the steps at my floor. Immediately as I did so, the door closest to the steps flung open.
“Dani!” the occupant exclaimed. It was Johnathan, not a friend.
“Johnathan,” I replied.
“Are you uh…in the market?”
I sighed, as I slung my backpack across my shoulder. Johnathan was a small-time drug dealer and not a very good one. He was a short, white guy with a little man complex. He dressed in shorts too big for him, a shirt too long, with a bandana attached to him at all times. He affected a false Hispanic accent too. He thought he was tough shit and was always getting on my bad side. However, quality could not compete with convenience.
“What do you got?” I asked.
“I got what you like,” he replied with a stupid grin.
“Which is?”
“You know that powder, soda, that white girl, yayo, cocaine…I don’t know, whatever you want to call it,” he said with a laugh.
“I don’t like the shit you sell me,” I said, and pretended to walk away.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, grabbing my arm lightly. I glanced down at his hand, then back at him. He quickly removed his hand, “Sorry, sorry, but come on, I’ll give you a deal.”
“I think I’m better off snorting crushed up crackers than your shit,” I replied. Not that I had any crackers. I wish I did.
“Fine. I’ll give you half off,” he replied desperately.
“All right,” I said with false reluctance in my voice, and produced a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket. He did the exchange quickly, and I was on my way down the hall smirking with satisfaction.
As I approached my door, I withdrew my key from my pocket. I looked down at my doormat. A small beetle crawled out from beneath it. I wanted to crush it because it was almost intruding on my home. Not quite though, so I gave it a free pass. I shoved open the door and entered my apartment.
I threw down my backpack next to the door as I entered. My apartment was relatively spacious; at least it appeared that way with its emptiness. I went into the kitchen, tossing my drugs on the table. I pulled open the fridge and glanced inside: an onion, two hotdogs, a sauce packet, a beer, and a gun. Quite appetizing, I thought. I grabbed one of the hotdogs, quickly unwrapped it, and put it in the microwave.
I watched it rotate, counting down the seconds, thinking I should have considered eating only half of it. I pushed the thought from my mind, convincing myself that I should indulge a little.
When it finished, I withdrew it from the microwave quickly and took a bite. It instantaneously burned the roof of my mouth. I dropped it on the counter as I tried to cool down my mouth. My shadow lurched at the opportunity to express my dismay. The tingle flickered up my spine and before I knew what I was doing my fist went careening into the microwave door with a shatter.
“What the fuck?” I shouted.
I glanced down at my hand as I withdrew it from the remnants of the microwave door, and pulled a shard of hard plastic from between my knuckles. As the wound closed up, I positioned my hand upright, and blood began to run down my arm instead of onto the floor. I walked into the bathroom and ran my hand under the water. As I looked at my reflection, I noticed how frustrated I was.
“You idiot, now we can’t make food anymore,” I pointed at my reflection, “You better calm down. You’ve had all your fun today; I don’t know what else you want.”
As the night drug on, I lay in my bed in the dark, swimming through the chaos in my mind. Every fifteen minutes or so I consumed line after line of powder, adding to the swirl of my thoughts. It was dawning on me that my shadow was getting out of control. Its fuse was getting shorter, its addiction to death stronger. I needed a long term solution, and I needed more money. The assignments I was offered potentially paid very well. Payment ranged from a hundred bucks for a drug pin to around ten thousand dollars for a termination, depending on how dirty the job was. I was never offered the more critical jobs. The assignments I chose were relatively tame. It started to dawn on me that maybe my boss was freezing me out, offering jobs to other people. He would say that I take all the easy jobs and he wished to see more passion in my work. When it came to harming people, setting people up, and blackmailing them, I did not see a correlation with passion but my shadow sure did. If I wanted to eat and survive, perhaps it was time I let it have a little more control.
Chapter Two
Tantalizing and Deadly
The following day I stood in line at the local pharmacy, waiting for a refill on my medication. It was about time to see my doctor, but I had no desire to do so. I received free mental health services from one of the local offices but the help they offered was hardly beneficial at all. They simply push one drug or another to see which cocktail will sedate me sufficiently. On the upside, it was almost as if they let me choose which drugs I would like to be on. They know nothing about my life. I simply take a survey, guide them in conversation to the drug I want, and if they name the drug I don’t want to take, I simply say, “I had an unusual side effect to that drug,” and they move on to the next one.
I felt the eyes of several people on me as I approached the counter. People tended to keep their distance from me, avoiding eye contact and conversation, yet their averted eyes could not mask their intrigue. I glanced behind me to see several other customers waiting in line quickly look downward or toward their phones. It knew I looked like trouble. I had the look of a person on the brink of homelessness. I was stick thin, with an addiction my bones wished to unveil, protruding as they did underneath my skin. My eyes were overcast shadows from sleeplessness and my disposition was as unwelcoming as it possibly could be. Hard to believe only months ago I had enough money to finance a life of simplicity for years.
“Next, please,” came the pharmacist’s voice. I strolled up and placed my hands on the counter, attempting to seem casual and confident.
“Uh, yes, a pickup for Danielle Blake,” I said, and tried to produce a smile, which I felt manifested as only a devious grin. The woman narrowed her eyebrows without response and walked toward another worker in a white coat, who simply waved his hand in the air as if he could not be bothered. She walked back to me as she collected an expression of assertiveness.
“I’m sorry, Miss Blake, but you do not have any more refills available on your prescription.”
“What? That’s crazy. I must have at least two more,” I exclaimed, with false bewilderment.
“No, you don’t. You received your last ninety-day supply on the second of this month, and it is now the nineteenth, you should have seventy-three days left.”
“Oh, of course. Yes. Well, I actually lost those pills, so can I get a replacement?”
“No, we cannot replace them. You will have to speak with your doctor and get a refill or get an alternate script.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I only have eigh
t pills left,” I said, digging my nails into the skin on the back of my neck.
“I thought you lost your medication?” she said, restating my own words in a monotone. “My suggestion to you is to make an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible, and maybe keep better track of your dosing. Who knows, maybe go to an NA meeting or two. Next!”
She waved for the next person, terminating our conversation. Of course I wanted to react, but I knew my efforts would be futile, so I trudged out of the store and headed back to my apartment. I knew I could probably buy something off of someone, but I had no money.
As I arrived home, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I looked down to see a text: “Roots @ 4pm.” I smiled with satisfaction.
I stood in line at the coffee shop, our usual meeting place, on the corner of 4th and Main. Carolina and I always met here when we had to review a job. She would have the details of the gig and we would plot out our objectives over two or three cups of coffee. We played a major part of the gigs by ear, and left a lot of room for variable change, we never failed an assignment when we worked together. Carolina was assigned as my partner in crime in the most literal sense possible. She was tough, funny, and terrifying. She always had an unpredictability and impulsiveness that was unnerving and exhilarating to me. Needless to say, my shadow adored every aspect of Carolina.
Roots was one of my favorite places to be, a big coffee shop that gave off the impression of a hand-built wooden shack. The floor planks creaked underneath your feet, nails stuck out of wooden posts, and the front window had a slight slant as if it was constructed by a person under the influence. They had wooden benches, window seats, barstools, diner chairs, booths, and all sorts of mismatched furniture. The staff was always three or four people who dressed in casual clothes and were friendly enough. They didn’t serve drinks in paper cups; in fact, if you wanted a drink to-go, you had to bring your own cup. They had an assortment of mismatched coffee cups of all different shapes and sizes too. You received the size drink that was the size of the mug that they happened to grab. Some cups had little chips or discolorations, but the coffee was always perfect. I enjoyed the sounds of cups clinking together like you were at home in your own kitchen. The smell of coffee and coffee beans permeated the air and created a sense of peace. Even with all of this character the most notable thing about Roots was the tree that had grown through the middle of the shop. The roots grew beneath the building, the trunk grew through it, and the branches and leaves spread out above the roof. They say over the years the tree has continued to thrive, and they won’t cut it down or do construction to hinder its growth, so Roots Coffee Shop is the same as when it opened and will be the same on the day it closes.
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